Breaking Through Isolation
Dear parents,
A little success at breaking through isolation!
It occurred to me recently that I could call my regular Co-Counselor (who does “special time”1 with my seven-year-old daughter) during evening tooth brushing. This is often our hardest time of day—when I am tired and just want to get through it, and my daughter wants a lot of playlistening.2
Bringing another person into the room by telephone has been wonderful! We share “news and goods” and laugh and talk about various things, and the tooth brushing is completed much more easily and happily (especially for me).
I encourage us all to reach out and pull others into those hard, lonely times of parenting!
(Present Time 182, January 2016)
1 Special time is an activity, developed in RC family work, during which an adult puts a young person in full charge of their mutual relationship, as far as the young person can think. For a specific period of time, the adult lets the young person know that he or she is willing to do anything the young person wants to do. The adult focuses his or her entire attention on the young person and follows his or her lead, whether the young person tells, or simply shows, the adult what she or he wants to do.
2 “Playlistening” means being paid attention to in a warm and playful way.