How much time do you spend with your child after work? Technically, we only need about 30 minutes to cook dinner for them, about 15 minutes to read a book, and only a moment to kiss goodnight.
However, according to experts, among all these periods, there are 3 minutes that may be the most important of the day.
Psychologist Nataliya Sirotich explained the 3-minute rule and, according to her, if you follow this rule, you will have your child’s trust even as a teenager.
We decided to figure out how to use those 3 minutes correctly to reach a full and complete level of understanding with a child, and it turned out to be very easy!
The Rule of 3 Minutes
This rule says that you should meet your child every day as if they hadn’t seen each other in a long time (even if they hadn’t seen each other in 5 minutes while at the store).
In addition, it is very important to be on the same level as the child’s eyes and spend 3 minutes hugging the child and asking what happened while you were away.
It is especially important to follow this rule when picking up your child from kindergarten, school, or when you return home from work.
Why it’s Necessary
According to the psychologist, in the first minutes after seeing your child, they tell you all the information they can remember.
The consequences of ignoring the 3 minute rule can vary, depending on the character of the child.
Someone who does not have the opportunity to tell parents everything when they cannot talk about very important things and, over time, some facts will not seem important enough to talk about.
In that case, parents can overlook a lot of really important things.
Other children will keep talking all night, remembering new facts each time, and in the end, they will have a complete story.
The parents of this child also run the risk of not hearing many things, because, for them, a child who speaks will end up becoming background noise.
Additional Recommendations
It is important to note that the 3-minute rule does not mean that you need to spend only 3 minutes a day with your child.
It simply means that you should spend 3 minutes with right after you’ve met them to make sure you hear everything that is important for the child to say.
Also, to reach a level of full understanding with your child, you can follow these recommendations from psychologists:
Take time each day to do something that both you and the child are interested in together.
Let your children understand that you listen to them. For example, you can repeat the information you heard from your child to make sure he understands everything correctly.
Don’t show false emotion.
Come back to the conversations a little later, tell them that you remember what they told you about.
Avoid long, pointless discussions, even if they are completely obvious to you. Just say to your child, “Okay, I understand that you disagree with me.”
How do you spend your time with your child? Maybe you follow the 3-minute rule on an intuitive level and always listen to everything they have to say? Let us know in the comment section below!
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