Connection is Universal! What is Its Language?

My wife, Jennifer, and I direct a summer camp about 30 minutes from our home called The Swamp (www.campswamp.com).  We have been working with this camp since its inception under the leadership and guidance of dear friends Sonny & Carolyn Sessions who have trained and taught us so much about families and children.

One of the delights of this position is that we get to travel around the world and work with children from 9-18 years of age from many different cultural backgrounds, languages, traditions, and races.  We have traveled to Jamaica, Barbados, South Africa, Brazil, India, and Bahamas; this December we will be in Kenya, Zimbabwe and Nicaragua.  (See map to the right.)  We do this because the locations have invited us to train them on how to run a camp that helps children; the training process is three years. So needless to say we have seen a few places and observed children world-wide from varying socioeconomic, religious, political, and demographic backgrounds.

AND ONE THING IS UNIVERSAL:  Children want and need connection!

To quote John & Karen Louis from their book, Good Enough Parenting:

"The Core Emotional Need for Connection and Acceptance can be defined as the state our children live in when they feel completely attached to their parents in a healthy way, that they belong, and that they are accepted and loved unconditionally.  When this need is being met to a satisfactory degree, children will consistently and on an emotional level hear and believe the following messages about their parents:

• They are playful with me and spend time with me.
• They miss me when I am not around.
• They care about deep feelings, both mine and theirs.
• They are proud of me even with my flaws.
• They think I am special.
• They talk to me in a respectful way.
• They are honest with me.
• They believe in me and guide me."

Me (in center) with orphans in India

Kids everywhere want to feel all of these...more importantly they need to think with great confidence that each of these are true, especially with their parents and care-takers.  Connection is the beginning of acceptance...and everyone wants to be accepted.  (More on that in the next post).

Connection is about a deep emotional bond and is communicated in many forms, not just through words.  In fact, much of our communication to our kids happens without any words at all; this is called non-verbal communication.  In the late 1960's, Albert Mehrabian created the much touted 7%-38%-55% rule.  Stemming from his research, this rule states: words constitute only 7% of what we communicate, tone of voice accounts for 38%, and body language accounts for the remaining 55%.

Words are for concepts.  Tone of Voice & Body Language is for Connection.  Albeit words can hurt too.  They are more easily corrected than tone of voice or body language, as these elements come from deeper within.

This happens with me and my wife, Jennifer, quite often and she will say to me, "I hear your tone, not your words."  Hmmm....wonder what my kids have picked up.

Take some time and see if your words match your tone and body language and vice versa.  You may be harming your connection and not realizing it.

Happy Connecting!
Jeff

Me with boys from Diepsloot, South Africa

Connecting in Jamaica