I´m into educating Luísa to let me talk to people in peace. She always interrupts me and it´s annoying, as you might know.
One of my fears of dating new guys is that when they´ll be around me and Luísa, they might be horrified at how I let her boss me around, interrupt me and make me do things at any time. Luísa is not that bad, maybe, but I´m afraid of this.
Children are usually jealous of their mother giving attention to other people, especially when they see some flirtation going on, but I´m afraid that single children from single moms suffer more of this. It´s really a LOT of attachment between us, being just us most of the time, so it can be quite intense.
It took me maybe much longer than it should have, but I´m training her to let me talk to people without being interrupted. Just like when I weaned her from breastfeeding, I was inspired by a new guy, making her not interrupt me was inspired by the mountain guy.
This may sound silly, but the truth is that the desire to date makes me be a better parent, I focus more on the limits I have to give. Being with the guy in the end is practically irrelevant, the lessons are too great to keep putting them back.
I asked a mom-friend how to do it, since her 4-year old is so well educated in this matter and as she told me how she worked on it with her little one, so we created an action plan for me:
1- Talk about the new rules. I went like this: ¨Luísa, I want to talk to you about something. I don´t want to be interrupted when I´m talking to other people anymore. Remember when I was talking to our neighbor and you kept coming in and screaming? (she nodded) Well, I don´t want that anymore. I want you to let me speak to people. Remember when I was talking to that new friend (the mountain guy) and you kept asking me to go outside? (she nodded again) Well, I don´t want that to happen again. If it happens, know that I won´t talk to you until I´m finished and if you need to talk to me at that very minute, you have to say excuse and wait for a break in my conversation¨. I recall the new rule every now and then.
2- When she tries to interrupt me, tell her to wait and I keep talking to the other person and ignore her. This takes a lot of concentration not to get mad (very important not to get mad and it takes practice). And the good hint my friend gave me here is to tell the person I´m talking to something like: ¨I´m sorry you have to go through this, but I´m teaching her to not interrupt me, so please, bear with me¨.
Telling the other person about what´s going on is key here, since I tend to try to keep things quiet (meaning give in to Luísa) not to disturb people (although by letting our conversation be interrupted, I´m disturbing). And this keeps away my fear of being judged too, in fact it makes me proud of what I´m doing, instead of uncertain of what to do to make Luísa calm down. It could actually be a turn on to a guy.
3- Practice a lot with people I´m close to. I started with my neighboor back in Costa Rica and my friend who gave me all the tips. This mean: practice with people you have support from.
4- When in public, hold on firmly to the ignoring even if she´s screaming, for a good minute and then intentionally finish my conversation and ask her calmly: ¨Now I can talk to you, what did you want?¨ My friend says it will take little for this to stick. It´s actually hard to know what to do when she screams in public, but luckily it hadn´t happened in a while.
5- Avoid the temptation of explaining to her why she can´t do that, while she is doing it and end up giving her the attention anyway. Show her the lesson with the action and forget about wording things like: ¨Look sweetie, I´m talking here, you can´t do this…¨ (that´s what I was doing before and it obviously doesn´t work).
Keep doing these steps until they work, it doesn´t seem to be any other way.
As I started it a few weeks back, Luísa is a little bit better, she even says ¨Excuse me¨ (sometimes) before starting to pull me away and talk non stop… I tell her I liked how she said ¨Excuse me¨, but she still has to wait.
She is also training ME not to interrupt her when she is playing. I´m already good at waiting for her, but she is emphasizing how I need to wait for her to finish her conversations with her imaginary friends and she tells me to use ¨Excuse me¨ before jumping into her talks. Of course I get a bit impatient, but I realize this is a great opportunity to model what I want from her and I´m following the rules myself.
Ok, modeling must be the first step. I do that already, but unfortunately for my permissive patterns, I have to take more action than just modeling, therefore the 5 steps.
I guess it all comes down to being very patient too, until she learns (or simply matures).
Being respected is obviously a benefit for me but it´s also about Luísa and her need to learn to respect other´s conversations.
I hope that if you have a little one, you are far ahead of me on this lesson (if you are, you might have other hints to add in the comments), and if not, maybe you can follow these 5 steps above and see what happens.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
We haven’t come up with this yet because my daughter is still so young, but my mother inlaw with her step-grandchildren taught them instead of even saying “Excuse me” (because they’d often stand there saying it over and over louder and louder which is still really annoying and defeats the purpose of not interrupting) to instead come squeeze her hand. That was their little signal that as soon as there was a break in the conversation she would turn and ask them what they needed to tell her.
Good luck with Luisa, keep us posted on how it works out.
I love the non verbal sign, I´ll introduce it.
They are good suggestions.
I dont date right now but if i did i would never introduce my son for probably at least 6 months and i dont see them, especially non-parents, giving me valid parenting advice. I find i react much more harshly toward my child then i want to when others are criticizing my son and want me to modify his behavior. Part of this is anger at them at how dare they especially since what they are complaining about is a bad habit of theirs and Embarrassment taht they have to tell me because i think a. My son is a pretty darn good kid and b. Im a pretty darn good parent. E.g., we are living with firends. My son is three. They are adults with kids 14, 17… They constantly tell my son how to do and be…or not do. They interrupt him all.the.time. They are sarcastic and roll their eyes at him and each other BUT if he does it they chastise him. I finally told them to stop always telling him what to do or noy do as that is their only interaction with him and to demonstrate by their own behavior not interrupting and not being sarcastic because if that is all he sees modeled how can they expect him A 3 yr old! To act differeently and better then they. They got it. But its still a struggle. I got the book interrupting chicken for him…it makes us laugh and its a kind way to say remember what happens when they inTerrrupt.
One thing i really try todois when he is polite and says excuse me and waits is to give him the time he needs/wants to talk…so often, esp when in conversations with others i want to stay in that conversation and i give him barely time to talk before cutting him off and moving on…im tryng to be more aware i want to treat him as i want to be treated as i want him to do with others…
Hi Marilia!
keeping telling her not to do it and she gets my attention anyway.
Thank you for the good tips. I had indeed an ex-boyfriend coming over lately and I couldn’t quietly express my joy of seeing him again, neither with a woman from Canada I met and was very eager to get to know. I was so frustrated!!!
So you’re back in Costa Rica? Could you surf in Nicaragua as much as you wanted to? I do hope so
What a good topic again!! Reading you I realize I do need that respect too and it’s important to tell her about it. I realize it IS important not to be interrupted, it’s not just a question of being polite or not disturbing other people, as I thought until I read you. It goes about expressing your deepest self, a flow of energy which should indeed not be interrupted; it’s about interractions between people, and it has indeed to be respected. It’s more important than I thought.
No I never taught her not to interrupt me, it’s just that I get irritated and tell her not to interrupt me. But I never had a good talk with her on the topic, it’s more like you say in point 5!
So I’ll practice!
So many thanks!!
Keep us posted, it’s good to have you back again
Hey Jo-N, thanks for letting me know this post was helpful to you. I´m back to Puerto Viejo just now, looking for a new place to live and all that comes with that. I´ll post about the trip to Nicaragua soon.