Mindful Moments Blog

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.

Teach kids how to feel, not NOT to feel. Seems a little weird to think about, doesn’t it? Teaching kids how to feel. I mean, most days it seems like they have that part down pretty well. Their emotions, especially the unpleasant ones, fly out of them as all sorts of behaviors. They whine, cry, hit, snatch the block, or use their whole body to communicate their wants and desires. Our emotions are energy in motion. They are always looking for a way to be expressed. Our children know how to feel the sensations in their bodies, but they have yet to learn how to share them in productive ways. So when I say “teach kids how to feel, " I mean orienting them to notice and communicate in healthy ways instead of suppressing and denying. A pretty tall order for us parents - to teach how to feel, especially when we were taught NOT to feel. That’s where I was… standing in a big puddle of “What do I do now?” until I found the Time-In-ToolKit. Having all the feeling posters and activities in one kit seemed like a really good starting point for me – a busy mom who really didn’t have time for more on her plate. Fast forward to receiving the ToolKit and reading the manual, it became clear that these tools weren’t only to help me guide my son, but they were a compass for my internal climate too. I had this a-ha moment, realizing that parenting my son started with me. Him managing his emotions started with me managing mine. The first thing we did was set up our family Calming Space together, hanging our posters, and filling the area with a cozy bean bag, stuffies, mantra cards, sensory toys, and other activities my son favored. He was excited to have a nook in the house that was dedicated to “mama time” as he called it. We spent weeks taking little trips to our space, reading, cuddling, coloring, and basically following my kiddo’s lead in play. I found that these moments became the balm to our sometimes stressful days. Because play is so motivating to our children, I decided to use it as a starting point to teach my son about his feeling sensations. We began with the basics – happy, sad, calm, and mad. We talked about what those emotions felt like in our bodies. We played feeling bingo and charades. We mimicked our feeling faces in the mirror. We read stories, pausing to notice the characters’ feelings. And, for a few minutes each night before bed, we shared: When did I feel happy, sad, calm, and mad today? Now am I going to say that when my son had a meltdown he automatically went to his Calming Space to share how he felt… no. Sometimes he initiated it. Sometimes I did. Sometimes he wanted to go. Sometimes he didn’t. But the more we practiced, the more he seemed to make those connections. And because I have been reading up on brain development, I trust that as we prime his brain with repetition and consistency and as he matures neurologically, he will be able to access all of our co-regulation experiences to self-regulate down the road. While he may be a 20-year-old-something at some point with emotions similar to his two-year-old self, my hope is that he will be more prepared to know how to feel and express them given the foundation we are establishing now.  When it comes to me using the ToolKit for myself, am I going to say that it totally curbed my adult meltdowns? No. There are times I yell or resort to impatient parenting. Those generational cycles are hard to break. I like to think of myself as a work in progress. But the more I practice using the Corner myself, the more I am able to model self-awareness, boundaries, and emotional control for my son.  I will never be a perfect mom, and there are many things that I will surely do that cause me to wonder if it was the “right” thing. But this, this I know deep in my soul that I am on to something here, everyday building connection with my son as I parent and re-parent our home. 

When you look at these seven critical components of empathy it's easy to see why empathy is a skill set that develops over time. Empathy isn't something we are either born with or not, but a more complex way of being that is shaped by our experiences and relationships as well. Here are seven components of empathy that we can nurture in everyday life both at home and in the classroom. After all, the magic of connection and learning happens when we are present for the little moments of everyday life. 1. SHOW GENUINE CARE AND CONCERN: Take care of your people.  If we all slowed down just a beat to be there for the people in our lives when they are sharing, the world would be a kinder, gentler, happier place to live. Listen as this caring and interested big sister checks in with her little sister on how she is feeling using the travel toolkit poster from the Time-In ToolKit. 2. BE PRESENT: Give the people you live with, work with, and love your full attention (including yourself) and focus on the now.  This tip falls firmly under the "easier said than done" category, and yet focusing on the present is something we can each work towards --- especially through the use of daily mindfulness practices. Listen as this young man shares about the "power of the squeeze" to help him get present to his own emotions, and how having something tangible to hold onto helps to calm him when he is feeling a big emotion.  3. ASK QUESTIONS:  Ask questions that give people a chance to express their thoughts and feelings.  Last week I sent out an email where I asked our members, "What does Generation Mindful mean to you?" and this was one dad's reply that came back to me with the kindest note of appreciation for the community and the tools we've created. (I'm not crying, you are.) 4. LISTEN TO UNDERSTAND: Listen to understand people's thoughts, perspectives, and emotions, versus listening to respond.  In this hilarious video, a mom asks a 3 yo to name her feelings after a rough moment they'd experienced together. But instead of saying "I feel sad" or "I feel mad", the child looks at the time-in feeling faces poster and calls her mama out for how she thinks her mom is feeling.  Listen in closely for the child in the first clip who shares honestly about what she is feeling... priceless. And in this video, a Foster mom talks about how her foster kids can at times struggle to express how they are feeling, and the supportive way they use GENM tools as a family to listen and understand one another... even when it is hard to find the words. 5. BE CURIOUS, NOT JUDGMENTAL: Listen to learn and connect, not to determine right or wrong.  In this video, a GENM mom who had been going through the emotional time of a divorce stays curious. Even in the face of her young child sharing that she felt sad, nervous, and "wanted to hit her" this mom listened with curiosity. And in the end, using her SnuggleBuddies ritual for naming and sharing emotions, instead of acting out her anger, and confusion by hitting, this 4 yo was able to put words to her feelings and to open up about what was going on inside her with her mom. #THIS.  6. CONNECT THROUGH EMOTION:  Mirror emotion, connect through body language, and let them know they are not alone.  Listen in as this sweet mama uses her calming presence and soothing voice to introduce her son to the four main mood groups in a way that leaves him wanting to know more. 7. ACT WITH COMPASSION: Communicate with kindness and care, and use words that encourage and empower.  Listen in as this school counselor talks about how she uses GENM tools to help children feel connected and safe in school, expressing their ideas and feelings instead of keeping them bottled up.  When we, as adults, model things like care, concern, being present, and asking questions instead of making judgments, we nurture them in our kids.  Please enjoy this "7 Critical Components of Empathy" Printable from Sketchnote artist @Valerie Langloss. What would you add to or change on this list?  If you are a member of GENM and have a story, photo, or video to share about how you are nurturing empathy and compassion in your part of the world, please share it with us here!    (Shared with permission by @Valarie Langloss) Support For Being Present To Life's Little Moments The GENM Family Bundle 0 Reviews $247.00 $378.00 Save $131.00 This is the perfect bundle for your growing family and includes everything you need to start using positive discipline and Time-Ins with your children, ... View Product

This video is for anyone who has ever struggled with parenting (all of us), for those who are working to respond to their children instead of reacting to their behaviors, and anyone who wants to raise emotionally healthy humans but isn't sure where to start.

In a nook in the back near the teacher’s desk, a cozy, safe place exists. It is a place to explore feelings. A place to regulate. A place to take a break and just be. Welcome to Emily Brown’s preschool classroom. Emily is a teacher dedicated to helping her students learn about, notice and practice their emotions.

Often, our parental instincts encourage us to rescue our kids from unpleasant emotions or hijack their experiences to keep them safe. And while we cannot protect them from experiencing stress and distress, we can lean into our love to help them develop skills to handle these challenging moments.

8-yeayr-old Lilly Bumpus broke the national record for most Girl Scout boxes sold in one season with 32,484 boxes, including 5,000 donation boxes that will go to fellow childhood cancer warriors in the hospitals, to help feed the homeless, and to deployed troops. 

Is it just me or does something happen to our children when they turn three, four and five? Like all of the sudden emotions are more potent and behaviors are more exasperating. Here's why, plus 4 tips to help your child's nervous system regulate amidst all of these changes.