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Turning toward your kids

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Contributed by: Rich Batten on 3/15/2006

One of the best ways I have found to nurture a strong, positive relationship with my kids is to mindfully be aware of turning toward them rather than away or against them during our normal and often mundane interactions through the day. This is because the mundane and often fleeting moments we experience as a family contributes significantly to the positive affect of our relationships.

In any given day, we each express verbal or nonverbal bids to connect with people. Most are seemingly inconsequently – “Dad, did you hear about the Nuggets game last night?” . . . “Is it okay if I change the radio station?” etc. How you respond to another’s seemingly insignificant “bid” helps to set the tone of your relationship. Turning toward your child’s bids makes a deposit into your child’s Emotional Bank Account.

The importance of relational bids was discovered by the work of Dr. John Gottman at the University of Washington. In the early 90’s, Gottman and others set up an apartment lab to observe couples in a homelike setting in order to learn more about what makes relationships succeed or fail. One of their surprises came in the form of how powerful just paying attention to one another is to the long-term health of a relationship.

Gottman’s research revealed that as a listener we basically have one of three ways to respond to another’s bid for connection. We can:

Turn Against – Respond to a bid for connection in a crabby, irritable or critical way. This is one way to lose points from the Emotional Bank Account. - “Why do you waste your time on the Nuggets, you have more important things to pay attention to, like your homework!”

Turn Away – Ignore a bid for connection and fail to connect with your child. This is usually non-hostile, but is a way to lose points from the Emotional Bank Account – pretend you don’t hear the request.

Turn Towards – Respond to a bid for connection in a responsive, interested and loving way. This adds points to the Emotional Bank Account – “No I didn’t hear about the game. What happened?” or “I’m really interested, but I have to get ready for my meeting this morning. I’d love to talk about it over dinner this evening.”

Gottman and associates discovered that successful relationships were characterized by a 20:1 ratio of positive bids and turning toward their partner for every one negative bid or turning against or away from their partner. The insight here is that turning toward instead of away during the small everyday interactions of the day adds up and will eventually have a significant impact on our relationships. It is important to add that Gottman’s research focused on couples, and I am not making a research-based application to kids, but my personal experience is that when I mindfully turn toward my children, rather than against or away, we develop a far better connection over time.

Having a satisfied relationship is all about connecting with your child and choosing to turn toward them instead of turning away or against them. When done on a regular basis (think 20:1), I believe you will soon discover that you and your child are growing closer emotionally and are experiencing less conflict.

Rich Batten is the father of four and the author of FastBreak for Fathers, an e-mail newsletters for dads from which this column is adapted. For the current or back issues of the newsletter visit: www.coopext.colostate.edu/douglas/famcon_files/fastbreak/fastbreak.htm

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CONTRIBUTOR INFORMATION

Rich Batten

Parker , CO

Rich Batten has posted 826 stories and 2 comments since joining on 9/14/2005. Rich Batten's average story rating is 4.71.

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