The "After School Interview?" Understanding Regulation and Seven Tips for Facilitating Positive Interactions after School.

School Days!

It's a fall Monday morning, which means if you have school-age kids, it will be about #67 hours before you hear more #67 references.... And if you still feel lost as to why kids everywhere are gleefully finding ways to incorporate "6, 7" into every conversation, here is a link to an explanation.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/9U1sY8nwshk?feature=share

As parents and caregivers, we want to know!

If you are like me, you want to know all the details about your child's day, the good, the bad, the ugly...... "What did you have for lunch? Who did you eat lunch with? What did you learn? Who did you play/hang out with? What did your teacher say? What does #67 mean!!!

"The grunt"

Your curiosity and desire to connect with your child by hearing details about their day is often likely to be met with a grunt of "ok" or "good," or maybe your child turns and stares out the window. Even more devastating, your child may often experience meltdowns after school.

You may end up feeling hurt or angry at your child's response. These negative feelings can lead us all down a path of negative interactions.... "i.e., "I do ____ and ____ this for you, the least you could do is talk to me!" In the case of a meltdown, you might find yourself feeling, "I have had a long day too, I don't need this right now!"

You haven't seen each other all day, and within a few moments of time, you might be angry with each other. This could lead to either of you saying things you don't mean or affect (non verbal communication including body langauge and tone of voice) that does not support connections. By the time school is out, you likely have had a long day as well!

You might feel lost on these school days on how to connect with your child in the few hours of each day that you have together. I understand! This post is not about blaming or causing you to feel bad about any negative interactions you have had with your child. I'm here to help you find your direction to connection!

The Roadmap

One of the best parts about the DIR® model and floortime interactions is the developmental roadmap. Dr. Greenspan identified developmental capacities that ALL humans develop and use to interact with and learn from others. These are called the Functional Emotional Developmental Capacities, or FEDCs for short. In "The Regulation Plan" Resource and Application Guide, I guide you through learning about your own capacities as well as those of your child. The capacities build on each other, and our functioning moves up and down the capacities all day. Regulation is the "foundation" of our capacities, and when our regulation is challenged, for example, after holding ourselves together all day at school or work, our function at our highest capacities can be diminished.

The ability to answer a question is a complex process!

The FEDCs and questions!

Learning more about the FEDCs (hint: see "The Regulation Plan" Resource and Application guides and my blog posts on additional resources) will help give you a roadmap for knowing your child's developmental readiness for answering questions.

However, for this post, I want to focus on getting started facilitating those positive interactions after school. Let's get that afternoon/evening and school year off to a positive start with 7 Tips for Facilitating a Positive Interaction After School.

Seven Tips for Facilitating a Positive Interaction after School.

Tip One: Understand and meet them where they are at. 

The first thing to understand is your child's state of regulation. School days are demanding physically, mentally, and socially for your child. Additionally, our body states are primary regulators. Your child might be very hungry after all the hard work they've done completing tasks and attempting to hold themselves together all day!

If your child's regulation is challenged.... then they won't be up to "The After School Interview" and the additional demands of questions could derail what is left of their regulation. We definitely don't want to add negative interactions, hurt feelings, or an argument to lost or challenged regulation!

Tip two: Support regulation with what THEY need.

Every child is different, and YOU are the expert on your child. You know them! Does your child need silence, some time to stare out the window? Are they starving? Can you meet them with a healthy snack? Do you have a song you like to listen to together? If you have a teen, will a #67 joke from you be well received? (Warning, #67 odds you could get an eye roll!)

Tip Three: Show interest.

Your child might need some space, and that is ok, but you can still show them your interest. The capacity of regulation builds up to the capacity of engagement, and showing interest is one thing we can do when we are regulated to support engagement.

Our affect (non-verbal communication) can do a lot to help you show your interest and availability to your child. Your body language, facial expressions, and tone of voice can all be used to indicate your interest. Sometimes it's even hard to put into words all the ways we use to signal to another, "I am here, I am interested in you!" Comment below with more ideas you use to show interest to your loved ones!

Tip Four: When needed, bite your tongue! (but not literally, ouch!)

I want to repeat again; YOU know your child! He or she may be able to answer a few questions from you and it can get the interaction rolling. But keep in mind that often as adults, we start conversations with kids with questions. That means we are leading the conversation, we are taking away their chance to initiate interactions, and we are putting demands on them right away.

Tip Five: Try sharing a story, feeling or detail from your own day that might interest your child and facilitate a connection.

Repeat: YOU know your child. Try sharing and see what works for you and your child. "The funniest thing happened to me today..." It can be simple. "I missed you today." "Wow, I am so glad to see you."

You can also convey your interest and care for your child in a way that doesn't put demands on them. I like to say "I hope you had a good day." By expressing your hope, this sentence doesn't require a response (and so can avoid the negative feeling of not being responded to), but it may be just enough to open the door for your child to share with you.

Try it out! See what interactions unfold when you start by sharing. ie. If I am playing in the therapy gym, with a child who is at the right developmental capacities, I might say, "If I could have a superpower I would choose..." instead of asking directly, "What superpower do you wish you could have?"

Tip Six: The Power of "I wonder."

If your child's regulation is challenged but you find that you really do need, or can't help yourself from asking a question, you can try re-phrasing as "I wonder." "I wonder" really does feel like magic sometime and it again takes the inherent pressure of a question off the child who has just survived another school day. "I wonder what you had for lunch" vs "What did you have for lunch?" It doesn't sound like much of a difference, but try it out and see if it supports interactions between you and your child!

Tip Seven: 20% questions.

When your child demonstrates strong capacities that support their ability to answer all types of questions (Who, What, When, Where, Why and How), we still want to avoid interactions as feeling like interviews. In my DIR®, journey I learned a good rule of thumb is that we want to try and avoid more than 20% questions in our conversations.

In Summary, Use YOUR expertise on your child to help support their regulation and connection! Happy interacting!

I welcome you to share comments below on ways you find to positively interact with your child after school! Don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss any new posts!