Start the week off right with examples of mirroring from the team at Connected Parenting. If you’re new to Connected Parenting and want to find out more about mirroring and the CALM method, check out this podcast by Jennifer Kolari (courtesy of Penguin Group USA).
This week’s Mirroring Moment is from Jennifer Kolari. Enjoy!
As many of you know, my 6-year-old daughter Olivia can be quite a handful. She gives us great joy but is a gladiator child. She knows what she wants and she fights hard for it. We follow the Connected Parenting program and as long as we stick to it, we all manage very well. She is free to be herself and enjoy life with the safety and freedom of knowing that we understand her and set loving limits. It took a while to get here but it’s worth it.
Last year she had some difficulties at school. Nothing too major but she could be impulsive, a little aggressive and a challenge for the teacher. After getting over the embarrassment and wanting to walk into the school with a paper bag over my head, she settled down nicely. This year at our parent/teacher interview, Olivia’s teacher shared a remarkable mirroring story with us that made us both very proud and confirmed why this technique is so important.
Olivia had been building a castle of blocks that she had been working really hard on. A little boy, we’ll call him David, was playing nearby and kept trying to drive his cars up the ramp to the tower she had built. As he played with his cars his feet were also dangerously close to the tower which got Olivia worried. Instead of acting impulsively, Olivia went to the teacher and asked for help before the tower came tumbling down. The teacher was pleased with this and headed back to the carpet with Olivia to help out. As they walked towards the castle David’s car hit the tower as he drove it up the ramp and the castle came tumbling down. The teacher braced herself, sure that Olivia would lose it.
Olivia went over to David and said, “That ramp looked really cool and it was pretty hard for you not to drive your cars on it. I know you didn’t knock it down on purpose.” A perfect mirroring statement with her agenda aside and full of understanding! David immediately apologized saying he felt terrible because he knew Olivia had worked so hard on the castle. A beautiful mirroring statement back! Then the two of them went on to repair the castle together. The teacher was very moved and impressed that two little children had found such a nice way to work out what could have been a very ugly situation.
The beauty of mirroring is that the more you use this technique with your children the more they use it on each other. It is a gift to your children in so many ways and a gift to those around them.
Share your own favorite mirroring moment in the comments below. Or are you stumped? Feel free to leave a comment describing a situation you encountered where you couldn’t figure out how to mirror. We’ll try to incorporate it into a future Mirroring Monday post.
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