My Tribe's Vibe: Do Again-->Interrupt Rule

When our children were small, and my husband and I were trying to find our parenting legs, we took a parenting class that gave us some tools to help with the practical issues parents find themselves facing.

If you've been a parent for any amount of time, you've had to deal with a child who comes bounding into a moment where you are obviously engaged otherwise. You are in the middle of a conversation with someone else - either on the phone or in person, when all of the sudden, you hear your child start a sentence with "Mom!" And they don't stop there. They keep going with their important information without coming up for air and, without worrying that they interrupted what was going on with you.

Since interrupting was my topic, I googled it. I found a couple of images that made me chuckle.

When we are tempted to be snarky

current, famous & very public interruption

Well, of course, we wanted to teach our children appropriate communication skills, and in our parenting class, we were introduced to The Interrupt Rule. You can read all about why and how it works here.

But to give you the gist of it, I've included one paragraph about the basic practice below.  I simply copied and pasted from the link in the previous sentence. This paragraph and the article were written by Stephanie Shott.

When you are talking to another person, whether face to face or on the phone, your child reaches out, places their hand on your arm or leg (depending how tall they are) and then you acknowledge that you are aware of them by placing your hand on theirs and as soon as you can either break free from the conversation for a minute or when you’re finished, you will give them your undivided attention. (Keep in mind that little ones have a short memory and you don’t want them to have to stand there with their hand on you for an hour, so you will try to pause in the conversation as soon as possible.)

This worked for our family, so I highly commend it.

As I end, let me also say how sweet it is to feel your child's hand on your arm knowing they are trying to be obedient.

I loved taking my hand and covering theirs.

I was always so proud of them in that interrupt rule moment. I knew it was taking everything in them to not interrupt and by controlling the impulse to blurt out whatever was pressing was showing great respect and honor to me and the other "interruptee."

Here's a big "proud of you!" to my kids for that.

And, here's a big "Proud of you!" to my kids just because.