Welcome back to the Simplicity Parenting podcast with me, Kim John Payne. This week I had a contact made from someone I haven't seen for years. And I wanted to tell you a little bit about it because it really struck me how much this has to do with family life.
And here's what happened. In my school, I was a school counselor for a long time, but I was also the basketball and the volleyball coach. We were just a little school and we all wore many hats.
And the contact came from a girl I used to teach who was on our girls volleyball team. And she is now a mum. And we were just chatting.
She was good enough to give a call and we were having a little chat about the old days and about volleyball and so on. And she said, do you remember when I used to get really hit on? And hit on means, in volleyball terms, hit on is if you're in the backcourt and you're one of the defenders and you're digging the ball and the opponents are trying to hit the ball down, obviously volleyball to hit the ground or serving, either hitting, spiking or serving. She said, do you remember, I went through that whole phase of where I would get hit on or served on a lot.
I just wasn't very strong. And I said, I sure do. And she said, do you remember what we did? And I said, yeah, I absolutely do.
And she said, do you remember how you didn't take me off the court, but how you brought the other team around me a little closer? And so that if they were hitting on me, spiking or serving right on me, then if it was right at me, then I was pretty good. But I wasn't fast back then, was I? And I said, no, but you had other things going for you. And she said, yeah, I know, I know.
But do you remember, you brought the other players in close, they came in close, and rather than me having to move, they actually protected me. And I said, yeah, yeah, you know, that happens in volleyball, you protect. And she said, well, here's the thing, that taught me so much about my work as a social worker.
I said, really, you're a social worker now? And she said, yeah. And also, I'm a mom. And I know, I knew that.
And I said, yeah, exactly. And she talked about how when people in her work were not doing well, or when her own kids weren't doing well, out of volleyball, what she learned was to draw in and offer protection, was to actually get closer to them. And this was the core of the conversation, is that when someone's suffering, when the world is coming at someone, not a volleyball, but the world, when the world is coming at a person too hard, you draw in around them, and you protect them.
And she said, it's been incredibly important for me with my kids. She has two children, that when something is not going well, it's probably one of my biggest values, is that we draw in and protect each other. We actually don't go at each other.
We you know, like all kind of sibling rivalry, everything is off. If someone's hurting, if someone's upset, if something's not going well at school for one of them, then we draw in close. And she said, I'm unshakable about it.
It's what we do. And I thought, wow, you know, isn't it interesting where we take our inspiration from in life? This young woman was, I don't, I actually didn't ask her if that influenced her going into social work, perhaps not. She was always that little way inclined, very caring girl at school, and young woman in the high school.
But this value that was deeply inculcated within her of drawing closer. And it set me thinking of this whole way of, this way of being with kids, a way of thinking really, where kids are not disobedient, they're disoriented. If we hold that, that when we move in closer to a child, knowing that they're not deliberately trying to upset the family, upset their siblings, upset us, it looks like it, right? It does.
I've got to confess, it looks and feels for all the world like that. But this principle of moving in closer, I think of it as being inquisitive, rather than accusative. We move in with a question, like, what's up? What's up? What's happening? Or, can you help me understand what's going on? Because this is, this is really sharp, you're being really harsh at the moment.
Like what's up? If we move in with that question, the fact is that we're moving closer. We're offering a sort of just in that gesture, we're moving closer to our child, just when they need it. That's when they need us to move in.
Otherwise, the world is going to serve on them, the world's going to go at them more and more. And they're going to feel more and more vulnerable. And that means that their behavior is going to be more and more defensive or aggressive or sullen, and they're going to feel the world is coming at them too hard.
And a basic tenet of simplicity parenting, and the soul of discipline is to move in closer, and still the world will serve on them. But they have our help around them, so that they are they have that protection, right at the same time. And I finished this conversation, which was was initially just going to be a brief check in.
I love it when my former students call me because it's as I love, you know, there's few things that you can love more than just hearing from these kids that you knew when they were little, growing up to meet mummies and daddies and, and very kindly often, you know, getting getting their old teacher's book and reading it and all that sort of stuff. And listening to these podcasts as this woman did. And a little shout out of hi to her because she'll probably be listening to this.
I asked her if it was okay to talk about it, of course. But the the the life lesson in that is so fundamental to what so many of us are wishing for our children is is moving in closer and and the only thing that I feel we need to reject is rejection is rejection based discipline, that unless you do exactly what I say, you are going to be rejected. Moving in closer in that volleyball game, and that was that went on for pretty much a whole season with with with this young woman.
What happened by 12th grade is and this is just I wanted to end the story on this note is that she became one of our most solid backcourt players. She became really good. And she was never served on again.
She stood confidently, but we had to move her to that point as as a team. And as a whole team, we felt better for it. Just like as a whole family, we can feel better when we draw towards a child who feels the world's coming at them too hard.
Okay, hope that's helpful. Bye bye for now.
