Whatever your style of homeschool or parenting, connection is the foundation to fruitfulness. I have found this to be true as a mother, teacher, and mentor. It is the way God parents us. The more connected we are with Jesus the more natural it is to follow His lead and bear fruits of the Spirit. Connection builds trust, creates comfort and reception to training, inspires obedience, and allows influence. It chases away rejection, opens communication, values vulnerability, protects the relationship, and fiercely loves. This may not be news to us, but in all the wonderful things on our plates, intentional connection can be forgotten or even damaged in the hurry and busyness.
The pursuit of connection is our most valuable work in my opinion. Fruitful in meltdowns, fruitful in learning blocks, fruitful in open and honest communication, and fruitful in trusting our lead as parents. So how do you repair, grow, and maintain connection with your child/ren? I have learned four sure tools from a plethora of amazing mentors in parenting, tried them, and consider them essentials. The following innate and enjoyable tools (maybe not right away, but will be I promise) are sure to build connection on this beautiful journey of motherhood and homeschool. Here are four life-giving connection building habits:
- Learn their love languages and meet their needs in those ways
- Have regular weekly “special time” with your child
- Create intentional dates together yearly
- The last is building trust, which always leads to better connection.
1. First learn your child/rens’ love languages and mindfully make it a daily rhythm to lean into them. The 5 Love Languages were identified by counselor Gary Chapman as the five simple ways that we want love to be shown to us or as I put it, how we receive love most readily. I like the way Southern_motherhood said it in her post on IG about identifying our child/rens’ love languages:
If your child is acting clingy, lean in, their love language maybe touch.
If your child keeps asking you to do things that they could do themselves, love language maybe acts of service.
If your child keeps giving you random meaningful things, love language is gifts.
Does your child keep saying “look at me!”? They are probably expressing their need for words of affirmation.
If your child is more calm when they are just with you, your child is likely responding to their love need for quality time.
Still not sure? Consider this quiz for children and ask Holy Spirit to help you figure it out (after all He is our helper). https://www.busykidshappymom.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Five-Love-Languages-Children-Quiz.pdf
2. The next daily or weekly tool to build instant connection is having regular “special time” (you can give it your own name). This is 15-30 minutes of uninterrupted completely child lead playtime together. Let your child choose what you will play and simply follow their lead. You may need to set a few boundaries like the level of mess or cost of activity. NO bathroom breaks, checking the phone, or interruptions mama. Set timer and be completely present in play. This maybe hard at first, but press in and the fun will come for you too. Eye contact, smiles, and affirmation of their ideas will help with this. If they complain when timer goes off, just keep it positive that you so enjoyed your special time with them and will have another one soon. Give a big hug or high five if their love language is touch. You may choose to keep playing sometimes when time allows. If you have multiple kids, try to pick a time when the youngest is napping, and let other siblings know when their special time will be.
3. The third tool to build connection, intentional date/alone time together, is one to build in monthly and yearly. For example, monthly bring one child along for an errand, but stop for frozen yogurt, or hot chocolate, or to just talk in the car together on the way home. Also quarterly or bi-annually plan a big special one on one date with mom or dad. For example, as a birthday and Christmas gift each year for each child. One from dad and one from mom. This could be a dress up date to a fancy restaurant, a trip to a sporting event, or a trip to a state park together. Building in these memorable one on one intentional times of fun to look forward to builds lifelong connection. Planning them as a Christmas and birthday gift makes it easy to remember and at a time you already plan to invest financially into that child.
4. Lastly, a tool that takes grit and muscle to implement is being believable. Yep, I said that right. What is your point of believability with your children when you ask something of them? Is it when you ask nicely the first time? Does your child believe you mean it and respond? Or do they wait until your voice gets stern or you yell it? Or call out an empty threat? Or use their precious middle name, or yell a count down? Yes, sadly I have tried most of these. Even if they work for a time, this is not how we build trust and connection. If we don’t mean what we say and follow through calmly and promptly then we begin to be unbelievable and our words become untrustworthy. This of course needs to be paired with teaching what the expectations are and consequences for choosing not to meet them, as well as practicing following them, well before implementing.
It takes intentional time planning, practicing, and creating consequences that are doable for you to follow through in different settings. There are many good resources with great tools on this to help land your style and plan (Kingdom Motherhood, Loving on Purpose by Danny Silk, A House United: Teaching Self-Government by Nicholeen Peck, and local mentor of mine who raised and homeschooled ten children successfully, Lynette Criddle’s 10 Training Games for Young Children, and her book coming out this year called Gentle Rain: Cultivating the Soil of Your Young Child’s Heart for Seeds of Blessing, Honor, and Favor, just a to name a few). Lynette Criddle shares on this topic:
We should make our expectations for our children clearly defined, and not assume our kids have the skills to do what we tell or ask them to do (for example “listen”). We need to train and give them opportunities to practice in a fun stress free way. Studies have shown that it takes 400 repetitions to learn a skill (create a synapse) unless it is taught in a game, where it takes 10-20 times if learned in a game.
Setting this clear and trustworthy foundation with intention and fun practice in the early years is much easier than trying to establish it in teen years. Your investment in doing this now will bear fruit not only now, but in the future as well. You may be thinking, what does this have to do with connection? Trust is part of a connected relationship, we need to be trustworthy in what we say and do. Committing to this tool of being believable will establish trust with our child/ren and will continue to bear fruit for years to come. But here is a key from founder of Kingdom Motherhood, Emily, (that I have modified for building connection): “You can’t be in a hurry when you are building connection, and you can’t be attached to a particular outcome or you will get controlling! Being a mom takes time! When you are rushed, you want your way more than you want connection, so you get harsh and turn off your love. The more time you spend with Me, the more you become like Me. -God”
Each of these simple tools are worth the time and intention you will need to carve out in order to grow in connection with your child. In the long run, it will save so much time wasted in battle with a disconnected child. Peace will increase in your relationship and home and homeschool. The investment is golden.
If you would like to pursue each of these tools and others in more depth from professional and experienced mamas in the fields, need healing in your own relationship with God, or just want to be inspired with other amazing Kingdom minded parenting tools check out Kingdom Motherhood (KM). https://www.kingdommotherhood.com/ KM is where these tools and many others were brought together for me this past year when I joined The Kingdom Motherhood Society (KMS). I have experienced the fruit instantly when applying them. KMS is a community of women wanting to pursue spiritual health, deeper connection with God, and parenting their children in the same way that God parents them. KM has so many wonderful resources to support whole, healthy, confident mothers and families. A new resource Emily, the founder of KM and KMS, created is an e-book entitled Coming Out of Survival Mode. I highly recommend it if you feel drawn to the title.
Happy connecting with your children and P.S., in case you need to hear this, like I often need to remember, God wants to build this type of connection with you. We can’t pour from an empty cup. P.S.S. These are fruitful tools for marriage relationships too 😉 I want to wrap up by encouraging you to do this with a culture of grace in your home, for you, your spouse, and child/ren. God’s kingdom is full of grace and strength to keep pursuing our goals in homeschool and Motherhood when we feel we don’t have enough. Grace and peace over you and your family mama!
-Rowan Valentine
