Week 3: Cultivating Trust

 You made it through week one and two. That was a lot of reflecting and grieving and big feels. Now we're gonna move into more of the practicalities. How are we going to engage? What we learned over here in these two weeks and what we are working on shifting and bring it into relationship with our children this week is about learning to cultivate trust.

You might know you have your child's best interest and mind and heart, but that doesn't mean that relationally, they can feel that from you. The first activity this week, I'm calling standing by, and what I mean by that is spending time with your child where you are simply being present, not staring awkwardly at them, not scrolling your phone.

Sitting with them. Being with them in whatever it is that has their attention in order to begin to communicate that your agenda is not simply to get them to behave in a certain way or think a certain thing or believe a certain thing. Your purpose in their lives is to be a presence and a support as they grow and develop.

And the second area where we develop trust is in our capacity to manage something that's triggering for us in relationship to them without escalating or shutting down. Your second activity is gonna be learning to tolerate a. It doesn't mean that you're not feeling triggered. It means you're learning how to have those feelings come up and manage them and contain them, and stay present to where your child is at in regards to the thing that is triggering you.

Both of these activities are things I hope, become practices in your relationship to your child. This is not just do it once, earn some trust. This is a rhythm that we want to begin to cultivate over time, and the more that we cultivate these things, the more trust our children have and the more they will rely on us and also respect our opinions when they are in tricky spots as they.

Hope it goes well.