What to Do When Your Kids Won't Leave You Alone

My kids have a homing beacon. No matter where I am in the house, they can find me. Every time I go to the bathroom, the little fingers creep under the door almost immediately. The moment I step into the shower, they're there with their little faces staring through the foggy glass. If you threw some creepy music in as a soundtrack to my life, these moments would be straight out of a horror film. Since I am the default parent, it doesn't matter if my husband is literally sitting right next to them. They will find me.

Do you know what else? Their homing beacon gets stronger when they pick up on a whiff of my focus or productivity, I SWEAR this is true. Just when I get into a groove with writing a new post or when I start to lose myself in a book, that's the moment they come for me. It's maddening.

Or I should say, I've always chosen to let it be maddening. It's only recently that it's occurred to me that I could choose to let it be something else. Anything else.

It could be...

• Fulfilling - because I'm clearly noticed and needed
• Encouraging - because my kids know how to ask for what they need
• Hilarious - because I realize I take myself so damned seriously
• Full of possibilities - because I use that moment to be silly or joyful with my kids
• A test of mindfulness - because I take the opportunity to notice my initial reaction
• Just what it is - because why the heck do I feel like I need to attach some other label to every single situation I come across in life?

It might be time to lower my expectations for how focused or productive I can be when I'm in the presence of my kids. It's easy to assume you can multi-task with your kids in the same way you can with other, less persistent characters in one's life (Things like dogs, Netflix binges, dishes, etc.). But you can't do it with these little buggers. You can do two things at once, but you can't give your attention to two things at once. And they deserve my undivided attention.

But how do you stay attentive to kids without creating chronic interrupters who think the sun and moon revolve around them? Because I'm just so not bought into the idea that we should be responsible for entertaining and serving our kids 24 hours a day. Boredom is a good thing. So is solving problems on your own. I think it's about two things: setting limits with empathy and helping kids notice when others are working.

Setting Limits with Empathy

Sometimes I need to say, "no" or "not right now" when my kids "need" me. Setting limits may be the right choice in the moment, because I might actually need to focus on something else. Or maybe it's something they really can do for themselves. But the way I present my "not right now" matters. It can be done with love instead of annoyance. With regret instead of indignation. But really? Most of the time what I'm working on can wait.

Noticing When Others are Working

We love the Montessori method of education where you never interrupt a child who is "working." You know that good-intentioned thing where you see a toddler quietly working on a puzzle and you go over and talk to them about it? That actually works against their ability to cultivate focus on a single task...a reallllly important thing to develop these days. When my kids interrupt my work, I can take a breath, smile, and say, "I can get you xyz, but did you see how I was quiet and looking very seriously at my book? That means I was working, like you do at school. Next time it would be cool if you'd wait until I'm done unless you really need something right now." Just helping them to notice what other people need and want is a gift that will last a lifetime.

This Shit Takes for EVER to Start Working

Here's the thing - with both of these strategies, I tend to feel like I'm beating my head against a wall. It seems like I have to do them over and over and over and over and nothing changes. The very next day (or hour!), I get another impatient demand for assistance right now. But I've been a mama long enough to know that one magical day, there's a little shift. Maybe the interruption still happens, but it's done with a different tone or an acknowledgement that you were working but that this was really really important. And it's in those little moments that you know that all of your work wasn't in vain. We're playing the long game with parenting and the short game is sometimes just a big ol' mess.

There are so many ways that kids show up in our lives to teach us what we need to learn. And the patterns of how we respond to their "teachings" is what they notice and emulate in their own lives. The trigger is the trigger, but I'm finding that if I can find just a brief moment of pause before I do or say ANYTHING, I have a much better chance of choosing a response that's more aligned to what I'm all about. (And what I'd like my kids to be all about!) Since I can't seem to turn my homing beacon off, I might as well take the opportunity to welcome those little people home.