It is very hard to be present for our people and everyone else, especially when there are so many ways to be easily distracted. And we like to be distracted. A lot of that has to do with our own struggles as we try to get through every day. We all have challenges—health, money, relationships, caring for others, substance challenges, school and work conflicts and on and on. Much of the time, we need a break, so we turn on the TV or we start scrolling our favorite social media, or we get lost in a book or we get sucked into the news, whatever it is that takes our attention away from here and now relieves some of the stress from our immediate situation.

The problem is that our current situation includes our family and although we don’t really mean to, we’re escaping from them too when we take our break. So instead of being right there with our kids, who are sitting right next to us, we’re off in the Caribbean with some friends of friends on a kayak excursion, or we’re getting outraged at something some politician said (that was probably taken out of context and was presented to instill maximum anger, and now we’re not just distracted, but we’re angry too.)

Even if we don’t have a device in our hands, we have very busy minds that jump from this to that to the other thing and although we might be nodding and minimally engaging, we’re not really there because we’re thinking of how we forgot to pick up that package of burger at the store and now what are we going to do for dinner or we’re trying to put the afternoon schedule together in our head for two kids that need to be in three different places.

What got me going on this line of thinking is the feature story that Katie Harris wrote about building empathy and resilience in our kids, which is a pretty heavy lift that requires us to help our kids work towards these advanced developments. She talks about how kids have the kernel of these in their minds but that they need fostered to expand and grow. 

The basic groundwork for that is being present and engaged so that we can communicate these advanced ideas through our actions and words. I’m not usually a sports-metaphor person, but here we go. We need to nail the blocking and tackling before we can execute more advanced offensive and defensive plays.

Being present and engaged in an intentional way is that blocking and tackling. So, let’s set down our phones, turn off the TV and computer, clear our minds with a few deep breaths and make a commitment to be there completely for our kids. They notice!

Thanks for being here for me.

Scott