The Most Overlooked Way to Connect with Your Child

The Most Overlooked Way to Connect with Your Child
How often have you seen a parent walking with a child and looking down at their mobile phone? Have you thought about how this may be a missed opportunity to connect?

When you are with a child, every moment is a chance to connect and our moments seem ever harder to find with parent and child occupied with school, work, play, social media, grabbing a snack, getting where we want to go in a hurry.

But with kids, there is no time like the present. Eye contact is what they crave. It only takes a moment to let a child know you care, by stopping whatever you may be focused on (except when driving!) and looking into their eyes.

This simple task is the most overlooked way to connect with a child. And yet it is the simplest and the quickest. And it has the added benefit of putting you the parent in touch with your parental love.

Have you ever noticed that sometimes we even avoid eye contact with a child because we know instinctively that it will change our focus and reset our priorities in an instant?

It is a lot easier to say no if we avoid eye contact, if we can tell ourselves the child is bothering us, being unreasonable, can wait a minute, or can take care of him or herself.

But what they want most in that moment is to know they are top priority. And a warm look into their eyes can empower them like nothing else to wait, or to find their own amusement, or to solve their own problems.

You may find this simple step can save you all kinds of time talking, consoling, making excuses, fixing problems, and so on. If a child knows they are tops with you, their confidence soars and they feel more capable, independent, and yes happy.

Randy's Take Home Tip: Next time you heave a sigh and wonder how you will ever get everything done if your child wants your attention one more time, give her or him the gift of your direct undivided attention, demonstrated by your warm glance into their eyes. Love doesn't wait. It is only now. I knew I had to write my first parenting book when its title came into my mind: "You Can Postpone Anything But Love."

Please visit my brand new website designed to connect you with the best tools on the planet for creating the life you want with your child. http://www,parenthoodtools.com.

And tell me what you think!  

Hope and Insight from a rare experience of death and recovery

Family First | VoiceAmerica™

Each of us has our own relationship with our Creator which we develop from our parents, our church experience, our community and culture, and our own personal experience. One of the issues all humans face is the meaning of life and death and what may happen once our bodies give out. My guest this week is Dean Braxton, who had a serious health crisis which led to his clinical death. Yet he did come back and has a moving story of his experience while his body had stopped working. He says many of the ideas he had adopted during his years of service as a minister were shattered by his experience of the unfailing love God offers.

Dean and his wife Marilyn, married 27 years with six children, now travel the world to share his experience, which has been documented by the hospital medical records. Also serving in human services for over 20 years, Dean Braxton tells their story in his book In Heaven Experiencing the Throne of God. Their mission is to give hope in a unique and transparent way.

Listen to our interview on Family First with Dean Braxton this Friday at 1 PM PT, 2 PM Mt, 3 PM CT, 4 PM ET, or anytime afterwards on your PC or smart phone, or download for MP3, RSS, or apps. Just click on the link above and select Family First and April 13. 

Dean and Marilyn Braxton are licensed ministers, serving through their By His Word Christian Center, in Tacoma, Washington. Dean Braxton served for 35 years as senior and assistant Pastor, board member, youth leader, Life Skill Pastor and more at various churches. He served as a Program Manager for the Juvenile Drug Court/Chemical Dependency Disposition Alternative (CDDA) for King County and was a member of the senior management team for the King County Superior Juvenile Court System.

Dean served for 20 years also for the U.S. Air Force Reserve as a Chemical Dependency, Human Relations and Equal Opportunity Superintendent. He has helped train over 400 parents in parenting skills and given over 1,000 training presentations dealing with subjects addressing human service issues. In addition to working with youth, he has coordinated three prevention treatment family conferences. He helped develop a number of model programs funded by the U.S. government, King County, and private industries.

Click on the link above to hear Dean Braxton's moving story this Friday at 1 PM PT, 2 PM MT, 3 PM CT, and 4 PM ET, or any time afterwards on your PC or smartphone, or download to MP3, RSS, apps, etc.

Randy Rolfe"s Take Home Tips: Children come with a natural spiritual awareness of their connection to the whole of creation. Help them nurture that sense that the world is good and that love is at the core of the human experience. Avoid introducing limiting beliefs and doctrines which.complicate or compromise their innate good sense and wish to please and prosper. Having kids is a great opportunity and I think even a calling to reexamine our own innate awareness of our connectedness to all that is good in the world.