Opening
Parents juggle work, messages, and school runs while the moments that matter pass quietly by. The guilt is familiar, and so is the hope that a holiday or a big gesture will fix it.
Nichole Hamilton suggests the repair begins somewhere much smaller, with dropping out of our heads and into the moment with a child.
The idea
Nichole Hamilton is the founder of the Kidz Coach in Australia, a holistic coach for children and families. Her work rests on a simple belief. Children access their innate wisdom faster than adults because they have not learned to distrust it.
She teaches parents and children to drop out of the head, which she described as full of control, fear, and chaos, and into the body. Her own daily non negotiables include cold therapy, grounding with bare feet, and scent, a practice she finds calms the busy and wakes the withdrawn.
She never works with a child unless the child chooses her, and she teaches parents to lead first by going first in vulnerability.
She said:
“There is no right or wrong way when it comes to connection to self, it is working out what that person innately needs and dropping in to that.”
Her favourite places to connect with her own five children are undramatic.
The passenger seat on the long way home, and bedtime, when apologies and appreciation can be unpacked. I told her I had begun playing the intuition game with my own two young children, and she lit up.
The child choosing her is the mechanism she trusts most, because the moment of choosing is itself the reconnection. Once a child has picked her, any modality becomes possible, from art and play to cold therapy and talk therapy, because the child has reclaimed their own power of choice.
What I took from it
I practised her intuition game on the way home from school pickup. My children love guessing what someone will wear or say, and the delight when a guess lands is its own connection.
I have raised children far from extended family, and the passenger seat has held more honest conversation than any dinner table I have set. The guessing game cost nothing and needed no plan, which is exactly why it worked on a tired Tuesday.
The game has become part of our weekly rhythm, and it belongs entirely to them.
Three things to try this week
- Play a guessing game with a child this week. Ask what someone will say or wear before they appear, then celebrate the moments their intuition lands. Keep the game light and follow it with a story of your own, so it stays a game.
- Try the long way home. Take one car journey this week without the radio or a screen and let the conversation arrive on its own. If the journey is quiet at first, wait. The words usually arrive before the destination.
- Pick one nightly question, such as what was the best moment today, and let it become a ritual your child expects. Keep it short enough to survive a busy evening. Write the question on a card and keep it beside the bed so it survives the busy days.
Watch and go deeper
The conversation with Nichole is embedded below. Watch it for the ice bath story and the games she plays with families. Explore her work at thekidzcoach.com.au.
Explore Nichole Hamilton’s website.
New conversations land on the Rediscovering Connection channel most weeks, and you can subscribe at the Rediscovering Connection channel.
Close
Children meet us honestly, and they show us how connection feels when it is unguarded, before habit and hurry teach us to edit ourselves. Small rituals like this are how connection becomes culture at home. Explore the certification, then sit with the question this article closes on.