Commitment Three: Availability (and Fun!)

The emotional blender – and silver lining – of Stage Three: Away
While you’ve completed the first stage of being apart, i.e. ‘Leaving’, and have journeyed a substantial way through the five commitments, specifically Anchor and Prepare, stage two of being apart, Away, is typically the hardest of all. From the start of this stage to its successful conclusion, you’ll probably go through an emotional blender – as will the children you love and the caregiver/s left behind. You might feel anxiety, excitement about your job/day-to-day life apart, guilt and/or loneliness. The children you love, depending on their age and the nature of your relationship, might experience a gamut of feelings, including those of confusion, anxiety, sadness, fear, abandonment and/or anger – and react in a dizzying number of ways: from complete withdrawal to open hostility, and/or with unusual – or even extreme – ‘clinginess’ to family members left behind. The caregiver/s left behind will also be shouldering their fair share of emotions, for example those of abandonment, anxiety, happiness for you, loneliness, resentment and/or anger.

While it might not immediately feel like it, your efforts in stage one of being apart, to anchor and prepare, will pay dividends throughout stage two. But don’t fret, while its not easy being away (or being ‘left behind’, as the children you love and the caregiver/s left behind might feel), being apart can be an enriching, rewarding and positive experience for all: just ask the millions of people around the world who, on a day-to-day basis, take the bull by the horns, and stay connected with the children they love. Sure, you’ll have your ups and downs, as will the children you love – and the caregiver/s left behind. Sometimes the peaks will coincide (hooray!), other days it will be the troughs (put on your kevlar vest, and get on with staying connected, one minute, hour or day at a time). Whatever happens, just stay anchored, remember your preparation and focus on remaining available – ‘virtually’ and emotionally – while also having as much fun as possible with the children you love.

Commitment Three: Availability (and Fun)
Commitment Three stresses the need to remain available – ‘virtually’ and emotionally – throughout your period apart, and the importance of having fun (including lots of laughter), as much as you possibly can. Remaining available virtually means helping the children you love know that they can reach you, for anything, at any – or specifically designated – times. Remaining available emotionally means that you do your utmost to foster, maintain and strengthen healthy emotional connections between you and the children you love (learn more about the concept of emotional availability here, which is largely based on attachment theory, developed by John Bowlby in the 1950s). While the act of having fun is pretty self explanatory, and while ConnectedApart provides lots of ideas for fun activities, one point in particular is worth stressing: in having fun, remember to laugh – from snickers, to giggles, to side-splitting teary-eyed hysterics. Studies have shown that laughter can drive away anxiety, anger and depression by stimulating the flow of happy-making endorphins and by reducing the levels of cortisol, one of the chemicals released by your body when you’re under stress. As they say, laughter really is the best medicine – including for being apart.

Simplicity, dependability, routine, and flexibility
Also, when it comes to commitment three, and remaining available and having fun, simplicity, dependability and routine are more important than large, unwieldy action plans, which leave you exhausted. Additionally, as they say in the military, “no plan survives first contact”: no matter how much you expect your day-to-day connections to go a certain way, they often don’t. You might be planning a 30 minute video chat, and – after multiple test runs – the connection doesn’t work; your dinner phone call might not be possible, given that the kid/s you love are exhausted – and someone just dropped their plate of pasta salad (on their brother); your virtual bookclub with your 15 year old isn’t possible, given that a certain teenager is having a crisis with what to wear tomorrow. While good planning is always important, try to stay flexible in how you chose to connect, and be prepared to roll with the punches and to adapt to realities ‘on the ground’.

If you’ve already forgotten your vision for being apart, and the specific ideas that you chose in commitment two: stay cool, it happens! Just remember your primary focus (remaining available – ‘virtually’ and emotionally – while also having as much fun as possible with the children you love). As it was for Prepare, whatever you choose to do will of course depend, among other things, on your relationship with the children you love, their age/s and the length of your time apart. Simply pick some ideas from ConnectedApart’s free products and services to suit your own experience of being apart and stay connected with the children you love in your own special way.

Ideas For Action
The ideas provided at ConnectedApart.com are not meant to be exhaustive. For more free ideas, simply follow the ConnectedApart blog, join the ConnectedApart community (blog updates are automatically shared on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter) and sign up for ConnectedApart’s free idea-letter, delivered directly to your mailbox.

And, of course, ConnectedApart is provided as a compliment to your imagination, not as a replacement! So, dream big, and come up with your own ideas for staying connected with the children you love (and please share them with the ConnectedApart community). Beautiful connections will follow!

Finally, the broad ‘age and stage’ categories below are not meant to serve as rigid lists. You might in fact discover some activities for the children you love in categories that don’t align with their current age/s or stage/s. Basically, use whatever activity you and the children you love feel is right, to help you stay connected when you’re apart.