#9: The Magic of Being With
In this episode, I talk about The Magic of Being With. I shared a little bit about the importance of curiosity in my life, and also:
What exactly is "being with"- a concept from Circle of Security Parenting that I'm certified in
Why does it matter in parenting & our relationship with our children
My top tip on using "being with" when we notice our children are "misbehaving/acting out".
This episode was part of the interview under the Reclaiming the Joy in Motherhood Summit that I was part of.
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You are listening to Making Mama Magic with honest and authentic conversations about all things related to modern motherhood, wholehearted living, and peaceful parenting. Join me and my guests in our chats about redefining motherhood and parenting in a way that focuses on purpose, peace, and presence, while pursuing dreams in life, career, and business in our unique magical way.
I am your host, Ava, and I empower mums to parent with connection and curiosity and to own their confidence in motherhood. Hi welcome to Making Mama Magic podcast. In this episode, I talk about the magic of being with. I shared about what exactly is being with, a concept from Circle of Security parenting that I am certified in.
Why does it matter in our parenting and our relationship with our children?
And my top tip on using being with when we notice our children are misbehaving or acting out. This episode was part of the interview under the Reclaiming the Joy in Motherhood Submit that I was part of. If you are interested to listen in to other speakers under this submit, please check out the link in the show notes. Let's jump right into the episode. Very welcome, Eva. I'm very excited you're here.
Thank you so much for having me in. So tell us a little bit more about your journey and how you got to what you do. I'm curious to find out what got you into the world of coaching moms. Yeah. So I'm Eva. I am the founder and also the coach at my organization called The Curious Mama. I got into this world inspired by my own journey in being a mother.
For me, because of the journey that I've been and also in terms of my interest of mindfulness, motherhood studies and attachment theory, I began to see that there's a need to support mothers more.
And I think one of the key challenge that I've noticed a lot of moms is they find that motherhood and parenting is very challenging for them in terms of looking at understanding their children and also defining what they want to do and how they want to parent. And I think what a lot of people, a lot of moms experience is guilt.
So one of the things that I hope to do through my coaching and through my work and through the things that I share on social media is to let them know that they're not alone in their struggles and to let them know that there are ways that they can redefine their own parenting and their own motherhood experience in their own unique way.
Curious is the word that you use a lot because you call it Curious Mama.
So why curiosity?
I love that word in general and I'm just wanting to know why did you chose that word?
What does it mean to you?
Oh, wow. This is something that I've always honored and feel that is very important, whether it is in terms of my own personal life or whether it is in terms of my own parenting. In my own parenting, I think the curious portion is really about being mindful in terms of my own response and interactions with my children.
Also being mindful about my own values because of how this will guide me in terms of interacting with my children and also in terms of intense times. Like sometimes our children might be having a meltdown of tension, which is totally very normal. And one of the things I always tell myself is get curious, not furious. I love that.
Yeah, that helps me to take the pause and allow that pause for me to notice what is happening and also to kind of like be with my child in terms of noticing with what he is doing and also what exactly he needs at that point in time.
That is really helpful for me to understand him better and for me to notice what exactly is happening so that I can support him better in that sense and get what he needs or get what he wants to. Probably he could be hungry, thirsty or needing some connection time or just really tuning into what he's feeling.
Yeah, to really be connected to your child and to really work things out together rather than just deciding I'm the parent, you will do what I say and that's it. That's mostly how I grew up.
Yeah, that's how I grew up too.
Well, I think one of the reasons I wanted to be a coach is also I know that a lot of parents struggle with wanting to be a parent that they have never experienced being parented from right.
So a lot of us grew up from parents who use a lot of power, a lot of shame, a lot of guilt and that is something that I've noticed a lot of parents want to move away from but they struggle to understand how to do so.
They struggle to know why they are reacting in a way that they don't want to and they want to be more, they want their children to be connected with them and they want to have a more respectful relationship. So that's why I feel that a coach will enable and empower more moms in terms of this journey.
Yeah, I love that. But you just mentioned before as well being with and that's actually the topic that we want to get into today. So I think it's a good segue point where we can talk about the concepts. Explain a little bit more.
What does it mean?
Where does it come from?
Yeah, so being with is basically being a tune to our children's emotions and needs. So how it works is really to help to understand what they're experiencing, help them to regulate especially challenging feelings and really staying with them in terms of understanding what's going through and accepting them and allowing them to know that we are here for them.
And I think it's quite challenging for some parents because a lot of times we want to rush in to rescue them or we want them to do it right or we could have the notion that children should not disturb other people, make sure that they are okay and that they don't want to inconvenience other people. But I think it's really important to tap in the magic of being with.
It may sound very simple, but there's a lot of underlying things that we as parents and mothers need to be conscious about. And I think like what I mentioned, sometimes we want to rush in to rescue our children. The key thing is to notice that emotions are not good or bad.
It's really a way of informing us how we feel and really notice in terms of what we can support our children better and their own needs. The reason being with is so magical is because children, when they grow up, they don't have the ability to manage their emotions.
So when we are being with them, it helps them to feel safe and secure and helps them to know that they are not alone in their feelings because when they are little, especially they don't have the understanding of what emotions are, it can be very overwhelming to them.
So it's important for us as parents to kind of like be with them, help them to organize and make sense of them, which is really one of the parts of this program that I am certified in, which is the certificate of security parenting. They talk about helping our children to organize their feelings and being with them. So that is really about tuning in and also understanding it.
And sometimes it's a dance, right?
Trying to recognize, you know, and notice as well as knowing how to balance that.
So yeah, this is really about attunement. I think the key portion is about the attunement for being with.
And there's attunement, if we're getting this right, how does it like help us moms to feel more joy or to feel, you know, the theme is the magic of the everyday?
How does that tool connect to that?
Yeah. So attunement or being with helps us to feel more joy in a way that we can simplify in terms of how we want to connect to spend time with our child. Because we are living in this age where we want to do a lot of things with our children and we are so busy in terms of our work, our career, our time for our kids and all.
And sometimes there's a lot of doing in our parenting, but being with, as the word describes, is about being, it's about being at that moment. It's about noticing and slowing down in terms of what we do. And that's really what our children want. They want our time together. Yes. They want quality time with us. They want undivided attention with us to feel love, to feel safe and to feel secure.
And when we slow down and have that moments with them undivided, I think that's magic because sometimes it could be as mundane as, you know, just reading a book together and you might be reading it for the 10th time today, but it's still magic in that sense that it is what makes them feel safe and comfortable.
And they want to have a relationship with us that they feel that they know that their parents care for them, love them and have their backs no matter what happens in life. And they see their home, not just a space for them to eat, but also for them to come back and feel that this is the place that I can feel comfortable and I know my parents are there for me.
So that's really the magic because where we show interest in what they are, how they're feeling, when we accept them, when we hold them, whether it's physically or emotionally, it's really building that relationship that really helps them throughout their journey growing up because when we have a secure relationship since young, when they are a bit older, whether it's a teenager or whether it's adulthood, they still see us as the guiding force and really they see us as parents, as the person that they trust rather than other sources who may or may not be the most reliable or that helps them in terms of growing to the adult person that he will be eventually.
It's very interesting that really it lays the foundation for everything that comes after.
I've been talking to quite a few moms who have teenage children and it seems a big struggle, but everyone who kind of gets it right when the kids are a little bit bigger mentions that when they're young, having this connection and building that trust is kind of key that holds everything together when it seems to be kind of falling apart when they grow up in teenage years.
So I love that you're saying that because it just reconfirms what I'm kind of trying to do with my children. And on a practical level, for a mom who maybe has been struggling to connect to her child, maybe there's a lot of behavior going on that is not really welcomed, it triggers, it challenges.
What can a mom do to start tuning into the emotional well-being of her child?
Being with the child, I see. So I think one thing that I would share with the mom who is struggling is to spend 10 minutes each day to really put away your phone and just notice what your child is doing.
So I think sometimes depending on how comfortable a child is in terms of playing with or spending time, it could be just sitting down there, observing him or her for a while and just asking open questions, just getting curious to know what he or she is doing and kind of like notice and just commenting like, hey, I see that you are drawing a tree or you are drawing a car and just allowing that space for the child to respond.
Or if he or she is comfortable spending time with him, like really getting in the play of drawing or doing something together or imaginative play.
And yeah, I mean, I feel that as adults, we need play too and we need to also have moments where we can just immerse in something that is interesting to us. So it's about looking at these moments where you can join them, join our children in the play and also have fun with them.
Because I mean, sometimes we think parenthood and motherhood is something that is very heavy, but I feel that we can introduce some fun and lightness as well.
So looking at the 10 minutes, undivided attention and just practicing also noticing their emotions without judgment, just holding space for them in terms of knowing how they feel, accepting how they feel without trying to change how they feel and honoring their uniqueness and their strengths and their interests.
So I mean, it sounds quite a bit, but it's really baby steps towards looking at how you can introduce that every day, just 10 minutes.
Yeah, I love that. It's being present, putting away that phone, putting away that to-do list, all of that and spending, I think quality time really. And I noticed that with my children as well, when I don't get to do that, when things are rushed and rushing them to an activity and rushing them to bedtime, dinner time, yeah, and they are busy with work.
That's when they start acting up because they don't get the connection, the real intimate connection that they're craving.
But when I take a little bit of time and simple as you said, sitting next to them and just kind of, yeah, and allowing for whatever will unfold, it could be turn into a tickled side or it could just be, I'll sit there and he tells me about his poor patrol, my three year old is in poor patrol, we're in poor patrol right now and I've got to learn all the names.
So he will put them there and he will tell me all the names and then I have to repeat. But it feels, it just makes him feel so good. And me too, because this is magic. Like this is most, like for me, this is why I wanted to become a mom, to have these moments with my children, share just simple everyday things and see their curiosity and their imagination as well.
I think that's it. Yeah. Yes.
I mean, yes, I totally agree what you're saying. Observing and being with our children really is the magic of being a mother because being a mother is privileged in terms of being at the front seat to see our children grow literally from a baby until who they are as a person now and who they will be in the future.
So yeah, to be, that's really the magic and it's only when we slow down and we see the magic in that mundane of doing things and really to just notice and be present and be mindful. And of course, not every day will be magic.
Every day will be full of joy and laughter, but noticing that there are down times, but also looking at ways to recognize that a bad day doesn't mean that we are a bad mom. We are still learning about ourselves and learning about our children and our partners every day in terms of parenting and also who are we as a person as well, who are they as a person as well.
So yeah, I mean, that really helps to reduce that shame and guilt that some mothers feel because some mothers may feel that they need to do everything right, perfectly well.
They need to be 100% knowing their children and when they fall sick, they feel guilty because they know that they may have missed something, but we all can be good enough parents because we got research that I've read one research is that we don't need to be perfect all the time. We just need to be 30% attuned. We don't need to be 100% attuned.
And that is something that I found very useful to kind of like tell myself that, hey, I'm learning. Everyone is learning as a parent and it's really helpful to kind of like relieve the pressure that I need to be right all the time.
Yeah, so it's really about knowing that we can be put in now and we can learn along the way because we evolve as humans and we evolve as our children also grow along the way, they have different interests and needs as well. Yeah. And we grow with our children.
I think this is quite important as well because they do challenge us in many ways and we grow with those challenges and as they grow, things change.
I mean, this is also something that the speakers on the series have said is the phases that make things different, things change and that's kind of the normal of motherhood and we grow with that. Yeah. Wonderful. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak to me and my audience. I really appreciate you. Thank you so much, Anne and thank you to everyone who is listening in.
I hope you have a wonderful experience listening to me and also with other speakers and mothers and experts as well in terms of reclaiming your joy in motherhood. If you'd like to further the conversation with me, do connect with me at Instagram at The Curious Mama or subscribe to my newsletter where I will share a bit more about resources relating to this topic as well.
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Till then, take care and remember that you are in love and keep on making magic in your unique way.
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