Parenting Blog

"We need 4 hugs a day for survival. We need 8 hugs a day for maintenance. We need 12 hugs a day for growth."  -- Virginia Satir

Sometimes I hear from parents that their child is a bottomless pit.  If your child is sucking up all you can give and still not thriving, you might be putting your energy in the wrong place.

Kids who hunger for your connection to the point that they act out usually need that connection on a non-verbal level.  Spending time with them baking cookies might make them happy because they get to lick the bowl, but it doesn't fill their deeper hunger to be held, physically and emotionally. 

Spending time reading to them might be intellectually stimulating, but it won't answer their deeper questions about whether they're loved and valued for who they are,

If your child feels like a bottomless pit, try this healing experiment.  Every day, spend 15 minutes snuggling.  Revel in touching your child.  Don't structure this time.  Just kiss him on the nose, nuzzle her hair, let him sink into the comfort of your lap. Even if your kid is eight, treat him as if he's a baby, just beginning to be verbal. Rock him in your arms. Play the physical games you played when she was tiny. Resist tickling, which can make kids feel invaded and out of control. Mostly, just snuggle and lavish attention.

If you have a hard time getting into this experiment, pull out your child's baby pictures.  Go through them together, oohing and ahhing about how cute he was ("Almost as cute as you are now!" you say with a kiss.) This will put both of you in touch with a simpler time when your adoration of your child was easily accessible -- and your physical connection touched both your souls.

After a week or two of this, your child will be different. And so will you.

"Before we're 8 years old, we have almost no capacity to filter out information that comes to us. So if parents or teachers, people we count on to nurture us, say something hurtful to us before the age of eight...it goes in quite deep and we carry those misbeliefs with us. They profoundly affect our relationship to ourselves, to others...our sense of value in the world."  -- Dr. David Simon

What did you learn before you were eight?  That you're a capable person, worthy of adoring love and an abundant life, lovable exactly as you are, even with all of your messy imperfections, bodily functions, anger, fear, and neediness?  Or maybe that you somehow aren't lovable enough to have your needs completely met, that some of your feelings and body parts are shameful, that harsh words or even blows might rain down on you at any time?

I'm hoping the former.  But if you're like most of us, you learned some things before you were eight that no child should learn, that no adult should be carrying around as motivating beliefs. Most of us have long since driven those unbearable thoughts into the dark regions of half-memory, or tried to cover them with bravado, but that only increases their power, unfortunately. 

The good news is that you have the secret weapon to get rid of those untruths, and it doesn't take years of therapy.  Here's how:

1. Notice the places in your life where you're unhappy, stuck, worried.  What's the limiting belief?  (Hint: Regardless of the original situation, the bottom line is always that we aren't good enough or lovable enough, which will cause us to be abandoned and die.)

2. Feel that unbearable feeling.  Just stop, drop, and endure it for a couple of minutes. Breathe. Notice that while it would have been unbearable for a child, it's not unbearable now. 

3. Give yourself a new thought:  "I am more than enough, exactly as I am." Let that love sink into every cell of your body.

That's it.  Shining the light of awareness on our toxic beliefs -- by simply noticing them, tolerating the feelings, and correcting the limiting belief  -- makes them dry up and blow away.  Of course, messages we got before we were eight might take repeated sessions. 

Which is why I've been focusing so much lately on supporting you in speaking gently to your children.  Whether they're four or fourteen, your words have tremendous power with them.  What beliefs do you want your child carrying for the rest of his or her life? This is your chance to work miracles.

My Aha Moment parenting this week came while I was reading some brain research. Neuroscientists have found that the critical period for the development of certain parts of the brain coincides precisely with the critical period for attachment development—during the first three years of life.

Dr. Allan Schore, from the Department of Psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine, has done a lot of research on the orbito-frontal cortex. If you’ve lost track of yours, it’s located above the eyes in the forehead area between the left and right hemispheres. The orbito-frontal cortex plays a central role in the development of empathy, emotional memory, infant attachment and emotional regulation. Schore believes that the process of parent-infant attunement has a direct impact on the development of the orbito-frontal cortex. The neurons located in this area are particularly sensitive to the emotional expressions of the human face.  When a parent holds her baby and gazes lovingly at him, it stimulates the neurons in this area to develop.  These neurons form the foundation of the child’s later moods, relationships, self esteem, and ability to control himself.

My Aha moment was realizing that the majority of babies in the United States are in daycare during much of this developmental period.  Are their brains developing optimally?  I doubt it.  How many daycare workers are holding babies and gazing lovingly at them?  They simply don’t have time. As Penelope Leach says, those infant smiles are so slow in coming with babies.  You smile at a two month old, and it takes her awhile to make contact with her facial muscles and smile back at you.  That dance is part of what develops the neurons in the orbito-frontal cortex.  But by the time the baby smiles, the daycare worker has moved on. Even while feeding, babies are often propped with bottles rather than held.  I’m not criticizing the daycare workers.  They are ill-paid and usually have little education in child development.  Why should they be expected to love all those babies the way parents would?  In fact, how could they?  But even if they have the inclination, they certainly don’t have the time.

All of which means that the epidemic of children unable to regulate their emotions and behavior – and often growing into adults who are medicated – may be related to the prevalence of infant daycare in our society. Even when kids come out ok, how much better off could they have been if they’d had more of those loving gazes?

This is the kind of subtle effect that it’s hard to trace, that may not show up in studies of kids in daycare.   So all this worrying parents do about playing classical music for their babies to make them smarter, and getting them to read early?  And here we may be compromising their brain development – and their later happiness and life adjustment - in much more fundamental ways.

My other Aha moment was how many times I’ve heard the view that something that happens before a child can talk won’t affect them, because they won’t remember it.  And here we’re finding that some of the most important brain development takes place mostly before kids can talk! I’ve had parents say to me that babies don’t need their parents when they’re little – that anyone could be holding them or feeding them.  They point out that babies often don’t seem to know the difference during their first six months.  Well, babies may not show that they know the difference, but their brain development, and their life adjustment, turns out to be shaped by those early interactions.  Seems to me our society needs a little Aha Moment about this!

Everyone knows that stress is bad for us, but why?  Did you know that stress causes spikes in cortisol, the stress hormone produced by the adrenal glands?  That’s okay if you’re grabbing your kid away from the side of the pool, but chronic high cortisol levels are bad for your body.  Among other nasty effects, elevated cortisol can interfere with your body’s progesterone production and throw all your hormones all out of whack.  Some symptoms of chronically elevated cortisol and out-of-balance progesterone include:

•    Slower metabolism and weight gain
•    Anxiety, including difficulty falling asleep
•    Emotional outbursts and moodiness
•    Difficulty concentrating
•    Depression, exhaustion, sluggishness, crankiness.
•    PMS
•    Heavy periods with cramps
•    Food cravings and binging

As every mother learns, to her dismay, you can't be a good mom when you're stressed out, no matter how positive your intentions.  It's true that modern life creates stress, but it's also true that what stresses out one person may just roll off the back of another.  A three pronged approach works best:   Strengthen your body so you can parent with more energy and calm, pare down the stressors in your life -- and commit yourself to remaining calm and not letting yourself get provoked into stress-mode.  Here are ten stress-busting strategies you can use starting today.

1. Eat right.  Think protein at every meal and for snacks.  (That doesn’t necessarily mean meat.  Try beans, tofu, nuts, dairy, eggs and fish.)  Five to eight servings of whole fruits and veggies (not juice).  Healthy fats are fine in moderation (olive oil, nuts, avocado) but hydrogenated oils are really dangerous to your long-term health.  Sugar and sweet treats are just that – occasional treats – and should not be part of your regular diet.  Limit carbs except for whole grains.  Carbs throw off your blood sugar and hormones, make you tired and moody, and put on weight.  And make sure you take a multivitamin and a calcium/magnesium supplement, unless you’re sure you’re getting enough.
 
2. Half an hour of sweat inducing activity daily will cut cortisol levels, boost progesterone, and burn fat.  What more incentive do you need?  Turn on the music and get your kids dancing with you!

3. This is the hardest one by far for mothers.  Get enough sleep, even if it means napping when your kids nap and going to bed at 9pm.  Don't worry, these years are over fast.

4. Pare down your schedule.  Prioritize your kids and your relationship.  Then drop anything else you can.  Your house can stay a mess a little longer.  Serve scrambled eggs for dinner.  Just say no.  You’ll thank yourself.  Your kids will thrive.

5. Pay attention to breathing, calmly and deeply, as often as you remember, all day long.  Feeling stressed out?  Breathe.  Kids just dump their toys in the toilet? Breathe.  This will change your life.

6. Count your blessings and cultivate optimism.  Every time you start to feel negative, find as many things as you can to be grateful for, and really feel that gratitude.  Research shows this practice reduces stress and improves health and attitude.

7.  Cut your kids some slack.  Kids aren’t bad, they’re just young.  The fact that Michael clobbered his playmate or Jillian smeared poop on the wall doesn’t mean they’ll be psychopaths.  When they’re hardest to love is when they most need our love and understanding.  

8.  Cut yourself some slack.  There are no perfect moms, and there are no perfect people.  Practice positive self-talk.  Find ways to nurture yourself.   Loving yourself – really feeling your love for yourself – is the single most important thing you can do for yourself, and for your kids.

9. Life is too short for you to be stressing over bad relationships.  If you’re feeling stressed about your relationship with your husband or partner, make working things out a priority.  Go to counseling if necessary.  If you need more support in your life, find other moms with whom you feel comfortable and start building new friendships.

10. Find spirit in your life.   This doesn’t have to mean a higher power, although it might.  For some of us, it’s as simple as a walk in the woods or gazing at the stars.  Your kids benefit from quiet time in nature too.  We all need to reconnect regularly with the miracles that make life worth living.

Last Sunday The Washington Post ran a wrenching story by Gene Weingarten about parents who forget their sleeping baby or toddler is still in the car seat, park the car, and leave the baby in a locked, hot or cold car all day to die. 

My first thought, of course, was that I would never do that.  Forget about my baby?!  What's wrong with these people? But these parents were all sleep deprived and overwhelmed.  They were all doing something out of the ordinary, for instance, dropping the baby at daycare because their spouse was out of town, when it wasn't their usual routine.  So their brains went on auto-pilot and they drove to work as usual.  Rear-facing carseats and tinted glass in vans don't help.

I think I'm a terrific parent.  But I know what it's like to be sleep-deprived, and I've done plenty of dumb things on auto-pilot.  So I'm convinced that given the right conditions I, like most parents, could make this unbelievable error and leave my child to die.

But here's what I haven't seen talked about in all the outpouring of response to this story.  The conditions that create such a tragedy aren't conditions any parents should put up with, or any kids grow up in. 

That may sound harsh, given the economic constraints on families today.  But this wasn't the first sign these parents had that their lives were out of kilter.  The universe always taps you on the shoulder before it slugs you in the face.  If these parents had paid attention to those shoulder taps, they could have made appropriate changes in their lives before their children were sacrificed.

I want to be clear that I'm not blaming the parents. They're victims too, of a society that expects parents to "do it all" -- raise small children and work full-time.  Most of us do it and consider it normal, without understanding the high cost to our children.  Most of the time, we muddle through, not realizing that our toddler's tantrums or our preschooler's anxiety come directly from our way of life.  Sometimes, it's a recipe for disaster.

****************

I want to thank GC, who wrote to the Wall Street Journal Blog The Juggle with a compilation of suggestions for parents.  I'm taking the liberty of passing them on in the hopes that awareness can prevent some future tragedies. 

*Keep your purse or bag in the back seat with the baby
* Ensure that all childcare providers have up-to-date phone numbers and that they will call ALL numbers if a child doesn’t show up
* Mom check in on dad and vice versa, especially if routines are shifted on any given day
* What about setting your cell phone to beep at the time that you arrive at the workplace, and then when it beeps, you always look back to make sure the child isn’t there (or you call your partner to make sure the child is dropped off)?
* A buddy system with another mom or dad?
* Some sort of system where you turn a different radio station on — one you don’t normally listen to — when you get in the car and you need to do something different than your normal routine?
* What about sticking a sign on your chest “Baby on Board!” that you’ll have to remove when you drop off the baby? (or coworkers will alert you to the problem because they’ll see the sign).
* What about getting a reminder flag like the ones that motorcyclists use so that they don’t accidentally drive off with locks on their wheels? (http://www.lockitt.com/accessoriesreminders.htm). Stick one end on the car seat, and the other end on your door handle or somewhere like that, and make it part of the strapping-in process.
* Give a car seat alarm system as a baby-welcoming gift.