Joinsupermoms

Children are an amazing experience, all-encompassing in the joy, stress, excitement, uncertainty and love they bring to our lives. I find that each child comes with their own unique character – their personality. Just learning a child is so enjoyable, so fruitful when you understand how to connect with the person behind the child.

Each child is unique in the way they communicate, and the way they interpret their emotions. In this post I discuss tips to help single moms connect with their children to craft stable, independent power kids:

1. Constructive Communication: Begin by practicing constructive communication. I try tagging my words before I let them out. Each tag defines the objective of the communication. I have zillions of tags: information, problem-solving, providing guidance, entertaining, comedy, criticism…this has helped me become consistently intentional in my communication.

Whatever the tag, be non-judgmental, unaggressive, and honest. This creates a healthy space for open communication. Children absorb our manners and style, so chances are, by being constructive, you encourage your child to do same in their communication. In turn, they can express their thoughts and feelings without fear of unjust criticism.

• Be an active listener. This means listening and processing simultaneously. As you listen, try to understand where your child is coming from, why they are saying the things they are saying and how best to reply – or not reply, because sometimes the best response is a silent hug.

2. Custom Time: I call it custom time, because quality time, as we often put it, may not convey the need to tailor regular one-on-one time to the (in)activity preference of each child. Particularly because most parents assume quality time has to be time spent talking, teaching, or doing something. It could actually be time spent observing. Custom time may be silent lounging time or time together in a shared hobby – including activities not typical to most other kids.
Understand what your child would rather be doing in their quality time and customise your time together to include that. It could be a movie night or watching their favourite vlogger. It could be lying in the park, taking selfies, or cooking together. If it’s an activity you can’t relate with, try to see why your child finds it enjoyable. The key is to spend quality time that is tailored to your child’s healthy preferences and is devoid of distractions.

• Be present in the moment. Believe it or not, this does not necessarily mean putting away electronic devices. Rather it means focusing on enjoying each other’s company – even if it means making goofy faces with funny filters on electronic devices. You don’t have to post them, of course. Just have fun with them.

3. Shared Interests: This is one of my favourite things to do mainly because I transform every interest into a learning activity I can sign up for. So, I identify common interests and sign up for activities we can both enjoy. The options are limitless and have ranged from sports, arts and crafts, reading, or walking, which my daughter started out hating but was forced to do after letting me con her into believing it was the only way to “earn” her food. Guess what? She ended up loving it.

• Explore new activities together. Sometimes this means showing an interest in your child’s interest even when they are less enjoyable to you. Don’t limit yourself to your comfort zone but try something new. This could create shared memories and strengthen your bond. Next time either of you engages in that activity, either solo or in company, you’ll always remember who your first time was with. It also helps to demonstrate that you support and are involved in your child’s life.

4. Teach Life Skills: Assign your child daily tasks and link these to essential life skills. Help your child see how their task contributes to the overall smooth functioning of the family and tell them how important they and their task are to everyone’s wellbeing.
It’s especially important to help a child discover how to make these tasks enjoyable.

Try not to focus on the routine of the task but on scheduling and the benefits of completing it. Learn together how your child could complete tasks in a fun and fulfilling manner and reward a task well done. This not only provides practical knowledge but integrates the custom of planning, enjoying physical work and reaping its benefits.

• Link tasks to real life earning opportunities. Consider this a regular tour in career counselling. You could plan to visit a professional in a field involving one or several of the daily tasks your child is assigned. Or you could link daily tasks to things your child’s role model does for their living. Best of all, try linking the task to a passion or hobby your child enjoys or dreams of making a living from. Whichever links you create, ensure they are fun and relevant to your child’s real-life needs.

5. Empathise and Understand: Try to remember your feelings and emotions when you were about your child’s age. No two experiences are the same and your life and societal values were likely very different from their current realities, but you can show empathy by remembering how you once felt and acted. Analyse their situation and how you would react given their circumstances.

Try to understand your child’s challenges and link them to their emotions using your benefit of hindsight. Sometimes, it is normal and even advantageous to feel the way they do. In that case, validate their feelings and let them know you’re there to support them. Other times, a child is over or under reacting. Remember to constructively communicate how they could better process an ongoing challenge and suggest a more intelligent emotional response.

• Share your own experiences. This is where you admit you’re no supermom and superheroes with superpowers only exist in movies. Be humble and open about your own challenges and particularly how you’ve triumphed through them (because you triumph because supermoms never give up on themselves and dedication always pays off). This should help your child more easily open up about his or her own thoughts, uncertainties and experiences.

6. Constructive Discipline: Through positive reinforcement, celebrate achievements, and reward success and initiative no matter how small. You should offer encouragement and praise for your child’s efforts, whether it’s in academics, sports, or any other area of their life.

• Balance positive reinforcement with consistent and immediate disciplinary strategies. This helps your child see that they can make choices and there are consequences for wrong choices.
Kids will be kids and sometimes they will experiment with actions that clearly place them on the road to self-destruction. When this happens, it’s important that you are able to highlight the benefits of following guidelines even where we question them. That they see the protective purpose of rules and understand the tenets of communal living.
Diversify your forms of discipline and explain to your child why everyone needs discipline, albeit healthy punishment. Link the benefits of discipline to realities that you and your child may currently be enjoying.

7. Respect Individuality: Recognize and respect your child’s individuality. Give your child the space to develop their own identity, opinions, and interests. This may be controversial if you hold strong cultural or religious values that predefine behaviour and preassign roles. However, behind every cultural or religious value, there is a rationale and if indeed yours are healthy, balanced and rewarding in the long-term, in most cases, your child would follow your leanings. You just have to help them see it.

• Try not to overly control your child, particularly as they grow into an independent adult. It’s best to guide and support them as they navigate their own path. Its not actually healthy to be controlling. It takes away your precious time for self-care and leaves you mentally stressed and emotionally drained as you have to keep a constant tab on your child’s decisions and actions. It also denies you the sheer joy and novelty of discovering the adult your child could have grown to become.
Indeed, even you could have been busy upskilling or rediscovering your talents instead of holding yourself down so as to keep your child under control

8. Develop a Family Culture: Develop traditions and values that you want to characterise your family. This involves defining for yourself what your children mean to you, and as they grow, what you mean to each other. Define what is acceptable and unacceptable and establish consistent routines, especially when it comes to what you do when you spend time together.

Supermoms don’t need to re-invent the wheel because most of us already have a cultural or religious standard that establishes the basis for our family culture. What you could do is tweak it to accommodate your needs and preferences. Of course, you could choose to break code and start completely afresh with traditions and values of your own, but as they may not be tried and tested, be prepared for some bumps and possible unpleasant surprises along the way.

These values can create a sense of stability and security. Family traditions create a sense of unity and continuity. These can be as simple as a weekly event on agreed evenings, special dinners, or annual outings. Whatever you choose, always stick to agreed-upon schedules for activities or shared responsibilities.

9. Encourage Independence: This begins with you demonstrating positive behaviour and values. Most children just absorb the behaviour and attitudes of the adult they live with – even unconsciously.
Make well thought out decisions and solve problems effectively. Then, foster independence by assigning age-appropriate responsibilities to your child and encouraging your child to make decisions and solve problems on their own. This helps build confidence and a sense of responsibility.
Along with responsibility comes uncertainty and fault, so be there for your child during challenging times. Offer emotional support and encouragement, helping them navigate through various life experiences.

10. Be Available: Every now and then, your child will need to talk. These need to talk moments do not always come labelled in an “I need to talk” package. And you’re no therapist so your child will neither come on appointment nor respect a defined time slot. Very often, your child will be talking or ranting about everything and nothing and the conversation may digress into something deeper. Other times, your child will break the ice of dead silence by airing an opinion or making a single comment. Learn to recognise those times and be available for them.

Particularly if you’re in the middle of something especially important to you, learn to put a pause on things that can wait or quickly wrap them up without upsetting your child or disrupting their line of thought. Of course, there should be clearly defined boundaries such as when you’re with friends or in the middle of conversation and your child should respect those; but knowing that you are there for them builds trust and a sense of security.

Never underestimate the uniqueness of every child. There is really no one size fits all when it comes to children, and as they grow, it’s important to adapt these suggestions to your child’s individual personality and needs. Some of these suggestions are interwoven and others build on each other.

Building a strong connection is an art. It is a continuous process involving creativity, patience, and mutual effort in knowing when to apply these suggestions and how.

However, these suggestions are not exhaustive. Share what has worked for you or subscribe to keep receiving our latest insights.