I recently had the honor of sitting on a connected parenting panel with other Empowered to Connect parent trainers.  We shared with a small group of adoptive and foster families about how this lifestyle has changed our lives and how to implement some of our favorite tools into everyday practice.  It was such a gift.  The conversations and laughs and knowing glances were so, so good.  It’s always incredibly life-giving to be in safe community with others who walk the same journey and share similar experiences.  Relationships are so powerful and so very necessary to healing.

One of the questions that struck me the most was “What’s the hardest part of connected parenting?”  I had to sit and think about that for a few minutes because, in so many ways, connected parenting has made our lives so much richer, and fuller, and simply better.

It wasn’t long before I knew my answer though.

Aside from overcoming my pride of thinking I had the parenting thing down and being so resistant to trying a new way (seriously, I was dense), I realized that there’s something I struggle with daily.

You see, I’m an introvert by nature.  Though I love my family and my friends and deep conversations, I thrive the most when I can also retreat to quiet solitude.  It’s something that I’ve come to realize I need every day to really be my best self.  This need gets a bit complicated while also homeschooling four children because I’m not always able to find that time.

Connected parenting is all about relationships.  Connected parenting is relationships.  Safe relationships are life-giving and necessary for everyone, but especially so for children with hard starts.  That means that we’re constantly pursuing, constantly connecting, constantly guiding, constantly scaffolding, constantly empowering our children.  Ideally, we’re responding to all situations immediately, which means repeated interruptions of our everyday tasks.  For a person who fills her cup with quiet time, this takes a lot out of me.

That’s not meant as a complaint.  In fact, I’m incredibly grateful for how connected parenting has transformed our family.  But it hasn’t come without lots of intentionality and hard work and dedication.  The thing is that, as parents, we’re always “on.”  No matter how our children come to us, that’s part of the job description.  But using a connected parenting approach often means that we’re even more involved in many of the details throughout the day.  Parenting children with hard starts simply requires more of us.

And that’s why it’s so important that those of us who are parenting children with hard starts make our self care a serious priority.  We’re continuously pouring ourselves out, so it’s essential that we take care of ourselves, too.  For me, that looks like getting to bed early and waking up early enough every day to find quiet time with my Bible and and a yummy cup of Matcha.  And if there’s time, a quick pilates practice is also so life-giving for me.  It’s obvious on the days when I don’t get this precious time to myself.  I have less patience and am often more quick-tempered.  I truly need that extra sleep and morning quiet time in order to thrive.  It fills my cup and makes me a better person, especially when I feel like I don’t have the time.

If you are parenting children with hard starts, I urge you to discover the self-care activities that are life-giving to you, and make them a priority.  It’s only when we take care of ourselves that we can truly take care of others.