Eating Family Dinner Together = Smarter, Happier Kids, and More!

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of learning some valuable lessons from Dr Lisa Damour! Author of Entangled, to be released in February, 2016!

The lasting impressions I got from her engaging presentation about resilience were:

*SLEEP is immensely important. She says that we should protect and prioritize our children's (and surely our own) hours of sleep each night because of the lengthy list of benefits of sleep wrapped into one pill would be a billion dollar drug with only beneficial side effects. I think so too!

*Family MEALS, at least 4 nights per week, powerfully results in significantly smarter kids with a better sense of well being, regardless of the pleasantness of the meals! Grandma was right!

*Meaningful friendships are important, and this is not too surprising. The surprise to me, is that it's best to just have ONE OR TWO CLOSE FRIENDS, rather than more. The reasoning made sense; we can get pulled in too many directions, unintentionally hurt feelings when spending time with one friend, rather than another, and maintaining too many relationships expends lots of energy.

*A growth mindset, rather than a fixed one, refers to the "If I WORK HARD enough, I can do anything!" way of thinking, resulting in much more SUCCESSFUL children and adults, than those who rely on how they were born / their "talents" / their genetics. She included various comparisons of how each mindset would act/feel in various situations, such as getting a disappointing grade, striking out, asking for help from a teacher, etc.

Joan Borysenko is another fabulous resource for RESILIENCE; here is a post I wrote after taking a class from her which provides methods of increasing our resilience.

Lisa also stressed the importance of children spending time with adults, and this matches advice I have been trying to follow from Amy McCready of Positive Parenting Solutions. At my house, we call it "Mommy and Me Time". Check out my post about Positive Parenting Solutions.

Also, here's a post with some other great parenting books!

Look for more posts soon - I have so much fun and exciting stuff to share :)

A Happy Parent is a HEALTHY Parent!

While this isn't a parenting website, it IS about being healthy and happy.  When my kids behave, I feel HEALTHIER and HAPPIER!!

Remember my post about a parenting webinar?  Since it also included some great parenting books, here is the link: FREE HELP WITH PARENTING!  Amy McCready of Positive Parenting Solutions presented, and it was hosted by the amazing 100 Days of Real Food.  I hope some of you took the opportunity to watch and participate!

While there are certainly other factors involved (more sleep on my part for example), my kids have been behaving beautifully!  Amy McCready had a lot of advice, and more than that, she discussed the WHYS of children's misbehavior.  Everything is based on Adlerian Psychology.

In this post, I'll simply discuss the CAUSE of children's behavior AND one SOLUTION (Positive Parenting Solutions has many).

The cause is simple, and consistent!  The cause of ALL misbehavior is a child's need for BELONGING and SIGNIFICANCE.  Amy says that if a child misbehaves, you should imagine that he or she has a BIG SIGN on his or her chest that says "I want to belong and feel significant, but I don't know how!"

She says this is the root of every tantrum, argument between siblings, and other misbehavior.

Amy's first SOLUTION is called "Mind, Body, and Soul" Time.  The prescription is 10 minutes per session, 2 sessions per day, per child.  There are only a few stipulations:

a) you must spend the time one-on-one with each child

b) you need to give this child your complete attention, be "emotionally available", available to them in "mind, body, and soul"

c) do whatever they want - play, color, walk, build, talk,...

d) label the time as your "special time" for example, with a start and finish

In my ways of moderation, I would say you could try to do this for one session a day, or even in moments whenever you can, or once a week!  The MORE the BETTER, but the main idea is that giving your kids simple ONE-ON-ONE time gives them the sense of belonging and significance that they NEED, and CRAVE.

If you give them that, your payback will be GREAT!  You won't believe the CHANGES!

I've only just learned specifically about this "MIND, BODY, AND SOUL" TOOL this afternoon as I was completing "Session 1" offered for a free trial at this link: VIDEOS, ARTICLES, AND OTHER INTERACTIVES FREE for 14-DAYS.

The positive changes in my kids I think have been happening gradually, and in some ways immediately, after participating in the webinar last month.

Currently, she is offering a FREE ON-DEMAND WEBINAR (I think like the one I watched, but probably without live Q&A), so you can hear first hand all of her well spoken explanations.

Even if it's been a while, I bet she is offering another webinar -- so still check it out if you're interested!

I'll end with a quick quote from Amy that may entice you:

"We’ll talk a lot about behavior in the course – good and bad.  We’ll teach you how to get more of the positive behaviors you want – cooperation, listening the first time, independence, sibling harmony, self-sufficiency and more.  And – we’ll teach you how to get less of the annoying, frustrating, maddening behaviors you don’t want!"

COMMENTS: Do you get sick of repeating?  What helpful techniques and tricks have you found that work?

Mindfulness Made Easy

Have you heard about this? Mindfulness, being "PRESENT", focused on NOW, conscious.

It is a concept, habit, WAY OF LIFE, that I have been trying to make more and more a part of my life for several years. It's about enjoying EACH MOMENT. ACCEPTING whatever comes your way, not wanting 'right now' to be more or less of whatever it is.

It can apply to many areas of your life.

• Patiently waiting for a green light when you are stopped.
• Doing one thing at a time.
• Noticing the many sounds and sights around you.
• Really taking time to notice pain, hunger, thirst, cold, heat, wind, sun.
• Acting with intention as much as possible (rather than being lost on 'autopilot').

Here are 3 specific EXAMPLES in my life:

EATING

• Taste each bite in your mouth.
• Take time to chew.
• Take breaks between bites.
• Not reading, watching, driving while eating.
• Taste, feel, smell, see your food, even hear the crunch!
• Eat a meal or snack without one sense (close your eyes) to heighten your other senses. You may find you eat less than usual, feeling satisfied sooner having really taken in all the sensory input of your food.

My sweet kindergartner said tonight, as she was slowly eating her single Starburst on the way to her swimming lesson, "I want to put 'SAVORING CANDY' or 'SAVORING CHOCOLATE CHIPS' on the Internet, so people can learn about it!" If nothing else, I am thrilled to have passed this on to her! I haven't even mastered the skill as well as her, AND I don’t think she will ever have to face an addiction to sweets, sugar, or carbs!

RUNNING/EXERCISING

You can run forever, taking ONE step at a time! Just think about what you are doing in this single moment, and you can do ANYTHING!

PARENTING

Take time to just BE with your kids, besides taking care of them, dressing, feeding, cleaning, teaching, and disciplining them.
Play with them, whatever they want to do, ACCEPT their ideas and plans, without doing anything else... no talking on the phone, checking email, folding laundry.
They really respond to this in an awesome way! They feel your LOVE and ATTENTION.

I love the following suggestion from my Kindergartner's religion book (God is Love by the Sisters of Notre Dame of Chardon, OH), which actually got the idea from another book (Raising Faith-Filled Kids by Tom McGrath):

“Here is a trick to help you increase your awareness. The next time you and your child are doing something as simple as picking up toys..., imagine yourself many years in the future looking back at this moment. From this vantage point, what seems important about this current moment? It probably isn’t the orderliness of the family room as much as it is the time spent with this precious child at this time in his or her life.

Life in a family can be busy and demanding. It’s also a time of miracles. Make it your spiritual goal to find ways to be mindful so that the busy-ness and demands don’t make you miss the miracles.”

Doing this more and more = more and more HAPPINESS, SATISFACTION, PEACE, AND CONTENTMENT in your life :)

The following are books that I love which I thought of right away when I considered my daughter’s lesson. Each discusses this concept from a slightly different angle and each is easy to understand and easy to apply. GREAT READS!

A New Earth by Eckart Tolle
Everyday Blessings: the Inner Work of Mindful Parenting by Myla and Jon Kabat-Zinn
Flow in Sports: the Keys to Optimal Experiences and Performances by Susan Jackson and Mihaly Csikszentmihaly
How of Happiness by Sonja Lyubomirsky
Peaceful Piggy Meditation by Kerry Lee MacLean (this one is a great one for teaching children all about mindfulness in a fun way!)

WHAT DO YOU THINK? TELL ME IN A COMMENT: Do you ever go on autopilot? Do you have any tricks to keep you alert and aware of the world around you?