Parenting Blog

“Never do to yourself what you would never do to your child.” --  Martha Beck

Would you let someone yell at your child?  Call her names?  Scare him with stories about bad things that might happen?  Rush her around so she can't catch her breath, much less enjoy her life?  Make him feel so bad he wants to give up and cry? 

Of course not.  So why do you let your mind do that to you?

If you're like most of us, your mind frequently finds fault with you, and with the world. It rushes you from place to place without letting you breathe and enjoy the moment.  It labels everything that happens as good or bad, and regularly conjures up scenarios that send you into a panic. In fact, your mind has probably predicted 100 out of the last two catastrophes in your life.

It's not your mind's fault.  That's its job -- Keeping you poised for fight or flight by warning you about all the things that might go wrong, especially if you don't start being perfect, right now.  Just don't believe everything your mind tells you. 

"Breathe.  Let go.  And remind yourself that this very moment is the only one you know you have for sure." -- Oprah Winfrey

Are you remembering to breathe?  Bringing your awareness to your breath is the fastest way to calm yourself. 

Every time you find yourself getting tense, Stop.  Take three deep, relaxing breaths. 

To move even more quickly into a more peaceful place, repeat a calming mantra as you breathe:
It could be about your child:   "He's acting like he's four because he IS four." 
Or about you: "I am more than enough."
Or just about coming back into the moment: "Breathing in, I breathe love.  Breathing out, I breathe love."

Create a reminder to pause and breathe, one you'll see a number of times every day:
           * a note on your dashboard, computer desk-top or palm pilot
           * an object or sign on your refrigerator or desk
           * a bracelet or string around your wrist, that you wear for the week.

May your week be filled with miracles, large and small.

"Make a habit of bringing your awareness to your breathing frequently throughout your day. Our breath connects us to feelings of peace and contentment. Take a minute to deepen your breath from shallow, tense chest breathing to relaxed, deep belly breathing. When you feel totally overwhelmed, stop whatever you're doing, close your eyes if possible, take three deep breaths, and let your body and mind relax." -- Jan Marie Dore

It's impossible to be a relaxed, loving parent when you're tense.  But life with children is full of triggers that make us tense.

Of course, those triggers, be they tantrums or traffic jams, don't actually make us tense. We make ourselves tense in response to them. It's a choice.  Believe it or not, it's entirely possible to breathe deeply and feel relaxed during a traffic jam -- or even a tantrum.

The easiest way to remind yourself to let go of tension is to breathe.  Just breathe.  It brings us back into our body, back into the present moment, back into balance.  Back into a choice about how we respond.

Today, stop and breathe throughout your day.  Every time you're upset. When you find yourself in traffic.  When anyone in your house begins a meltdown. (Especially you.)

Breathing seems so simple you may find it hard to believe its power.  But as Sam I Am said about Green Eggs and Ham, "Try it, try it, and you may!"

"Do you know what exhausts us more than lack of sleep? Stress. Our worrying. Our focus on what might be wrong.  Our lack of laughter. Our lack of energy.  Our lack of exercise to blow off anxiety and boost that energy. The joy deprivation is worse than the sleep deprivation, hands down. We don't feel the physical effects of it the way we do when we've been woken up every hour all night. But the extra weight we carry is something we don't even realize we've taken on and assumed like excess baggage, "
 -- Lu Hanessian

If you're like most parents, you're carrying some excess stress baggage that's weighing you down.  Do you need it?  Will it really help make things better?  Ready to move on?  Here's how.

1. Acknowledge what's stressing you, do one positive thing to address it, and let that stress go for today.

2. Find a way to boost your energy this evening.  Put on some great music and dance with your kids for ten minutes. Play a game of tag with your kids for ten minutes. Soak in the bath by yourself for ten minutes.

3. Make sure you find lots of reasons to laugh with your family.
 
May your evening be filled with miracles, large and small.

“The most successful people are good at Plan B” – James Yorke

You may have noticed that things don't always unfold the way you've planned. Life is funny like that. Research shows that people who are willing to move to Plan B find themselves enjoying life a lot more than those who insist that "This can't be happening!" and start looking for someone to blame. Anger and resistance usually just dig us deeper into whatever hole we've stumbled into. 

Life with kids frequently requires willingness to switch gears. Whether your toddler is having a meltdown on the escalator, your preschooler just spilled hot chocolate all over her new party dress, your middler schooler's teacher calls, or your teenager just dropped a bombshell, it's time for Plan B.  Even if you simply find yourself in an interaction with your child where one of you is raising your voice, it's time for Plan B.

Plan B is always about taking a deep breath and disengaging from your intense emotional reaction to the situation.  It's about accepting the situation rather than fighting it, no matter how much you wish it weren't so.  It's about looking for solutions rather than blame.  All of this helps you to scramble out of the hole you've stumbled into, rather than digging deeper.

Sometimes, we even find that Plan B works out better than Plan A would have.  Life is funny like that.