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A Blog for parents with children in treatment or struggling at home please visit www.parallel-process.com

Thursday, September 27, 2012

We All Belong

I’ve just discovered a gold mine in my local community called Earthwalk Vermont. http://earthwalkvermont.org/   My 8-year old just started the Village School program, where she spends every Friday in the woods becoming more intimate with the natural world. Of course the program is education-based, but from my perspective it is also quite therapeutic – beyond what a young person may gain from a therapist or other type of social service.

First off, the kids are barefoot! Now all those hovering parents out there may cringe (myself included), but what this allows kids to do right away is to feel. To enter into the sensory environment of the natural world, kids have an ability to feel and receive information from their bodies!! This is something many therapist struggle to do in an office setting. Through walking barefoot, kids become more present, aware and mindful of the woods/meadow/ stream they are walking through. When we are more present and engaged with our full bodies, we are less driven by repetitive or discursive thoughts in our minds.

Kids also become more aware of natural consequences while barefoot as there are thorns, sharp rocks and other potential hazards underfoot. In childrearing today, we cannot remove all the hazards, but we can teach kids to make thoughtful choices while navigating their terrain. This exercise in barefootedness is quite a benign way for kids to learn to pay attention, and perhaps to learn the hard way to watch where they step.

Another vital component to Earthwalk is a daily gratitude circle. Kids pass the talking stick and share whatever they feel grateful for. This is not something we are oriented toward in our childrearing culture today as entitlement is on the rise and a sense of always wanting more. I have observed kids exclaim a wide-range of thanks. In this process they open their hearts, become vulnerable and share what they are grateful for: their life, the trees, their parents, their mentors, their siblings, the call of the crow, their pets – what a wonderful exercise.

However……..the most profound aspect of Earthwalk is the singing and sense of belonging. The sense of belonging in our culture is even scarcer than feeling our feelings or giving thanks. In our schools, kids all want to be the same to “fit-in.” This does not end in childhood; in our culture at large we all are looking for acceptance. Yet in the natural world, the trees belong, the rocks belong, the plants belong, the raccoons belong, the birds belong, the insects belong. We don’t say, ‘this rock should be here and that rock shouldn’t or this tree belongs and that tree does not.’ Everything has its place in the natural world and the same is true for all of us. It is said in a forest of 100,000 trees, every tree is different. None of us belong more than anyone else; in fact, we all make up the whole.

What I notice in my daughter as she goes from 3rd grade public school to Earthwalk Village School is a profound difference in belonging. In public school the friendships are up and down, the dynamics constantly in flux, and she comes home with a restless energy. While after Earthwalk there is a profound sense of peace and calm. I think the lesson we can learn from this is that whether we spend the day in the woods or not, whether we perceive that we “fit-in,” we have to remember the frogs and the moles and the butterflies and each of us all have inherent worth, whether it is noticed or not.

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Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Letting Kids Struggle

I just learned a new technique from my daughter’s kindergarten teacher. I asked my 5 year-old what happens when she runs down the hall in school (which my daughter does with me, but not when the teacher is there). She said, “Well, we have to start over, Mom.” As a parenting coach I am always looking for little tricks to help kids self-regulate and become more mindful of their behavior.

I’ve started to employ this concept in the home. So when my daughter whines, I say, “Start over sweetie.” The problem is that as parents we get hooked into the whine. We want to give them their snack so they stop whining or we get mad at them for whining. Children are allowed to make mistakes and whine when they feel impatient, but we can also ask them to repair the mistake.

“American children, especially those who grow up in relative comfort, are being shielded from failure as never before,” says Paul Tough author of How Children Succeed. Culturally we are very concerned with kid’s academic success and their happiness, but we aren’t too worried about how well they deal with adversity. In fact most kids today melt-down when things don’t go their way. And although most parents get annoyed by these episodes, we often play right into them by rescuing and fixing for our children. When children are shielded from discomforts and failure they never have the opportunity to develop the skills necessary for navigating the ups and downs of life.

New research in Mr. Tough’s book indicates that children’s intelligence does not guarantee success. In fact non-cognitive skills or – as I prefer to call them – internal resources are more critical to children’s development and long-term success.

Internal resources such as delayed gratification, problem solving, distress tolerance, internal motivation, and emotional regulation are developed by asking kids to use these skills. We need to ask kids to problem solve everyday challenges like sibling conflicts, chores, or feelings of frustration. Kids need to apply their intelligence to living their lives, not just in academics. As parents we can value emotional regulation, distress tolerance and internal motivation as much as a good report card or scoring a goal.

The thing is……we don’t have to wait for our children to fail in school, be bullied or experience another type of struggle outside the home; we can allow them to have safe struggle in the home. Ideas like “starting over,” can be applied to behavioral problems in the home to hold children accountable. We can let them feel disappointed. We can hear when they don’t like a rule. We can validate that chores are annoying. But we don’t have to change anything to make them happy. Remember the more kids struggle with small things like redoing a homework assignment or working on respectful communication, the more equipped they will be to deal with bigger struggles in their lives.

We can shift our parenting from “I’ll fix it” to “You’ve got this.”


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