You can listen wherever you get your podcasts, ORâ BRAND NEW: weâve included a fully edited transcript of our interview at the bottom of this post.
In this episode of The Peaceful Parenting Podcast, Corey and I discuss why âSpecial Timeâ- the gold standard for cultivating connection with our kids- might not work the best for complex kids.
We cover who complex kids are, what parenting them looks like, how to co-create interests and activities together, and being playful to connect deeply while getting through the daily routine.
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We talk about:
* 6:43 What is Special Time?
* 7:51 What is a complex Kid?
* 10:08 What does it look like to parent a complex Kid?
* 19:30 What does daily life look like with complex Kids?
* 22:03 What to do for connection when special time doesnât work?
* 23:05 Cultivating shared hobbies
* 27:00 Finding books you both love
* 30:00 Instead of only putting kids in organized sports, exercise together!
* 33:30 Sideways listening with our kids
* 37:00 Playful parenting as we move through the daily routine
Resources mentioned in this episode:
* Yoto Player-Screen Free Audio Book Player
* The Peaceful Parenting Membership
* What you Can Do When Parenting Hard: Coaching with Joanna
* When Peaceful Parenting Doesnât Look Like Itâs âSupposed Toâ Look
* How To Take the Coach Approach to Parenting Complex Kids with Elaine Taylor- Klaus
* What Influencers are Getting Wrong About Peaceful Parenting
* Staying Close to Your Tweens and Teens
* How To Stop Fighting About Video Games with Scott Novis
* Playful Heart Parenting with Mia Wisinski
xx Sarah and Corey
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Sarah: Hey everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the Peaceful Parenting Podcast. Todayâs episode is about why you shouldnât do special time, which is, I admit, a little bit of a provocative hook here. But itâs something that Corey brought to my attention that we have been talking about a lot. And then after last weekâs podcast, we both agreedâafter the podcast with Joanna and her complex kidâwe both agreed we have to talk about this, because this is something that probably a lot of parents are feeling a lot of conflict, guilt, and shame around: not doing special time or not wanting to do special time or not being able to do special time.
Sarah: Hey Corey. Welcome back to the podcast. Tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do.
Corey: Hi, I am Corey Everett, and I am a trained peaceful parenting coach, and I work for Sarah. I live in Ontario, but I work with clients all over the world doing one-on-one coaching. And I myself am complex and have a complex child. And I have two kids. I never can remember this, but I have a 7-year-old and a 10-year-old.
Sarah: I am glad youâre not the only one who canât remember their kidsâ ages. I have to stop and think. Okay. Well, Iâm so excited to talk about this. And this is actually something that you and I have talked about over the years, because you have found it really difficult to do special time with your complex kid. Maybe just tell us a little bit about what happened when you tried to do special time and why you eventually sort of gave it up. And, you know, this is something that Joanna in the podcast last weekâthe coaching podcastâshe was talking about how she didnât want to do special time with her kid because she was so exhausted. So I think this is sort of like a two-part: why sometimes special time doesnât work for the kids and why it doesnât work for the parents. So letâs start by talking about what happened when you would try to do special time with Big C, whoâs your 10-year-old.
Corey: Okay, so when I would try and do special time with Big C, I actually foundâfirst of allâI didnât really feel very present in it. I felt like I was trying to do it, but I felt like I didnât have a lot of energy for it. I think he could feel that. So I just didnât feel very engaged in it and I just felt exhausted, and it just felt like another thing on my to-do list. And so therefore he didnât necessarily enjoy it as much either.
We did do a podcastâitâd be really great, I can put it in the show notesâwhere we talked about some things for peaceful parenting that arenât working, and I did a really good description in that one of why special time didnât work for him.
Sarah: Okay.
Corey: And so we can have them listen to that if they want more details on that part. Instead, I think I want to really focus on why it didnât work for me and why Iâm finding with my clients itâs not working for them either.
Sarah: You know what, sorry to interrupt you. I realize we should really just say what special time is, in caseâlike itâs such a gold standard of peaceful parentingâbut there could be some parents listening to this, parents or caregivers who are newer to special time and might not know what it is.
Special timeâand there are, I think, some other brands of parenting that might have other names for itâbut basically the gold standard is 15 minutes a day of one-on-one time with you and your child, where you put aside the to-do list, put away your phone, and some people suggest that you set a timer and say, âIâm all yours for the next 15 minutes. What do you want to play?â Itâs really immersing yourself in the childâs world. Thatâs one of the main ideas of special time: that weâre immersed in our childâs world of pretend play or some kind of play. It can be roughhousing or it can be playing Lego or dollsâsomething that is really child-centered and child-led.
So that is special time. And letâs take it from there. You had mentioned already that energetically it was really hard for you.
Corey: I think the best way that I can explain this is if I paint the picture for you of what it looks like to be a parent of a complex kid. Andâ
Sarah: Wait letâs give a definition of complexâweâve got to make sure weâre covering the basics here. Whatâs a complex kid?
Corey: Okay, so a complex kid. This term, I first heard it from Elaine Taylor-Klausâand we can also put in the show notes when you had her on the podcast. She is amazing. And basically, weâre really often talking about neurodivergent kids here. But it can be more than that. Itâs just kids who need more.
Sarah: Itâs that 20% of kids that we talk aboutâthe 80% of kids who, you know, you say âGo put your shoes on and wait for me by the door,â and they go and do it and they donât have the extra big feelings. So in my idea of it, âŠ