Parenting inside The Bubble.

by

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my mental image of The Bubble.

A few weeks back I wrote about the potentially toxic nature of secrets.

(Aside: I wrote about how I’m terrible at keeping secrets about gifts. A friend clarified presents are *surprises* not secrets. A surprise has an expiration date, a secret does not. Intriguing distinction.)

In that same navel-gazing post, I chatted about employing The Bubble in my parenting.  I shared how I use it as a place The Child asks to enter and can dump out any secrets she’s been holding.

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More than a few of you asked for more information on what The Bubble is, how we use it, at what age we began using it and if I think it’s “working.”

I give you:

Parenting inside The Bubble.

The Bubble isn’t mine.

I wish I could remember where I learned about it as I’m confident I could not have come up with the idea on my own (I googled to no avail). I just launched it one afternoon in a tween years are coming panic and now can’t recall what prompted me to introduce it.

Essentially, The Bubble resembles a child-friendly cone of silence (the pop culture usage of C.of S. as, hopefully, this one works).

At absolutely any time The Child may ask to enter The Bubble and talk about what’s on her mind.

The Bubble is about connection.

I shared the idea with eight-year-old her in this fashion:

As you get older you may have things you want to share, but are afraid to. You may be scared you’ll get in trouble. You may worry I’ll be disappointed. When you have those feelings—ask to go inside The Bubble. Anything you say inside there we’ll leave there when we exit.

The Bubble is like Las Vegas. 

For now, what happens inside stays inside as long as she’s not talking about hurting herself or others.

The Bubble provides her a safe place to go and share without focusing only on fear of judgement or repercussion.

The Bubble has a clear beginning (asking to go in lets me know she needs to talk. immediately.) and a clear ending (the time for talking about the issue, at least for now, is officially over).

The Bubble is silly.

To everyone’s shock, given how much time she spends with her sweet-tongued mama, The Child has a trash mouth. She studiously avoids really bad words (stupid, retarded, hate etc. have I mentioned I love ten?), but adores a well-placed FUCKEN (sic).

It’s our love language. It’s her way of telling me, in a certain moment, how powerfully she feels affection. Initially, The Bubble was summoned only to shout things like I FUCKEN love you! or You’re FUCKEN awesome! without receiving the side-eye. I didn’t mind as it cracked me the hell up was proof she grasped the concept.

The Bubble is about trust-building and learning.

The Bubble is about her learning to trust me now when stuff isn’t as big as it may be later. The Bubble is about her learning to trust herself with regards to when and what to share. The Bubble is about learning it’s not good to hold everything inside. The Bubble is about learning when we shine light on our fears they’re not as bad as we believe and when we share our burdens they grow lighter.

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her mental image of The Bubble.

As of now she’s used The Bubble for only a handful of serious things.

I know life is pretty easy and “serious” for age ten isn’t where it might be even six months from now.

Do I imagine at age 13 she’ll ask to go in The Bubble and share heavy stuff from Middle School?

Quite frankly I don’t think so, but it’s all about this Catherine Wallace quote for me:

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Older-Child may not share as readily.

I hope, however, memories of feeling free to share what feels like big stuff with me now may make it more likely she’ll bring the truly bigbig stuff to me later.

Inside The Bubble or not.

  • Did your parents use anything resembling The Bubble?
  • How are you striving to lay the communication-foundation with your child(ren)?

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Comments

  4. It’s a great idea. I will keep that tucked away until my little guy gets to that age. I fear those teenage year. I love the sweet innocence of 2.5!

  5. I’ve no experience with The Bubble, but I think one key to keeping it around is being able to control your reaction to what she tells you. There are still! things I’ don’t want to tell my Mom just because I don’t want to deal with her reaction, even if her reaction won’t be bad. I know I was not good about this with my kids – I “overreacted” with the little things even though I handled the bigger things pretty well, I think they were reluctant to share.

  6. The relationship between parents is not easy.
    I wish my mom could have used a system like the Bubble with me. It takes away the assumption and empowers the kids.
    We need to communicate more than ever. There are so many means to do, but people seem to be further and further from each other. And a lot of it starts at home, unfortunately.

  9. You share the best ideas! I hope you will share more amusing examples of what happens inside your Bubble 🙂

  10. my parents never talked (or listened) about anything so that is a no go. I think the car was the bubble for my kids – they tended to open up about stuff because when you’re driving there’s less eye contact and less confrontation which makes it easier to say stuff. And you can’t strangle them when you have both hands on the steering wheel!

  11. I love love love the bubble approach to parenting- what an awesome idea. I do something similar already with my 5 year old. I want her to know she has a space that she can feel free to say what is really on her mind!

  12. I love this concept, Carla. I don’t have children of my own, but I can see how this can be used by parents and with children I am connected to. We need to get the bubble message out to a lot more parents and adults.

  13. I think it is a great idea! I think in the future you might want to use the bubble too and then that is a learning experience for your daughter as well!

  15. I fucken love this concept.
    I had a fairly open relationship with my parents – more so my mom – but even so, I have always had a hard time opening up with my problems. I wonder if an explicit “bubble” would’ve helped?
    Regardless…I am hoping to remember this for when my son is old enough to understand!

  16. Carla, this is a interesting concept. I’m now experiencing a hush mouthed junior high son. I want to have a relationship with him based on open communication. I’m going to give this a try.

  17. You make me want to go back and start this parenting thing all over again! I hope to practice this with my grandkids. I’m sharing this with my daughter for sure!

  18. Carla, This is a great post. I think that there are many ways to get your kids to talk to you. One commenter said THE CAR. That can be a favorite and I used it a lot driving my son back and forth to school. But it’s the personality of the KID that creates the bubble.
    My second child ALWAYS shared, well almost always. If she wasn’t, I could tell. My first child shared to a point and then as my husband says, the door closed. But I knew she was okay. Bottom line–you can approach your children inside a sense of humor. That can be the bubble. You can coax out some info in an atmosphere that is light and open. It can be tough. But somehow we all survive it. And I mean both sides of the bubble–me to my mother, me to my kids.

  19. I love this idea! Wonder if it’ll work on my 14-year old son to finally get him to open up about some things.

  20. I wish I knew this back when when the kiddos were small! Although I was not mature enough them myself! 🙂 I LOVE that last quote because I recall vividly how hard youth was & it all seemed like the end of the world. I needed a bubble for sure! I kept way too much inside that carried over into adult. Great post! I hope it helps many!

  21. Love this idea! It is so important for kids to be able to talk . . . to their parents, to their friends, to themselves, to the dog . . . to someone, because as the quote says-it is all big stuff to them. My kids are 18 and 20 and although we didn’t have a formal “Bubble” we must have had something, because as they entered their teen years, they somehow felt comfortable sharing with me things I never would have shared with my parents. At times, I almost felt like they shared TOO much with me! But in the end, I would rather be uncomfortable with their frank questions and pressures surrounding drinking and sex than feel like I didn’t know what was going on in their lives. Great post Carla!

  23. I love love love this. I wasn’t a sharer with my parents because they were incredibly judgmental about some things. I guess I kind of have this with my team at work, especially my leads – they can come in my office, close the door, and share anything (and a lot of them do). If my future leads me to kids, I’ll definitely be stealing this one. I know I was a complete little sh!t as a kid and I turned out ok (I think), so I hope I can take whatever with fucken stride. 🙂

  25. You just wait- it’s hard.
    Then eventually they share…often way too much about stuff you really didn’t need to know!
    Sometimes not knowing everything (and really why do you need to?) is ok.

  26. I love this SO much. I’ve always been kind of freaked out about the next few stages (read: ALL the stages) of parenting but it’s honestly such a relief to know amazing concepts like this are out there. Thanks so much for sharing!! xo

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