Episode 56: Sharing Heart to Heart Conversations

Taking a break is an opportunity to catch a breath, reassess, and tweak ... SO this episode is a rebroadcast as your hosts take a winter-into-spring hiatus. Join us for new episodes in June!    A desire to connect with another person is at the heart of every conversation. Too often our words land in an unintended way. Mismatches are not uncommon in conversations between parent and child. So what can we parents do to avoid these conversation mishaps?      Join hosts, adoption coaches, and parents, Susan David and Gayle Swift, as they discuss how to listen so your kids feel seen, heard, and loved. As always, the discussion is Adoption Attuned and child-centric.    A note from your hosts:   Deeper listening questions/comments referenced in this episode include:  I see this is hard for you ... Do you want me to … Simply listen or…. Offer suggestions or … Get involved and if so, what are your ideas about how to handle this? Offer empathy, so they see we "get" their pain, anger, frustration, and disappointments and then eventually, ask them what they are learning from this. How will it help them to do things differently moving forward? Will this be a temporary or permanent challenge? How does it require them to adjust their long-term goals? What skills/knowledge does this challenge reveal they need to address? Get clear about whose problem it is? How does their problem create situations that they need to face? How does this problem create a situation that we parents might need to address? How do we disentangle the factors so each of us is clear whose stuff is whose?