Abbie: Hello and welcome to the CosmoParenting Podcast brought to you by the CMM Institute for Personal and Social Evolution. In this space, we invite you to see yourself as someone who is curious about and actively participating in creating your own meaning around parenting.
This is our ‘Communicate’ episode, in which the fourth episode of each month we will wrap up our theme by offering some ideas for communicating with your children, co-parents, or whoever else might be a part of your parenting, to start having conversations about the things you are learning here. Let’s begin.
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Abbie: Today, I am joined again by Nana Bonsu. Nana is a qualified social worker, family and systemic psychotherapist, and systemic supervisor. Nana is the director of relational practice in Camden, and she’s worked in children’s services for over 20 years. She is also parenting two teenage sons. Hi, Nana. Thanks so much for joining me again today.
Nana: Hi, Abbie. Thank you so much for having me. It’s lovely to be here on this journey with you. I feel like we started out some time ago and here we are today. So, thank you.
Abbie: Yeah, lovely to talk to you one last time for this Communicate episode. So much to reflect on… And front of mind for me this month is- with this being the last episode of the month- is last week’s episode. Stephanie offered us the ‘5-5-5 Strategy’ for perspectives. And I found that so valuable because I had really been thinking about relationally how different people might have different perspectives.
But this strategy pointed me in the direction of how my own perspective might change over time because she’s, you know- to refresh people- it was, you know, kind of how might you feel about this in five minutes, five hours, five days or five days, five months, five years. You know? Just giving yourself some time perspective that way.
And so I think it’s really beautiful that we’ve kind of talked about perspective in both of those ways this month. So as we’re kind of wrapping up this being the last episode of the month, is there another way you want to talk about perspectives or something you’d want to add to what we’ve already talked about? What is your perspective on perspectives and parenting Nana?
Nana: Yeah, I mean, I think that’s such a great question. And also I enjoyed listening to that podcast, thinking about that ability to spend the time and to think beyond the here and now. I think that’s quite important. And I think in regards to parenting, I think what I know is that there are many ways in which one can view an experience, whether that’s positive experiences or challenging experiences.
And I think what I’ve learned through my parenting and supporting other parents is how you have, if you talked about communities in one of the podcasts and how you bring communities around you to help with that ability to see things from a different lens.
And I think when you’re in the moment as a parent, it can be hard to hold on to difference because it might be that you’re feeling that you’re right.
It might be that you’re feeling you have to act in the moment right now. It might be that you’re feeling that if you don’t do what you think is right, there could be some difficult unintended consequences.
So the ability to draw on others and to learn from others and to think and position yourself differently, I think are really crucial elements of parenting because each stage of parenting, I think, will evoke different things. And that ability to be able to be fluid and hold on to different ideas, different perspectives, I think that’s really important.
Abbie: That immediately makes me think about the definition that I like for dialogue being sharing your own ideas, perspectives, stories, you know, kind of standing firmly in that and being profoundly open to let others do the same.
Nana: Yeah.
Abbie: Because that to me is this idea of you are allowed to have the perspective that you have. And you have it for good reason, because it’s built out of the stories that you’ve lived and what you’ve internalized and the context that you come out of. And other people are allowed to have their own perspectives too. And so it doesn’t necessarily have to be a conversation of right or wrong, but about how can we kind of coexist if we have different perspectives. And I think the real tools here for parents and anyone in life is like imagination and curiosity about yourself and other people’s perspectives.
Nana: Yeah. Yeah. I think that’s so key because I think if we’re holding on to this notion that you want children to be able to exist in the world, to have a voice and to be able to share their thinking, their inner dialogue. You have a great opportunity to model that and to teach that. And so coming alongside a child and asking them to explain why they may have behaved in a particular way or what may have contributed to their decision, even if you don’t agree with it, you’re beginning to understand the logic of the other.
And I think in parenting, that’s a really important skill to teach children that they’re able to reflect and be able to think of different ways of acting or being. So I think that ability to demonstrate that you can hold that tension with, you may not agree, but you can listen and you can try to understand.
You can still have a position because as a parent, often one is in a position of trying to protect, safeguard, and to think of the wellbeing of a child. But I think enabling and developing those skills around multiple ideas and perspectives will hold children in good stead, particularly when they’re not under your supervision or gaze and they’re in spaces and places where they need to think for themselves, they need to make decisions about how they act.
Being able to draw on a multiple range of ideas is going to be, I think, a positive way of being in the world rather than getting stuck into patterns. And I think patterns often can be limiting because we don’t draw on other ideas and we get stuck because we think this is the only way.
And we’re not, as you say, curious about interrogating: where do those ideas come from? What’s contributing to our thinking? And is there a different way that I can orientate and position myself?
Abbie: Yeah, you talking about getting stuck brings me back to our month and our theme on Moral Forces. And I think that to kind of combine these two, a lot of people, a lot of parents and even non-parents, you know, maybe there’s experts out there, people that are, you know, trying to maybe sell something, have a perspective on what you should or should not do as a parent.
And I think that can be unhelpful for people because there’s so many perspectives being thrown at parents about what they should or should not do. How do you navigate that?
Nana: I think that’s such a good point. I think the demands on getting it right, the demands on not making mistakes can be quite challenging. And I think there’s something important about being able to not feel overwhelmed. May it paralyzes you because you think that actually... If I make any decision, it’s not going to be right.
You have to make a decision. And I think for me, there’s something about teaching myself as a parent and teaching others that you’re making the decision that you thought was best at that time, given everything that you had at your disposal.
And be kind to yourself. I think its so key. You will make mistakes. You will get it wrong. You will maybe, looking back and say to yourself, I acted too quickly. I didn’t allow more curiosity. I think that’s normal and I think it’s okay. I think it’s the ability to keep on learning and keep being open to learning and recognize the contributions that your children can give you.
You know, I always get kind of… what’s the word I’m looking for… humbled when my children offer a perspective that I haven’t thought about or they hit the nail on the head and they and they they call it right. And I think that’s another thing that’s really important about how are you enabling as I said earlier your children to develop their repertoire of skills what are the conditions that you’re enabling for their voice to be heard and their contributions and you’ve allow that to be part of the home environment experience.
Because outside of the home, the ability to negotiate, the ability to collaborate, the ability to have an open mind are such fundamental skills about how one can exist in the world.
Abbie: Mm hmm. Yeah, yeah, you’re again, taking me back to how we talked about rehearsals. And you know, that modeling really is such a big part of the parenting. And that kind of works well for this, you know, CosmoParenting podcast that it’s about kind of learning for yourself as you’re trying to maybe teach your children. So there’s, you know, learning going on on both ends.
And I like this image is coming to my mind of thinking about like you said you know you you’re you know holding your own perspective like with open hands is this image that’s coming to me so it’s like you’re holding space for yourself and the perspective you do have but you’re not clenching tightly to it so that it can never change yeah from the people you interact with your children and the ideas that they bring to you know kind of what you’ve just said so, Nana, I just, yeah, I love that.
Nana: That’s where I’ve often seen parents becoming somewhat stuck or there’s conflict where parents hold on to their position too tightly that they’re not enabling any feedback.
They’re not enabling any curiosity. And when a child experiences that, they can lose hope, they can lose connectivity, they can lose a sense that their voice is just as important. So not holding on to your position too tightly, I think that’s a really good kind of takeaway, Abbie.
Abbie: Yeah, yeah. Oh, I really enjoy what we’ve talked about today, Nana, so thanks for this and thanks for all the episodes that you’ve participated in. It’s been a wonderful year and we’ll hear from Don next month so just giving you one opportunity as we wrap up is there any last thing you’d like to say to people listening about our whole CosmoParenting experience?
Nana: I mean I think it’s been marvelous that you’ve been able to curate so many different voices to think about parenting in a very practical way a theoretical way using ideas from CMM, I think are very enriching.
And I think what the ideas show is that they have direct applicability to lived experience. And they’re not ideas that are so abstract or so far away that you can’t use them in your life. So I’m really glad that I had the opportunity to contribute to this podcast. And thank you so much for having me.
Abbie: Yeah, thanks for being a part of it. And yeah, bringing all of this to life with us. Glad that you could join me today and all the other days. And to everyone listening, thank you for joining us too. Don’t forget to check out www.cosmoactivities.com for our other resources and this series. And be sure to comment on this podcast episode on the CosmoParenting Substack. We’re so grateful to be on this journey with you. And we will look forward to joining you next week for the first episode of our last theme- Change.
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