Navigating the Parenting Maze

Ever wonder if you’re doing it right? Juggling work, relationships, friendships, personal interests, and meeting your child’s needs can be demanding. It is common to feel oversaturated with the amount of things to track and care for. There are no classes required or licenses to obtain providing confidence in parenting before bringing a new life into the world. Making it even more difficult can be the bombardment of information in books, on television, and the internet with conflicting information about how to navigating raising a healthy child. Let’s break it down into some research backed steps to help simplify being a good enough parent. It all comes down to noticing simple needs that repeat throughout a child’s life… the need to feel safe, explore, and retreat. 

We all need to feel a secure base to be able to manage stress, face challenges, explore new things. Ever have a moment of feeling scared or insecure… needing to retreat to someone or something to decide for you, intervene, take charge? This is even more true for children… they need a stable base to adventure from and a safety net that will catch them if things go wrong. This begins with having consistency in basics like food and sleep, more often than not. Children are vulnerable in a big world until they develop the skills to protect themselves. They need a caregiver to feel bigger, stronger, and wiser than they are, delivered with a dash of kindness.

Children need room to explore, grow, feel challenged. When you notice your child showing interest leaving the safety of the secure base you provide for them, they are saying they need you to support their exploration and allow them to take the lead. Keep an eye from a distance as they explore and face new things. They will glance back every now and then to ensure their safety net is still there. Find ways to delight in their courage. Help them if needed, but only enough to make the challenge obtainable. Find ways to enjoy their new adventures with them. 

Uh oh… something went wrong. Maybe the challenge was a little too tough, they didn’t succeed, or fell and got hurt. They are going to need that safety net to regain a sense of security and refill their emotional cup. In these moments, they need protection and comfort, for you to take the lead. They will often need help making sense of big emotions (e.g. fear, worry, anger). Once they feel secure in your safe haven, they will regain a sense of security and confidence to go back out and explore the world again. 

Round and round the cycle goes from an infant crawling away to a young adult leaving for college. Take a moment this week to notice where your child is; are they okay and ready for adventure or not okay and needing safety. Noticing and responding to your child in these moments about thirty percent of the time will allow them to grow up secure and ready to tackle the world as adults. Struggling with one part of the cycle or the other? Reach out for professional support to learn the skills needed to feel confident in your ability to parent in an emotionally healthy way. 

Boosting Resiliency in Kids

It is often said that “kids are resilient” and they can survive anything. Children may be able to survive tough situations, small or big traumas, and/or stressful events, but what if caregivers and loved ones could help them do more than just survive? Read on for tips on how to build resilient kids and why it matters. 

Resilience is the process of handling stress and recovering from trauma and adversity… the ability to gain wisdom, confidence, and fortitude from difficult situations as opposed to merely surviving them. A child who survived a traumatic medical crisis may live the rest of their life afraid to get hurt versus a child (with resiliency skills) may grow up to become a doctor helping those in similar situations. Resilience helps children become adults who have the confidence to face difficulties and tackle them building their confidence and building a better world. 

One step to building resilience is to let kids experience disappointment. If a child is rescued from feeling disappointment time and time again, they will never learn the skills or confidence to handle adversity when they face it as adults. It is important to learn that sadness, defeat, anxiety and stress won’t last forever.

Another step is to validate their distress, anxiety, fears or insecurity. Name the emotion, normalize that humans all feel those emotions at times. Sitting with your child in their emotion doesn’t require “fixing the problem”. When children are emotionally overwhelmed, they are unable to problem solve, not because of their ability but because of the flood going on in their body. Co-regulation will help the emotional flood settle so they can put their thinking hat back on again finding their own solution.

Allow children space to take (reasonable) risks and experience the natural consequences. Encourage kids to try new things, make mistakes, and learn from mistakes. Give them lots of opportunity to make age-appropriate choices. Some examples may include clothing choices or meal choices, etc. If it is frigid out, pants may not be an option but what type of pants can be. In this scenario natural consequence would be level of comfort, fitting in with peers, level of warmth related to the weather. If their choice doesn’t work out, express curiosity about what they liked or didn’t like, what part of their choice worked well or what they might want to do differently next time. Send the message that a choice that doesn’t work out isn’t bad or a failure, it is a time to be curious and learn something new.

Tell stories, watch movies, read books about others who have faced adversity and become stronger because of it. Explore ways that person might have felt along the way and lessons they may have learned because of their journey. 

Children are not naturally resilient, but their grown-ups can help them build the skills that will last them a lifetime. Meeting adversity with empathy and curiosity will help every time. Be a great role model by doing so with your own stress and helping talk kids through doing the same when they are facing a difficult situation. 

Helping Kids Cope with Stressful Events

Sometimes it is hard to escape the stressful events plaguing our community… pandemic, politics, social unrest, job loss, death. As a parent, it is natural to become preoccupied with a way to survive it all. We often hear that “kids are resilient” leading us to believe they aren’t as aware or affected by stressful events. Children are aware of more than we realize. Unlike adults, they do not have the previous life experience, skills, and developmental capacity to cope. There is significant long-term impact on a child that is left to figure it out on their own. Unsure of how to talk to your kids about some of these hard topics, read along for some tips. 

Deciding when to talk to your child is the best place to start. Choose a time that is low stress, no one is in a rush or preoccupied with being somewhere else. Early in the day on a non-school day is often a great choice. 

Take time before hand to think about your own reactions to the difficult topic. Staying emotionally calm will allow for your child to express their own experience, otherwise they may feel the need to care for your emotional needs. 

Rehearse what you plan to say. Take into consideration the child’s age but also their emotional maturity. Children often benefit from short and concrete facts about stressful events. Too many nitty-gritty details or uncertainties often lead to overwhelm. Keeping it short will allow the child to process the basic point before more details are added.  

Validate the child’s reactions and feelings about the topic, even if it doesn’t make sense to you or is different than your own. Sit with your child, quietly, as they absorb and react to the information. Gently help them put names on their emotions. Feeling seen and heard without judgement will allow your child to process stressful events and strengthen the parent-child relationship. 

Make sure to keep the first conversation short and simple. As they go through their day and week, they will continue processing the information and everything that it means for the world as they know it. Make time to check back in with them. Provide further details as they have questions and conversations continue. 

Kids build resiliency by facing hardship in bite size pieces they can master, feeling seen and heard, and being able process it with an emotionally safe adult. It helps them learn the skill of how to handle confusing and overwhelming events making them stronger and healthier adults. If you are struggling to make sense of a family or more global event, it might be a sign that your child is too. Take a few moments to check in with them. A few hard conversations can go a long way to promoting good mental health as they develop into adulthood. If you and your child are struggling to find your way through it, professional support is available.

Navigating Holiday Meltdowns

The upcoming holidays can be full of fun, traditions, and festivities. With that often comes changes in routine, late nights, and a little too much excitement that may lead to an increase in challenging behaviors. With a little thought and intention, you can reduce meltdowns, so they don’t hijack the holiday fun. 

First and foremost, caring for yourself is a top priority. Your child depends on their caregivers both to meet their physical needs and help managing big emotions. When a parent is depleted, spread too thin, or overwhelmed, your child’s level of stress will increase as well. When an adult’s stress increases, they have words to express it. When a child’s stress increases, they use behaviors to communicate it. 

Find ways to keep your own cup full. If you’re running on empty, you won’t be able to help your kids stay on an even keel. Think back to previous holiday seasons and identify the triggers that increase stress for you and your child. Find ways to cut back responsibilities to allow more time for connection and playfulness. Practice saying no to activities and people that add unnecessary stress. Reflect and identify activities and practices that bring you peace and calm. Engage in these daily, or more as needed. 

Even with the best self-care, meltdowns are still possible. Understanding the anatomy of a tantrum can help any parent know how to respond in a way that reduces the intensity and duration, as well as, helps a child to improve their emotion regulation skills. 

  1. Before a trigger, a child will be operating at their normal level of functioning or they may be predisposed for poor emotional regulation (i.e. rough day). Parenting supports may include classic care such as: sleep routines, nutrition, reliable routines, clear and consistent expectations… overall helping your child be the best version of themselves. 
  • During the escalation phase, a child has been triggered by something. They will communicate this by increasing behaviors such as: whining, arguing, yelling, somatic symptoms (e.g. stomachaches, headaches). Help your child de-escalate by keeping yourself calm, model deep breathing, check your body language (e.g. get on your child’s level, relax your shoulders, slow your physical movements), show compassion and empathy, and notice your what your child is feeling. 
  • In the dysregulation zone, a child is being flooded with biological survival reactions. At this point, the thinking part of the brain goes offline and isn’t available for problem solving, logic, reasoning. This flight-fight-freeze response may look like, screaming, hitting, kicking, throwing, etc. Helpful parenting techniques will be to ensure the safety of your child and those around him. Keep or regain your own sense of calm, take a moment to yourself, if needed. Practice healthy emotional boundaries by avoiding trying to fix the situation, rationalizing with your child, or correcting their behavior. Be with your child without too much verbal engagement. 
  • In the calming down phase, a child will likely speak softer and move slower. Continue to allow them space for the body and emotions to settle while you provide a calm presence. 
  • A child then returns to normal and their nervous system is re-regulated. They look and act like your “normal” kid. This is the perfect time to talk to them about what happened, what they were feeling, and give examples of how you handle big emotions. 

Holidays have the potential to be filled with moments of connection. Take time to care for yourself and your family and set limits to protect the space and energy of you and your loved ones. 

Helping Children with Pandemic Grief

The world has changed. Everyday life looks drastically different than it did one year ago. Many of us are feeling the effects of living in a world that feels isolated, stressful, and uncertain. We are grieving so many losses; the loss of normalcy; the loss of connection; the fear of economic toll; the loss of certainty. As adults, we often have a lifetime of experiences to remember and hold onto, to give us hope that this won’t last forever. But what about children who don’t have as many ways to cope, words to express what they are feeling, and history of experiences to fall back on. How do we recognize their loss, help them cope with their grief, and recognize when they might need help?

Grief and loss in children can show up in a variety of ways. It is rare that they come and tell a parent that they are feeling sad. Here are some other ways children express their feelings of loss:

  • Irritability and anger: “this stupid remote doesn’t work”
  • Tired: “I don’t want to ride my bike, I’m too tired”  
  • Numbing out: “just one more show”
  • Boredom: “I’m bored, there’s never anything to do” 
  • Resistant to change: refusing to try new foods, difficulty adjusting back to school
  • Displaced frustration: “who bought fruit loops, I only eat cereal that is yellow” 
  • Need to be in control: “I’m not eating that; I’ll only eat tacos for dinner” 

Oh no! My child is feeling more loss than I realized… now what? The good news is, grief, when processed in a healthy way, can help your child life a fuller and happier life. Helping children feel supported and build the skills needed to tolerate and make sense out of painful feelings can help them feel a deeper connection, internally stronger, and boost their sense of who they are in the world. Here’s how to help:

  • Help them label their emotion: “Wow, I can see your really frustrated!”
  • Allow them room to express their emotion… all emotions as long as they are staying safe; sometimes words are too hard so use art, music, play, etc. 
  • Listen more, talk less: it is not the time to fix it or problem solve, they just need a safe space to process what is happening 
  • Validate your child’s experience without focusing too much on positivity: “It hurts a lot when you can’t see your friends” 
  • Sometimes focusing too much on the positive can make a child feel more alone in their painful emotions 
  • Maintain normal routines as much as possible
  • Spend time helping your child make a story about what is happening: create a book, draw, tell it as a bedtime story… over and over until their story finds resolution 

Difficult times, when experienced with support of a loved one, can lead to tremendous growth and healing. What we all need most in difficult times is to feel seen, heard, and understood. If you are feeling stuck in how to help you or your child process the loss, reach out for help. Find a friend, loved one, or professional who can listen and provide support.