Parenting with Danny - Part 3 - Creating Connection

SELF-CONTROL, FREEDOM, and CONNECTION:

We were all created to experience these in full measure, including our children. Our last two sessions of “Parenting with Danny” discussed the importance of training our children to manage themselves so they can live in freedom successfully. In this final part, we are looking at how to develop the most crucial part of being a parent: connection with your child.
The first step is to make love and connection the goal of your relationship. “Your heart connected to your child’s heart is the goal,” Danny said. “College isn’t the goal. Getting the dishes done isn’t the goal. Keeping spaghetti on the high chair isn’t even the goal!” You have to make a choice; is love and connection your goal or control and distance? “Love has the power to sort through what you would normally not want to deal with,” explained Danny. Keeping your love “turned on,” whether in conflict or in harmony, will help to
sustain your connection.
“Unfortunately, one of the best-kept secrets in families is, ‘I love you very much,’” he said. Many people grow up in environments where love is assumed but not ever expressed, but connection occurs through successful transfers of “I love you very much.” So it is vital that you know how your child hears love best.
Gary Chapman wrote a book called The Five Love Languages, which describes five common ways that people experience love. They include gifts, touch, acts of service, quality time, and words of affirmation. Knowing your child’s love languages will enable you to give them love in the way that they best receive it.
They may be different than your languages, but, as Danny stated, “Love says, ‘I am willing to do what you need.’” By using these languages to express love to your child day after day, and keeping connection the goal even in conflict, your child will begin to feel that love. And in the development of your connection, truth
will be exchanged. They will learn to trust you, because they know that your goal is not control, but love.
“When my child won’t do what I’ve asked them to do, I’d better check my connection with them,” Danny disclosed. He gave this example: Think of a tissue. I’m holding onto one end, and you’re holding onto the other. If I start pulling on this connection, it’s going to break! But if we’re each holding onto a rope, that connection will make it through a lot of yanking! Similarly in human connections, we will see the strength of our relationship when it’s tested, so don’t be afraid of testing. Protect your connection with your child above all else. No problem is as big as the disconnect problem. If you have a disconnect with them, the work
starts with you. Take time to build the connection again. Be responsible for any disrespect you have shown and ask for forgiveness if needed. Be sure to listen, take time to understand what they’re feeling, respond, and change. “There isn’t a more powerful voice in a child’s life than a parent who is connected to them,”
Danny said. “Your voice connected to their heart has no competition.”

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Stephanie Foster, Loving on Purpose Intern
For more information, check out:
The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman