How to get present in parenting

Getting present. Firstly, sorry - this isn't an article about getting a present, or getting presents plural. It is about something really valuable though - being in the moment, being ‘mindful’, or if you wanted to get fancy, “having present moment awareness”.

Being connected to the present moment doesn’t always come naturally to adults. Instead, we spend time thinking ahead and planning for the future, whether that future is five minutes or five years away. We also spend a lot of time thinking back - ruminating on past mistakes, perhaps reminiscing about past freedoms, or just trying to remember if we replied to a text or not.

Sometimes we can be so preoccupied that we don’t even notice our physical body. Have you ever been so busy that you didn’t realise you were hungry till the busyness passed? Not to mention the other worlds we inhabit through our screens which pull us away from the here-and-now.

Our little ones, on the other hand, are masters at living in the moment. A baby, for example, would never not realise they were hungry, nor will they ruminate on the past or plan for the future. They’ve got ‘being present’ nailed! In order to connect with our babies and older kids at a genuine level, we need to join them in the present moment. If we are mentally in another time dimension, we cannot be truly attuned to our children.

Nobody expects you to live in the present moment all the time. It would be impractical and inefficient. We need to plan for the future and we need to learn from things that have happened in the past. And while attunement to your children is good, it’s not required every second. What is important is your ability to shift into present moment awareness as the situation requires.

Sometimes it can be easy to flick in and out of present moment awareness. Other times, however, we get caught up in thinking patterns or painful feelings that make it difficult to connect with our babies. This could be related to guilt, shame, worry, even annoyance or indignation. For example, when you’re tired and baby is crying, you might start thinking that baby is being selfish or unreasonable.

Or maybe you find it harder to connect in the peaceful moments. The boredom of repetitive baby play could have you in a trance, thinking about all the other things you could be doing in that moment. Or perhaps it has you reaching for your phone. Scrolling reels is much more stimulating and rewarding for your brain than watching your baby spend several minutes trying to put one block on top of another block.

So, like a timeless pop song, we drift away... But why is that an issue, you might ask?

The problem in parenting is that when we’re in these distracted and/or emotional states, we might miss subtle communication from our children. This is why ‘grounding activities’ - basically things we can do to help us be more ‘mindful’ or present, are helpful tools for your parenting kete.

When you notice that you have drifted away, here are some tried and tested strategies to help you reconnect with the present moment:

• Notice 5 things: Pause and notice 5 things you can see with your eyes, 4 things you can feel with your skin, 3 things you can hear with your ears, 2 things you can smell with your nose, and if possible, 1 thing you can taste with your tongue.

• Take your shoes off: Feel your feet against the ground, press into it and feel the unfailing pressure of the ground pushing back against them. You could also do this with hands, or any other body part

• Breathe and notice your breath: Breathe in, and notice the way your body naturally breathes the air back out again. Notice all the parts of your body that sense your breath, the coolness and warmth across your nostrils, the rise and fall across your abdomen. Choose one of these areas, and really focus on noticing the sensation of your breath in that area for 3-5 breaths (or more).

• Body scan: Starting at the top of your head, take at least 20 seconds to scan down your body, noticing any physical sensations you have in each body part. If you notice spots of tension in your body, you can try to relax them.

• Whole body shake: Start with shaking your hands in front of you, add in the rest of your arms, shaking from the shoulder joint, expand it to a shoulder and chest shimmy, add in legs one at a time alternate legs at a speed that feels right for you, try standing on both toes and jiggling both legs to get a shake that reverberates up through your whole body, before finally adding in a shake of your head, let your face muscles go slack and jiggle while you do it. Do this for as long as feels good to you. (this can be a powerful exercise, but does take some getting used to – it’s normal to feel a bit silly doing this at first).

• Water on bare skin: Try sprinkling a few drops of water on your forearm, your face, your leg, or anywhere. Notice the coolness and your ability to detect (or not) the edges of the water through your skin.

• Focus on your child’s face: Tune into your sense of vision, and really look at your child, notice the different colours present in their skin and eyes, see how their face moves as they change expression, imagine how an artist would depict them. Don’t be surprised if this exercise has you wanting to reach out and kiss them.

• Listen: Listen for all the sounds you can hear, sounds that are near, and sounds that are far away, even the sounds you can hear own body making, be that the beating of your heart, your breathing, or the gurgling of your stomach.

These strategies help you connect with your sensory experiences, which is an important part of getting out of your mind and into your body. From here, you can observe your own thoughts, urges or preoccupations with a degree of partiality or distance. If this is a moment that you’re with your child, then this distance you’ve created from your thoughts is just what you need to then be able to direct your attention to your child.

I encourage you to try a few of these and see what works for you. While most people will find they have one or two favourites, it can be helpful to have a repertoire of at least four that you can draw on, as some work better than others in certain situations.

Ele Porteous is a clinical psychologist, a mother to three young kids and a home-baker. She has experience working with young people with serious mental and physical health issues, alongside their families, and believes in compassionately recognising the nuance that comes into every parenting action taken. Ele joined the team at Parenting Place in 2022, with a focus on redeveloping the Space curriculum, and found the deep dive into parenting issues in her work really helped her navigate the first year of babyhood, even third time round.