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In the summer, parents and children often find themselves far from each other: adults fly away on vacation, the child is sent to their grandmother for all the holidays … Skype and social networks make it easier to separate, help maintain contact. But here it is important to adhere to certain rules.
The webcam helps us to maintain maximum closeness in separation: we see each other, hear our native voice, perceive familiar gestures. We stay up to date on the affairs of a dear person, we can see how he spends time, we can discuss the news and support each other. But video communication has its own limitations and its own rules. Clinical psychologist and child psychotherapist Svetlana Pokrovskaya tells parents how to communicate with children at a distance without causing serious damage to the emotional connection.
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- Effect of presence
Teach yourself and children to express feelings in words
Many of us find it difficult to put emotions into words. Psychologists even have the concept of “alexithymia”, which means a state when a person cannot name and convey his feelings, has difficulty accessing the experience and expression of emotions. In direct contact, we can shout something, throw something, express emotions with gestures, facial expressions and get a reaction in response. When we are separated by kilometers, feelings are much more difficult to convey. And the child needs help with this. Rely on familiar feelings: “I’m just as angry as you are when your toy broke.” Name feelings with words so that the child can hear, relate concepts and remember. It’s not enough just to say “You’re doing well”, say that you rejoice as much as he did when he overtook Petya on a bicycle. Enter secret phrases and words that only the two of you can understand. Give your son (daughter) an example of the situation and the behavior of the heroes of your favorite fairy tales: “Remember, we talked a long time ago that sometimes you can behave like a clumsy bear?” And let no one understand what you agreed on, but if you resort to the imaginative thinking of the child and turn to his emotions, after a while you will forget what it is to lecture again and tell how the child is wrong. Make a secret out of personal communication and form a context that only you and your baby can understand. The secret is the emotion.
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- Release your children!
Turn off the telegraph
“Hi, what did you eat?”, What did you do?” – even in personal communication, parents often subject their children to “interrogation”, thereby creating the illusion of control over them. Children, on the other hand, resist these interrogations in every possible way, but not because they are hiding something, but because they are not interested in talking about meatballs and soups or describing the order of movements made during the day.
If you do not suppress the child, he himself will begin to talk about interesting moments, and the task of the parent is to support his initiative. Without watching your child every day, you should set the tone for the conversation – talk about something exciting, let him speak and let him talk about what he wants. Your son (daughter) instantly considers your positive emotions and good mood and will support the conversation.
Make friends
Parents who communicate with children via Skype often include a teacher. In an effort to convey experience and protect against failure, they make the child experience a lot of negative emotions, focusing on questions about what went wrong, why it didn’t work out, and how it really should be. Naturally, with this approach, the child has no choice but to withdraw into himself and distance himself, because no one likes to be told about mistakes and unpleasant duties. It’s better to use a different approach. A parent is not a teacher, but a friend. Even if you need to talk about something important or unpleasant, start with a positive, and try to submit negative things through the dialogue form. – “I wanted to tell you, to share my fear with you” – and always initiate the answer: “What do you think?”. The child needs to see in you not a teacher, but the most friendly and close person, always ready to support and help.
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- Get your parents online
Read
Reading is a great leisure activity for parents and young children. Why not support the tradition of evening readings at a distance, via Skype? If you open the book on the screen, it will create the illusion of eye-to-eye contact. And you can hold the book so that the child sees the pictures, look at them and discuss what they read together. A familiar ritual, the sound of his mother’s (father’s) voice will calm him down, create a feeling of protection and emotional closeness.