After college when I started working for an association that had a global membership of top entrepreneurs I started to pay attention to handshakes. And it wasn’t just the ones I was getting, but the ones I was giving. I made a conscious effort to give a firm, confident handshake while giving eye contact and a smile. It’s hard enough to be female these days, but a female in the workplace needs to take every opportunity to be taken seriously – starting with a handshake.
So what does this have to do with parenting? Nothing really. But I’ve mentioned a few times on social media that we have a ‘family handshake’ and a few people have asked to about it. To be honest, I don’t remember how it evolved, but it wasn’t a conscious decision. I do remember it coming about in the fall when it was parent’s day at his school and for some reason he was overwhelmed and started crying. We obviously wanted to run over and scoop him up to find out what the fuss was about, but it was the middle of circle time and his teachers are competent (and reacted appropriately). But from the other side of the room I wanted to make sure he knew we saw him and he was okay. So I gave him a thumbs up. He repeated it. So I gave him the ‘okay’ symbol and he repeated that as well. From there our handshake grew and sometimes there are ‘special additions’
Now S., Mikey and I do ‘our handshake’ when we can’t verbally communicate with him, before bed and at the ‘goodbye’ window at school. It’s hardly a secret handshake, but I love that we have something that unites us that is as simple as a few hand gestures. So, without further ado, our handshake performed by Mikey!