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.