Sparkler Parents

Today we are going to take a DEEP DIVE into the sensations of the present moment and begin to cultivate what I have been calling being an "Empathetic Observer Of Our Own Experience". We do too much judging of ourselves and others and this exercise that you are about to do will help gain experience with merely naming the experience/sensation without judgement or evaluation. After you watch or listen to this Podcast episode, spend 3-5 minutes journaling about your experience.What did you notice. Just name it, do not evaluate or judge your present experience.

This episode we review PACE, which stands for Playfulness, Acceptance, Curiosity and Empathy. We talk a little more about playfulness and then dive acceptance. QOD: Describe a time when you miscued with your child. In that moment were you able to stay playful and accepting, or not? Jump on over to the FB Group to start a discussion. https://www.facebook.com/groups/441951513098677/

This chapter introduces the PACE (Playfulness, Acceptance, Curiosity and Empathy) acronym. We talk about Playfulness and how that can help get you as the parent back into a parental state of mind so that you can better read your child's cues and want to engage more (release of dopamine). Join the discussion in the FB group, Sparkler Parents Podcast. https://www.facebook.com/groups/441951513098677/

If I threw 100 tennis balls at you all at once, how many would you catch? I know that we would like to think we could catch at least 1 or 2, but in reality, the answer is none...in fact, I think I would turn around and just let all of the pummel me in the back. So, stress, can be adaptive, if we have the resources to manage it, but when the stress is too great, we go into survival. When this happens as a parent, it can feel very confusing, because everything just keeps going wrong and anything anyone says seems hurtful and it feels like you aren't a good parent or maybe you may perceive it as, your child is not a good kid. These are all of the things discussed in this book chapter that Christine summarizes in this episode. Hang out until the last 5 minutes to get information about a free download of a Calm Down Cube. https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vR0r15SJAUgtsddsI6Q5-NrW3iPQvIAJqMboEV_pQAFcaAA7ZlpfcV6VG-X3HTiqXXfXPdQB2kafcvl/pub Jump on over to our FB Group Called Sparkler Parents Podcast to join the discussion, or leave a review here!

There were some viewers/listeners who requested a YouTube Format, so this is it. You can still catch the podcast version too outlets like Spotify and Apple Podcasts. This episode continues to Chapter 3 of Brain Based Parenting and it discusses Blocked Care. The question of the week to discuss here in the comments or on FB is: What are your resources to buffer stress and challenge in your life so that you can stay in the present moment with your child?

Let's dive in to Chapter 2 a little more. So far we have learned that innately we, as parents, have different neurochemicals in our brains that help us connect to our children. These chemicals help strengthen pathways to build a strong attachment to our child first to orientate to the child, then be motivated to spend time and care for our child and today we talk about our ability to read/attend to non-verbal cues that tell us as parents that our child needs something...but what? And I would like to discuss in the FB group, what have you noticed in your own interaction with your children and how does your environment alter your way to effectively read your child's non-verbal cues. Please join me on FB, search Sparkler Parents Podcast. https://www.facebook.com/groups/441951513098677/

What is the Parental Approach System and why is it important to me? This is the idea that we are biologically engineered to want to have experiences with our kids. But I know that some parents find this difficult. What about when you rarely feel this way? This is a warning sign that there is too much stress on your system. Practicing silent sitting or a guided meditation can be PART of the solution at buffering your stress. How do you feel when you can take even just 2 minutes to yourself? What other strategies do you use to manage stress? Join the discussion in the Sparkler Parents Podcast FB group. https://www.facebook.com/groups/441951513098677/

Join the Discussion at the FB Group! Sparkler Parents Podcast Share an example of a time when you did not use your executive brain while parenting? I used to do this a lot more related to behaviors my children did or if my husband was about to arrive at home and one of the kids just made a big mess, I would yell, where as, if that same mess was made 30-45 minutes earlier I may not have yelled at my child the same way. What changed? The context changed. The fact that I just cleaned up and my husband expects a neat home when he returns increased my stress level and then with the new mess of Cheerios all of the floor (insert whatever mishap), I explode my stress out all of my child. If my executive parenting system was better developed, I would have been able to de-escalate myself. But even in after the stress explosion, I have some things I can do. I can take some breaths, I can step outside for a minute. I can apologize and hug my child. I can text my husband and just let him know what to expect when he gets home. It is not that big of a deal...slowing down helps us (and our kids) get our executive functioning back online.

This is not truly a meditation, but rather a way to develop an awareness of our senses. We have 10! In this game, 7 of the senses could be used including: sight, hearing, taste, touch, smell, proprioception and vestibular. Have a few items prepared and start the game off with SIGHT, I spy with my little eye.... Then allow you child to take a turn. Move on to as many senses as you feel are appropriate. Get creative with essential oils, noises and things to see in the room. But you can also draw a letter on their back (and allow them to do it to you too) or turn then around with their eyes closed and see if they know which direction they are facing. Building an awareness of what kinds of sensory information can come in through our senses can help our kids (and ourselves) be more curious and open. And if we notice that our child is not curious, see what you can change about the envionment to pique their curiosity, this is the alerting and orientating activities that our brains do to learn if something is safe or not safe. So in this game, we are being very intentional about this, helping our child develop the alerting and orienting skills without having to automatically react to things that really are not dangerous or harmful.

This podcast episodes pulls in a little bit of the discussion from the FB group, Sparkler Parents. Please join us over on FB. Also we round out Chapter 1 with the concept of neuroception.

This meditation to to help open your heart to allow loving energy to come in and flow back out to your child(ren), family members, neighbors, neighbors' kids and on and on. Check out Parents Thrive! This is a valuable resource of parents' stories around birth, anxiety and depression and realize that reaching out for help is a sign of strength. If you are a parent who is struggling, connecting to other parents, friends, family is a good thing. You do not have to have all of the answers, but be open to possibilities. https://parentsthrive.org/

This was a long chapter, but it lays the foundation for everything else that we will be discussing and learning about in this book. Some key take-a-ways included: We as parents are really striving to help our children be parents themselves one day. So all of the experiences of our child's early childhood will help shape the way the world in viewed in the future and how well our child develops the ability to self-regulate emotions, but also attune to others in their lives. This process is happening very much behind the scene and for a young child, 0-2, years, old, nearly always driven from a bottom-up approach, or in other words, through the sensory systems. Our brains need to work in a fluid, efficient way, uniting the information coming in with the previous information experienced and then hopefully responding to situations, especially as adults, using our higher levels of executive functional and parental capabilities. Jump on over to the FB group, Sparkler Parents Podcast to join the conversation. https://www.facebook.com/groups/441951513098677/

Welcome back Sparkler Parents. After about a 2 week hiatus, I am back. Over the next 8-9 episodes we are going to explore together a book that was required reading for my infant massage certification that I hold. I will admit, I did not read the book! But over the past 3 years since I received the infant massage instructor certificate, I have picked up a lot of this information info from other places. In fact, this podcast is based a lot in information from this book and I had not even read it yet! So, now we can read it together. The book is Brain-Based Parenting, by Daniel A. Hughes and Jonathan Baylin, https://www.amazon.com/Brain-Based-Parenting-Neuroscience-Interpersonal-Neurobiology/dp/0393707288 I am not an Amazon affiliate, but here is one way to get it. It should also be available at your local library. Check into the availability of an app to listen to it on Audio through your local library as well. If you are interested, jump on over to FB and search for Sparkler Parents Podcast group. This will be where we can discuss the book together. It is a private group, but you should still be able to request to join. If you need assistance, reach out at info@sweetpeapediatricwellness.com

We often think our children’s vision is based off of how about they can see the letters and the page or at a certain distance we don’t often think about how well our children’s eyes are working together as a team. But in fact this is as important as how well the eyes are working individually since it is teamed vision that allows for depth perception, understanding contours of faces and different expressions. We naturally try to compensate when the information coming in from the environment does not make sense and it is possible that miss-matched information from your child’s vision and difficulties coordinating this information between the two eyes may lead to challenges to their balance, difficulties reading or even paying attention to people as they talk. As parents, it is helpful to be aware of these potential challenges, because the pediatricians and school clinic nurses are assessing for visual acuity , but it is not often thought about to pay attention to how the eyes work together. Just knowing about this as a possible source of a problem can help us ask better questions and be curious about potential contributing factors to our children’s behavior or learning challenges. https://www.carlapister.com/faq.html

Are you sick of Baby Shark, Daddy Finger or Wheels on The Bus? Check in with your child when they sing a song or listen to music, because even if you aren't "feeling" the song in the moment, it might just be the ticket to strengthening your connection. Some ideas to create connections with music include: 1) just humming the tune. Humming can help you activate your vagus nerve and can actually help your slow your breathing and heart rate. 2) Make up your own lyrics. 3) Leave off the endings word in the song and see if your child can fill in the blank, "Twinkle, twinkle little ____." 4) Play one of your favorite songs and have a spontaneous dance party. 5) Set up folded blankets or throw pillows on the floor in a large circle, put on some tunes and walk from "stage" to "stage". Shout out "Rock Star" to invite you and your child to stand in the stage to dance, or shout of "Freeze" and pause the music for you and your child to freeze in place. Here are some links to songs that I love: https://youtu.be/3XEUasrdV8I https://youtu.be/gFEtY46onwI https://youtu.be/4fkPYwr-FVs https://youtu.be/0qicF6D6d94

Love and logic is usually what we are going for as parents, but I often feel that love and laughter creates more connection. The logic part comes naturally the more connected we are to our kids. When our children sense our love and are relaxed, there no longer is resistance...or at least less resistance. Leave a comment or a message about how you use laughter to build connections with your kids and in the meantime, check out this curated list of jokes to get the laughter (or at least a couple of smiles) going. https://drive.google.com/file/d/14sqqeuHk8MlrwU109w-eulUMlNQPhfKT/view?usp=sharing

Connecting with our kids is not always a serious matter. This week we will explore how to have fun, be creative and laugh together. Checkin out a few resources to get the creative juices flowing! Online Cartooning Workshops for kids and adults https://sarahjanevickery.com/ Take the 3 Marker Challenge https://youtu.be/RaYy7Nu7L18 Cartooning tutorial https://youtu.be/xudklRk8aM0

This is truly time just for you. You are worthy of love. You are worthy of self-love. You are worthy of other people's love. You are able to give love to others.

As Sparkler Parents we are working toward cultivating present moment awareness with our children. But there are other parts of our day when we may not be directly interacting with our kids, but they are listening, watching, observing us and our responses to situations. They feel our stress as much as they feel our joy and excitement. If we can grow our own ability to recognize and name our own suffering, we can then learn to extend our own selves a hand, just like we would do with a friend. You are worth that. I am serious! You are worth it. Jump on over to Season 3 to find a companion meditation on Self-compassion.

This episode cover s a couple of tools that we as parents can use, but so can our children to help create some space for our emotions without reacting out of anger or fear. I also wanted to share with you the idea of a Share Journal. Check out this little video tutorial and download the PDF's to print. https://youtu.be/yGkE_P5Fd0M PDF only: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZRA_SUEhrHiCdzW-m0dLDvejvW0KwXyS/view?usp=sharing