Hello and welcome back to the Simplicity Diaries with me, Kim John Payne. So glad you could join us again this week. I've been thinking about time baskets this week and let me explain what I mean by time baskets.
We all know children often want to tell us about so many things, they're keen to talk to us no matter what situation we're in, particularly little children, right? The little ones, they'll come right on up and they want to tell us about what they've discovered or what they've seen. And very understandably, they don't have much sense of timing associated with that. And it's kind of one of our jobs, I feel, is to help children start to develop a sense of good timing, a sense of impulse control.
And one of the ways to do this is to have what I call time baskets, where we defer what a child has to say until it's the right time. Now in speaking to some parents about this, they've wondered, and I think it's a very understandable wondering of, well, is that really a capacity that a young child needs to have? And the answer is kind of yes and no. It's not necessarily something they need to have when they're 18 months, two years old, when they're very little.
But much beyond that, we can help children have a sense of appropriateness about when they're speaking and how they're speaking, but start to develop that lovely sense of the right thing at the right time. Because when children can start to develop, for example, learning to speak to us about the lovely story that they've got to tell, but at a time when we can give it our full attention, there's a lot in it for the child, and there's a lot in it for the parent. What's in it for the child, and what's healthy for them, is that they learn, in a sense, to develop a social awareness that mom or dad are doing something, talking with someone else, concentrating on something, and that whilst they're very important to us, there are also other children in the family, other needs, other things that are going on, and that it's a good thing to have a sense of timing about that, and awareness about that.
Because it builds not only a social skill, it builds empathy within a child when we can help them become more aware of the needs of others and what is going on. And this is done in very simple ways. For example, if a child comes bursting through the door and wants to tell a story all about whether they're not sure whether that new blade of grass, or that new thing that they've seen is really grass, or an onion coming up in the garden, and they're not sure if they should weed it or not.
Let's say you have a vegetable garden, and there's a big story about how they've been looking at it. Now in that moment, let's just say, by way of example, you're diapering a child changing its nappies, and it's really messy, and you're up to your arms in you-know-what. And you're balancing stuff, and the baby is crying, and your child's got this big story to tell about, is it a grass shoot or a new onion? In that moment, it's important to say to a child, to paraphrase a little bit, oh, is it a new piece of grass, or is it an onion? Now that's a good question.
We really, I need to hear more about that. Right now I'm changing baby, and as soon as we're all cleared up, and the crying and your little brother is comfortable and not crying anymore, I'll be able to hear you, and I'll be able to really listen like I want to. But that will have to wait until the time is right, and that'll be quite soon.
Now it's not that you're ignoring the child with a really lovely little story to tell, but you're giving the child a sense of, you're putting, you're taking what they need to say, and you're putting it in a basket that is a not-for-now basket. It's an in-a-moment basket. We'll hear about that in a moment.
Because what's, again, in it for the child is your undivided attention. It can be brief, doesn't need to go on and on, but then your child has, and you, have this lovely gift of connection. And that's what time baskets do, is that they give the gift of connection, so that when your child wants to unpack their lovely story, or question they have, or whatever it is, your attention is not split between two, or even sometimes three or four different tasks, and then the child's trying to compete, and in the end they're shouting a little bit loud, and they get mad, and meanwhile the stuff is burning on the stove, and baby is crying, and that's exhausting.
It's exhausting to even imagine it as I'm speaking it now. But to be able to say to a child, oh, that's so interesting. I want to hear all about that.
And then to be able to give them a specific time, the younger the child, the more specific time that they'll need, and not, you know, obviously not at 10.30, or at, you know, that doesn't mean anything much to a little child, but it's as soon as I've finished changing baby's diaper, for example, the example I gave, or it might be you're on the phone speaking to, you know, someone you need to, extended family, a client, or whatever, and it's just a, it's just, that's not for now. And then come back, now, and give them a specific time. As soon as I've hung up from the phone, I'll come and hear all about that.
I really want to know, and then go back to the conversation. Some of you know that, you know, a much earlier podcast, I talked about children not interrupting adult conversations. So if a child comes up to interrupt, just if they're very little one, just bring them in, put a hand on their shoulder, and let them, you know, lean against you with an arm, and maybe just a nice little stroking of their shoulder, and be saying to the person that you're speaking to, do you see how well Joshua is waiting now? It's not easy to wait, is it? You know, it's almost like a bit of a wink to the person you're talking to, and to say he's waiting very well.
And you know what, just to finish off what we were saying, I will, yeah, I can do the pick up this afternoon. Yep, I can pick up all the kids this afternoon, that'll work really well. Now, Joshua, that was a big wait, well done you.
What is it that you need to tell Daddy right now? And then he can say, well, I went on the monkey bar, and I like went up on the top of it. And you know, and there's a big story about what he's done, right? But now, he's got your full attention, you've excused yourself from the conversation with your friend or, you know, family member or colleague. And now you can give him your attention.
But not when he wants to interrupt. It might sometimes only mean delaying by three, four, five seconds. It's a very short delay.
But it is a delay. He's learning to control his impulses. He's learning good timing.
And those two qualities are some of the essential building blocks of social skills and of empathy. And you can start to build the muscle up a little bit with that waiting basket. You know, where you put it in a basket, you know, you say, you're going to wait.
And here is where we're going to talk about this. You can build it up from three or four seconds. And next time, it could be 10 seconds, 15 seconds.
And each time comes with a, let's say it's interrupting adult conversation, it might be a hand up, just a signal, stop, stop, stop, stop. Nope, not right now. There's two hand signals.
One is stop, that universal palm forward, stop. And then if it's a little child, then gather them all up and let them come and be with you. Obviously, you might need to change the content of the conversation if it's not appropriate to a child, but bring them in, affirm that you know they're there.
And the affirming that you know they're there is often through touch. You've got a hand on their shoulder, you're just lightly stroking their shoulder, you're giving all your attention to your friend that's talking. But your hand on the shoulder means, I'm with you, Sam, I've got you, I know you're there.
And that's often what children want. They want to be seen, they want to be recognized, and yet we don't want to let them feel that they can interrupt any conversation at any time. That's going to do them no favors at all as they grow up.
It really starts to develop a sense of false entitlement and that I am the center of the universe, my voice must be heard at any time. That's a child who's going to struggle with friendships. That's a child who's going to struggle at school.
We're not doing them any favors, letting them interrupt like this at any time they choose. And eventually, when you build this up with children, they will get this really great sense of timing and they almost like start circling you, waiting for when they can tell you their story. And of course, if they do that, you can see they want to talk to you, but they're not.
You can just have a little eye contact with them, nod, and you might even say, well done, well done. And you just keep, you know, your conversation going, or whatever it is you're doing at the time if it's, you know, it's taking a lot of concentration to do a task or to speak to someone else. And then, deliberately, if it's a conversation, pause and make an opening, an obvious like opening of a door, and then in comes your son or daughter.
And mama, mama, guess what I just saw? And it's a lovely story. But they've waited, you know, 30 seconds or more. Now, when kids get really good at this, now we're sort of, you know, getting into the gold standard.
You can say to a child, oh, I want to hear all about that, Sam. Let's talk about that at lunchtime, because that's coming up soon. And at lunchtime, I want to hear about that blue egg.
Gosh, a blue egg. Imagine, it's good to let children know you've heard it, right? So you repeat back to them, blue egg, oh, my goodness. All right.
So at lunchtime, I want to hear all about that. Because most stories, frankly, can wait. There's some that are very much more urgent, like, you know, someone's hurt.
And of course, you want to hear about that, you know, their little brother has got their tongue stuck to the freezer when you've told them not to do that. But there's things you're going to need to attend to. In my family, it was, is someone vomiting or bleeding or really hurting? Then of course, interrupt a conversation, but otherwise not.
So that kind of training of children, of coaching them, is only going to do good as they grow up. And I sure hope that this has been helpful for you. As always, if you wish to go for a deeper dive into your parenting and your hopes and dreams of parenting, do feel free to contact me via our website.
I have a family coaching practice and always happy, actually delighted to hear from parents and to support parents on their journey in that kind of one-to-one conversation. Okay, bye-bye for now.
