Conscious parenting – Page 6

July 13, 2011March 19, 2012

It’s OK to cry

Have you ever noticed that when a child cries, often the first things out of our mouths are things like, “You’re OK” (minimizing their experience) or “Oh no! Don’t cry!” (asking them to deny their experience) or even, “What’s wrong?!” (asking them to think about and describe the upsetting event).

None of these acknowledge the child’s feelings or provide an open, loving environment in which a child can fully feel and express his emotions. I know, it’s an unconscious reaction we have all had at one time or another, but this week it’s time to shine the light of awareness on the way we speak to an upset child.

So, if we could choose exactly how to respond, how would we? We might say something like, “I see you’re upset, do you need a hug?” or “Wow, that was really scary, wasn’t it?” or one of my personal favorites, “It’s OK to cry.” We might even choose just to sit with them and witness their emotional expression.

I especially wish more boys were told that it’s OK to cry, because after all, it really is OK! In fact, people who are in touch with and at peace with their emotions will fare better in life than those who deny or stuff their emotions.

Studies have shown that holding in emotions like anger, frustration, and resentment, can have long term negative effects on heart health. So, by encouraging kids to acknowledge and express their emotions, we’re helping to ensure a long and healthy life for them both physically and emotionally.

On the other hand, it can be uncomfortable for us to listen to a child who’s crying, wailing, or raging. But I think that’s because we all have our own withheld emotions that we’re fighting to keep hidden. If we felt free to express our emotions as they came up in the moment, we might not feel quite so uncomfortable when our children cry or scream. I’ve certainly found this to be the case in my own life.

For a long time I was uncomfortable with sadness. I didn’t acknowledge my own, and I definitely didn’t want to be around others who were upset. I did everything I could to soothe, redirect, or even ignore any sadness that I came into contact with. And then something shifted for me.

I was hanging out with some close friends of mine, and one of our friends just started to cry. I was a little bit uncomfortable, but I was more fascinated with how unashamed she seemed about her sadness. Pretty soon the crying turned into wailing and I realized that except in movies, I had never actually seen anyone wail! I was moved to tears myself and I came away from the experience realizing that expressing sadness could be deeply moving and beautiful.

I’ll never forget how my friend looked afterward. She was so open, beautiful, free, and light. I had never seen her look so gorgeous and so at peace. So I decided that sadness wasn’t actually something to be avoided at all costs. I realized that in fact, crying could be a relief and a release. And I began to allow my own tears to flow more freely.

I like to imagine my emotions like a big pipeline. When I was holding them in, my pipe was clogged and just a trickle of emotions was getting through. But after practicing to express and celebrate my emotions as they arise, I’ve opened up my pipeline and now all my emotions can travel through it with ease. Now I feel everything with more intensity and I love it!

I am able to cry in an instant, if I’m moved to, but I can also laugh more authentically and have even experienced tears of joy (which I used to think was a bunch of hooey).

Wouldn’t it be amazing if our children never had to go through the process of suppressing their emotions and then rediscovering them? What if they could feel and express their feelings without interruption for their entire lives? I sure hope for that for my daughter.

So this week, pay special attention to how you automatically respond when a child is upset. Then make a conscious choice about how you WANT to respond and practice it. I would love to hear your thoughts and experiences, so please leave me a comment below.

Have a wonderful week, Shelly

P.S. If this topic is dear to your heart, check out my audio program Perspectives on Feelings for a more in depth discussion of holding space for big emotions.

June 22, 2011March 19, 2012

Building trust by telling the truth

As I listen to my daughter playing in her baby pool for the first time, with her Grammy watching over her, I feel so grateful for every experience we get have together. And I can finally understand some parents’ almost pathological need to protect their children.

There are all sorts of dangers both seen and unseen in our world today and it can be overwhelming when we focus on what could go wrong. A simple pool of water can become scary. But sometimes we take the job of protecting our children too far. By being honest with our kids, they may experience some pain, but they’re sure to fare better in life than they would otherwise.

When I talk with parents about being more honest with their children I hear all sorts of objections. “Are you sure it’s appropriate to tell my child that?!” and “I don’t want to burden him with my feelings.” But I think it’s a very slippery slope to withhold information from our children in order to “protect” them. It actually seems to do just the opposite. It hurts our kids when we don’t tell them the truth and they end up learning that they can’t count on us.

As a child, one of the things I admired most about my mom was how brutally, really, honest with me she was. Granted, she didn’t offer a bunch of unsolicited information, but when I asked her a frank question, I knew I could count on her to answer honestly.

When I was five or six I asked my mom what the worst word in the world was. And, after asking me to promise never to use it, she leaned down and whispered the “f word” into my ear. I was shocked and in awe of my moms commitment to honesty. And until I was a teenager, I never used it. I was just curious, and I wanted to be prepared in case someone else used “bad words” in my presence. Obviously it was a pivotal moment for me, considering I still remember it so vividly.

My mom was also very honest about sex, even when I was very young. By the time I was 4 years old, I knew exactly where babies came from and I knew the scientific names of both male and female body parts. As a teenager, talking to my mom about sex was easy because we’d already been talking about it for 10 years! We had built a foundation of truth and trust that I knew I could rely on.

I’m so grateful for that foundation now, because as I got to know other girls and young women in my teens and twenties, I realized that my mom’s honesty was really quite rare. Most of my friends’ moms had never talked with them about contraception or their monthly moon time, and as a result many of my friends were confused about the facts, unprepared to protect themselves from STDs and pregnancy, and several of them ended up with unwanted pregnancies.

I want my daughter to be informed and well prepared for life on her own. So I think I’ll take my mom’s approach and be truthful with my child about her body, sex, and even my own feelings. I want her to have that same foundation of trust and a deeply ingrained knowledge that no matter what, she can count on me to be honest with her.

I can only hope that by talking with her about challenging topics now, when she’s young, it will make it that much easier for us to talk about the tough stuff when she’s a teenager and young adult.

I’m curious, what’s your experience with being brutally honest with your children. Have you seen benefits from being committed to the truth? Have you experienced the pain of disconnection when you weren’t honest? Please leave me a comment and share your story below.

Have a fantastic and vulnerably revealing week, Shelly

June 8, 2011March 19, 2012

Don’t “should” on me!

Language is a powerful thing. I’m constantly amazed at how simple word choices can make such a huge difference in my everyday life. For instance, if I think to myself, “I can’t…” I feel deflated and ineffectual, but when I think, “I choose not to…” I feel inspired and powerful.

We each make choices about which words we’ll use to describe our lives every single day. Don’t we all have a friend who almost constantly whines and complains? Or know someone who uses language that is offensive to us? I do my best to be hyper aware of my language and which words I choose to use. I want to use words that are empowering and inspiring as much as possible, especially around my daughter.

When I first became aware of my word choices and their power, I noticed that I apologized a LOT. I said “I’m sorry” dozens of times a day. I also discovered that I was afraid to speak up, worried about taking up too much space, and I rarely expressed myself very powerfully. In a way, I was apologizing for my very being! But it didn’t feel very good, so I systematically trained myself to stop apologizing habitually, and now I only apologize when I really mean it.

As I continued to explore consciously choosing my words, I realized there was a very specific word that I actually despise. The word is “should.” Every time I heard the word “should” I was reminded of other people’s expectations for me, and all the times I had been externally motivated. I realized that I had been living my life to please other people, but I wasn’t really enjoying it at all! So I began working to develop a strong internal motivation, a clear inner sense of yes and no, and I abolished the word “should” from my vocabulary.

My friends and I worked together to remind one another when “should” crept back into our language by stopping and saying, “Did you just ‘should’ on me?!” Bringing a little bit of humor to our mission to abolish “should” made it a fun game that we could all play together. And it really helped to have the support of people who were all committed to conscious word choices. By the way, if you want an easy and empowering word replacement, try “could” instead of “should.” It works almost all of the time!

Now that I’m a mom, I’m reminded yet again how important it is to be aware of the words we use when we talk to our kids. Of course tone of voice, affect, and energy are often even more important than word choice. But I still think it’s worthwhile to pay attention to the words we use.

After all, our kids will surely parrot those words back to us, and who really wants their 4 year old saying, “Mommy, you should eat your vegetables before your chocolate.” Personally, I would much rather hear someone ask me if I would or could, rather than telling me that I should. Don’t the young people in our lives deserve that same respect from their elders? I sure think so!

I would love to know what you think about the word “should” and it’s impact on young people. Please share your opinion or story below!

Thanks for being here and have a great day, Shelly

May 12, 2011March 19, 2012

Attune to your child…some of the time

Attunement: it’s a word that gets thrown around a lot in the world of parenting and psychology, but what does attunement really mean? Attunement is an innate ability that almost all humans have to internally and externally match the experience of another person with whom they’re connecting. When we see someone crying, we easily and naturally feel sadness ourselves. When we are with someone who just found out that they won a big contest, we feel excitement too.

But attunement is not simply empathy for another person’s emotional experience. It’s an energetic matching game. We may feel the sadness, but we’re not really attuning unless we’re matching the physical and non-physical energy of the person we’re with. Attunement is the ultimate connection. It’s a joining and sharing of an experience, an experience of oneness.

I often feel this oneness while nursing my daughter or in playful moments when she’s on the changing table or when we’re rocking in the rocking chair and she relaxes, resting her whole body against mine. Connection through attunement is incredibly important for secure attachment to happen. And, the oneness can’t happen all the time. In fact, it would feel awfully strange to even attempt to experience attunement for an entire day.

We need connection, and we need separation too. In fact, it’s the dance between connection and separation that makes our human experience so rich and dynamic. We may experience a beautiful moment of attunement and later we’ll each go off by ourselves to have some solitude. It’s an ebb and flow like so many other things in life. And each part is just as important as the other.

Right now I’m reading a really interesting novel told from a five-year-old boy’s point of view. The thing I find so fascinating about it is how accurate the author is about the details of the thoughts and emotions the little boy experiences. The boy has a favorite spoon he calls “meltedy spoon” and when I read the words “meltedy spoon” I am instantly transported back into the classroom with 3-5 year olds. What a perfect example of really attuning to the mind of a five year old.

This week, pay special attention to the moments of attunement that you share with your child and then consciously allow your child to separate from you when he’s ready.

Instead of hovering over him at the park, intruding on his playtime, bring a book and let him have his own experience. Then, after an especially fun moment, he might just run over to you and excitedly share what happened. That’s your opportunity to put the book down, make eye contact, feel the excitement in your own body and attune with him. Maybe you’ll even be inspired to jump up and run around with him for a while.

But again, as soon as you notice him going off on his own, resist any urge you might have to follow, and go back to your book instead. By allowing your child to determine the length of the cycle between attunement and separation, you’re reassuring him that you’re available when he needs you, but you’re not going to interrupt his flow.

If, on the other hand, your tendency is to encourage your child to play on her own more often so that you can do your adult activities, then your challenge this week is to really stop, drop what you’re doing, and attune to your child when she reaches out for connection. Remember, that means matching her energy. So, if she’s slow and methodical, you’ll practice slowing down too. And if she’s giggling and gasping for breath, see how much you can feel what that must feel like. Pay attention to any sensations in your body as you practice attuning with your children. Often, we can find new levels of empathy when we’re willing to try to step into our children’s shoes more fully.

I would love to hear about your own experiences of attunement and separation. Is the natural ebb and flow easy or difficult for you? Does your timing match up with your child’s? And how do you feel when you notice your child coming toward you or moving away from you?

I hope you’ll all have a fantastic week, Shelly

May 5, 2011March 26, 2012

Financial consciousness

It’s spring-cleaning time! Hooray! Out with the old and in with the new. Flowers are blooming, trees are budding and leafing out, and my husband and I are taking a good hard look at our finances. Ouch.

I don’t know about you, but becoming aware of exactly what is happening in my financial life is challenging for me. Recording my spending and then analyzing it is frightening. Creating and sticking to a budget feels foreign, and planning our financial future feels like sitting at the bottom of a very deep well and inching my way up brick by brick. And then there’s the issue of increasing our income and decreasing our bottom line. So now I’m hyperventilating. Well, not really, but you get my point.

But the thing is, if we don’t pay attention to our finances, we will continue to live paycheck to paycheck, never really saving for our future, and as retirement approaches we’ll be up a creek without a paddle. On the other hand, if we take a good look at our finances and bring the light of awareness to our earning, spending, saving and such, we actually have the ability to set goals and strive for them.

And if there’s one thing I know from years and years of personal development, it’s that setting a goal is the quickest way to make a change. When we strive for things, we can often achieve much more than we would otherwise.

Now here’s the kicker, if we turn away from the responsibility of our financial future, we’re not just hurting ourselves anymore, we’re hurting our children too. And not just because we can’t provide the things we want to give them. I mean sure, it’ll be nice to know that we can actually afford to buy our kids healthy food and fun toys, or maybe we plan to save up for their college education. But the real disservice comes in our children’s dysfunctional relationship to money.

We are always teaching our kids. No matter how much we’d like to pretend they’re not learning things unless we intend to teach them, the truth is, they’re absorbing our relationship to money. They will use our financial health as a template on which to build their own beliefs about money.

That’s not to say that they’ll be the same as we are. Some kids grow up in poverty, don’t like it, and go on to become millionaires. Others grow up in decadence, never learning the value of hard work or the need to earn money, and end up in poverty. Still others consciously choose one road or the other, or something in between.

I guess what I’m trying to say here is that we have a unique opportunity to help our children develop a healthy relationship to money. But first, we have to start by healing our own relationships to it. After we’ve examined our thoughts, beliefs, and actions around money and taken responsibility for our finances, we can teach our children to do the same.

I’m guessing we’ve all had the experience of telling our children no when they ask for something in line at the grocery store. But I’m curious how we will tell them no and what message about money they will get from that. Is it because “we can’t afford it” or because “we don’t choose to spend our hard earned money on candy” or will we remind them of that great vacation we’re saving up for? I wonder how we can make our conversations about money inspiring, informative, and age appropriate for our children.

This week, take a good hard look at your financial wellbeing. Are there areas that need your attention? If all that’s already handled (is it ever really all handled?), then set some financial goals. Finally, ask yourself, how will I teach my children about the beauty, wonder, and challenges of money this week?

Love to you all, Shelly