Hello and welcome back to the Simplicity Diaries with me, Kim John Payne. This is a special series arising from the Live from San Quarantine television series that Jewel kindly invited me to attend. And so many questions came up live in that show that we're extending out, I'm extending out now, and trying to answer and group as many of those questions as I can.
One of the questions that came up in one way or another repeatedly was around kindness, caring, compassion in this time, you know, which is so important, right, at the moment. And particularly, I appreciated a couple of people, actually, four or five people talked about this, and kind of indicated how can this be genuine. One person mentioned without it becoming a technique.
Another mentioned it being genuine. Another one, another person talked about having it come from the heart. And boy, what great comments and questions around this.
I want to nutshell something that has that I've been working with for many years now about how to how to bring this compassion to children. And not just randomly, but right when they need it the most. And when they need it the most is when they're anxious, nervous, which then causes them to misbehave, which then causes them to become, you know, so-called disobedient.
And as I mentioned before, I think of that as disorientation. And what they're doing in that moment, step one, is to understand they're disoriented. They're not being disobedient.
They are pinging us. They are sending out behavior in order to get their emotional bearings, number one. Number two, how can we find genuine compassion? Number two is when we understand that we are being pinged, that we are being echolocated, that children are trying out their behavior on us because they're lost.
If we know that in that moment they are emotionally lost, if we understand that, and then can ask ourselves, I wonder why he, she, they are so lost at the moment. Inwardly, wonder this. It does something magical.
What it does is it takes us, begins to move us away from taking it personally. And if we can move away from having a child's behavior trigger us and take it personally, we've just taken a small but giant step away from an old action-reaction pattern. And it's taken a step towards genuine compassion.
Because if we try to have our voice be kind and calm outwardly, but inwardly we are frustrated, even seething, our children know it. Because when they're at their naughtiest, they're at their most vulnerable. And when they're at their most vulnerable, they're also at their most emotionally perceptive.
Do you follow that? When they are naughty, they're at their most vulnerable. When they're at their most vulnerable, they're at their most perceptive. Now, if in that moment when they have sent out this behavior in our direction quite often, we can wonder, I wonder what is going on with you? Why are you behaving like that? I wonder what's upset you.
It doesn't matter. The beautiful thing is it doesn't matter if we have an answer or not. If something brilliant occurs to us, it might, but it most likely won't.
The magic is in the wondering. The magic is in no longer being accusative, but being inquisitive. And in that moment of inner questioning, our face changes, our shoulders round, our eyes soften, we become in our gesture compassionate, not only in our words.
Because little kids particularly don't exist in the realm of words so much. Any child though, at any age, when they are furious, frustrated, sent out comments, and then they look right at you. I'm sure most of us have had that experience.
They do something totally not okay, and then look right at us. Like, what are you going to do about that kind of look on their face? Well, if in that moment, we round off, our eyes soften, as opposed to harden. If our shoulders just get a little softer, as opposed to stiffening.
If our hands relax, as opposed to balling up. If our legs just bend that little bit, as opposed to tightening up rigidly. Now, we don't have to be thinking about that at all.
All we have to do is know our child is lost, and wonder why. And in that moment, all the body language will automatically kick in. Softens, rounds, and a child in that moment will pick it up, because they're tuning into any little shift within us.
They're thinking, is my dad or mom going to become a big shouty person, scary person? Or are they going to help me orient? Now, that is the first, and I honestly think it's one of the most important steps, when our children are doing this with us, so that we don't just talk the talk of compassion. That it begins within us, understanding that our child is actually lost. And in that moment, there's a trajectory shift that is unmistakable to a child.
To any child, and then the space opens up. And into that space can come, oh gosh, you know, can come you making a quite a firm comment. Doesn't have to be gentle.
It could be, you know, saying that we try so hard to not do things like that in our family. To a child, really firm. Or it could be, come, come look, just sit down beside me.
I can see that you're really bugged by something. You're not a mean, horrible brother. I know that.
But those words, they were pretty harsh. Come sit beside me. No, no, we'll figure it out in a minute.
That's pretty soft, right? Pretty caring. And everything in between. But we need to be able to get to the place of wonder.
In order for a child to actually know that there's some space opening up between us. That the space between us is secure and safe. And in that moment, then, then the healing can begin.
And it doesn't become a technique because it comes right from the heart. Now, for those of us who really want to take this further. This is something I've thought a lot about over the years.
It's occupied my thoughts a great deal of how can we show compassion that is genuine and authentic. Not just when things are going well, but when it's needed most. And I don't mean to be self-referential.
I really don't. But for those of you who want to go into this further. I wrote a book which was released quite recently called Being At Your Best When Your Kids Are At Their Worst.
And this goes into three more decisive steps. The first step and possibly the most important one I just gave. But the others add up to being equally important.
And they are detailed in that Being At Your Best When Kids Are At Their Worst book. Okay, I sure hope that at least was a leading thought to shifting the trajectory so that one's care and compassion is genuine. Hope that was helpful.
Bye-bye for now.
