When our kids are tiny, it’s easy to manage warm bonding moments like this. We nestle and feed, rub noses at the change table and push them endlessly on squeaky park swings. But the older they get, the more complicated life gets. We add siblings to the mix, daycare, school, extracurricular circus acrobatics – you name it. At times when it gets crazy-busy, I worry. Is it all getting to be too much? I’ll catch myself debating, “What does my eight-year-old need right now – to yuck it up with his friends or some special time with me?”
My family is not alone in struggling to connect. According to a recent Statistics Canada study, in 1986 workers devoted 4.2 hours a day to family activities. By 2005 that had dropped to 3.4 hours. Between 2006 and 2008, family time plummeted 30 percent in the U.S., according to a report from the University of Southern California’s Annenberg Center for the Digital Future. An exploding addiction to the Internet was blamed.
Family dinners and game nights are vital. But there’s even more buzz these days around another aspect of the family dynamic: the parent-child attachment bond. This is a mysterious connection I felt keenly the day of our subway excursion. “I think we’re just starting to understand how important the bond is to everything from mood control and intelligence to physical health,” says Jennifer Kolari, a Toronto-based family therapist and author of Connected Parenting.
Scientists have discovered that brain functioning is not “hardwired” in early childhood as previously believed. In his bestseller, The Brain That Changes Itself, Norman Doidge confirms brain “plasticity is at its height” in infancy but that the brain’s ability to reorganize itself and learn new things continues throughout life. And until their brains mature (around age 25), the perfect conduit for the massive learning our children will do is the parent-child bond.
How can we nurture this bond and optimize our kids’ brain development? Turns out, one-on- one time is a simple but powerful means. Jennifer says, “As we interact and spend time one-on-one we deeply connect with our children, and a lot of different things happen. Limbic bonding is occurring. This is the release of lovely reward chemicals which also stimulates neuroplasticity. So the more loved and connected and cared for that little brain is, the more that brain feels safe to grow and develop and become more resilient.”
Experts note a long list of benefits to children from spending one-on-one time:
- increased empathy and self-regard
- a better ability to regulate emotions
- improved ability to handle stress
- decrease in sibling rivalry
- improved parent-child bonding
- improved communication skills
I became fascinated with one-on-one time a few years ago when Zachary started senior kindergarten. Initially, I sought a pause from play dates. Plus, there was all this wistful talk from my mom friends with older kids. “Oh I wish I’d…” and then a list of stimulating activities. Given my flexible schedule and fears about time rushing by, I thought, “Why not?” I decided to devote one afternoon a week with my son for one year. We’d hit various Toronto hotspots like the CN Tower and Chinatown: whatever caught our fancy.
The first time we set out, I worried. Would we have fun? Would Zach yearn for his Lego-slinging buddies? Was I this pathetic mother who just couldn’t let go? But soon, I was bowled over by the effects. Zachary couldn’t have been more thrilled about “Zach and Mommy” time. He held my hand and shared – stories from school, glorious questions, his kid’s-eye view of the world. Once, passing a giant advertisement for lingerie he nudged me and hissed: “Mommy, I can see that lady’s underwear!” He listened attentively, and we grew closer.
After her second son was born, Toronto teacher Bronwyn Davidson started taking her first born, William, then three, to tea. Friends laughed at this unlikely choice, but Bronwyn says William loved it. “He’s 10 and he’s still interested in afternoon tea.”
It’s no coincidence Bronwyn and I see such rapture on our boys’ faces in these scenarios. According to scientists, this is due to the release of oxytocin, which promotes attachment and, subsequently, learning. “Oxytocin is sometimes called the commitment neuromodulator because it reinforces bonding in mammals,” writes Norman Doidge in his book. “It is released when…couples parent and nurture their children. Oxytocin appears also to attach children to parents.”
Bronwyn spends regular one-on-one time with both her sons. Her boys feel “appreciated for who they are, and not compared to each other. It’s nice to have that time where they’re not having to – I don’t want to say fight for attention – but I think that’s what siblings do. They want your attention so badly, and when there’s two of them, they have to compete for it. When it’s one-on-one, they just get it.”
Parents need this time, too. “I find if one of my kids is really starting to grate on me, I know that I need that one-on-one time with them,” says Bronwyn. “It’s almost like a cure. I think when they are starting to act out and behave in ways that are really irksome to me it’s probably because they need me.”
If this all sounds daunting, don’t be intimidated. “There are lots of ways to do this without feeling ‘It’s one more thing I have to do!’ ” says Jennifer Kolari. She insists parents can see powerful effects from just 15 minutes a day of “really focusing on your child.” In fact, Jennifer warns against overdoing it. “You don’t want to follow your child around and do this bonding all the time. They’re going to say ‘Get away from me.’ It doesn’t take a lot.” Paradoxically, she says, “The more connected your child feels to you, the more likely they are to be more independent.”
Our kids, particularly teenagers, won’t announce it to their friends, but Jennifer says they deeply desire involvement with us. “I was doing a twoday workshop with a group of teachers and one of the teachers started laughing and said, ‘This is ridiculous! I would never do this. My kid is a Goth.’ And I said, ‘Well, it could help. Go home and try it.’” Despite her son being 15, pierced and tattooed, she decided to heed Jennifer’s advice that night. “She told him ‘I don’t care if you’re a Goth, you’re the cutest little Goth I’ve ever seen in my whole life!’ And he kind of threw his feet in the air and they sort of wrestled. It was a bit awkward because they hadn’t connected in a long time. But she said they had the best night together they’d had in a long time. And then, as she was walking past his room at night (because she had long passed saying good night to him), she heard, ‘Mom, can you come say goodnight?’ So she went in, they rubbed noses, had this little moment and then she left. She said she actually slid down the wall outside his room and sobbed, because she never thought in a million years that her child would still want that from her.”
This story shows it’s really never too late to try and connect with our kids, and the results can be amazing. As Bronwyn learned from her tea ritual with William, “It doesn’t really matter what it is, but that it’s your special thing. He’s decided that’s it’s our special thing. And he doesn’t even mind that it’s not that cool.”
6 tips for successful bonding
Focus, even if just for a few minutes.“Don’t check your email, turn off your cell phone, turn off the TV. Really make this focused time.”
– Susan Newman, Ph.D., author of Little Things Long Remembered: Making Your Children Feel Special Every Day.
Choose an activity you both like.
“You can be pretty straightforward. ‘Mommy doesn’t like Monopoly…’ Then you can be enthusiastic and you’re not pretending.”
– Susan Newman
Put away the flashcards and just have fun.
“Don’t make everything a learning opportunity; that is the biggest turnoff for kids imaginable.”
– Susan Newman
Keep it simple.
“The activity could be something as simple as giving a child a bath while the other children are occupied with dad in another room and being very mindful to enjoy the time with your little one.”
– Jamie C. Martin, mother of three and author of Steady Days: A Journey Toward Intentional, Professional Motherhood
Be fair.
“If you have two children you have to do it with both. You can’t have one getting these lunches out and the other not. That would create resentment.”
– Bronwyn Davidson, teacher and mother of two
Keep doing it.
“No matter how happy and secure your child is, they can always use more.”
– Jennifer Kolari, author of Connected Parenting
Courtesy: By Connie Jeske Crane
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