Behind The Scenes: Is it okay for me to say "no" to family who want to hug and kiss my kid?

Twitter DM from an anonymous follower:

"Hi! I read your _Kids and Safety_ post* and it made me think about family members who try to hug and kiss kids. Is it ever okay to say "no" to them?"

Great question! You are NOT wrong for wanting to enforce a "no" you set...with anyone.

It's really important to make a big deal about listening to a "no". When we teach kids that "no" is an acceptable response, we are teaching them to listen to their bodies, gut and heart. That's a crucial life skill. "No" is also a boundary, right? Setting and maintaining good boundaries with people, especially family, is another life skill. These life skills are ones that perpetrators and abusers look for in kids and adults. When they are missing, kids and adults alike are more likely to be exploited and hurt.

Putting kids on the receiving end of an adult's desired way of showing affection deprives a child of their ability (and right) to listen to and learn from their own body. That's across the board: from listening to their body when they need to pee in the middle of the night to listening to their body when it's hungry and listening to their body when they feel nervous about someone. Remember, sexual predators are usually folks kids know. So it's especially important to help kids listen to their bodies, especially around familiar people.

Before you start, it may be helpful to practice. Saying something out loud always makes us more confident, especially when it comes to setting boundaries. You might say, "Actually we/I have decided to let the kids decide when and who they give hugs and kisses. Thanks for helping us allow them to make those choices." You never need to explain a boundary. But if you want, you could say, "we want little Bridgett to learn to listen to own body instead of what other people tell her she should do with your body."

Last thing! Boundaries only work when they are clear, consistent and you stick to them. Repetition is your friend.

Thanks for being a good mom.

PS.* That post is here.

Lessons from The Bird (no, not that one)

The Moa was a large, flightless bird that lived in New Zealand in the 1300's with only a massive species of eagle as their natural predator until an indigenous group of people arrived on their island. Within one hundred years the Moa were extinct. So were the eagles. It's not that different today.

Image courtesy of Sci-News here

We don't become extinct the way the Moa did but it can be just as painful. Extinct for you and I means that "we" are gone. Our self has been lost. But that doesn't happen all at once. And it doesn't have to happen. Below are a few lessons from the Moa that feel especially appropriate at this time of year:

1) Protect your mind. Like the Moa, your feared predators are the interlopers in your life who don't really belong there but who works hard to keep you in a neat box that fits their needs. That may be your work or a relationship. Keep contact with those entities at a minimum or cut them out entirely.

2) Protect your body. Run away from anyone or anything that tries to get uncomfortably close or don't respect your boundaries. Find communities of support (whether virtual or in person) that help you stay strong and focused. 

3) Protect your soul. Reserve sacred time for yourself, alone. That can be as simple as a trip to the grocery story by yourself or as intentional as a weekly yoga class. Throw things out or donate. Remember to breathe. Your soul needs that oxygen flow like your body. 

You are one of the things that I am most grateful for this year. You feed my mind, body and soul and keep me accountable. With your support, I'll be around for a while..unlike the poor Moa. I hope you stick around too. Happy Thanksgiving.

I wanna hold your hand

My daughter and her friend were walking hand-in-hand toward Cocoa Cinnamon last week. I thought about how powerful it is to walk with someone else's hand in your own. Imagine how far we might get as adults if we held hands with someone else on our journey, whether metaphorical or real. But it's not really how far we get (the journey is the point, right?), it's about how we go. 

When we hold someone's hand, we travel in community, acknowledging that we are social creatures and alone is not how we should spent most of our days. Community is something we all need, introvert or not. Different communities that serve different pieces of ourselves are essential for us to grow as people. 

When we hold someone's hand, we travel more slowly. The hand grasped around ours might have longer or shorter legs than we do. We're not usually running, are we? We walk for the sake of walking, not to get to the next place faster than the rest of the crowd. 

When we hold someone's hand, we travel more intentionally. After all, we have another person to consider. Would either girl have broken away and deliberately bolted toward something dangerous, dragging the other's hand? I don't think so. 

When we hold someone's hand, we travel more confidently. We have someone else's hand in our own, we have the reassurance of their presence. Their support is literally something that we can feel. This connection is an important reminder of love in our life.

"Go fast, go alone. Go far, go together." is the old saying. Yes. Now, whose hand do you need to be holding now in this life? Hint: it's not your child's or your partner's.

Time and Space

One of my all-time favorite books, World Enough and Time by Christian McEwan is one that I have yet to finish. McEwan eloquently, peacefully even, makes the case that most of us are moving too fast on a regular basis. Of course I agree. And I'd take it a step further to say that if we want to feel more confident in our everyday lives, we must make time for quiet time away.

When we don't allow ourselves the occasional quiet space that we need as a way to recover from this super-fast world, we make decisions based on fear or scarcity thinking instead of abundance and/or gut instinct. It just make sense, right? If we don't have time to process, we don't decide well. When we don't make good decisions, the affects of those poor decisions are most likely to come back and haunt us. That niggling worry causes us to second-guess ourselves next time around and sometimes also to waffle about the next decision. All of that damages our confidence levels.

Think, too, about how you can do "hard" work, whether that's on ourselves or our businesses, if we don't take time away for reflection? We cannot. Just as it is impossible to continue to add more projects, people or commitments into your life without taking some of our existing ones away, it is impossible to be productive, in any capacity, without time and space to do so. This lack of time to do work on ourselves also negatively impact self-confidence.

But as busy women, how do we make that time and space happen? One of the ways that we carve out quiet for ourselves is to start small.

Getting up 20 minutes earlier than you usually do or than your child, partner does. Planning a weekly bath night so you can soak alone in the dark or by candlelight. Hiring a helper for 2 hours per day, even once a week. Coordinating childcare with your partner so you can take a walk alone. Buying one of those cool adult coloring books and some pencils to do some reflective coloring before bed, instead of looking at Instagram. Turning off NPR in the car in order to encourage quiet reflection.

These are all small tasks, most of which are free. All of them will help you carve out space and time for quiet reflection. So, what about you? What would your time and space for reflection look like? Leave a comment below or share it on my Facebook page.