After beginning with your stated intentions to make a reconnection and your acknowledgment of the difficulties that you have been having with each other, you can listen to your child’s feelings and thoughts. Do not interrogate him. Curb any tendency to judge the responses you hear. Just listen. Be open to his point of view. You do not need to defend yourself. Listen to your child’s experience before you share your own experience of the interaction. Be sure to join with your child by reflecting back how you hear his experience of the events. Pay attention to both the content of the perceptions
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