An Interview with Michelle Gale on Conscious Parenting
Michelle: I keep coming back to something I mentioned before. Picture me walking in the door after a genuinely awful day. I wouldn't sit down across from my son and unload the whole story on him. The coworker who treated me badly and gave me no backup. The bills I never got around to. The argument Daddy and I had. None of those specifics belong in that moment with him. That isn't what he needs from me.
What I can do, if I'm actually paying attention to myself, is name the fact that my energy feels off. I might say something like, 'Wow, this was a long one. When I slow down and check in, I notice my belly is a little tight and my chest feels full. I'm pretty tired, so I'm going to do something to bring my energy back up. I'd like to sit quietly for a minute.'
Sometimes that looks like excusing myself. 'I'm going to head upstairs and sit by myself for five minutes. You're okay down here on your own.' Other times I invite him along. 'Want to come take the dogs out with me? Let's step outside for five or ten minutes.' Being outdoors tends to move something loose in me. And there are moments when I simply say, 'I love just sitting here. If there's anything you want to share, I'd really like to listen. Even on a rough day, being near you and hearing how yours went gives me something back. That lifts me too.'
So we show them that a person can land in one state and still find ways to move out of it. We get to model that. Children copy what we do, not what we tell them. They're watching, constantly, more than we realize, and once you understand that, you start to live the behavior you hope they'll grow into rather than just describing it.
Erik: Right. And I suspect part of what trips people up is that on a good day, when our heads feel clear, this kind of thing flows. We can talk to our kids that way without much effort. Then there are the other days, when the child has no interest in listening, shuts down the connection, or shows up angry and raw and just wants everyone to back off. So what does a conscious way of responding look like when a kid is in the middle of something hard and is actively pushing a parent away?