I’ll never forget the day my neighbor, who was a registered nurse, walked across the street and gave me a pamphlet on anger management. She explained that there was help for people like me, who seemed out of control and over the edge. It was a painful place to come to, and for a few months, I wouldn’t even accept I was there. But as I observed myself it became evident it was true. I was overwhelmed and under delivering in the parenting department. I wasn’t connecting with my children in ways that made for meaningful relationships.

I was raising seven children in a small town in Montana. My husband was an over the road salesman, so I spent a lot of time running things by myself. I didn’t feel successful. I felt overworked.

I was doing my best to manage the finances, doing odd jobs on the side to fill in financial gaps, taking care of the house, yard, and laundry, fixing the meals, helping kids with homework and chauffeuring them to their lessons, games, and plays. This situation fueled some resentment and I found myself yelling a lot. Our relationships were suffering.

The Problem 

I knew I should connect with my kids. I wanted to. But how? Everything I’d ever heard told me that to really connect with my kids I needed to take them on special dates or have one on one time, a half hour here or an hour there. The problem was those hours didn’t exist in my daily world.

I just couldn’t figure out how to say to each child, each day, in ways that they could understand, “I see you. I hear you. You matter to me!”

Then I had an epiphany. A moment so mind-blowing that I was never the same again.

When my daughter Marie was three, she and I had an experience that opened my eyes to a new way of seeing and thinking about my role as a parent. It clarified for me, in a dynamic way, what being Present with a child looks and feels like. For the first time, I realized that being Present is what’s required to connect in real ways with our children and that it can happen in 30 seconds.

I was in the middle of a sewing project. I’m not partial to sewing. Worse, this project had a deadline and it was fast approaching. Marie kept coming into the sewing room and bothering me. She asked questions, whined, asked for food, and on and on. Finally, in exasperation, I decided if she came into the sewing room one more time, I was going to give her a swat. I had asked her repeatedly to stop interrupting me and she was just being naughty!

Fortunately for me, as she walked through the door for the umpteenth time, a thought came into my mind from outside of myself. I like to think God was teaching me this principle of Presence. The thought was, “Why not hug her instead?” This new thought startled me! It was so far removed from what I’d intended, it brought me to a stop.

I turned away from the sewing machine to face Marie. I looked at her, really looked at her, for the first time that day. I gave her a long hug and said, “I love you.” She went off happy as a clam and didn’t come back. She had only wanted a moment of my Presence. She wanted to know she was on my list, in fact, at the top of my list.

This experience happened more than thirty-five years ago, and sometimes it’s such a sweet memory that it can bring me to tears even now. 

 We all need to learn what it looks like to be Present with our children, to connect – to see them, hear them, and let them know that they matter, and we need to understand how to do it daily, no matter how busy we are. 

 When I thought about swatting Marie it was because I was stressed out, I was frustrated. I felt she was naughty and needed a consequence.  BUT she never was being naughty; she was just making her need known. When I finally stopped to hear and see her, I got the message and I responded. Marie could have ended up crying. I would have felt like a crummy mom and I would have still been stressed out. Instead, I have a sweet memory. The need for a consequence evaporated.  Marie went away firm in the knowledge that she mattered. I was far less stressed. In fact, I glowed. I felt renewed and successful as a mom.

 If I hadn’t had this experience, I would never have believed it. I mean, the cards were stacked against relationship success. I had to teach and discipline. I had to keep our family running smoothly. I had to make sure my kids were getting prepared to become useful adults. And somewhere in all of that, I needed rest now and then. There was just so much to do.

How was I going to sort out how to be Present right where I was, seven kids and a husband on the road. The internet was new. Google was still someone’s dream. I didn’t find ‘family connection’ in the encyclopedia. And frankly, my friends who seemed to have it all together, when we had private conversations, were struggling just like I was. And I bet that if you’ve tried to figure this out you haven’t come up with much that you can fit into your life either, internet notwithstanding. We need more practical information on how we can be Present with our children, how we can connect with them, doing all the mundane tasks we do every day.

I didn’t become an expert on connecting with my children right away. Over the next twenty plus years, I learned six valuable parent-child skills which went a long way in helping me see and hear more clearly. I learned eight connection points, Touchpoints, that when viewed through the lens of being a Present parent helped me to connect daily. I learned life skills that assisted me to understand why I was feeling overwhelmed and resentful.

As I began working with families, I saw firsthand how easily these simple skills and touchpoints could radically change the family dynamic.

At the end of a live event, a father with teary eyes told me he had always wanted to connect with his children consistently but hadn’t known how. He was short on time! This father was gone each day working eight or more hours. When he came home it was difficult to connect with each child in a meaningful way. There was so much competing for his time in the few hours they had before bed. There was the deluge of homework, mealtime, and the chaos of getting kids to sleep. Not to mention his need for downtime to unwind from a busy day.

What brought tears to this father’s eyes was the comfort of knowing he could connect in meaningful ways with the time he had. He felt the information was life-changing.