Nov
20
2011
TAGS: baby development ⋅ baby learning ⋅ baby parenting ⋅ conscious parenting ⋅ listening to your baby ⋅ nurturing parenting ⋅ parenting ⋅ parenting awareness ⋅ parenting choices ⋅ parenting confidence ⋅ parenting skills ⋅ parenting support ⋅ toddler parenting
A survey of how babies are parented around the globe quickly reveals that beyond adequate shelter and food, little else is agreed upon as physical “necessities” for raising a young child. All the choices in clothing, gear, and extras are additions to the business of parenting. Although in the industrialized western countries the focus can become fixed on the material choices, the truly significant pieces come from within the parents. Regardless of where you are in the world, regardless of where you are on the income scale, if you are stable with food and shelter, you are a candidate for being a wonderful parent.
How can I make this sweeping statement, pushing aside all material choices in favor of a more primary, more fundamental choice? It is because your awareness of your own true nature and how you bring that to parenting is infinitely more significant than any material choice. When you embrace a willingness to relax and possibly not know what’s next, the opening of your mind and heart gives you access to wisdom beyond virtual reality. Moving beyond a limited point of view allows us, as parents, to expand our focus rather than narrow it. As we expand our personal selves, we begin to see the true nature of our baby. The harmonization that is possible within ourselves then carries over to our interaction with our baby.
Not many parenting guides encourage you to let go of all your concepts and scripts and welcome the mystery of your own being. It is, in fact, the ideal set up to experience your new baby in the most clear depth of awareness, free of conditioning. Our young children often draw us into the present moment very effectively. Responding to life in this powerfully spontaneous way is also a model for us to access something that is not mentally created. Wisdom, innocence, and love come with your new baby. Take the time to tune in and tap into it as you parent.
Sep
22
2011
TAGS: baby parenting ⋅ conscious parenting ⋅ parenting ⋅ parenting awareness ⋅ toddler parenting
If we define mindfulness as calm awareness of the present moment, it’s easy to see how that frame of mind could serve us well as parents. To be in the moment is in of itself a gift, and then to allow that to be our main way of interacting as a parent takes us into realms of possibility that may be overlooked otherwise. So much of what happens in a typical day with a baby or toddler is spontaneous, is unplanned, and is precious. By precious I mean it is fleeting in the overall developmental stages and growth you will see in your child. A certain way of playing, although it may be incorporated and built on, will never look quite the same as when your 6 month old does it! Being present to experience and enjoy with her is a gift.
However you find to remind yourself, enjoy as many sweet moments in the present as you can. Discernment is a quality that can help maximize your enjoyment. This is the ‘prioritizing’ portion, where your decisions and judgment calls (is it important or necessary to be at the playground “on time” or are your friends mothers who also allow for some ‘flex’ in their scheduling?) and you can choose where to spend more time, when to hurry.
Underneath it all, your own success in self-nourishment as you parent will determine the degree to which you successfully nurture your child. All the images and cliches about taking care of yourself first are valid, and the challenge is to understand your own thresholds and create the combination that works for you. If getting a shower first thing in the morning is key to your feeling good about yourself for the rest of the day, then making that a priority is definitely worth it. If you can delay other things in the interest of flexibility to accommodate your child’s needs, you’ll soon see the opportunity for an exchange. Mindfulness can only occur when you feel relatively balanced and whole yourself, so making it a priority to address your most important needs is a necessity.
Pay attention to and appreciate the positive situations, events, and relationships in your life. Each time you do you’ll reduce the true source of your stress — negative emotions — and be more in the moment.
Become more aware of the situations, events, relationships and thoughts that evoke stressful feelings. Again, choose to be in the present.
Dec
2
2010
TAGS: baby development ⋅ baby parenting ⋅ brain development ⋅ parenting choices ⋅ parenting power ⋅ parenting skills ⋅ relationships
Alan Watts spoke of an “integrity of pattern” when describing the energetic dance in which we all participate. As a fan of his old programs from the 1980′s, I recently heard that phrase and related it to the ‘self hug’ I recommend to parents of toddlers. Restoring our own “integrity of pattern” means re-aligning ourselves with our highest and best intentions, our innermost knowing, and our richest resources. It gives us access to the underlying wisdom that easily becomes obscured in the course of a day (parenting a toddler or not).
As easy as it is to lose sight of this inherent well of knowing we all possess, it’s also simple to restore ourselves to that place and then draw upon it during the course of our day. Mom and Dad engaging in a ‘self hug’ means taking a few moments to let go of immediate stressors, finding a neutral space within, taking a few deep breaths, and visualizing something refreshing and revitalizing. It’s deceptively simple and effective, and also is easy to teach your toddler. I’ve seen 3 year old’s already proficient at using this technique on their own, after practicing with an adult a few times.
The sense of knowing one can modulate one’s own state is a powerful tool to give ourselves and our children. You can make a game out of it, personalize it for your child, and invoke it for yourself as needed. It’s contagious in the best possible meaning of the word! Try it today.
Nov
4
2010
TAGS: baby development ⋅ baby parenting ⋅ creative play ⋅ nurturing parenting ⋅ parenting choices ⋅ parenting power ⋅ parenting support
I recently heard a discussion on the radio about the loss of creativity in the workplace as a detriment to our economy. Seems there is a preponderance of one-dimensional employees with little or no creative capacity. Seems that researchers and investigators are now finding this phenomenon does not impact our economy positively. It’s hard for me not to inject some sarcasm into my comments, since the creativity in most of us is deleted, pruned, or at least substantially diminished in our very early years.
Once again, a phenomenon that affects us all is only being recognized and discussed long after the most promising time and opportunity to address it has passed. To discuss loss of economic productivity in the marketplace and trace it back to lack of creativity in employees is a very backward approach to a very fundamental issue. What about the quality of life these employees must have had before they ever reached adulthood to be so abysmally devoid of an inherent aspect that we all have at birth? Why is no one asking what happened that we have an adult population with a marked absence of creativity?
Isn’t it alarming that the parenting of infants and toddlers does not include any substantive discussion of the enormous power of parents at this time in their parenting careers to impact creativity for life? This is the most optimum time in which to give a new human being the necessary neural circuitry, nurturing, and fertile foundation for developing and accessing creativity for life. It’s not about Baby Einstein, or any of a large array of superficial ‘educational’ toys for very young children. Parental understanding of what is happening developmentally is crucial to the kind of experiences that truly build cognitive functioning, along with all the adjunct developments in a child who is balanced and whole. That beginning is where creativity thrives and flourishes. Without the understanding necessary to appropriately incubate and nurture this vital part of the new human, it gets suffocated, shut down, and over time, completely eradicated. Hence our current, not surprisingly creativity devoid workforce!
Jun
16
2010
TAGS: baby parenting ⋅ listening to your baby ⋅ parenting education ⋅ parenting skills
At the end of the day, even with all the parenting resources available today, it’s our sense of trusting ourselves that empowers us. Creating an ongoing format to enhance that confidence is a powerful tool to have in our parenting repertoire. It might be as simple as talking over your options about a particular challenge with a trusted mentor. An ongoing moms group that enables listening and sharing in a supportive way may be a good source of feedback. There are a variety of options for developing this important trait in your parenting.
As with many aspects of parenting, there is opportunity to constantly add to your ‘toolbox’, refine your insights, and upgrade your skills. Raising kids is the ultimate growth experience. They are growing – you can, too! Seeing the inevitable challenges as opportunities for your own personal growth is an attitude worth exploring.
You may wonder how a baby’s sleep habits could be an opportunity for your growth. Well, there are a great many different ways of responding, reacting, and handling sleep patterns and habits. The behaviors of your infant may summon responses that are unique. Singing a particular lullaby may work better with one child than another. The variations and opportunities for creativity are huge. Have fun with it, explore, be flexible and open, and see you own potential expand. That’s the best start to trusting yourself as a parent.
Jan
11
2010
TAGS: baby development ⋅ baby learning ⋅ baby parenting ⋅ parenting choices ⋅ parenting power ⋅ parenting support ⋅ relationships ⋅ security
Much of my focus recently has been on educating about the importance of parenting to support optimum baby brain development. The deeper I delve into research that has, in most cases, been around for many years, the more it is validated for me that what we do as parents/caregivers of the very young is inextricably linked to quality of life for us all. It’s interesting to me that so little connection is made in our mainstream media. It’s as if tantrums, behavioral challenges, ADD/ADHD, teen angst, our overflowing prisons, and the myriad of social problems that we have arrive from another planet, are some external ill that is foisted upon us, and are reason to consult ‘experts’ or other resources outside ourselves. It’s my belief that 90+% of these issues could be addressed in very early childhood. Preparing for and supporting ourselves during this monumental task would make a world of difference, not just for you and your child, but for all of us who live in this society and world with you.
Without getting into the highly private, intense, and controversial areas of parenting styles, I still see an enormous benefit to educating about the critical impact, for life, of what a baby and toddler experiences in the 0 – 3 age range. While we can focus on a variety of ‘superficial’ issues, one parenting method over another, choices that seem vital to the parenting style we want to endorse, we seldom hear or have an open discussion of the impact of subtle nuances on our baby’s wellness. Even amongst ‘experts’, the importance of clarity of our own values and priorities before we parent is seldom discussed.
Learning to recognize, love, and accept that which is difficult, unacceptable, and challenging within ourselves is a fundamental precept to parenting. Support for that process is vital and easily makes the difference between a parent who suceeds and one who is overwhelmed.
Please encourage all those you know who are comtemplating parenthood, are already parents of babies/toddlers, and who are caregivers to seek their most trustworthy parenting voice from their own essence. As always, I welcome your questions and comments.
Aug
2
2009
By age 10 I had pretty much decided, for a variety of reasons, that I was never going to be a mom! It was as much because of tomboy tendencies, a strong desire to be independent, the desire to travel, and of course, the particular influences of my family of origin. I was REALLY comfortable with my decision, and lived my young adulthood with this clearly known to myself and my boyfriends. Marriage was a pretty low priority, also.
It worked well for me until I met my now ex-husband, and at age 33, we married and had my oldest, now 25! Literally from the moment of his birth (and maybe during pregnancy, also), I was on a mission to be the best mom I could possibly be. When I held Taylor at birth, I knew I was entering the most significant undertaking of my life. My joy and amazement at him as a baby launched me on a journey that inspired me to clean up some of my own residual issues. It also gave me the energy and motivation to seek out the best possible options, every step of the way.
Choosing not to circumcise him, breastfeeding him, reading to him, finding the right nursery school (which I loved so much I wanted to spend the day there myself!), encouraging his innate talent for art, and many other choices and decisions were made from an inspired place. So I, the ‘late to motherhood’, reluctant mom became a committed, dedicated, and absolutely passionate mom. Fortunately for me, I went on to have 2 more beautiful children, a daughter and son, and today all three are, quite definitely, the ‘crown jewels’ of my experience here on planet earth!
Although everyone’s parenting experience is unique, we also have a lot in common. Truly, it is an endeavor that offers growth, transformation, and enormous opportunity to be living your passion every day.
Aug
2
2009
‘Sustainable’ means carried out over time. In addition to spanning time, you have the option to make your parenting successful, fulfilling, and effective.
In order to parent well over time (and we all know that parenting doesn’t end when they leave for college), your best strategy is to learn and understand your own strategy. Then you have a base from which to be flexible, and that flexibility, combined with self-knowledge, will serve you well. It will enable you to seek out and use varying resources over the years.
Taking control of your own emotions provides a pathway to success in parenting. By control, I do not mean suppressing or repressing emotions. Control means understanding, coupled with effective resources for experiencing your own emotions when it is healthy and productive. For many adults today, this is not an easy task. We are all pretty much trained to seek self-gratification, and seek it soon. Parenthood will derail that usually for a while, but many parents become absorbed in having their child be a status symbol, a possession, an extension of themselves. These are all recipes for failure as a parent. Unless you can set aside your own agenda on a consistent basis, your parenting will suffer.
I call this approach ‘sustainable’ parenting because it works well, it works over time, it nurtures you and your child, and it has potential to evolve through all the stages and phases of parenting. When you see your parenting as it is, tell the truth, then see it as better than it is, you can raise the standard, and grow yourself as well as make yourself a better parent for your child.
Jun
30
2009
Developmentally, your toddler is beginning to emerge as an independent little person, also very much in need of reliable connection to you. Finding ways to balance those two factors while remaining responsive and supportive of the developmental changes are the challenges of this period in parenting. Parents who continue to control and orchestrate every event for the toddler are removing an important learning opportunity.
Of course, we adults realize that we are making pretty much all the significant decisions in the toddler’s life. However, the many small, daily choices that are present are wonderful windows of learning, if you are aware of them and take advantage of them. The ability to discern preferences, beginning with tiny distinctions, like the degree of darkness in the child’s room for sleeping, can set the tone for including the child in decision-making. This grows into more and more participation and input as the child becomes older. Asking for feedback, listening to it, and incorporating it into the daily rhythms are important patterns for the toddler to experience.
Self-directed behavior requires checking in with self first. Toddlerhood is an optimum age at which to model and teach this skill. It has lifelong value, and can be built open at every stage of development. Self-directed behavior precedes other more sophisticated self-modulating techniques that are key to socialization. These skills are valuable for life.
Support for identifying where you are most skilled, as well as areas where you may need help is available to you in individual sessions or convenient packages now available at www.babyparentingcoach.com.
Don’t hesitate to explore the potential of your best possible parenting!
Jun
12
2009
My young 2-year old friend, Avery, is consumed for long periods of time (more than 30 minutes) with arranging her tiny animal figures, then ‘feeding’ them, then putting them in some prone position (often covered by ‘blankets’) and putting them to sleep, waking them up, asking them if they’re hungry…I watch with delight and amazement every time. She is, at age 2, exhibiting fairly sophisticated nurturing and care taking skills. I lament to myself that I know parents who are not as ‘equipped’ to nurture their children as this very young child already is.
Where does this sensibility, ‘instinct’, or predisposition to be so caring, so interested in the well-being of another emanate from? How does one very young child already have a level of skill and inclusiveness, so that even when we go about another activity, she still checks back to see how her ‘animal’ friends are doing?
She has already learned ‘responsive parenting’, and is very good at it. It has, obviously, been modeled for her since the very beginning of her two years, and it is natural, fun, instinctive, and very beautiful to watch. Observing her ‘notice’ and accommodate the subtle nuances of a pretend friend wanting a little more water, or to go for a ride, truly gives me hope for our future.
Responsive parenting means viewing your role as parent as a constantly evolving, highly attuned endeavor. Knowing your baby’s smallest likes and dislikes, taking a moment to plan an experience so that it is comfortable and secure, and of course, the biggest challenge, learning to put your own ‘instant gratification’ on hold – these are all steps toward responsive (as well as responsible) parenting.
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