These moments can be so hard to foster, finding the time, often it can end in some disappointment, or, for us, a whole lota complaining to get out the door.
Im so glad to have the listening tools to help. Firstly it can be a good idea to expect this might be a rusty start (because some days that’s my boy) and know what to do so it doesn’t ruin the moment. Practice helps because it’s really hard when you have a lovely vision of your day and it’s not shared by everyone.
The two tools I used were Setting limits and Stay-listening.
For the how
First, it was about my expectations, I could accept that this is how my boy sees it. - He has his own plans for the day and doesn’t want to rush, get dressed, and go off to do something he finds boring. I would feel the same
So I keep an opened mind that he might have some less than enthiasitc feelings about this. I try and see it from this point of view. He’s had adults telling him what to do all week at home and at school. Now it’s the weekend. This helps me to listen with empathy and so I tell him. 'I know, it's hard and I let him have his feelings, so, away he moans.
Moaning is a really hard thing to listen to, especially when you just want a nice day, but I’m resourced, feeling good in myself and I've got empathy in tacked. If I wasn’t feeling this way I would aim to get some listening time on this subject asap, to help with this in the future ( I will post more about this essential skill another time.
I set a limit. ‘I hear you’re not up for this bud but we’re going, I think we can have a really nice day.’ This isn’t something to cut off the moaning, more comes and that’s ok, he’s allowed to have his thoughts on this. Another thing that really helped was that the day before he’d had a friend over and had had a nice day so I felt fine setting the limit that we as a family needed this time together too.
