How Parenting by Connection Is Helping Families Thrive

0:05 [Music] So when Luka was 21 months old, he didn't speak much. I mean, he communicated clearly and I could understand him well, but he had maybe five words. He was pretty much delayed. We saw a speech therapist and he was diagnosed with a speech disorder which is called epoxia. That was very overwhelming. So I reached out to hand in hand about this and um Petty Whipflash, she just had the best recommendation ever, you know. I mean, she said, "Think about if there's feelings stuck somewhere with him, you know, that he might need to express."

1:03 And when I started to help him express those feelings from one day to the next, I saw a change in his speech. The more I did it, you know, the more his words exploded. Within a few weeks, he was saying 35 words. No speech therapy needed. No intervention needed besides listening to emotions and being present and showing up for your child. I mean, let alone the cost that we save. all this stuff that we saved by just deciding to use these tools, you know, this powerful tool of stay listening.

1:35 And today, you know, people tell me like he's so articulate and he's bilingual. He's learning his third language. Listening partnerships for me was intensely life-changing. I was used to having a conversation and A&B and feedback right at the moment and of course providing my expertise advice. So when it was being explained to me what listening partnerships were, I was very skeptical. When we are listening to someone, we are accepting them and we are holding their pain.

2:10 We're not judging it because it's not our place to judge it. We're not to take it away. We're just there to hold it. And their pain is not going to impact our emotional stability. To me, that was really powerful. And I said to myself, I can do that for my children. I don't need to solve all their problems. I I just need to hold them and I just need to be an anchor for them. It was really hard before because I would think I need to go check my phone. I need to go check my emails. I I need to do this. I need to do and I would hear that chatter. Now it's like, oh, that's gone. My role is here is to connect and just be with my children. My son's name is Parker Johnson. He's two and a half this month.

3:00 We had a very hard time in the beginning. Medical issues for Parker and breastfeeding caused a lot of turmoil for us. It led to postpartum depression for me. I remember in the beginning just running away a couple times, handing him to my husband or and running out the door cuz I was so scared. I remember one time in particular and he had a toy in his hand and just out of nowhere he just threw it at my face really hard. So my reaction I threw him off of me because it hurt and and I yelled really loud and after that I would feel so upset. What kind of a mom am I? It would just break my heart. I love him. And I felt lost. But that's why I was thankful for this. I feel now like what I didn't have before is I have things to turn to, things to help me. What we've done now is we make sure we get up earlier, we both have separate special time with him. And we noticed that when we dropped him off at daycare, way easier. Like he just walks right in. Bye, daddy. I think for him it's it's just allowed him to be seen and heard. He's just so fearless right now.

4:18 So fearless. and he just like knows that he's got us. And that's what I think that parenting by connection has given me, the ability to be my son's advocate and to honor him and to to love him and and just enjoy the process. A mother came to a play group I was doing, a special time class with a three-year-old boy who had spent his first year in an orphanage in a foreign country that was very poorly run. So he had had almost no personal connection with anybody during his whole first year which is very very damaging to children and she'd had him for two years and she had brought him to a local preschool that is excellent and he had spent 3 months hanging on to her shirt with clenched fists the whole time he was there. So they came to our play group and he did exactly the same thing. You know clung to her shirt with tight fists. We got playlist listening going by getting him laughing just a little bit. Just building a little bit of trust, getting a little game going with him, you know, hanging on to his mom.

5:21 Slowly but surely, he began to be able to move away from her. He began to be able to ride on my back 2 ft away and come back and I'd dump him in her lap. We built trust over time. She would move 3 feet away and I would stay with him and he would just cry and cry and cry in my arms. I'd listen and listen and listen. This began to, you know, help him be a little more relaxed without her just unloading this tremendous fear that he had. And one day we had moved it so that she was a little farther away. I was with him and he was crying and crying and after 8 minutes he stopped crying and he looked me right in the eye and he said, "When I was in the orphanage, I cried and I cried and I cried and you didn't come."

6:08 And I just had to say, you know, I'm so sorry. I didn't know you then. I didn't know you were there. You know, I'm here now and I'm right here for you. And he just stopped crying. He looked at his mom. You know, she came back. He ran into her arms and 10 minutes later, he was running down the hall with the other children. A chase game started and he left the room without his mom and was playing really, really fully with the other children. It was just a beautiful moment.

6:38 Our listening tools give parents a way to deliver the immense love that they have and to come through on their intention to make their children's lives easier. What more could you want as a parent than to have the power to help your child with significant difficulties? It lets us be the parents we always wanted to be. Not without work, but with support and with good help. [Music]