Mindful Moments Blog
Mindful Moments Blog
5 Powerful Phrases To Say To Children That Boost Brain Development
by Ashley Patek
Our words have the power to build up our children, nurture and guide them. They also have the power to cripple, shrink, and wound. It is these 5 phrases, spoken by well-intended parents, that tend to miss the mark on paving pathways for self-discipline and emotional regulation. Here's what to say instead.
Mindful Moments Blog
Celebrating The Birth Of A Mother
by Guest Author
Motherhood seemed to come so easy to everyone around me, yet here I was, barely keeping it together. One mom shares how she was re-born after having children.
Mindful Moments Blog
Your Words Affect Your Child’s Brain
by Rebecca Eanes
Are we collectively destroying the potential of a generation with our mouths?
As parents, we hold many of the keys to our children’s futures. These keys are the words we speak to them.
Mindful Moments Blog
Your Words Affect Your Child’s Brain
by Rebecca Eanes
Are we collectively destroying the potential of a generation with our mouths?
As parents, we hold many of the keys to our children’s futures. These keys are the words we speak to them.
Mindful Moments Blog
How to Become a Cycle-Breaking Parent in 4 Steps
by Catherine Liggett
Unlike many of our parents who repressed, denied, ignored, or shamed their own feelings, resulting in abusive explosions and emotional neglect, becoming a cycle breaker means that we commit to FACE-ing our emotions with clarity and deep compassion. Here's how to use FACE (Feel, Amplify, Connect, and Embrace), a 4-step process, to break cycles.
Mindful Moments Blog
Montessori Parenting Techniques for Teaching Emotional Intelligence
by Guest Author
What is so special about the montessori parenting style? Learn how Montessori parenting can instill emotional intelligence in your children.
Mindful Moments Blog
Play Is More Than Just Fun at Philadelphia's Children's Museum
by Ashley Patek
In collaboration with Generation Mindful, Philadelphia's Please Touch Children's Museum takes a bold step forward in creating a world where all children are able to exercise creativity, compassion, confidence, and social-emotional skills as it opens its new exhibit XOXO: The Exhibit About Love And Forgiveness.
Mindful Moments Blog
4 Ways To Get Your Child To Calm Down
by Ashley Patek
During a meltdown moment, these 4 tips are your survival guide.
What if I told you that the key to fewer meltdowns in your home was not to suppress them but to let them happen?
Any parent could probably tell ya that big emotions and challenging behaviors are daily (sometimes hourly, or, if you’re like our home, minute-by-minute) occurrences. So it makes good sense that we have some tools to know what to do when our children fall apart.
Why Children Struggle To Calm Down
Emotions are pretty new and alarming to our children who are still pretty new to this being alive thing. They struggle to control impulses, even when they know that certain behaviors are not desirable. They lack the foresight to see ahead to consequences and also the memory capacity to remember a “lesson” you taught five minutes ago.
As such, drowning in our frustration and overwhelm, we often work to make it all make sense. Because even more stressful than a flailing child is that feeling we get when we are at a loss as to why our children are behaving the way they are. We look to close the gap and fill in the missing puzzle pieces. We create narratives that our children are defiant, manipulative, and dramatic.
But what if our children were inherently good? If we came in with that mindsight then we’d begin to see that who our children are and what they do are two different things.
Our children are just being children. They are doing their job … making mistakes, learning about themselves and the world, and feeling their feelings. This isn’t a plot to “get us” like the Boogie Man but rather their road to development.
4 Ways To Get Your Child To Calm Down
Now that we know the role of our children, what’s ours? Well, we come in with our sage wisdom, being a guide by the side that they can trust, both in their moments of regulation but also during dysregulation… especially during dysregulation. So, next time your child is exploding like an emotional volcano, give these four tips a go.
SnuggleBuddies® Help Big Emotions & Meltdowns
1. Move to a smaller space.
It doesn’t feel good to feel out of control, especially in front of a crowd. Help your child transition from a large room to a smaller one, from a room with an audience to a quieter space. In removing extra stimulation and influences, your child’s nervous system can shift more quickly.
It may sound something like this: “I see this feels hard. I am going to help you to your room where we can sit together. You are safe and I love you.”
2. Validate and empathize with your child.
This is one of our biggest roles as parents. Validating our child’s experiences meets one of the most vital needs for connection, which ultimately leads to regulation. Our children want to know that their feelings, thoughts, and intuition matter, and to take it one step further, they want to know that their experience is real. They want to know that when they are struggling, they won’t be left alone with their overwhelm, which would feel pretty scary (and thus further a meltdown). Sometimes just feeling seen, heard, and understood is the balm our children desire.
This may sound like: “Something doesn’t feel good inside of your body. I believe you, and I am here.”
3. Respect your child’s boundaries.
Many times, we are so consumed with what we think we should do or the right script or on giving our children what we didn't receive when we were young that we move further out of our relationship with our kids. Despite our best intentions, we are attempting to control the situation or outcome and control is the contrast to connection. Either way, we can end up inadvertently railroading our child’s boundaries. If your child desires closeness, offer it. If your child is asking for space, honor it.
This may sound like: “You are telling me to go away. I hear you. I will sit outside your closed door. I trust your body to know when it is ready. I am here any way you need me.”
4. Wait it out.
Whether you’re right next to your child or on the other side of the door, give your child the emotional space to feel what they are feeling to the full extent that they are feeling it. This means we aren’t fixing it or rushing them along to the next pleasant emotion. This means that we manage our own discomfort so that we can hold space for theirs. In order to fully process the limbic (emotional) tension in their bodies, they must be allowed to express it. Sometimes that takes two minutes, sometimes ten. Keep holding space without the agenda of gettin’ on to the next thing.
As you begin to notice your child shift into a more regulated state, you may choose to touch on the pain point and finish the processing right then by taking a Time-In to discuss what happened, how they felt, and tools for next time, or maybe your child feels ready to move on.
Remember, when it comes to your child, you are the expert. Trust your own intuition to guide you in each meltdown moment. Ask yourself, What do I need right now? What does my child need right now? Use your context clues to give you the answers, because the answers live within you.
Mindful Moments Blog
On Peace Tents, Healing the Generations and Motherhood
by Alex Petrou
Every child wants to know, do you see my light even when I’m not shining it?
Mindful Moments Blog
Don’t Take Your Child's Behavior Personally
by Guest Author
Have you ever been on the receiving end of your child’s angry outburst? It’s hard not to take it personally. But as it turns out, it’s not a result of poor parenting or a sign that your child is on the wrong track. It’s all due to your child’s developing brain.
Mindful Moments Blog
6 Meaningful Holiday Gifts For 2021
by Ashley Patek
Rather than storing unnoticed toys in the closet this year, give the children on your list meaningful memories instead. Here are six connection-based gift ideas for ages two and up that we love for the holidays and all year long.
Mindful Moments Blog
Allowance And Chores: For Learning Or Earning?
by Ashley Patek
Is allowance a form of bribery and reward to get kids to do their chores, or is it a way to teach our children about money management? We take a look from a positive parenting lens.
Mindful Moments Blog
Why Sibling Rivalry is Good For Kids, And How Parents Can Make It Through
by Ashley Patek
Experts say that sibling rivalry can nurture emotional intelligence, boost social skills, and that children can learn complex lessons about communication, problem-solving, impulse control, and conflict resolution. Here is why siblings argue and what parents can do to help.
Mindful Moments Blog
by Ashley Patek
The language of a child is play, but play isn't always easy for adults. Learn why and how parents can overcome these play roadblocks.
Mindful Moments Blog
by Rebecca Eanes
Toddlerhood is a precious time. We do our kids and ourselves a great injustice by assigning negative intent to their developmentally normal behaviors. Instead of going to war, let’s spend these quickly-passing years seeking to understand our little ones and rewrite the narrative on common myths.
Mindful Moments Blog
10 Simple Mindfulness Activities For Kids To Build Emotional Intelligence
by Ashley Patek
Practicing mindfulness with children nurtures social-emotional skills and builds higher-level functions such as impulse control - the pause between reacting to and responding in the face of big emotions. Here are 10 simple activities you can add in to your day.
Mindful Moments Blog
by Suzanne Tucker
Andrew answers today's question: How can I help my 5-year-old who is on the spectrum with his rigid thinking? Once he makes his mind up about something there is no changing it!
Mindful Moments Blog
Your Child’s Happiness Isn’t Your Job
by Rebecca Eanes
We cannot make our children happy, but we can teach them how to make themselves happy, because ultimately, happiness is an inside job. Here are five tools to help children find their own happiness.
Mindful Moments Blog
4 Effective Ways To Break The Generational Cycle Of Yelling
by Ashley Patek
I yell. I was yelled at. My guess is, my parents were yelled at too. Poor emotional regulation - and its wounding - has been handed down from one generation to another. Here are 4 effective ways to break the cycle so that our children don't have to carry that shame. It stops with us.
