Hello and welcome back to the Simplicity Parenting Podcast with me, Kim-John Payne, and this is our Simplicity Diaries episode. I was recently visited by a friend I'd worked with many years ago in Southern Africa, and he reminded me of this wonderful Zulu greeting. In fact, he got out the car with a big smile on his face, hadn't seen him in so long, and he gave a big shout, Sobhanu, and right on cue, I answered, Ngohona.
Now this greeting, which we both heard so many times when we were working in and around the townships in South Africa, means, I see you, you know, Sobhanu, I see you. And Ngohona means, so, now I am here. And it was lovely to see my friend, but even lovelier to be reminded of that greeting.
We think so much about presence these days, about presencing, about being present for our children, present for those that we love. And this greeting is so much about presence, about being present for those who are dear to us. In particular, it set me thinking, after he left, in the days afterwards, I was thinking about, what is it to be present with our kids? Why is it so important, and what is it? Because it's hard to put to words, really, isn't it? This whole idea of truly being there.
And one of the things that I've done for years, like one example of it with my own kids, is that if they weren't doing so well, which is when a lot of this sort of stuff gets put to the test, isn't it? And they weren't doing so well, I'd often call out to them, Oh, are you doing all right? Or do you need my help? Or, you know, basically, or are you working it out? Or do you need Daddy's help? And sometimes the reply would be, well, we're working it out. Other times, it was very clearly, no, we need your help. But even when my kids needed my help, it was really a matter of going nearby and just sitting, standing, but not saying too much.
Just lending my presence was often enough. For a dad or a mom, just to lend their presence is often so much what is needed in the situations. It reminds me of that saying, you know, don't just stand there, do something.
Well, in parenting, it's often the opposite, isn't it? Don't just do something, be there, be there, really be there. And it's not that we then have to come up with all these, you know, very smart things to say or do. When we really start to get a handle on presence and presencing, it relieves us of having to be this impossibly great parent, because our presence is often really all that's required.
And there's some real benefits to kids, particularly in one case, in one situation is siblings. If you've got more than one kid at home, then being a presence in the way I just mentioned, will have children sort it out for themselves. Sure, you're present when they're working it out, but it enables them to develop really good problem solving.
I found that over and over, my kids would then just turn back to each other and start trying to work it all out. And one would say, well, why can't I have it sometimes? You know, the other one will say, well, you could, but, and they would, there they were working it out. That was always lovely to see.
And if one would start to spin off a little bit and not be all that helpful, you know, and they could see that this wasn't going very well, you know, and the response is, oh, dear. Oh, gosh. You know, that's for younger ones.
I think it's often all it needs is, oh, dear. And then they turn back to working it out. Sometimes, obviously, we've got to step in more.
But one of the really big benefits of being a presence with siblings is they learn to sort out their own issues. With you, they're not refereeing. It's almost the opposite energy to refereeing, actually.
It's just, it's lending something of yourself to their process. Now, it doesn't change. You know, my kids grew up and now they're teenagers.
And the presence still continues. You know, it's a time when kids go up to their rooms and spend, like, prodigious amounts of time in their rooms. And it might be that you pick up a magazine you're reading or some knitting you're doing, a project you're working on, and just go up and sit in your child's room.
Just be there. You know, I often just pick up a magazine, go sit in my daughter's. She's 16 right now.
And I just go sit in her room while she's doing her homework on the floor. I don't know why. There's a perfectly good desk in the room.
But anyway, why do they always do it on the floor? Anyway, there it is. She's doing it on the floor and books spread all over the place. And I'll just sit in the chair and prop myself up on a bed, whatever, and just read the magazine.
And she just looks up. She's gotten used to it now. So she just sort of looks up and goes back to her work.
And maybe 10, 15 minutes pass, no words needed. And then she might say, you know, I don't know why, but Adriana is, she's not looking like all that great lately. I don't know what it is.
It's like hard. And I'll say, huh? Just, huh? Do you know anything about what's happening for her? No, I don't. But I don't know.
And that might be it. That might be the conversation. It might develop further.
It might not. But maybe the next day, you know, you could check in and say, how did it go with Adriana today? You see, you've got, you then get these little, lovely, tiny sort of glances into a teenager's life, into their world that enables that sort of quiet, but strong connection to go on. But it's all about presencing.
It's all about being right there. You know, the in-between phase between little kids and teenagers is perhaps the last example I want to give today. And that's for the nine-year-old.
Now, nine-year-olds, they're right at the cusp of change. A lot of things are going on in their lives. And again, being a presence for them is so important because they're not little kids anymore, but they're not big kids.
It's a cuspian age where they have one foot in one world and one foot in the other. And just being around, being available, being present, it's almost like soul anika, you know, for the emotional bumps and bruises that developmental changes bring when our kids are going through them. And many parents have said that hint of being a stronger presence, being around just that little bit more for their nine-year-old was valuable in the sense that when, particularly when kids blow up, when they get angry, when they get frustrated, we've had that time of just hanging out with them, of just being quietly with them.
No scheduling, no stuff to do, just quiet moments of being there. And that comes to the rescue when things are tough because we've got a foundation of relationship to stand on. So there we are, our first podcast in this Simplicity Parenting series.
I sure hope that was helpful. Okay, bye-bye for now.
