How to Help Every Child in Your House Feel Loved and Secure

0:00 I think I'm on high hey I'm Patti wiffler and I'm just happy to see you parents we happy to be with you in this virtual way and sorry my screen is blinking and I don't know why okay well I'm Patti I'm here to be with you to talk really quickly about juggling special time for several

0:30 children you know two or more in your household right now and but before I do that I just want to preface it by saying that parenting is kind of the the ultimate Advanced Course in tolerance of imperfection and it is it becomes that from the very moment that our babies are born and mmm the the tolerance is that we need to develop our tolerance for our

1:01 own inability to do the job we wish we could do tolerance for our partners mistakes and you know difficult moments tolerance for our children's difficult moments there's just an awful lot of tolerance that we need to develop in order to keep a good perspective you know the perspective that we want to keep as parents is now our children are good they're good through and through there's nothing wrong with them even if they are doing the nuttiest you know

1:32 most difficult things they're just full of tension and they're trying to find a way to let it out and we can help them if we're having a good moment and we don't have an easy time helping them before not having a good moment but these very difficult moments where nobody can think very well do pass and we're all still good our children are good we are good through and through our partners are good those people supporting our family are

2:01 good even though they have their little rigid to these and their little you know difficult moments - it's like difficult moments come in abundance with parenting and we just have to keep remembering we are good people and in particular right now we're going through difficult times there are uncertainties there are of all different kinds there are fears that crop up with something like a pandemic we've got kind of a lot going on emotionally a lot going on in our

2:33 minds and and we're trying to be present and and positive with our children so special time is one of the tools that can help us do that we if we can carve out two minutes to be present and positive with a child that really benefits the child greatly but if you have several children at home all day and all night then these are some ways that we have found I have not tried all of these ways I probably tried most of

3:03 them but these are ways we've found that parents can actually turn a difficult time into a better connected time into in turn yeah turn difficult relationships into a few moments where things actually really go well which then helps us remember that we're good and our children are good and things you know although they're not perfect and they're not probably not going to be that we can you know kind of bungle

3:34 along for in a forward direction together having connected so here's some ideas for juggling special time among several children so the classic idea is if you have a partner or someone else who lives in your in your household they can take special time with one child and you or or they can hang out with more than one child while you do special time with one child and then everybody and then you do one child after the other or

4:05 you do you know a special time one day after another a little bit for each child while the partner you know kind of holds the fort so that's the classic and and in some ways the easiest idea but other ones are that one child plays with another child while you do special time with a third this is sometimes possible usually you want to take the squeaky wheel first the child who's kind of you know it has the

4:35 easiest time getting disconnected and get them connected so that they are can handle the separation from you while you do special time with the next child I know we have a story of one parent who came home at 10:30 ten o'clock at night after a long shift away from her three young daughters and the daughter in the middle this was the one that was most most difficult all the time actually and so she did like ten minutes

5:06 a special time with her and that daughter had a good cry about missing her mom and why did she have to come home so late why did she have to work so late and the other two children played together and then after that sweet you know listening to that sweet cry that daughter played well with the youngest daughter who she never got along with while you know the mother took the older daughter and did special time with her

5:31 and then the older daughter could be with the middle daughter while the mom listened to the younger daughter with special time and all of this is like at 10:00 between 10:00 and 10:30 at night and then everybody could go to sleep she had connected with her girls they they've done really well so that's an example of how that can work and these it children tolerate stress of you know not being the one in focus better and

6:02 better the longer you have a tradition of doing special time then the more they can trust that you will get to them or that you are that you do love them so setting up a tradition of this really does enhance how well special time works to connect you and how well how well your child can remember that you're connected once you have to go do something else let's see if you have two children and two adults in the

6:30 family you can do special time at the same time yeah everybody gets special time at the same time you can do if you're just beginning and you know your kids are gonna you know have meltdowns because somebody else is getting one minute of attention you can make a little a little pillow that is the waiting station and sort of you want to playfully you have to watch your tone here but you just okay here's where you're gonna wait you just put your

6:59 bottom right here and gonna do a one-minute special time with your sister okay just one minute and then it's in your turn and she gets to sit on the waiting pillow and watch and see what happens okay you know and then you just do the best you can with one minute with this child then you go okay that's your special time mm-hmm little hug okay your turn on the waiting pillow your sister's gonna get special time now and you can go back and forth a

7:28 little one minute at a time several times and children will learn that it's going to be their turn slowly but surely so that's very short special times I know one of our instructors was a visiting nurse for a while and she actually used this very short special times really successfully when she was trying to talk with a parent and the child was kind of you know jumping up and down needing attention to do like a quick little two-minute special time

7:56 okay now I'm gonna talk to your mommy and and it worked pretty well um let's see so you can use nap time the bedtime or getting up early in the morning to create some space to do special time with one child I'll tell this little story I love this story there's a mom with two girls and the older girl was really there was a lot of off-track behavior regarding her feelings about her sister and what the mom did because

8:27 it was very difficult to get special time with with either one of them separate she woke the older went up at 6:30 in the morning and a half an hour before that the usual wake up get up time instead of casts some special time for you what would you like to do we have you know 20 minutes you can do anything you want and what her daughter wanted to do his mommy you get a pencil and a paper and then

8:51 some mommy got to get the pencil on a paper a little tablet and mommy we're gonna hide behind the couch and so mommy and daughter hide behind the couch and then daughter says okay mommy I'm gonna tell you all the things I hate about my sister and I want you to write them down her mommy says okay and she makes this long list of things I hate about my sister and you know okay is that all no

9:17 no mommy also this no and just writes it all down and then and then the daughter says okay now I want to get up and play and so they spent I think 10 minutes listing all of the reasons why your sister was really intolerable they got up and played and when her sister woke up what they what they usually did was fight over who gets to watch which video and that morning the older daughter said mommy I'm gonna set up the video now you

9:45 come sit with us for a little while okay and she invited her mom in and said you sit between me and my sister because I know she wants to be next to you too and was just totally thoughtful and you know like ready to give her sister access to the mom which was like the best in this thing so it I don't know it's just an example it may not work exactly that way for you probably won't but it can

10:15 sometimes be like that okay so here's one that I have tried for sure a grandparent or a parent who is at work but is on lunch break and can take 20 minutes to 15 minutes or five minutes to pay attention to one of the children you know can call you up and say okay I'm ready to offer special time who's going to get and you do special time with one child and then you do FaceTime special

10:46 time or the other parent or grown-up grandparent interested friend does special time with the other child and the children all know how to bring a phone with them and show people things with the phone and you know where someone can read them a story or anyway there my grandson went on doing tricks on the bed for me while the computer was set up with a screen facing the bed for something like 20 minutes okay man now

11:18 I'm gonna do this one you know and then jumping on the bed and doing flips and running from far and you know doing amazing flips so if screens really help if you have someone at the other end let's see so a child can be occupied with this podcast or a video on this screen like screens are not all bad they can really help you provide concentrated one-on-one attention to individual children if

11:50 other children have something that they are that they can climb into and do sometimes this you can set up a special activity I guess the one that comes to mind because my son's you still love it a lot is making concoctions so you could have one child in the kitchen with you know a bunch of oregano and a bunch of rice and a bunch of baking soda and a bunch of vinegar and pepper and I don't

12:17 know just you just gather the spices that are cheap and plentiful you know put them out in little containers and say you can use part of this or all of this you can make any concoction you want and I'll come in and I'll taste whatever it is you cook up and that that's kind of a special thing too because you're gonna have to do oh my god would I get put in here and make him laugh and laugh and laugh because you're

12:46 you know you promised to taste the thing and they made it really awful especially awful for you so that you know so the concoction person or or two kids can put together some really nasty nasty tasting stuff for you while you're giving special time to the one who you know needs it first or kids can take turns making concoctions and you can have really awful stuff to taste you know three or four different times in the morning but everybody will we have

13:16 get some laughter and have some fun and the other I guess the last thing I'd say is just to have a big old physical wrestle or chase game or tag game or hide-and-seek where everybody's involved and it's going well between you and when that kind of game where there's laughter and connection fills children's attention cups and if their cups are full then it might be easier to do five minutes a special time with each one

13:47 after a great big old fun you know game I know one of our instructors ran a nursery school and on rainy days the kids couldn't go outside there's no way to kind of let your energy you know get your energy out and so what they came to as balling up pages of newspaper until you have like 25 balls of you know wadded up newspaper and then you know just throwing them out in the middle of the room and the kids were throwing the

14:17 newspaper all over the place and there's no harm that can come from that their children really love it it's different it feels it feels freeing and adventurous they get very encouraged and now after five minutes it's kind of Peters down but children have used their energy and laughed a bunch and so those good ideas that I have they none of them may work for you you have begins like

14:48 just you know keep noticing that you are building tolerance for what is rather than what you hope it would be or what should be or what padua Fleur says is possible don't worry about that it's like it is what it is and it's the best you can do and it's you loving your children in in the best way you can there it is you know yay you've made it through another day so be pleased with yourself even if none of these ideas

15:17 turn out very well they can and will turn out better over time but you know first try hopping on a bike and almost everybody falls off and it's okay so we wanted to say that we are gonna start putting out a special time toolkit and in the toolkit and I have to read here are going to be our booklet on special time and a checklist or you know all the just the different important pieces

15:48 about special time make sure that you've got all the important things you're doing all the important things to set it up as special a planner so that you can kind of think ahead of time about when you might be able to try some of these strategies to get special time across to your child or children and a workbook so all of these are going to be available next week it's part of fundraiser for hand-in-hand we are a nonprofit

16:18 organization we cannot serve parents the way we're serving you without donations from people who care about us and who care about parents getting support and good information so if you care about those things and you've got six dollars and can donate it to us you'll get the special time toolkit and that's coming out next week we'll when I do this face book live next Thursday we'll have a link for you so you can get the toolkit

16:49 and so you can help pay it forward help support other parents who are going to come in contact with hand-in-hand after you have and who hopefully will be helped by the information and the support that we're offering we'd love to have you help us build this community of parents helping parents and we can't really build it without you so thanks thanks for coming I'll see you next week bye-bye