This One Trick Is What You Need To Do To Get Through To Your Child

As I lie in bed and contemplate what I should write about, I’m also thinking of something that I’ve learned to do recently. Something very simple but extremely difficult – to just wait.

As an Autism Interventionist, one the first lessons I teach parents is to wait for the child to respond in any way they may choose to – a fleeting meeting of the eyes, a slight tilt of the head, a minute turn of the body – and then build on it. I warn them that this will be harder than they think it will, and most of them come back to me and agree wholeheartedly.

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The ‘caged tiger’ approach:

And now, I’ve been waiting for an entirely different reason. Day by day, I can see my daughter inching her way to teenagerhood. Ask any pre-teens mum, and I can guarantee that only the overly optimistic or totally deluded ones will tell you that they’re thrilled their child is turning into a teen. Most parents I know regard their teenage offspring in a manner similar to that which you would adopt with a caged tiger: observe from a distance but don’t touch!

I’m halfway between deluded and the do not touch variety. I believe in communication, in talking things through. I have been known for waking my husband up in the middle of the night to discuss an issue we were talking (okay, arguing) about as we fell asleep. And this is how I decided to confront the bull of teenagerhood.

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 Till I realised that talking and questioning were just not getting through to my daughter. She would clam up with a look of barely concealed irritation and that was it – I’d lost the moment.

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And, the one trick that I tried:

So, I decided to heed my own advice – and wait. Now when she comes home from school, instead of pouncing on her with “What did you do in school?â€_x009d_, I wait. It isn’t long before stories of jilted best friends, “killerâ€_x009d_ tests and who likes whom come out. Problems are solved and gossip downloaded, and all this is because I wait patiently, just like we waited in the long-gone era of TCP/IP Internet browser windows to download.

Waiting is wonderful – it gives me a chance to figure how to respond when she says something, what advice to give and how to tread that delicately fragile line between mom and friend. It also has me control my impulses to say or do something to make things right.

And while I’m waiting for the seemingly nonchalant shrugs and “nothingâ€_x009d_s to translate into long yarns of who did what to whom, I am constantly reminded that what I’m actually doing is letting go.

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