Mindful Moments Blog

Home visits can play an important role in alleviating the intergenerational transmission of trauma by helping parents and caregivers build positive and healthy attachments with their children. And, in using social stories for home visits, children can better navigate challenging situations. Here's how. Plus FREE Scripted Social Stories Printable.

A poem about savoring the little moments of parenting. "No one prepared me for the hardest part of parenting … letting go. Parenting is the longest, most gradual break-up. A story that grows in chapters, filled with firsts that turn into lasts."

I am no Pinterest mom. Let’s start there. But when I saw a picture of a kiddo playing in a tub of colored noodles, it intrigued me. As an occupational therapist, sensory integration is my jam. Unfortunately, the noodles turned out to be one colossal fail. Here are 5 sensory activities that won’t let you down. 

There are millions of beautiful moments in parenting and also, sometimes, it feels hard. If you’re finding yourself in a heavy season today, or if you are having trouble recognizing yourself, here are 5 pieces of encouragement. 

Parenting during the holidays feels tough because it is tough. Here are 3 tips to get you through with less stress and more joy. 

Poem about Motherhood. "While Motherhood has completely undone her, she has rebuilt herself from the sticks and stones more whole than she could have ever imagined."

Ten-year-old Andi Musser created a Kindness Closet, a place students from families with limited incomes or those simply in need of essentials can visit during the school day to "shop" for new or gently worn garments. 

In different ways, we will have conversations with our children about the tragedy that took place and find the resources we need to protect, heal, and grow. We will do our best to prepare them, to arm our babies with love and knowledge and safety. Here are some tips on having these and conversations and resources to support and educate ourselves and our kids. 

Whether your kiddo strikes out at baseball, colors out of the lines, or gets a grade lower than they wanted, parents have a beautiful opportunity to honor big feelings and offer tools to help them accept and maybe even celebrate it. Here are 8 ways. 

Want your child to listen without having to nag, command or demand? Follow these 5 tips.

For months, every morning, I sent my child off to school to be in your care. I entrusted you with my heart as he walked into your classroom. I handed him off to you, woman to woman, knowing that for the next several hours, it would be you that he looked up to, watched, and absorbed. Now, here we are, in this unusual time of staying home. He no longer takes a seat in your classroom, yet he is still in your class. 

We can replace self-blame with self-compassion and isolation with connection and fear with safety. She grabbed their tiny wrists and yanked them out of the door and led them through the parking lot. I couldn’t hear her words but she was enraged like a bear, towering over her children as they sat on the curb looking at their feet.  My boys and I were sitting outside the restaurant at a table eating some cheeseburgers when I witnessed this mom with her children. They looked about the same age as my own, around three and five. The commotion caught my oldest’s attention, too. His curious gaze became fixed. His smile faded. And together, we watched as the children were pulled yet again across the parking lot and to a table next to us.  Her children were now instructed to stand against the wall to “not move … not say a word.” When they did wiggle or giggle, she yelled, “I dare you to move or say something. Do it. And see what happens.”  The children stood there as their food arrived, again looking at their feet. One last time, the mom approached them, mumbled some words, and then slapped their wrists as she called her children liars. The kids were now crying and the mom looked on the verge of exploding from anger and possibly into tears. My stomach was turning. My heart was racing. My hands were sweating. I wanted to go over and say something … to advocate for these children and embrace them in a protective hug. I wanted to tell this mom that she was on the same team as these babies she loves, and that hurt was happening, physically, and, even more profoundly in this instance, emotionally.  As I was contemplating my move (mind my own business or bellow out), the children moved from the wall and ate their dinner. My husband urged me to finish my burger and let it be, but I had lost my appetite. And the pit in my stomach stayed with me the entire ride home.  Deep into the depths of my heart and thoughts, my shift somehow, surprisingly, turned from those children to the mom. As I peered over my shoulder toward the backseat at my own children, I became curious about the why beneath her behavior. My disdain melted a bit and made way for an inkling of compassion.  I found myself wanting to hug the child within her. My training has taught me that the things we struggle with as adults are adaptations from our own youth. We are all looking to survive, and as children, we learn which parts of us lead to connection and safety and which parts of us lead to punishment and isolation. We learn to grow the parts of us that our system wants. Instead of seeing an enraged mom, I began to see this woman like a scared child herself, seeking the same things she was robbing her children of - the feelings of safety, power, and connection. It was possible that the ways she was reared or that the impulses her body stored from her own childhood were now coming up and out of her as an adult and were being directed toward her children. And it reminded me to stay curious, because the parents we become, are often influenced by the children we had to be: The parent who struggles with their child’s big emotions was often the child who was taught it was unsafe to feel. The parent who uses punitive punishment was often the child who was spanked, isolated, yelled at, or shamed. The parent who is a people pleaser was often the child who had to be a parent pleaser. The parent who feels she isn’t worthy or enough was often the child who was told her wants and desires were wrong or bad. The parent who yells was often the child who had to internally yell “stop!” to avoid threatening his attachment with caregivers. The parent who has poor self-talk was often the child who wasn’t allowed to express her frustration or give answers that the adult in her life didn’t want to hear. The parent who struggles with setting boundaries and asking for what they need was often the child who felt they had to choose between inconveniencing their caregiver and getting their needs met. Compassion For Another This mom’s actions had a story to tell. And I was listening. While I may never see that woman and her children again, it got me thinking: What if we held compassion for the authoritarian adult … the one who uses time-outs, spanking, or other punitive measures?  This isn’t the same as condoning any behavior that is detrimental to a child. Because I am not. What I am saying is, what if we also see the child within the adult who had to adapt … or who experienced shame, blame, and pain and help them replace those narratives with safety, love, and connection within themselves? Could that not be more effective than further shaming them for parenting practices that were likely handed down to them?  It is possible that the more we perpetuate the cycle of shame, blame, and pain, the more the adult retreats to those protective mechanisms they put in place long ago, and the more they are dug in towards their own children. We carry the energy of our lineage. It takes awareness and real courage to be a generational cycle breaker - to be a pivot point that says, “This stops here.” So instead of meeting that authoritarian parent with more shame, what if we met them with compassion?  Here are 5 ways to show compassion for another parent: Give a smile  Empathize  Offer to help (when appropriate)  Share encouraging words Validate their experience  Compassion For Self If you find that you are the parent who practices punitive measures or any parent at all for that matter, here are 3 ways to rewire your mental and emotional circuits for more connection in your home:  1. Notice Triggers When your children do (fill in the blank), you feel (fill in the blank). This requires us to pause and reflect on the energy that comes up within us when our children (or anyone for that matter) behaves in a certain way.  Our triggers show us the parts of us that were shut down in our own childhood. When we feel ourselves become elevated by something externally, we can choose to go internally. This means that instead of perpetuating the cycle that shuts down our kids or attempts to control them, we reclaim our power and notice which parts of us were suppressed - this is an opportunity to grow those parts.  So this step is all about noticing. When (fill in the blank) happens … I think __. I feel __. I can __. 2. Teach About Feelings We may think that emotional education is for our children and it is. Yet, it’s also for the child that lives inside of us, too. While we have the science, most of us parents lack the skills to notice, name, and effectively manage our emotions, which makes it tricky to teach our children.  Our children come into this world with the capability to feel and without the ability to self-regulate. And when their developing brain and big emotions encounter our child-self, fireworks (aka power struggles) can happen. But here’s the really cool thing. Only we know what our child-self needs and we can now, as an adult, meet those needs while we teach and guide our own children.  Using Time-Ins as a daily ritual is a powerful way to build connections and teach about emotions and calming strategies. Feelings posters and mantra cards create a sensorial way to engage children so that they are intrinsically motivated to play with the tools when regulated and can better access them during dysregulation. Spending five to ten minutes a day learning about emotions and sharing when you felt happy, sad, calm, and mad, not only teaches your child but strengthens those circuits in you.  3. Spend Time With Your Inner Child As parents, we spend time with our children. No brainer, right? But there’s a child inside of us who needs our attention, too.  Using all of your senses, time travel back to a memory from your childhood. Visualize it as if you were there right now. What does it feel like? What do you see? What are you wearing? What can you hear? And so forth.  Maybe start with a memory that feels good and familiar. And then shift to a more challenging, painful, or less familiar memory. See and feel yourself as that child.  And then imagine your adult-self, and meet that child version of you. Give her/him what she/he needed at that moment. Spend five to ten minutes a day doing this.  When we revisit a memory and add a different experience, we have the power to rewire circuits and change the memory. We can replace self-blame with self-compassion and isolation with connection, and fear with safety. If you find that these memories are hard to find, you can read more here. It would have been easy for me to write off the woman from the restaurant as a bad parent. But maybe what she needed, and has always needed, was to be seen, heard, and validated. For someone to tell her that she didn’t have to be that scared child anymore. And that she can break the cycle. 

Andrew answers today's question: My 14 year-old daughter with autism doesn’t get invited to things and gets mad at her 6 year-old sister because of jealousy, I think. What can I do to help her with this?

As parents we tend to put pressure on ourselves and our kids when it comes to play and learning. But when we step back and let nature and biology take over, we actually see that children are wired to learn through play. Learn how to use unstructured (free) play to teach children the emotional intelligence necessary for an enhanced academic quota down the road. Plus FREE Activity Calendar printable!  

Crystal is a mama with a household of toddlers, tweens, and teens where uncontrollable sobbing and outbursts were a daily occurrence, and not just from her three-year-old.

Many of us believe that if we can remain calm no matter what and teach our children to do the same then we have successfully mastered self-regulation. But true regulation has nothing to do with achieving a certain state. It's in noticing and responding to whatever emotion you are feeling.

In all of our loving intent, we sometimes commit parenting DUI's, which can send our children into a protective response. Here are 3 ways to break the cycle, not only for your child but for your inner child, too.

We cannot shield our children from stress, heartache, and pain, especially as they grow older. And we can't protect them from mental illness. But we can provide them attachment and love them through it.