Learn ways to connect with your teenager to increase closeness so that you remain an influence in her life. Through heartwarming anecdotes and practical tips, discover how to foster these connections, whether with your own children, neighborhood kids, or young relatives. From understanding the subtle cues of infants to engaging with toddlers and beyond, this episode offers valuable advice on building meaningful relationships with children at any age. Tune in to discover the beauty of connecting with your teenager and how these early interactions can lay the foundation for all future relationships.
Links to Dr. Jordan’s Previous Podcasts on Related Topics:
- Goodwill Account podcast
- 8 Mistakes Parents Make When Listening podcast
- Letting Go podcast
- LGBTQ podcast
- 25 Ways to Connect with Teenagers and Preteens
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Listen to the episode here
How To Connect And Stay Connected With Your Teen Daughter
Welcome back, friends, to another episode of Raising Daughters. I’ve had a lot of authors and guests on in the last several months, which is really fun for me. I thought today I would go solo and use a topic that came to mind recently because I was talking about it with some patients.
By the way, I’m Dr. Tim Jordan. I’m a developmental behavioral pediatrician. I’ve been working with kids for a long time in a counseling practice, over 30 years. In my counseling practice and our school program, Strong Girls, Strong World. As you know, if you’ve listened to these podcasts before, I’ve been running weekend retreats for 34 years for kids and summer camps for 33 years. I’ve traveled around a lot, giving talks to parents and all.
I’ve learned a lot about being with kids in all different kinds of settings. What prompted this podcast was a conversation I had with a couple who had a daughter. Both parents were having a hard time connecting with her for different reasons. They just weren’t in sync with her.
I think that was for a lot of their own personal reasons but also just because of her age and their lack of understanding about how to connect with a teenage girl. Today I’m not going to talk about teenagers. I’m going to talk about younger kids, and I’ll do another podcast about how to connect with teenagers.
When I was in my fellowship with Dr. T. Berry Brazelton a long time ago in Boston, one of the things I learned was about the beautiful rhythm that parents get into with their little kids, with their infants and toddlers. I remember seeing some videos and being part of these interactions where there would be a little two- or three-month-old baby in an infant seat. A parent would come in, sit down in front of the baby, and they would film the interaction.
What they found was a couple of interesting things. One was when most of the moms came in and sat down in front of the baby, the baby’s eyes would light up, and the baby would smile. The mother would smile back, and then the mom might squeeze the baby’s little chubby thighs. The baby would giggle, then turn away, and the mother would turn away. They would come back, and the mother would come back. There was this beautiful back-and-forth rhythm that developed, which is a template for all future relationships.
If you have a parent who is attentive, then the baby learns that there is someone there, someone who will get into a rhythm with me, and someone who will respect when I need a break. That beautiful rhythm was a beautiful thing to watch.
What was interesting was that the baby led the interaction as much as the moms or dads did. The baby elicited as much from the mom as the mom elicited from the baby. If the baby cooed, the mom would coo. If the mom cooed, the baby might coo. It was a mutual interaction. It was beautiful.
One of the funny things was that when the mom left and the father came in and sat down, as soon as the baby saw the father, this is like two- and three-month-olds, the baby had a whole different look. Their eyes would light up, and their body would tense with a big smile on their face. Dr. Brazelton used to call it the pounce look, meaning the baby knew this interaction was going to be different than with the mom. There was a little more excitement and high energy in general. The dads would smile, the baby would smile, and they would get into a rhythm, but it was just different. The baby anticipated that it was going to be different already by two or three months of age.
Some parents have a hard time knowing how to do that with a baby. I’ve had a lot of dads tell me that they can’t wait for their baby to get to be three, four, or five years old so they can connect with them better because it was hard for them to connect with a little one. They just didn’t quite know how. They’re anticipating days of maybe throwing a baseball back and forth or doing things of that sort, like watching movies together. There are a lot of ways to connect with kids at all ages. I’m going to talk about connection and just some things I’ve learned over the years that have helped me.
I had five younger sisters growing up. It helped me right from the start to know how to connect with younger kids. I was very fortunate. I changed diapers. I babysat, especially the last two or three younger siblings. I babysat as a kid. I worked in summer camps. I umpired Quarry League Baseball. I worked with kids in all kinds of ways and did summer camps for three or four summers. I’ve learned a lot over the years about connecting. Let me just give you some suggestions about things that I have learned. You can pick and take what you’d like, what fits for you.
Simple Ways To Connect With Children
Sometimes it just takes something as simple as a smile or making a funny face. My wife and I travel 10 or 12 times a year giving talks. If I see a kid sitting next to me with their parent, like a little kid, it might be a four-month-old or an eight-month-old. A lot of times they’ll look over. Depending on their age, if they’re 8 or 10 months old and going through stranger anxiety, sometimes they look over with a “Is this okay?” expression. You’re not my mom or dad, but I think sometimes just a smile or making a funny face or playing peekaboo helps. Most kids like that. They start to smile and then might go, “Wait a minute. Maybe I shouldn’t smile.” They have this sense of stranger anxiety, which all little kids go through.
Connecting with kids isn't about age, it's about being present. Simple gestures like a smile or a funny face can create magical moments of bonding. Share on XThey’ll turn away. I turn away and I stop. They almost always come back and look, and they’ll sneak a peek. Then I’ll do it again. I can get into a nice little rhythm with most kids just by smiling and making funny faces, doing the unexpected. I might put a cup on top of my head and look at it like, “I know that doesn’t belong there.” Their curiosity gets piqued. They’ll look at me with a quizzical look, and then it’ll fall off my head, and they’ll laugh. Sometimes it’s something as simple as just doing the unexpected. If I’m someplace, I will pretend I’m going out a door, walk into it, and pretend I bang my head. They always laugh and giggle.
You start looking for ways. How can I, in this moment, if I want to make a connection with this kid, how can I get them to connect with me? You may think, “Well, you’re talking about strangers and stranger danger and all that.” What I’m saying to you is I get so upset when I see parents who, just this morning, there’s a place that we work out, and a couple of days a week, they have coffee that you can get a cup of on the way out. I always pour myself a cup of coffee. There was a mom with a little girl who was probably, I would say, about three years of age, three or four. The mom was holding her while getting some coffee, and the little girl was watching. I turned to her and smiled, and she turned into her mom. But then she turned back out, and I smiled, and she smiled.
I said to her, “What do you like in your coffee?” The mom looked at me like I was Jack the Ripper. “How dare you talk to my four-year-old daughter?” What I don’t like about that is I want kids to know that the world is a safe place. I want them to be curious and to explore the world. If you’re a four-year-old being held by your mom, that’s safe. You should have a sense of safety there. That’s an opportunity for that girl to interact with people. The same thing happens on elevators all the time. Parents get so freaked out by somebody just looking at their kid and smiling.
Anyway, you can find ways, but it’s also not just strangers. In the summertime, you might be at a pool, and there are kids running around. You might be in the neighborhood, hopefully playing out in the street or in the yard. It’s about connecting with neighborhood kids. It’s about holidays where there are cousins, nephews, and nieces that you don’t see very often who come over. It’s always a new experience. It might be that you haven’t seen them for six months or since the last holidays. Maybe they live out of town or something. You can always slowly but surely make a connection, respecting their need to back off if they do, but then not giving up.
A lot of times, I also ask their names if I can. In my summer camps, my weekend retreats, I make a concerted effort in those first hours to try and memorize every camper’s name. I have a pretty good short-term memory. We wear name tags the first day. I’ll look at the name tag and say, “Hi, Susie, nice to meet you. I’m Tim.” I walk around, milling about while they’re doing things, just looking at their name tags and trying to memorize their names. When we do retreats like father-son or father-daughter retreats, everybody wears name tags. We may do an exercise where they’re all standing in a circle. I’ll walk around the outside of the circle and look at their name tags. Again, it’s a way to memorize names because kids like it when you know their name. Adults do too, by the way. They like it. If you remember, the next morning they’ll come into breakfast at these retreats, and I’ll say, “Hi, Susie.” They’ll brighten up like, “Wow, you remembered me. You remembered my name.”
Another little trick I use to make a connection is, and my wife thinks it’s weird, but I always mispronounce their name. Not always, but I tend to mispronounce their name. I saw a girl recently in my office, and her little sister came in first with her and the parents before I talked to the older girl by herself. The little girl was probably about five or six. She said her name was Violet. I said, “Nice to meet you, Violet.” She said, “No, Violet.” I just kept butchering her name two or three or four times. She was frustrated but funny frustrated because I was using funny names. Sometimes that’s one way I connect, I will mispronounce their name or act like I didn’t hear their name. They’ll say, “My name is Anne.” I’ll say, “Nice to meet you, Pam.” “No, no, no, Anne.” “Nice to meet you, Andy.” Before long, we have this thing going back and forth. It’s just a way to start the conversation. It’s a way to make an initial connection.
I also think it’s a good idea to ask about them, about the things they like to do. If they say, “I like gymnastics,” or “I like theater,” ask, “What do you like about that?” Get them talking about their interests and passions. Most people, adults and kids, like to talk about the things that they’re interested in. There’s our connection. They may say something like, “I really like theater.”
I’ll say, “Well, what do you like so much about theater?” They’ll give me their reasons why they love to do it. I’ll say, “That’s amazing. That’s awesome that you like that.” I might say, “My first two years of college, I was in three plays. I know what it’s like to be a theater kid.” There’s our connection. You look for things in what they share that you can make a connection with because you may have had a shared experience or a shared interest. That’s, again, the beginning of our friendship, the beginning of our connection.
Following A Child’s Lead In Play
I also think that it’s really important with kids, whether they’re your kids or anybody’s kids, to follow their lead. Often kids are in all these supervised, structured activities where it’s all laid out for them. That, to me, is not the best way for kids to grow up. It’s not the best way for kids to learn. Kids learn best through play, especially younger kids. There’s a whole mound of research that backs up that statement, that kids learn best through play. Especially with unstructured play and with play that they choose and engage in because of their interest and passion, not because we’re making them or because there’s going to be a grade or competition or they’re trying to win, but just because they like it. I think it’s important to see what they’re interested in and then follow their lead and become interested in what they’re interested in.
Kids learn best through play, especially unstructured play. Let them lead, and watch their creativity and imagination soar. Share on XThere are some father-son, father-daughter retreats that Anne and I travel around all over to do. There’s usually about 30-ish couples, 25 to 30 couples. Couples mean dads and their daughters or dads and their sons. Sometimes we’ll do an activity where we’ll give them inner tubes, some boards, some rope, and tell them, “You guys need to make a floating craft. We’re going to have races to see which team can get across the pool quickest.” We will tell the dads ahead of time, “Let your daughters lead this operation. Don’t build the craft mostly. Help out, have fun, but let them take the lead.”
99 times out of 100, that’s so hard for parents to do. It’s so hard for parents to sit back because in our minds, there’s a right way to do it. There’s a better way to do it. We want to show them and teach them and make the best boat. Sometimes parents get competitive too. I think we need to let that go. If you want to make a good connection with your kids or any kids, let go of that part about, “I know what’s best. I know how to do this. You don’t. I’m the parent. You’re the kid. I need to show you how.” Instead, stand back and say, “How could we do this?” Let them take the lead. Even if they build a horrible boat and they don’t win the race, it doesn’t matter because they have so much fun building stuff and using their creativity and imaginations. Remember that. Important. It’s hard sometimes for parents to step back.
I remember a long time ago, we were doing a mother-daughter retreat. These were middle school girls and their moms. It was in Europe. There were mothers and daughters from all over Europe. We did an exercise called the Bog Crossing, where we gave them these carpet squares that were about, maybe 12 by 10 or something like that. We said, “These are magic carpet squares. You need to go from point A to point B, which is about 20 or 30 yards away. You can’t touch the ground. You can only be safe on these carpet squares because they’re magic. There’s hot lava. You need to find a way to get your group across. You need to all go together as a group. You can’t send one or two across and come back. Send the whole group across,” which means that they have to work together.
We would split them up into groups of about 10 or 12 and give them five carpet squares. What was required was that two of them need to be on those carpet squares, sometimes even almost half of a third, another foot on there. As they go forward, they have to reach back, grab the last carpet, pull it forward, and put it in front of them. They have to figure out how to work together.
Again, we suggested to the moms, let them lead. Listen to their ideas. Let them do this. They can do it. Sure enough, not very long into this exercise, the moms took over. They were telling the girls what to do and not to do. We ended up saying, “Time out. All of you moms right now have been bitten by a tsetse fly, and you can no longer talk. You can’t say anything.” I’ll never forget, the girls started clapping, like, “Thank God someone is stepping up for us.” The girls did great. They had great ideas. They got the whole group across. They all celebrated. It was a great lesson for the moms to remind themselves, “My kids are more competent than I sometimes give them credit for. I need to back off and allow them to take charge.” It’s a great way to connect with your children and other kids that may come to your house, to allow them to take the lead. Allow them to take the initiative and don’t always get so focused on doing it the right way.
The Value Of Unstructured Playtime
That also means less structured play. I love to give kids toys and different kinds of things where there’s not a prescribed plan, where there are no directions like, “Do it this way,” as opposed to just saying, “Here’s a bunch of Legos, make something.” Or, as I said on a previous podcast about summertime, just buy them some boards at the hardware store, some hammers and nails, give them some rope, give them some large appliance-sized empty cartons, and just say, “Here, build something, create something.” Don’t give them directions, and don’t tell them what to make.
Just say, “This is some stuff you can build with. Have at it, have fun, knock yourselves out.” Kids love that. They love the freedom to create. That’s a great way to connect. It’s to be out there with them, but let them do the leading. Let them make what they want to make.
It also means when you’re with them in any way, even if it’s for a short period of time, whether you’re talking about your children or other kids that you are with for a variety of reasons, be fully present. I read recently a survey that was run by Lego. It was done about four years ago. They revealed that 81% of kids wish their parents would play with them more. Today, if we did that survey, I think it would be higher. If we ask the question, “How many of you feel like your parents are on their phones too much?” I can guarantee you 100% of kids would raise their hands because I’ve asked that question on my retreats, at my summer camps, and in other places where I work with kids. When you’re playing with kids in any way, shape, or form, and you want to make a good connection, don’t have your phone with you. Leave it inside. Turn it off. Don’t be glancing at it. You need to be fully present.
It’s so hard when that phone is there. Even if the ringtone is off and you’re only going to hear a vibration, even that is distracting. Even if you don’t get a call or don’t get a vibration, you’re anticipating getting one, and you’re not fully present. Leave the phone inside. When you’re at the dinner table, leave the phone in the bedroom. When you’re going on vacation, driving the car, leave your phone in your purse or in the glove compartment. Be fully present. Otherwise, it’s not a deep connection with kids. Again, there’s a whole mound of research that would say that anytime any of us are with people, and phones are out, and devices are out, the level of conversation gets dumbed down, and the connection is less deep. Practice being fully present. Turn off the TVs. Get rid of the devices for those times.
You need devices sometimes to do your work and all that, but not when you’re playing, not when you’re with your kids in that way. Even things like car rides. Why do we have TVs and car rides? Why do we have iPads and watch movies when you’re driving twenty minutes to somewhere? Talk. Let them make a playlist. Sing songs. Do nursery rhymes. I’ve had speech therapists tell me that a lot of kids are starting kindergarten and first grade, and they’re a little bit behind in their reading because their phonetics are lacking. A lot of it’s because we aren’t doing some of those things like reading nursery rhymes, singing nursery rhymes, like a lot of people did in the old days before all these devices. That’s a great way for them to learn phonetics.
Another thing, when you’re with your kids, and you want to make a good connection with your children or any children, be a kid. Stop being an adult for a little while. Let go of your inhibitions. Let go of your need to look a certain way. Be willing to get dirty and messy. Allow them to be kids and be kids with them. Number one, it’s a blast. I love being at camp. I love being at weekend retreats. What’s more fun than being at a summer camp with kids? They are freed from their devices. They’re freed from their families, their little sisters and all that. They’re out, and they have that sense of freedom, and so they bust out, and there’s so much fun. Have that fun. Let go of that adult role, that adult label. Let go of that silly kind of thing.
Some parents have a hard time doing that. Practice. The best way to know how and the best way to practice is to watch your children and follow their lead. Let me say that again, the best way for you to learn how to be more silly, to let your guard down, let your inhibitions go, and play like a kid is to watch your kids and follow their lead. They’re really good at being kids if you let them. If you follow their lead, it’s a blast. You’ll have a ton of fun. Their imaginations go crazy when they’re allowed to have unsupervised time. Follow that lead. Let them pick and choose things that you’re going to do.
I think I talked about this in a podcast about a year or so ago at our summer camp. We always have a lot of downtime, unstructured time in our camps because we think it’s important for all the reasons I’ve been saying. Because their lives are so structured, I think, at home. There’s sometimes after dinner, two hours or so of just nothing time where we hang out and the kids decide what they want to do. We created a game called Snake Pit. We play it in a gaga ball pit. I’ll look back and find the link because I talked a little bit more about that.
But anyway, instead of everybody being inside the gaga pit with the ball and all that, we stand outside the pit, one person at each wooden side. I think it’s an octagon. We put our water bottles on top in front of us. The person in the queen’s square starts. They have a frisbee and try to throw it and knock somebody’s water bottle off the ledge. If they hit it and it falls and hits the ground, that person is out and goes to the back of the line. If they hit the water bottle, it falls off, but they catch it before it hits the ground, they’re still in. It’s silly. The most fun is we throw some of these plastic bats and these little bopper things that are styrofoam.
We throw a bunch of stuff inside the middle because a lot of times the frisbees end up in the middle, and then it’s a free-for-all. Whoever grabs the frisbee first gets it, and they can be the next person to throw it. Everybody wants the frisbee. There’ll be two, three, four, five people jumping inside the pit and trying to get that thing. They’re hitting each other with the bats and the boppers. It’s a blast. The girls love it. You’d be surprised at how crazy they can get.
That came about because of unsupervised time and letting them create this game. They kept making new rules. Every year we add new rules. That’s the fun of it. It’s their game. It’s their rules. If you want to make a good connection with kids, then be fully present, let go of your inhibitions, let go of your filters, let your imaginations go wild, follow their lead, and be a kid.
The Concept Of ‘Floor Time’ With Children
I remember a long time ago in my fellowship year, I met a man named Stanley Greenspan. He came by our Child Development Center. He had written a book about what he called floortime. He worked with kids with autism, but he worked with kids who didn’t have that as well. What he meant by floor time was the importance of getting down on kids’ level and actually getting on the floor and playing with them. A lot of times adults are sitting up in chairs or sitting on couches when their kids are down on the floor.
My wife and I do a really fun role play where we will ask for a volunteer, a mom or a dad. They’ll come and sit down in the middle of a circle. I’ll sit down with them. I’ll say, “I’m your dad and you’re the kid.” I have this little package, a little container of Legos. I’m sorry, Lincoln Logs, not Lincoln Logs. Anyway, something they can build. I’ll say, “I want you to be a kid, just start building with this stuff. I’m going to be a dad. I want you to get a sense of how I feel if my dad treats me like this.” I tell the audience, “I want you guys just to get in her shoes or his shoes and get a sense of how I feel if my dad was parenting me like this.”
They start building. I’ll sit in a chair above them. I start criticizing them. “Why are you doing that? Put the wheels on first. No, no, no, no.” I overly get involved. I tell them the right way to do it. I tell them that they’re wrong in lots of different ways. I compare them with their sibling. I stop and say, “How are you feeling?” The kid there and all the other adults will say things like, “I feel stupid. I feel not good enough. I have no creativity. My dad’s always right. I feel stressed. I feel unsafe. I feel unworthy.” All those kinds of things. I’ll say, “Let me show you a different way.” The kid is sitting there playing with their tinker toys. That’s what I was trying to think of before.
Instead of sitting in the chair, I sit on the floor and get on their level. I don’t say a word for a while. I just watch them play. A lot of times, the adults who are watching in this circle, or if I’m in an auditorium, there’s a lot of discomfort. Aren’t you going to say something? Aren’t you going to play with your kids? I do it to make the point that the most important thing is that you’re sitting there with them. It’s not what you say. It’s okay to just watch and not get your little hands in there to show them the right way to do it, to just be with them.
I always say a few things, but the kind of things I do, I remember Stanley Greenspan said it was being a play-by-play announcer. “It looks like you like building with your hands. What are you building this time?” “I’m building a car.” “Where’d you get that idea?” You ask questions. You don’t grill them, obviously, but you’re just asking questions. A lot of times I don’t say, “You’re the best builder in the world.” It’s more like, “I love how creative you can get. I love how you can build something just on your own with no plans. I love how focused you get when you’re building things. You didn’t even notice me walk in the room. That’s amazing. I love how focused you get.”
That’s a really healthy way to have floor time and to be with kids. After I stop, I say, “How are you feeling now?” They feel close, connected, safe, and creative. They want to share more. They feel competent. All the things that you want your kids to feel about themselves. Get on their level. Don’t over-talk. Don’t take over. Follow their lead. Become more of a play-by-play announcer.
Per se, was it wrong if you help them out? Of course, it’s not wrong. You can help a little bit, but don’t take over. That’s very hard for a lot of parents to do. Once they get their little hands in there, it’s hard for them not to take over because, in their minds, there’s one right way to build a car. When in reality, there are thousands of ways to build that car. Get on their level and follow their lead once again.
The other thing about connecting with kids is to watch your judgments. A lot of kids end up pulling away from parents because they feel judged because of the way they are, because of the way they do things, for lots of different reasons, judged and/or criticized. Also, they feel like their parents are always teaching them. They’re criticizing, judging, saying, “No, no, let me show you how to do that.” It’s not wrong to teach your kids things, but I think we overdo it. I remember years ago, my wife, Ann, and I were just walking around the neighborhood on a summer evening. We saw a dad and his son throwing a football back and forth in the street.
Overcoaching kills the joy of play. Sometimes, the best way to connect is to just throw the ball around and have fun. Share on XMy first thought was, “That’s awesome. That’s so cool. He’s out there throwing a football around.” But as we got closer, what we heard was the dad coaching. At every throw, literally, the dad had a comment. “No, hold your hands this way. No, don’t catch it against your body. Catch it out front. When you throw it, put your hand back, behind your ear.” Every throw, every catch, he had some coaching tip, some, quote-unquote, criticism, if you will. I could see the kid like, “This is not as much fun as if we were just throwing the ball.” Who cares? Right now, this is not training camp for NFL preparation. This is just dad and son standing in the street, throwing a ball.
Even when you’re just playing soccer, kicking the ball in the backyard, there may be times when you say, “Can I give you a suggestion about something I’ve noticed?” If they say yes, then give a suggestion. Watch the general overcoaching from the stands, if you will, when you’re watching your daughter play a lacrosse game or a soccer game. Girls tell me so often they hate it when their parents, especially their dads, are screaming from the sidelines, coaching them. Don’t coach them on the way home in the car, especially if they lost. A lot of times, kids don’t want to hear that stuff on the way home. They need some time to process the game, maybe calm down if they had a rough game. Just watch that you don’t always coach and don’t always give advice.
Finding Shared Interests With Your Children
Another piece to make a connection with kids, and this is maybe one of the most important things, find interests that you can connect with them so that you can have time together and do the things that they like to do. You have to watch and see what they’re interested in. It may have to spark a new interest in you. Maybe you guys learn to cook together, or maybe you work out in the yard together, or maybe you plant a garden together. Maybe you read books together. I did that with my kids a lot. When they were young, I got some of the classics from the library. I have those books, things like Robinson Crusoe or Black Beauty or Swiss Family Robinson, those sorts of old-school books. I would read a chapter or two a night, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, those kinds of books. All my kids like to read. My daughter especially liked to read. She was our oldest. We did a lot of that reading together. Today, she’s a reading specialist in schools. She got a master’s in reading. That carried over for her, that interest.
Find things, whether it’s my sons and I love to watch movies together. We still do to this day, and they are 39 and 35 years of age. We talk in movie lines when they come home. They live out of state. When they come home, we still talk in movie lines. We’ll see something, and we’ll be texting back and forth. We’re texting movie lines back and forth. We almost always know exactly. Just a word or two or a short sentence, and we know the movie. We know the place in the movie. That’s just one of our goofy connections, but it’s fun. It’s one of the things that we’ve done since they were little kids.
I remember when my daughter was young, playing Pretty, Pretty Princess with her. I’m not sure if any of you have a daughter or son who has played that game. There’s all these things you can dress up with and all. I’ll never forget. This is my memory of Pretty, Pretty Princess. There were earrings that she wanted me to wear. I put them on, and they would snap on your earlobe. They hurt so bad. I’ll never forget because my ears were too big and that was so small. I put them on because I wanted to connect with her. She loved that game. She loved that her dad was willing to be a Pretty, Pretty Princess, if you will.
Those interests can look like a lot of things. But again, follow their lead. It’s just ways to connect. It’s ways to do things together. Those interests are things that carry over. I still sometimes will go to book fairs with my daughter. She loves musicals. My wife does not. Not every summer, but most summers, we go to an outdoor theater in St. Louis. It’s the largest outdoor stage in the country. They have lots of musicals all summer, like 8 or 10 of them. Most summers, my daughter and I will go because she likes that. I do too. That’s one of our things we do together.
You can find those things that become rituals that you do. It’s a great connecting thing. It also could be not just with your kids. It could be with a niece, a nephew, or grandkids, any kids you can share interests with. They love having adults do things with them, especially if you’re fully present and following their lead. Respect, giving kids lots of say-so and control, are ways to ensure you have a good connection with them.
Building Connections Before Setting Boundaries
I think what I’ve learned is, I work with families sometimes where there’s been a divorce and a remarriage and there’s a stepmom or stepdad. One of the things I’ve noticed is sometimes the stepparent will move into the house. Suddenly, there are new rules and they start to discipline the kids before the kids even know them very well. I always tell them there’s obviously lots of acrimony. There’s lots of power struggles. I remind those stepparents, I want you to be part of the discipline in the home, but first, you need to make a connection. They need to like you. They need to know you respect them. They need a sense of connection. When you start setting boundaries, it’ll be handled a lot easier because there’s a connection there. If you just swoop in and start disciplining them, that’s a hard sell. I think it’s disrespectful. First make the connection and then it’s much easier to set those boundaries.
Building connections comes before setting boundaries. When kids feel respected and understood, they're more likely to respect the rules. Share on XThat’s true with other kids as well, not just stepparents. It’s true for any kinds of kids. When you have your kid’s friends coming to your house, sometimes they need boundaries. I wouldn’t be afraid to set those, but if you’ve made a connection first, they like you, they trust you, they feel comfortable and safe with you. They’ll hear those boundaries and they’re much more likely to respect them.
Last but not least, one of the most important ways to connect with your kids or any kids is to be a really good listener. Let me say that again. One of the best ways to connect with your kids and any kid is to be a really good listener, a nonjudgmental listener who likes to get in that child’s shoes, hear it from their point of view. Like Atticus Finch said in To Kill a Mockingbird, get in their shoes and walk around for a while to get a sense of where they are coming from. That’s such an important connecting piece for all kids. Get in their shoes, listen, and mirror without interrupting, advising, or giving suggestions, without making it about you. Just listen.
I’ve mentioned that book before, it’s called The Rabbit Listened. Get that book for you. It’s a little kid’s book, but it’s also a message that big kids would like as well. A rabbit, this little boy was angry because some birds knocked over his creation. All these animals kept coming in and trying to get him out of it. The only one who was successful was the rabbit because the rabbit hopped in, sat down beside him, and didn’t say a word. The rabbit just listened. Because of that, it created the space for the boy to feel like he could talk. The rabbit listened, and then the boy settled down and started creating again. Be a good listener for any kid, whether it’s your children, the neighborhood kids, cousins, nieces, nephews, whatever. Be a good listener.
Every kid loves adults who are good listeners. They love teachers who are good listeners. They will go to those teachers if they need something. If they don’t feel like you’re a good listener, don’t feel like you respect them, don’t feel a sense of connection, they won’t. I want them to come to you. I want them to be connected to you. I want them to reach out to you. That connection is the most important piece.
In a podcast soon, I will also discuss ways I’ve learned to connect with teenagers. That was a work in progress for me. I didn’t have a lot of training in working with teens from my fellowship training. It was more with younger kids. Over the years in my counseling practice, especially at my retreats and camps, I’ve learned from other camp counselors, people who had worked with teens. It’s a different animal. I think I can offer you some tips about ways to connect with your teenagers or other teenagers that you bump into in your various ways in life.
Hope this helps to learn some ways to connect with kids in your life. If it’s not a natural thing for you because you didn’t have a lot of experience with younger kids growing up, for whatever reasons, you can learn. Your best teacher is children. The best way to learn how to connect with kids, the best way to learn about what they need, is to listen. Get on their level, follow their lead, follow their example. If you do that, the connection will be there. I promise. I’ll be back in a week with a brand new podcast. Thanks again, as always, for stopping by. By the way, I always love it when you guys share these podcasts with other people. I really appreciate it. I’m getting more and more people, even in other countries now, who are listening to the podcast. I really appreciate that. If you ever have questions or suggestions about topics, email my wife at anneannatdrtimjordan.com. My show notes, as always, will be on our website at www.DrTimJordan.com. I’ll see you back here in a week.