I recently put a poll on my Instagram story and asked “Do you want to hear more about BUSINESS, or do you want to hear more about MOTHERHOOD?” 

You all popped in and said “Motherhood. Please! This. Is. Hard”, and considering my tagline is “Motherhood, marriage and making it in business,” I thought that was a valid answer! Ha! So let’s talk about that, shall we? 

For a long time I was trying to tick the boxes of the things I thought I should be doing as a “good mum”. I’d catch myself thinking “What would a ‘good mum’ do” and how can I find time in my schedule to do those things?

But then I shifted my thinking to instead: How can I build connection with my kids in this very moment—and knock off a little bit of that mum guilt along the way! 

This way of thinking has been a game changer for me. 

When your child’s a newborn, it’s much easier to find that time for connection because there are certain milestones and moments that happen during your day, every single day, where that connection is absolutely necessary. But once they get a little bit more independent and they start not needing you so much for that intensive time, you’ve got to make time and find other ways to connect. 

At the moment I’ve got Henry, 4, Patrick, 6, and Lucinda, 9, and I’ll be honest and say I find playing HARD. I find nothing more frustrating than sitting on the floor and playing Lego or trucks when I have so many things on my to-do list. I’ve learned that it’s okay to find it monotonous and frustrating, but we also need to acknowledge that the time that you’re spending doing those things is really, really valuable. That mind switch has been so helpful. 

Learning to “play” has been a 9-year process for me! 

For Henry, that looks like him and I, on the floor together. I have to really try my best not to be asking questions all the time or to be leading the play myself and instead let him, as the four year old, lead. I focus on letting him make all of the creative choices, making him feel heard and understood, giving him the autonomy in those moments. And it’s amazing the flow-on effect that can have with his behaviour for the rest of the day on those mornings that we find time to play together.  

Patrick is his own very special sort of heaven. Patrick has an ASD level one diagnosis and so he becomes fixated on certain things, and we’ve learned to embrace that. When he was younger, diggers were the flavour of the month. We would drive and sit in the car and we would watch diggers, we would play with diggers, we would talk about diggers, we would look at diggers on the TV. Now that he’s a bit older, those things chop and change. At the moment, for example, it’s tennis. The best connection I can make with Patrick is getting in the backyard and playing totem tennis with him, hitting that ball back and forth and talking along the way, jumping in and being inquisitive and trying to be part of that little world for him is really the thing that helps me build connection with him.

When we can sense a meltdown coming on, instead of jumping straight into behaviour management mode, like I used to, I now think to myself connect, connect, connect, connect. 

How do I connect with him at this moment so that he feels seen and feels understood and can help make sense of what he’s feeling? I get down on his level, hold both of his hands, look him in the eye and say “I can see that you’re feeling a bit funny right now. What does that feel like and what do you think caused it?” I talk to him about whether he thinks he’s made a good choice, or whether he could make a different choice, and have him feedback to me what he’s feeling. This has really been helping in making sure those meltdowns don’t just explode out of nowhere like an erupting volcano, which happened so much more when he was younger.

I feel like I missed a lot of opportunities to connect with Lucinda when she was younger, so we’re making up for that now. She has this lovely connection with Heath because they’re both big Harry Potter fans, so they’re reading a chapter every night together, and that’s their thing. For Lucinda and I at the moment, it’s music. She loves to talk to me about music and what songs she wants to add to her playlists, and what songs she’s hearing me listen to and we’re curating playlists together. We also spent a lot of time in lockdown and isolation together over the past 6 months, so we’ve also done plenty of puzzles and paint by numbers! She’s seeking her independence as she’s getting older, and that’s something we’re navigating together while trying to find opportunities to connect along the way.

So that’s the ways in which I’m making connection with the kids at this stage in their lives. If you can find time for connection this week, try getting down on their level, hold their hands, look them in the eye and check in on how they’re feeling, how their day was and what’s going on. Because I am as guilty as anybody of just kind of throwing them in the car after school and saying, “How was your day? Good, good.” And then on to dinner, bath and bed and repeat. 

Making a conscious effort to find moments for connection really does make the world of difference—to both of you.