Communication is a key factor in any relationship, especially those with children. Active listening is a communication skill that can bring greater connection, clarity and understanding to build positive relationships with children.

Often when listening to children, adults may be distracted by something else, fidget, rehearse what they want to say in their head, interject before the child has finished talking/expressing themselves, or have closed body language. All of these things can cause misunderstandings and conflict, affect whether children may disclose sensitive information again and can damage relationships. Active listeners have the intent to listen to the complete message and its meaning by paying attention to what children are saying, how it is being said. It involves being aware of body language, voice inflection, overall attitude and the meaning of what children are saying to validate communication and help children feel supported and understood.

Why is active listening important?
By being active listeners, parents and carers can strengthen their communication and relationships with children by demonstrating interest, care and understanding. Some benefits of active listening for communication and relationships are:

• helping children to feel valued, connected, validated and understood
• building trust and credibility with a child
• helping clarify a child’s thoughts and feelings
• avoiding conflict and misunderstandings
• making it more likely a child will talk to you, express themselves and seek your views in the future

Actively listening to children can begin right from when they are born, as it is important that parents and carers communicate with babies through understanding their cues and body language. By paying attention to a baby’s body language or non-verbal cues, such as understanding different kinds of crying or noticing how a baby moves when they are distressed, parents and carers can understand what and how a baby communicates. Eye contact, turning their head and eyes towards you or reaching out to you are some of the ways your baby tells you they want attention. Babies yawning, rubbing their eyes or jerking their arms or legs they are showing signs they are tired; toddlers and older babies might grizzle, cry and demand attention. Babies and toddlers can read body language too, for example, smiling can help a baby feel safe and loved. For more information on baby cues see Raising Children Network’s video guide.

Skills tips: What does active listening involve?

Active listening is a skill that can be learned and practised. It can mean different things in different cultures, with some aspects needing to be altered but active listening involves the following aspects that need to be practised over time:

1. Give the child your full attention. This may involve stopping what you are doing (e.g. turning off the television, stopping cooking), moving away from a busy place or letting the child know you want to listen and will give them your full attention when you finish (e.g. when caring for another child). When you are talking to a child and you notice your mind is wandering, bring it back to what the child is saying. Prioritising time to listen actively and attend shows a child their feelings are important and that you are interested in what they are thinking and feeling.
2. Use your eyes to listen. Make eye contact and if possible, get down to their level to show them you are ready to listen.
3. Listen carefully to what is being said. Listen to both what the child is saying and their body language, without interrupting and avoiding questions that break the child’s train of thought. Focus on what the child is saying and the meaning behind it, rather than what you are going to say next.
4. Use encouragers. Show that you are interested by nodding your head, smiling or making other appropriate facial expressions, providing verbal encouragers such as “mmm”, “uh huh” or making comments like “I see”, “that sounds hard/tricky/great” to help encourage the child to keep speaking and engage in what they said.
5. Reflect the feeling. After the child has talked about a feeling, thought, experience, etc. use the opportunity to respond and gently describe in your own words what you think the child is feeling and why. For example, “You seem to be feeling a bit upset about not making the football team”. This can help demonstrate empathy (recognising, understanding and respecting the feelings of others) and understanding of the child’s feelings and thoughts.
6. Use pauses and silences. Resisting the temptation to fill silences is important when children are trying to think about what else they want to say, as it gives them time to think and respond.
7. Ask open-ended questions. Open questions (e.g. “What are you concerned about when you go to school?”) encourage more detailed responses where children can provide more deep and meaningful information.
8. Summarise. Summarising the child’s main points can demonstrate that you understand what they were saying and can allow an opportunity for the child to add something.
9. Make non-judgemental statements. It is important to refrain from judgement statements, such as “You feel scared about silly monsters at night”, that can prevent children from disclosing further information. Try to reflect or paraphrase what a child has said, in your own words in a non-judgemental way, for example “You feel scared about monsters when the lights get turned off”. This lack of judgement invites the child to tell you more about what they are thinking or feeling.
10. Choose words to start a conversation. You can begin active listening by using questions or statements such as “You seem to be feeling...about...”, “It looks like you feel...with...”, “You sound...at...”, “You seem...because...” An example might be “You’ve been sitting very quietly and hugging your teddy bear. It seems like you are feeling sad about something. Would you like to tell me about it?” 

Like any skill, active listening takes time and practice to develop but is very rewarding for parents, carers and children. It is not only a skill that can help support healthy communication and strong relationships with children, but also with other adult relationships.

By Jessie Klassen

Contributing writer for Wake Up World

Nature has lessons for those who listen, and for those who observe with sincerity and open hearts.
Growing up on a farm, I was afforded the opportunity of having a close relationship with animals. Over my years of living my life this way, there have been many lessons that I have been taught. And as a mother myself, I have paid special attention to the animal mothers, and the way that they parent their babies.

Here are 5 parenting lessons that I have learned from the Animal Kingdom.

Lesson #1: “Model the behaviour you would like to see in your child”
Animal mothers do not send mixed messages.  This is why an animal mother will never expect any different behaviour from her child that she herself hasn’t displayed.

I have had many years of experience with cattle, and they have taught me more about Life than anything else.  During each calving season, it is such a delight to watch the mothers with their new babies.  I am always fascinated how quickly the calves will begin to mimic their mothers.  Before long, the calves are joining in with the herd, munching on hay, or licking and grooming one another.

Our most calm, easy-going mothers have the calm, easy-going calves.  Our wilder, more protective mothers have the wildest calves that will beller at you if you get too close. Animals teach by example.  They are authentic at all times because they understand that their young are watching them closely.  They know this is how they learn the skills that they will need to survive. Mother cows teach their calves how to graze and join in with the herd and mother bears gently play with their cubs so that they will learn the necessary skills to defend themselves one day.

We have many white-tail deer where I live, and they are a beautiful creature to observe.  Graceful and elegant in their movements, a mother doe will tentatively step out into an open hay field, but never far from the safety of the woods.  When she knows it is safe, she summons her calf.  As she and her calf graze, she continues to lift her head, sniff the air and observe her surroundings.  Her calf does the same.  She flickers her tail, and so does her calf.

But there is more than just modelling survival skills.  Animal mothers are exceptionally affectionate, and they teach how to both give and receive love.  Cows will stand and lick their babies, a peaceful look in their eyes, and proudly send them off with “cow licks” in their hair.  It is always easy to tell the really well-cared for calves in the herd.

I often ask myself, “am I setting a clear example for my children of what it means to be a loving, thoughtful person?” “Am I teaching them all the practical skills I have learned that will help Life flow more smoothly for them?”

On the farm, my siblings and I grew up alongside my parents while they worked.  We played in the barn while they milked the cows, or in the garden while my mother was weeding, or riding along with them checking and tending to the cattle.  As we got older, we began to help.  I can’t recall a clear distinction between when play ended and work began.  There was always play, and there was always work.  They blended very naturally and childhood was enjoyable, while adulthood was no stark “eye-opener”. We understood that work had to be done, and we knew how to have fun while and after the work was done as well.

As I grew up, I realized that there was much I had learned from modelling my parents that I had just taken for granted as common knowledge, when it really wasn’t common at all. And of course, this modelling of parents’ behaviour can go both ways. I guess this is why the phrases, “Oh no, I’m turning into my parents!” or “I sound just like my mother!” are so common.

Lesson #2: “Discipline is Necessary”
I have yet to see an animal mother that does not, at one time or another, reprimand or discipline her young in some way. I have seen mother cats growl at their kittens, mother dogs nip at their pups, and cows give their calves a bunt with their head when they are taking their playing a little too far and getting too rowdy.  And sometimes you can see that they are just tired and need to have a rest.

They never discipline with enough force to wound or injure their babies, but enough that the babies know that whatever they were just doing needs to stop. It seems that many parents seem confused as to how to discipline their children.  Spank or no spanking?  Time-outs?  Take away toys? I don’t think that these questions ever cross a cows mind, or keep a mother wolf lying awake at night.  I am also sure that you would never hear a  bear exclaim in an exasperated plea, “these kids are driving me crazy!”

I was taught that discipline comes from love.  A parent disciplines because they care enough about the well-being of their child.  I was also taught that until you are old enough to have integrated your lessons, discipline happens on a daily basis, and some children need more than others.  Basically, discipline is work.  I was also taught that as children, we look for discipline, or perhaps a better term, boundaries.

We do not yet understand the world, and so, like the animals, we look to our parents and trust that they will let us know when there is danger or if there is something we shouldn’t be doing. My grandpa always said, “A child looks to you for discipline, and they are happier when they have it, because this is how they know they are loved. A child without discipline is lost.” I’m certainly not saying that we need to behave like army sargeants, but simply be consistent with letting our children know what is and isn’t acceptable.

My mother never wasted words.  We were raised in such a way that she only needed to give us a certain “look” and we knew exactly what it meant.  I feel that this is natural.  You don’t hear animals yelling and hollering at their young.  Actions speak louder than words. It is when we are old enough to understand language that we can have longer conversations and explanations.

On a farm, there are plenty of dangers for kids to get into.  Large animals, machinery, and in our case, a pond that was within a stone’s throw from our house. When I was a little girl, I knew to never go near this pond without my parents with me.  I knew this not because I understood that I could drown, or that it was “dangerous”, I understood because my mother said I would get a spanking if I did.

As my mother has said, “water is unforgiving, and there could be absolutely no grey areas.” And this little threat kept me away from it until I was old enough to understand the dangers. And I have to say, not once did my siblings or I ever disobey her.  When I was older, I spent countless days rafting on this pond, and they are some of my fondest memories. If I think back to my childhood, I can only remember actually being spanked maybe once or twice, and it was more the thought of it that was upsetting than the spank itself.  But I knew that it wasn’t an idle threat, as it would happen if I pushed it far enough.

Because of discipline, my siblings and I were able to enjoy many freedoms, such as running in the pasture, following the winding cow trails,  playing in the barn, and spending time with the horses, cows, pigs,  and chickens.  We were able to enjoy these freedoms without always being watched because our parents knew that they could trust us. I often feel that this is missing in many children today.  They are so closely coddled and protected that they can’t be trusted, or be given any responsibility. I realize that an upbringing on the farm is much different than in the city.  Cities have traffic and other people that need to be watched out for, but I still feel that we are not giving our children enough credit of what they are capable of.

Lesson #3: “Be playful”

Not only do children learn by watching us closely, they learn by simply engaging in the joyful act of play. Within days of their birth, calves will already be running and jumping around, chasing one another in a game of tag, or else shaking their heads at one another and butting them together.

My parents have often said while we were enjoying watching the calves play, “you can see that it is our natural state to be joyous and playful.” Pigs are also a hoot to watch, as they will grunt and run and turn around on a dime, often so quickly that they will send themselves spinning on their sides. It is cute to see that it is not only the young that are playing.  Often the cows will join in with the calves, usually on an exceptionally beautiful day in the spring when the sun is gaining strength.

I have a dear friend who has spent her life working with small children, either in day cares, nursery schools, or those with special needs.  Often times, parents will come to her and say, “but they’re just playing, what have they learned?”  And she will reply, “this is how we learn.” Animals have so much to teach us about not taking life so seriously, and I try to follow their lead as often as I can, especially with my own children. We were born to be happy, to laugh, and to see the humour in our days.

One day this fall I was busy cleaning up our yard after a 2 day wind storm had sent many branches crashing from our trees.  For hours I walked back and forth, carrying limbs, and piling them for a bonfire. My 2 dogs, Sidda and Chubs, were lying in the warm sun and relaxing as I did this.  At one point, Sidda, my loyal friend of 12 years now, sat up and looked at me intently.  And for a moment I could hear what she was feeling.  Basically, she was thinking how silly I looked and wondering when I would be finished so we could go for a walk.

It was then that I realized that my back was tired and I had had enough of picking up branches.  I looked back at her and said, “you’re right.  Lets go.”  And off for an evening walk we went.

Lesson #4: “You are the primary influence”

When a cow is going to give birth, she always chooses a secluded place where she will be alone.  After her calf is born, she licks him clean and promptly eats her afterbirth.  After baby has had a chance to nurse,  she will lead them away from this site to a different location.  She then hides them in a safe place, often for several days, before bringing them to join the herd.  She will tuck them in the tall grass where they can’t be seen, and often will go back and forth between them and the rest of the herd.  She does not share them.  Now this is because when a calf is newborn, they have no scent, so they are actually safer by themselves.  A cow knows that a predator would not find them, and so she keeps a careful watch from a distance.

When we have tried to look for these newborn calves, often just to make sure that everything is okay, they can be almost impossible to find.  And the mothers offer no clues either, often looking in the other direction from where their calf is as to fool you.

Animals teach that in the beginning of our lives, our parents are our primary influence, and after a suitable time, after their influence and bond has been made, they are introduced to the rest of the world. In today’s world, a child can go to nursery school as soon as they are potty trained.  Not only do we have kindergarten, but we also have pre-kindergarten. Daycare centers are overflowing with babies and toddlers. So in these circumstances, who is raising our children?

I feel for the parents, ache for them actually, who take their child to daycare before they head off to work, pick them up at the end of the day, then try to make supper and enjoy some quality time before bed.  The sad thing is, the child has spent all day with other people, and has played with many children, and is likely very tired and will fall asleep very early.
If we think about it, this is a very unnatural way to be raising our families.

We pay other people to raise our children so that we can work.  What kind of world have we created where mothers can’t afford to stay at home and raise their own children? As I have said, I ache for these parents.  I understand that we need to pay bills and keep a roof over our family’s heads.  But I can’t help but feel that we have just come to accept that this is the way it should be. I realize that many mothers have careers that they enjoy and are a gift to our world, but what about the children in these environments?

Have we been living like this long enough to know that there won’t be long-term problems in the future? I am not disrespecting those who work in daycare either. I know that they are kind, caring people who truly love children, but they are not their parents. We are born knowing exactly what we need to teach and give to our children.  This knowledge is within us.  The lessons that we have for our own children are more valuable than anything that they will learn anywhere else.

I find myself torn when I hear parents say of their toddlers, “oh, they can already count to 100 and write their name because of daycare.  I could never do that when I was a kid.” Does any of this really matter?  Kids all seem to balance out and catch up with one another in the end.

I sometimes feel tempted to ask these parents, “but what unique gift have you been teaching them?” As we are on a farm, I like to share the miracle of a cow’s birth with my kids, or how to tell when an animal is sick, or how to pick peas from the garden without hurting the plants, or how to know what depth to plant a seed. We are concerned with our kids knowing how to count and tell shapes, but we have forgotten how to teach them to feel the land and grow their own food. We feel that we are preparing them for the “real world”, but do we not need to eat, or live on this Earth responsibly, or have a balanced relationship with the animals?

I was fortunate to have the opportunity to choose a career where I could have my children with me.  And days that I couldn’t, there were grandparents and aunts and uncles and friends.  I can count on one hand the number of times that I had to hire someone to watch my children.  For these reasons, I feel very blessed, as my children have always been surrounded by those who love them most.  They know nothing else.

I find it sad that many parents don’t feel that they have anything special to teach their children, when simply loving and playing and laughing with them without the worry of what they are “learning” is teaching them how to be happy and joyous.  Perhaps it is your perspective about Life that is unique or a gift, or the kind way that you treat others.
I think that it is important to remember that no matter the circumstances, your child is yours for a reason, and you being their parent is no accident.

And if you find yourself in the situation of not being with your child as often as you would like to, know that every moment you have with them is special, and that with your intention, you can share your gifts.

Lesson #5: “We would kill and die for our young”

This may sound a little extreme, but this is something that hit me the moment I held my first born in my arms.  I simply knew that if there was ever a threat to this child, I was capable of murder, and that I would give my own life without question.

This is the profound, limitless, unconditional love of a parent.  And it just happens.  It does not have to be learned, there is no course, it is a natural occurrence. I have worked with many new mothers in calving season, and it is always a time to be wary.  Some mothers trust us and do not see us as a threat.  And there are some who will get a look in their eye and you know you need to run. It is this natural defense of our children that really puts their importance to the world into perspective.

If it is natural for us to kill or lay our own lives on the line without question, then we see how important their lives are here.  How important that they are able to grow up healthy and into their full potential,  and offer their gift to the rest of the world. Parents have a way of seeing the best in their children.  The potential that lies within.  The light.  There is only unconditional love. This is how Mother Earth, the Universe, Life itself, sees us as well. Nature loves us and the Earth wants to provide for us.  She sees our potential, what truly lives within.

The other day I was feeling upset, and naturally, I wanted to feel comforted.  As always, I turned to Sidda, who has been mothering me for the last 12 years (although I was 20 when she was a pup, I feel that I have “grown up” with her.) She takes her role very seriously and is constantly looking out for me.  As I laid next to her and stroked her fur and told her my problems, she was quiet for a while before I felt her reply, “What good is it that you wish to bring into the world?  What gift can you share with others?” I instantly felt lighter and my mood brightened.  Sidda always knows exactly what I need to hear.

It may sound strange, but I know that my cows have chosen me as their caregiver.  I am a part of their spiritual evolution as much as they are a part of mine.  We are learning and growing together. I honour, respect, and love them.  I care for them to the best of my ability, and try to provide a beautiful, happy, clean environment for them to live. They have taught me how to be a better mother and a more compassionate person.

The Sapling: An Inspiring Story From the Trees

The new book by Jessie Klassen…

Learn how to communicate with Nature while enjoying fun activities and energy exercises that will encourage spiritual growth, self-confidence, and awareness in you and your child while developing a close relationship with Nature.
In “The Sapling”, author Jessie Klassen offers an inspiring story from the Trees for the children of Earth, with vivid, full colour Nature illustrations that will appeal to younger children and provide valuable Life lessons that will grow with your child — just like a Tree! Full colour demonstrations easily display dozens of activities and exercises for you and your child to enjoy.

“The Sapling” is the first book in Jessie’s Nature Child Children’s Book Series, committed to helping children grow into who they truly are meant to be through a close relationship with Nature. You can get your copy here.
A portion of proceeds are donated to the TreeSisters and the Nature Conservancy of Canada.

Recommended articles by Jessie Klassen:

• 5 Lessons From The Animal Kingdom
• Speak to the Trees – A Spiritual Perspective on Nature
• 5 Important Lessons for Raising Children in The New Energetic Paradigm
• How to Communicate With Our Pets and Honour Their Soul Purpose
• Parents: We Are The Ground Crew of the Awakening
• 6 Simple Ways to Keep You and Your Family Grounded
• An Empowering Energetic Healing Exercise for Children
• Embrace the Shift Through Solstice Energies
• 12 Simple Steps for Guiding Our Children Into Their Highest Expressions
• The Trees Are Speaking – The Heartbreak and Hope of Our Ancient Friends and Guardians
• Honouring the Trailblazers

About the author:

Jessie Klassen is a writer, farmer, and the mother of 3 sensitive children. She is also a Reiki Master and empath herself, who is committed to raising her children in an accepting and spiritually-connected environment, grounded in Nature. Through her work, Jessie is inspired to help others connect with the magic of Nature to rediscover the magic of their own lives.
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Jessie released her first children’s book, “The Sapling” in 2017. It is the story of a little sapling who with the help of a wise old tree, overcomes her fears of growing big and becomes the tree she is meant to be!

A mother of a six-year-old boy called me in tears. After yet another meltdown in his classroom, the teacher requested a meeting with the parents. The mother assured me that her son is sweet, funny and very bright. He’s the life of the party at home and has tons of friends. The meltdowns, she thought, paled in comparison to the rest of his personality.
The problem, of course, is that the meltdowns affected his ability to learn. When her son encountered something frustrating, he “flipped a switch.” He went from happy and engaged to angry and screaming in an instant. This pulled the teacher away from the class, negatively affecting the entire kindergarten classroom.

It didn’t take long to determine that it wasn’t so much that he “flipped a switch” when he encountered something hard, but that the buildup of frustration over time resulted in huge meltdowns when he finally hit his tipping point. He was missing his anger cues throughout the day, and that caused a flood of emotions when he confronted something particularly frustrating.

Many young children struggle with frustration tolerance. Anger and frustration are powerful emotions, and children’s reactions can be intense in the moment. As adults, we know when our anger buttons are pushed. We know what we need to do to work through something frustrating in an appropriate manner. Kids, however, don’t enter this world with a pocket full of frustration management skills.

Developing coping strategies to deal with frustration requires time and practice. The good news is that parents can help kids build frustration tolerance skills at home. With a little bit of guidance (and a lot of patience), you can teach your little one how to cope when the going gets tough.

Try a little body mapping. Young children don’t make the connections between their bodies and their emotions. I know, for example, that a sore neck means I’m under stress. Given that knowledge, I can take a moment to figure out what I need to do to decrease my stress level. Children struggle to draw those conclusions. They might experience sore muscles from clenching their fists, but they won’t stop to think about how their emotional states contribute to those sore muscles.

Body mapping is one of my favorite strategies from “The Happy Kid Handbook” because it helps kids of all ages. Draw the outline of a person (or if you’re like me, Google and print). Ask your child to think about all the places on his body that feel sore or different when he’s mad. You might point out that your heart races when you’re mad, and that makes your head feel dizzy. Doing this exercise with your child is important. Color all of those places red. Tell your child that when those places start to feel red, his body is signaling him to get help in a frustrating moment.

Learn about triggers. All kids are different and no two will have the exact same triggers of frustration, but there are a few common triggers to watch for:

• transitions
• negative peer interactions (or perceived negative interactions)
• challenging academics (yes, even in preschool—cutting with scissors can be very frustrating)
• feeling misunderstood by adults or peers
• lack of control
• hunger
• exhaustion
• unexpected situations

You can help your child understand his specific triggers by keeping a trigger tracker. When you talk about a frustrating situation with your child, make a note of what happened just prior to the event, the time of day and what was happening when the meltdown occurred.

Create a mad list. When my son was younger, a mad list was the secret to helping him vent his frustration. Young children need to vent (just like adults), but they don’t yet know how to do that. Screaming and flailing feels good in the moment, so they go with what works.

Ask your child to name all of the things that make him mad. Write down his list on a piece of paper while he vents his emotions. Provide empathy and understanding while you do this. Kids need to feel understood, and a simple, “Ooh, that makes me mad, too!” shows that you get it. Once the list is complete, ask your child to tear it into tiny pieces (this provides a much needed physical release of emotion) and throw them in the air. Then collect the pieces together and throw them out for good.

Teach the stoplight with deep breathing. You’ve probably heard a lot about the power of deep breathing lately, and for good reason. When done properly, deep breathing can calm a child’s senses and help that child work through a frustrating event without resorting to screaming.

The best time to practice deep breathing is when you’re both calm. Until they get the hang of it, kids have a tendency to associate deep breathing with rapid breathing, which has the opposite effect.
Ask your child to sit comfortably and relax his muscles. Count to four while your child inhales, count to three while your child holds his breath, and then count to four while your child exhales. Repeat several times and practice regularly (bonus tip: this also works wonders for worriers). I like to have my kids “breathe the rainbow” by picturing one color with each breath while visualizing their favorite things in that color (strawberries, cherries and bouncy balls, oh my!)

Next, teach the stoplight. All kids know that red means stop, yellow means slow down, and green means go. Take it a step further by teaching them to visualize a red light to stop in a moment of frustration. This is when they can tap into deep breathing to calm their minds and bodies. When they shift to a yellow light, they should think of three possible solutions (Ask the teacher for help? Try again? Ask a friend?). When they visualize the green light, they can pick an option and move forward. Go ahead and create a big stoplight out of construction paper to tape to your fridge for reference. Over time, this process will become second nature and the meltdowns will fade away.
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More resources:

• Sharpen Your Child’s Stress-Relieving Skills
• Helping Toddlers Understand Their Emotions

   - By Katie Hurley, LCSW

​For Dora, it was yet another meltdown morning. She skulked into my office, treating it like a confessional, and reviewed the school scene that just happened with Sammy, her 7-year-old. He dawdled through getting dressed, and then things went from bad to worse when he screamed about his seat belt, threatened to throw up and refused to go into his classroom. She shared how her exasperation and efforts to cajole him intensified his meltdown. Dora said this was business as usual. 

Highly sensitive children have an inborn temperament that renders them reactive to internal and external experiences. These children are called “anxious,” “difficult,” “easily distressed,” “explosive” and “highly emotional.” Parents often find them rigid and inflexible. They usually have a tough time with transitions, unfamiliar circumstances, new activities and even mild stressors. They can’t help it. But what’s a parent to do?

Imagine a scale, a “distress-o-meter” of 1 to 10. What stresses the average child (like becoming physically uncomfortable, excluded, frustrated with a task) and registers on the meter as the orange zone of 6 or 7 is experienced by your child as an 8, 9 or 10 which is the red zone. Your child will be hysterical, irrational, screaming, resistive and absolutely out of control. Getting mad at the child in the red zone is like throwing grease on a fire. Better to be in the green, cool zone yourself.

Routine expectations for a child (like bedtime, going to school, team sports) may seem to you like they should be mild stressors, but they can be experienced as major ones for anxious children. You might judge that these things shouldn’t throw your child’s emotional throttle to the red zone, but it won’t help him learn self calming. Only lots of cognitive and emotional re-training will do so. And don’t be quick to think that this is just a therapist’s job, because if the child goes home to their most intimate, loving attachment figures (parents) who are angry, exasperated and judgmental the child’s brain will be in too much of a chronic firestorm to learn coping and calming techniques.

In brain terms, when your child is having a meltdown, he is having an “amygdala hijack.” The emotional part of his brain is reacting to a stressor as if it were a predator, which triggers a “fight, flight, freeze” reaction. Parents of these children need to develop skills in calming themselves so that they can help their children learn to calm themselves. In an airplane emergency, the oxygen bag needs to first go to the parent so that she can then optimally help her child. 

What did Dora do with her son’s meltdown at school? Dora was reasonable, but classically ineffective. She reassured him and told him there was “nothing to be afraid of,” that he was “not really sick, just nervous” and to “just calm down.” She reminded him that he was going to be late for school and that he’d feel better if he would just “get going” with the school day. He screamed louder. 

Rational and intelligent parents can easily fall into the trap of doing all the wrong things with riled up kids. Dora’s reassurance is remarkable in how typical it is and how spectacularly it can fail to help accomplish the goals of calming the child and inspiring compliance. Whether the anxiety is triggered by a birthday party, soccer practice or homework, fear is in the mind of the beholder and is not something to be argued during a meltdown.

Parents should be quiet and think very carefully about what they say and transmit emotionally to their sensitive children.
Dora needs to do what clinical psychologists are taught to do in emergency situations: “Don’t just do something, stand there.” In other words, first “do no harm,” which means parents should be quiet and think very carefully about what they say and transmit emotionally to their sensitive children. An exasperated parental tone or edge in the voice can take a child from a state of anxious worry to screaming hysteria.

Neuro-imaging research has documented what we’ve always known intuitively — that when one person’s brain spikes in anxiety and distress, the one nearby activates in tandem. Kids know what their parents are feeling about them. Sensitive children can detect even mildly negative feelings, and their meltdowns can spiral downward if their parents are thinking, “Oh, no, here she goes again,” “I don’t have time for this ridiculousness” and “Why can’t she be like other children?” 
Yes, it’s true. Anxious children do better with Zen Buddhists as parents. In the meantime, the rest of us should try to achieve as calm an emotional state as possible when responding to extremely anxious children. Here are more helpful guidelines:

Validate your child’s feelings — Remember that empathy doesn’t mean agreement. During a meltdown, your child will have an elevated heart rate, seem irrational and inconsolable and become “flooded” with stress hormones (which trigger headaches and stomach aches for real!). The greatest challenge for the parent is that the child will identify the problem as the feared thing, not the core emotional problem, which is the anxiety state.

This explains why parents can so easily become dismissive, which results in the child ratcheting up the screaming to make it clear to you how upset she is. Instead of saying “You love school. You’re just having a tizzy this morning,” you say, “You don’t want to go to school today. Your tummy hurts and it feels like it’s the worst day of your life.” You can paraphrase a bit to link your child’s statements with “right now” and “you feel” so that you aren’t agreeing with the declarations.  

Stay patient and understanding about what your child is experiencing — Say to yourself: “She’s doing the best she can, given her emotional state. She can’t help that she has such a sensitive temperament. She came by this temperament as innocently as other kids their asthma or diabetes.” Compassion will result in a quicker resolution to your child’s outburst, even though it will always take longer than you wish.

Listen and repeat — While you sit quietly and listen to your child, try just repeating what he is saying to you. Don’t argue. Tell him that you are listening carefully. Speak slowly and very quietly.

Anxiety is like gravity — what goes up, must come down. In other words, your child’s panic will rise but always abate. The parent’s goal needs to be “damage control,” meaning not making it worse by arguing, criticizing or even talking too much because any stimulation at all can keep your child flooding or ramping up for another peak. Often, less is more, when it comes to a parent’s response to a child’s intense emotions.

You're not spoiling your child -- Reassure yourself that this approach is not “spoiling” or “indulging” your child, but instead that it is treating the condition of high anxiety. Although it may feel to you that it takes too much time or that you are reinforcing bad behavior, recall that your other punitive approaches haven’t worked.

Remember the old adage, “The only person you can control is you” — Since you are probably upset that your child is upset, role model your own “self-calming” and do a breathing exercise. Breathe in slowly over five seconds and exhale slowly over the next five seconds. Use a second hand on your watch and get absorbed in the deep belly breaths. As you become focused on your own self-calming skills, your child may decide to join in. The other advantages of an explicit focus on self control is role-modeling and the fact that it directs you to avoid being coercive with your child.

Consider distraction — If your child’s emotional distress is on the wane from the red zone (8 to 10) to the orange zone (6-7), distraction may help her calm down further. Perhaps you can share a childhood story about when you needed to use a technique like deep breathing or positive self-talk to calm yourself. Since shame can so easily be associated with meltdowns, your personal vignette might also convey the humble truth that everyone needs to work on self-calming some time.

All people benefit from self-calming skill, also known as “emotional regulation.” It’s one of the cornerstone features of emotional intelligence. We named our book Getting to Calm since most parents of teens need to work on self-calming to handle the hot button issues of adolescence. But parents of young children with sensitive and anxious temperaments find that they need to become super-skilled in patience and calming early in child-rearing. Like so many aspects of parenting, the children model, internalize and learn emotional regulation from us.


BY LAURA KASTNER, PH.D.
PUBLISHED ON: MAY 17, 2017

by: Eduardo Briceno

Deeper learning requires students to think, question, pursue, and create—to take agency and ownership of their learning. When they do, they acquire deeper understanding and skills, and most important, they become more competent learners in and out of school. They become better prepared to succeed in academics, but also in 21st century careers and in life.

We can’t force students to develop agency and drive their own learning. It must come from within. Deeper learning instructional practices, such as using student-centered and self-directed learning methods, encouraging collaboration, and incorporating real-world projects, interviews, case studies and explorations, result in prolific learning when students are ready to drive their own learning. But using these practices is not always sufficient for students to truly take the reins. So what else do they need in order to get in the driver’s seat, take agency, and dive deep? And how do we help them do so?

Hierarchy of Learner Needs
A large body of research in psychology and education, focused on areas such as motivation, mindset, college & career readiness, grit, non-cognitive factors, and 21st century competencies, is uncovering the critical elements needed for students to drive their own learning. It points to two essential focus areas that hold the most promise: Learning Mindsets and Learning Strategies & Habits, highlighted in Figure 1 and discussed in the sections that follow.

Before diving in, let’s acknowledge that just like any other human being, students need to meet their physiological needs such as food, safety (physical and emotional), and connection with others. The vast majority of children in the U.S. meet enough of their physiological needs that these are not a material hindrance on learning. For those who don’t, we have a responsibility to provide these needs, at least while they’re at school. We can feed students, foster a safe and bully-free environment, and cultivate a learning community in which all children value learning, feel acknowledged and are accepted.
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Essential Opportunity #1: The Four Learning Mindsets 
Aside from physiological needs, students’ motivations and efforts are driven by their mindsets—a set of key beliefs they hold. The greatest untapped opportunity to improve learning in our schools is to deliberately work on developing the four Learning Mindsets that stand out in the research as deeply influencing student behavior, outcomes, and overall drive to learn, as documented by the University of Chicago CCSR’s literature review Teaching Adolescents to Become Learners(Farrington, et al., 2012):

Mindset #1: A Growth Mindset: “I can change my intelligence and abilities through effort.” Among these beliefs, the most foundational and critical for us to focus on is the growth mindset, first identified and studied by Stanford professor Carol Dweck, Ph.D. Students with a growth mindset realize that their abilities to think and do are a result of their past behaviors. They see effort as what makes people smart, they are motivated to focus on continued growth, and they persist in the face of setbacks. On the other hand, when students see intelligence or abilities as fixed, they see effort as something only incapable people need, they shy away from challenge, and they disengage when things get hard (Mueller & Dweck, 1998).

A growth mindset can be learned. When we teach a growth mindset, students work harder because they want to do so, they use more effective strategies, and they reach higher levels of achievement (Blackwell, et. al., 2007). While this benefits all students, it also breaks down negative stereotypes and thereby contributes to closing the achievement gap (Good, Aronson, & Inzlicht, 2003).

The growth mindset is the most powerful lever to improve learning because it is the driver of student behavior that we’re least aware of and least deliberate about building, and because it has the greatest impact on student behaviors required both to learn knowledge and skills and to build the other critical Learning Mindsets and Learning Strategies & Habits that improve students’ ability to grow.

Mindset #2: Self-Efficacy: “I can succeed.” Related to the growth mindset is the belief that one can succeed (Bandura, 1986). Students must believe that they can achieve their goals, however they define those goals. If students think they need help or resources, they must see a path they can take in order to obtain the required help or resources. The stronger their growth mindset, the more students will seek ways to overcome adversities and search for alternate strategies to achieve their goals.

Mindset #3:  Sense of Belonging: “I belong in this learning community.” When students feel they belong to a learning community, they become engaged in learning (Harvey & Schroder, 1963; Oyserman, Bybee, & Terry, 2006). When they feel they belong to a community of peers that values going beyond one’s comfort zone and learning about the world, students connect learning activities and objectives with social rewards they value.

Mindset #4: Relevance: “This work has value and purpose for me.” As many deeper learning educators know, students engage in learning much more energetically and deeply when they value the knowledge and skills that they’re working to acquire, or find them relevant or interesting (Eccles et al., 1983). That leads them to think deeply, question, pursue, and put their full selves into their work. Project-based learning and real-world connections are ways to foster relevance and help students explore passions, goals, and applications of learning. We can also have students reflect on and write about the relevance of their work, or about a learning experience they’re about to embark on.

Essential Opportunity #2: Learning Strategies & Habits
Students with Learning Mindsets are energized, seek challenges and hold high expectations for themselves. But if they don’t know what to do in order to meet those ambitious goals, they may develop a sense of helplessness. Or if they have misconceptions about what strategies are effective, they may try, fail, try again, fail again, and eventually question the Learning Mindsets. For example, if a student has the false impression that putting in effort is simply about the amount of time one spends on a task and not about deliberate practice, she may not achieve the progress she expects, which in turn may lead her to conclude that her abilities are fixed.

We have the opportunity to teach not only knowledge and skills, but also the self-management and learning-to-learn skills needed in school and life (as well as the Learning Mindsets). We may think that students implicitly learn these skills as they do their work, but without explicit instruction and reflection, this understanding is not as solidly consolidated in the mind and understood (Schwartz, 1998). Research shows that we need experiences to deeply understand knowledge, but we also need explicit discussion and reflection to truly make sense of our experiences and apply our new understanding in different contexts.

We must teach kids how to learn. We must teach them know-how such as:

• how the brain works and how we can increase its capabilities,
• how to manage our learning, including how to set learning goals, self-assess, approach new subjects, manage homework, dive deeper, learn from mistakes and know what to do when things get hard,
• how to engage in deliberate practice to develop expertise,
• how to foster innovation and creativity,
• how to work in teams,
• how to manage emotions,
• how to develop willpower,
• how to develop desirable habits through cues, routines and rewards, and
• how to combine habits with tools to manage one’s self and one’s learning.

Learning Strategies & Habits include a host of self-management and learning-to-learn approaches and behaviors. Some strategies are more universal while others work better for different people or in different situations, but we must teach students how they can better manage themselves, approach learning and pursue their goals. These skills should be part of a basic educational foundation for all children.

The Role of Instruction
The Learning Mindsets and Learning Strategies & Habits enable students to seek and dive into learning opportunities. Of course, students also need quality instruction, guidance and learning activities. Learners need someone or something guiding them toward their zone of proximal development and pointing them to resources and experiences that will enable them to maximize personal growth.

Deeper learning instructional practices are powerful, especially when our goal is to develop critical thinking and performance skills required by the Common Core and 21st century life. However, we must recognize that instructional practices, while critical, are not enough, at least as traditionally defined (that is, when not encompassing instruction on mindsets and learning strategies). Learning mindsets, strategies and subject matter instruction are layers that we need to work on largely concurrently, not just one after the other. They reinforce one another and learning on all three layers is ongoing.

The transition to the Common Core appropriately demands more of students to better prepare them for success. In order to succeed in that transition we must also shift the learners’ mind from passive detachment to active engagement and challenge-seeking. We need to develop in students the mindsets, strategies, and habits that cultivate student agency so that students can thrive not only in school but beyond. As we rethink teaching and learning in our transition to Common Core instruction, let’s take the opportunity to also incorporate student agency practices.

Realizing Learning Mindsets and Learning Strategies & Habits in Schools
This work can happen in today’s schools. At Mindset Works we serve hundreds of schools that are increasing student agency and achievement through deliberate focus on Learning Mindsets and Learning Strategies & Habits.
Here’s how they do it:

Start with the adults: Research shows that students’ mindsets are heavily influenced by the interactions they have with people around them. For example, studies show that when we praise kids for being smart when they perform well, we inadvertently put them in a fixed mindset. They start focusing on trying to look smart, avoid challenge, see effort as a sign of weakness, and fall apart when things get hard (Mueller & Dweck, 1998). Psychology research clearly shows that language that praises students’ intelligence or abilities backfires and leads to students’ self-doubt and avoidance of challenge.

In order to create school and community environments in which students value effort and growth, we must educate teachers and parents on relevant research, work to foster a growth mindset in adults, and align around school practices that create and deepen student agency, including ensuring adults serve as role model lifelong learners. Expanding this alignment to include parents is also helpful. Whether schools use resources from organizations like Mindset Works to guide this alignment or develop their own, this explicit work on school culture and practices is an important foundation.

Explicitly cultivate students’ Mindsets and Learning Strategies: Just like anything else we teach students, we must explicitly teach Learning Mindsets and Learning Strategies & Habits for students to take on the beliefs and incorporate strategies into daily living. It is helpful to teach students how their brains work and how to strengthen them, as well as effective learning strategies, tools and habits that best enable them to manage themselves. This is best done as a whole school effort so that one result of this explicit instruction is common understanding and language that all students, educators and parents in a school share, so that everyone can refer to that common understanding in everyday teaching and learning. Doing this work not only shifts students’ mindsets but also teachers’ mindsets. Our blended learning program, Brainology®, is one way hundreds of schools accomplish this. This work is possible today.

Embed strategies in everyday teaching & learning: Once teachers, students, and families share common foundational beliefs and practices, the work continues to embed practices that foster student agency in everyday life. Teachers continue to work on language, instructional practices, and their own beliefs, while students work on their mindsets, learning strategies and habits. This does not take additional time. It is about the way we do our daily work, interact with one another and manage ourselves, and it leads to deep beliefs and habits that drive all of students’ behaviors.

For example, teachers can explicitly frame lessons or projects as opportunities to work on what we don’t know and go beyond our comfort zone to build capabilities. We can make better use of student mistakes and confusion as opportunities to learn, clarify and study the learning process. We can give feedback to students focused on their behavior, their choices, their strategies, rather than on being smart or talented. We can teach performance skills, such as those in common core standards, using content that furthers Learning Mindsets and Learning Strategies & Habits, such as info texts on how people who struggled reached success, or on scientific research about what makes for effective self-management and learning, or about the relevance of our school work to our communities and life. We can have students chart their growth so they can view their improvement over time, and we can have them build growth mindset portfolios exemplifying times in which they took risks and achieved doing something they couldn’t do before. We can encourage student goal-setting and reflection on what is working and not working in their learning strategies. And we can serve as role models so students can see that everyone in our community is a lifelong learner, seeks feedback and takes on opportunities to grow.

Transition to student independence: Once we develop these mindsets, strategies, and habits, we also need to help students own them after they graduate. We can help them transition habits from being driven by teachers and the school environment to being self-driven. Older students can mentor younger students around mindsets and learning strategies, and we can gradually remove the school-dependent cues so that students develop self-driven cues needed to maintain effective habits after they graduate.

We Can Do It
How can we best prepare students for a world that will require more of them? The most important resource in education reform is the learner’s mind. We need to re-ignite the hunger for learning that many students lose along the way. Explicit and embedded work on Learning Mindsets and Learning Strategies & Habits puts students in the driver seat of learning and gives them direction and tenacity to chart their paths to success.


References and Resources
Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Blackwell, L.S., Trzesniewski, K.H., & Dweck, C.S. (2007). Implicit theories of intelligence predict achievement across an adolescent transition: A longitudinal study and an intervention. Child Development, 78. 246-263, Study 1.)
Dweck. C. S. (2006). Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. New York: Random House.
Eccles J.S., Adler, T.F., Futterman, R., Goff, S.B., Kaczala, C.M., Meece, J.L., and Midgley, C. (1983). Expectancies, values, and academic behaviors. In J.T. Spence (Ed.), Achievement and achievement motivation (pp. 75-146). San Francisco: W.H. Freeman.
Farrington, C.A., Roderick, M., Allensworth, E., Nagaoka, J., Keyes, T.S., Johnson, D.W., & Beechum, N.O. (2012). Teaching adolescents to become learners. The role of noncognitive factors in shaping school performance: A critical literature review. Chicago: University of Chicago Consortium on Chicago School Research.
Good, C., Aronson, J., & Inzlicht, M. (2003). Improving adolescents’ standardized test performance: An intervention to reduce the effects of stereotype threat.Applied Developmental Psychology, 24, 645-662.
Harvey, O.J., and Schroder, H.M. (1963). Cognitive aspects of self and motivation. In O. J. Harvey (Ed.), Motivation and social interaction-cognitive determinants. (pp. 95-133). New York: Ronald Press.
Mueller, C. M. & Dweck, C. S. (1998). Intelligence praise can undermine motivation and performance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75, 33-52. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.75.1.33.
Pellegrino, James W. & Hilton, Margaret L., Editors. National Research Council. (2012). Education for Life and Work: Developing Transferable Knowledge and Skills in the 21st Century. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
Oyserman, D., Bybee, D., and Terry, K. (2006). Possible selves and academic outcomes: How and when possible selves impel action. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 91, 188-204.
Schwartz, D. L. & Bransford, J. D. (1998). A time for telling. Cognition & Instruction,16, 475-522.

By: 
Russell Hemmings Jan 6, 2017


Here are Russell Hemmings’ 10 tips on how to stay happy






It seems from an early age, we are often told the most important thing in life is to be happy. But the things that make me happy – like reading a good book – may epitomise boredom for some, whereas I can’t imagine dedicating hours to a computer game although I know it can deliver that sense of enjoyment and pleasure that is certainly part of the happiness equation for some. These experiences, however pleasurable, are fleeting though, and on their own don’t create lasting happiness.

Can we expect to be happy all of the time? Of course not. Life is made up of light and shade. We can only know what happiness feels like if we experience the opposite at times – and we all do.

Though difficult to define, feeling generally happy is something far more complex than a series of pleasurable experiences linked together. In my opinion, there’s a great irony in the phrase ‘the pursuit of happiness’, because I believe that the more you seek it, the more elusive it becomes. Instead, create the right environment for happiness to flourish. Get the soil right, plant the right seeds and you will reap the harvest.

Here are my top 10 tips.

1. Get the basics right
Some things are fundamental to feeling happy. Getting enough sleep, eating a nutritious balanced diet and getting enough exercise to keep you healthy – this is the soil bit. So often we take our bodies for granted, but when you actually get down to the nitty gritty, without our body working properly life can become restrictive, and that can make us feel anxious, down and stressed. Yes, illness and disease happen, but we can give our bodies a fighting chance if we treat them with respect. It’s also a proven fact that the more active you are the more likely you are to feel positive about life.

2. Prioritise the positive relationships in your life and minimise the negative ones
The more you’re around positive people, the more time you invest in those you love and who love you back, the happier you will feel. People who exude negativity, make you feel tense or uncomfortable because of what they say or how they behave and generally bring you down can be very emotionally draining.

3. Prioritise positive experiences over material possessions
Stuff – we’re surrounded by it, we’re encouraged that we need more of it to make us happy, and yes some material possessions do enhance our lives. But so many of us have too much of it that it weighs us down. Clear out the clutter and you’ll be surprised at how much more efficiently life works and how much clearer you can think. I believe experiences enjoyed with people I love to be with are worth far more.

4. Do something new and challenging
Doing something you’ve never done before, learning a new skill or challenging yourself to move out of your comfort zone can be immensely rewarding. It can help you meet new people and it keeps you alert and engaged in life.

5. Give something back 
Reach out, get involved, make someone else feel good and the light you bring into their lives will shine down on you too.

6. Cut down your exposure to negative news
Often I find people are checking news websites constantly (it’s almost an addiction), so they are confronted by a stream of upsetting events that they feel powerless to influence. It can skew our view of life to the negative, so we forget that there are good people in the world who do good things. Give it a try by cutting down time on negative news.

7. If you don’t like it, change it if you can 
Some things can’t be changed and learning to accept that can be liberating. But focusing on one thing we can change about our lives and doing it gives us purpose, grows confidence and empowers us to believe that we can go on to change a whole host of other things.

8. Stop comparing
It’s a natural human instinct to compare yourself to someone else, but with the explosion of social media in our lives, and ‘flawless people’ imagery everywhere, it’s easy to feel inadequate on a daily basis. It’s worth remembering those perfect lives projected at us are often a constructed reality. 
Forge your own path, be true to who you are and never allow others to make you feel less than you are.

9. Be busy, but not rushed
Having a full and purposeful life is an important part of feeling motivated and happy, but when it tips over into having too much to do and not enough time to do it, that’s when stress starts to assert itself. Learning how to manage your time effectively and learning how to say ‘no’ are great stress relievers.
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10. Connect with your inner child again
Remember that carefree innocence of childhood? Frivolous as it may sound, doing something ‘silly’ can help you to reconnect with a time when you didn’t overanalyse everything and you just allowed yourself to live in the moment. Sing at the top of your voice in the car, dance around the living room – anything that makes you laugh and brings moments of joy into your life.

                                                        The Hidden Way That Kids Learn Empathy (and How Parents Can Help)

As parents, I think one of our main goals is to help our children develop an understanding and empathy for other people. If you are the parent of a toddler, you know that instilling this idea of empathy seems an almost impossible task. There's a good reason for that--it is almost impossible for a toddler. Most of us know that toddlers (under about 4 years of age) simply don't have the cognitive or social skills to understand what other people might be feeling or thinking.

This task is what psychologists call Theory of Mind--that is the ability to understand or anticipate what another person is feeling or thinking. In other words, it's the ability to put yourself in someone else's shoes. This skill is the basis for empathy, but also is crucial in children learning social skills like sharing and helping others. So how do children learning this important skill of taking another person's perspective? Researchers have long believed that this ability develops in most around 4 years of age. This video gives a great example of the difference between a 3 and 4-year-old in perspective-taking ability:

After viewing this video, it's almost as if something magical happens between age 3 and 4 that helps kids learn this skill. In a sense, this is true. Children's brains are constantly changing and making new circuits that make new thought processes possible. However, new research is showing that us that how parents talk to their children may also aid in this perspective-taking ability.

A recent study published in the journal Child Development showed that children whose mothers described more about how other people might be feeling or thinking had better perspective-taking skills than those whose mothers did not use this descriptive language. In some respects, this study seems kind of obvious. You would expect that talking to a child about taking another person's perspective would help them learn this ability. When you really consider this, though, it is pretty amazing. The cognitive skill it takes for a youngster to understand the perspective of another person is pretty complex and to think that just a parent talking to them about this influences how quickly they learn this skill.

The other compelling aspect of the study is the finding that children who had delays in language acquisition also had delays in perspective-taking ability. This provides further evidence that the link between language and perspective-taking ability is a real one. The researchers believe that specific aspects of language acquisition (e.g., learning possessive words) helps children gain the cognitive flexibility needed to take another person's perspective.

Simple Ways to Help Kids Understand the Feelings of Others:

1. Point out other children's emotions when you see them. Even young children are very aware when other kids get hurt or are upset. Does your child notice or seem concerned when she hears another child crying? Use this as a learning opportunity--talk to your child about how the other child might be feeling. Why is that little boy sad? Do you think he is sad or angry?

2. Books can teach lessons. Kids tend to notice small details in books that we might miss. They often ask things like, "why is that bear sad?" or "why is that girl laughing." Take advantage of these situations and explain the emotions you are seeing in the story. Check out the Pinterest board I created about books and resources for teaching empathy and kindness.

3. Talk about emotions at home. Parents have mixed feelings about showing too much emotion in front of kids. We sometimes like to put up a "strong front" and not let our kids see us cry or feel sad. I think there is some value to this--we don't want to burden our kids with issues that may not be appropriate for their developmental level. However, I don't think it's burdensome to let our kids see us as emotional beings from time to time. When we experience the loss of loved one or are worried about a friend, our kids will probably notice our change in mood. If they ask, you can take the time to explain why you are sad (in kid-appropriate terms). This might give them a bit more insight and empathy for your feelings and those of others.

4. Focus on setting boundaries on behavior, not emotions. As this great article points out, one key to authoritative parenting (which, by the way, is associated with favorable impacts for kids) is setting boundaries and limits on their behavior, not their emotions. Allow kids the emotional freedom to feel how they feel, even if it's ugly at times (hello tantrum). Research continues to show that the most effective parents don't induce guilt-trips or psychological tricks. Rather, you can set a firm limit on behavior and help kids cope with the emotions that may follow. Over time, this experience with authentic emotion (and guidance from you) will help them understand the emotions of others.

Although this study is interesting, it is worth noting that a child does still have to have a certain degree of cognitive development in order to learn perspective-taking. No matter how much you talk to your 2-year-old about how another person is feeling, they most likely are not going to really understand the other person's perspective. This use of description language, however, will hopefully help your child later when they have the cognitive maturity to grasp of taking another person's perspective.

Related Resources:





Wonder
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​Little Loving Hands--kids love crafts but parents don't like the crafty results lying around the house. Problem solved--give crafts to charity. This cool subscription box allows you to send the crafts to a charity that they sponsor. Places like children's hospitals, homeless shelters all use the crafts for their child residents. Plus your kids learn a valuable lesson in charitable giving.

Feeling forced to say “thanks” at Thanksgiving dinner? Here are four exercises to help get the gratefulness going.
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BY KIRA M. NEWMAN | NOVEMBER 18, 2015

“What are you grateful for?” 

For the shy adult or the grumpy teen, expressing gratitude around the Thanksgiving table can seem awkward and trite. Yet it’s basically compulsory—saying “nothing” or “I don’t know” when it’s our turn to speak won’t endear us to our family members. We end up saying the same thing we do every year, everyone smiles, and then it’s Aunt Edna’s turn. 

According to research, though, feeling socially pressured to perform a certain happiness practice isn’t an effective path toward actually feeling happier. Psychologists Sonja Lyubomirsky and Ken Sheldon suggest that the best happiness practices are ones we choose, not ones we feel forced into based on our circumstances. External pressures can undermine “self-determined motivation,” the healthy drive that springs from our authentic interests and values. 

“Even though I’ve advocated a number of evidence-based practices, I’m actually moving away from prescribing specific practices and exercises because it can lead to what I am calling ‘to-do list’ gratitude or ‘check-list’ gratitude,” pioneering gratitude researcher Robert Emmons explains in a recent blog post. “Practicing gratitude becomes a burden rather than a blessing, making life heavier rather than lighter.”

What’s more, Thanksgiving declarations of gratitude tend to be brief and general—along the lines of, “I’m grateful for my family and my health.” But broad statements of gratitude might not be as effective as detailed ones, research suggests. 

An unpublished University of Southern California study cited in Emmons’s book, Gratitude Works!, found that writing one sentence about five things we’re grateful for is less beneficial than writing five sentences about one thing we’re grateful for. After 10 weeks of gratitude journaling, the group who wrote in more detail about one thing each time felt less tired, sad, and lethargic and more alert, happy, excited, and elated than the less-detailed group. 

The GGSC's coverage of gratitude is sponsored by the John Templeton Foundation as part of our Expanding Gratitude project.Even those of us with the best intentions may struggle. As an introvert, I always feel put on the spot during my family’s Thanksgiving gratitude ritual, even though cultivating gratitude is important to me. And many of us may yearn to feel deep gratitude but can’t conjure it up on command. 

This is not to say that we should jettison our Thanksgiving gratitude rituals. In fact, experts believe that it’s the repeated practice of gratitude—even when we don’t feel grateful—that will eventually lead to a more enduring attitude of gratitude. 

“If you go through grateful motions, the emotion of gratitude should be triggered,” writes Emmons in “10 Ways to Become More Grateful.”

So what would a no-pressure Thanksgiving look like, one that tries to encourage everyone—even the inarticulate, the shy, the grumpy, and the alienated—to safely express their thanks? What “grateful motions” might feel less forced and more genuine? Here are some suggestions. 

1. Give people a chance to think before they thankHave a family member lead everyone in a short gratitude meditation before the Thanksgiving meal, like this one from Jack Kornfield’s book, The Art of Forgiveness, Lovingkindness, and Peace. 

“Gratitude is a gracious acknowledgment of all that sustains us, a bow to our blessings, great and small, an appreciation of the moments of good fortune that sustain our life every day,” writes Kornfield. His meditation asks you to think of the environment and the people who make your life possible: 

With gratitude I remember the people, animals, plants, insects, creatures of the sky and sea, air and water, fire and earth, all whose joyful exertion blesses my life every day. With gratitude I remember the care and labor of a thousand generations of elders and ancestors who came before me.

For some people, the quiet contemplation of gratefulness might make for a solid first step—and help them to think of something concrete to say in front of family and friends!

2. Ask guests to imagine themselves alone at the tableThere is an exercise called “Mental Subtraction of Relationships” that asks you to think about what your life might have been like had you never met someone special. As part of the pre-dinner meditation, you might ask guests to imagine themselves without anyone to spend Thanksgiving with. Here’s how to do it, adapted from Greater Good in Action, which provides “science-tested practices for a meaningful life”:

1. Take a moment to think about one person at the table. 
2. Think back to where and how you met this person. If he or she is a family member, try to recall your first memories.
3. Think about all of the possible events and decisions—large and small—that could have prevented you from meeting this person, or kept him or her from your life.
4. Imagine what your life would be like now if events had unfolded differently and you had never met this person, or if they had left your life at some earlier point. Bring to mind some of the joys and benefits you have enjoyed as a result of this relationship—and consider how you would feel if you were denied all of them.
5. Shift your focus to remind yourself that you did actually meet this person and reflect upon the benefits this relationship has brought you. Now that you have considered how things might have turned out differently, appreciate that these benefits were not inevitable in your life. Allow yourself to feel grateful that things happened as they did and this person is now in your life.
After imagining a solitary Thanksgiving, opening your eyes to a table full of smiling faces can inspire gratitude. 

3. Write letters to each otherIn advance of dinner, ask your Thanksgiving guests to write short gratitude letters to read at the table. A gratitude letter expresses appreciation for someone—a relative, friend, teacher, or colleague—who made an impact on your life but hasn’t been properly thanked. The letter can detail what they did, why you feel thankful, and how your life is different today:

1. Write as though you are addressing this person directly (“Dear ______”)
2. Don’t worry about perfect grammar or spelling.
3. Describe in specific terms what this person did, why you are grateful to this person, and how this person’s behavior affected your life. Try to be as concrete as possible.
4. Describe what you are doing in your life now and how you often remember his or her efforts.
5. Try to keep your letter to roughly one page (~300 words).
Research shows that reading gratitude letters produces a big happiness boost. The feelings of warmth and connection may be strong enough to outweigh any lingering shyness, and expressing gratitude for a person, rather than health or food, may feel more natural. 

4. After dinner, take a walk—then give thanks over dessert

• MORE ON GRATITUDEDiscover the six habits of highly grateful people.
  How grateful are you? Take our quiz!
  Learn what stops gratitude.
  Learn about four more great gratitude strategies.
  Learn what a grateful brain looks like.

My family has always had a ritual of walking after dinner—but before the apple pie. Not only does the walk aid digestion, but it can reveal vibrant fall foliage, elegant architecture, and friendly faces. All of these things are potential sources of ongoing gratitude—and might help prime guests to give concrete thanks.
To truly appreciate what you see on your walk, take a moment to pause over each new and beautiful sight. Point it out to your family members, so they too can join in the mindful appreciation. Try to think about why each sight is pleasurable to you; perhaps the piles of golden leaves remind you of time spent playing as a kid. This technique is called a “Savoring Walk.”

If we’re inspired to keep up these gratitude practices, our view of gratitude may change—from a Thanksgiving chore to a meaningful way of thinking year-round. Then, “What are you grateful for?” will no longer be such a tricky question to answer.

By SARAH RUDELL BEACH​

We know mindfulness is good for us. Mindfulness allows us to be present in our parenting, choosing the skillful response instead of succumbing to our visceral reactions.

Mindfulness is also good for our kids. There is an emerging body of research that indicates that mindfulness can help our children improve their abilities to pay attention, to calm down when they are upset, and to make better decisions. In short, it helps with emotional regulation and cognitive focus. Do I even need to ask if you want that for your kids? 
So where do we start? How can we teach mindfulness to kids?

First things first…
Establish your own practice. You would have trouble teaching your children ballet if you had never danced. To authentically teach mindfulness to your children, you need to practice it yourself. You can read my guide to establishing a meditation practice here, or my popular post 40 Ways to Bring Mindfulness to Your Days here for some ideas to get started. Don’t let this step intimidate you — you’re probably practicing a lot of mindful habits already!

Check your expectations. A core principle of mindfulness is letting go of expectations, and this certainly applies to teaching mindfulness to kids. Are you expecting mindfulness to eliminate tantrums? to make your active child calm? to make your house quiet? If so, you are likely to be disappointed. While feeling calm or being quiet are nice side-effects of mindfulness, they are not the ultimate purpose.

The purpose of teaching mindfulness to our children is to give them skills to develop their awareness of their inner and outer experiences, to recognize their thoughts as “just thoughts,” to understand how emotions manifest in their bodies, to recognize when their attention has wandered, and to provide tools for impulse control. It is not a panacea, and it will not completely get rid of what is, frankly, normal kid behavior, like tantrums and loudness and whining and exuberance and arguing…

Don’t force it. If your kids aren’t interested in your lesson or activity, drop it. This is a good time for you to practice non-attachment to outcomes!

Don’t make mindfulness a punishment. This shouldn’t be, “You hit your sister! Go sit in the mindful corner!” ’nuff said.
Now that we’ve got the preliminaries out of the way, here are my suggestions for how you can begin to introduce mindfulness to your children.
10 Ways to Teach Mindfulness to Kids
1. Keep it simple. With older kids, you can share the widely-used definition from Jon Kabat-Zinn in the image above. But those are a lot of big words for little kids. I prefer to use the words awareness or noticing with my children {ages 5 and 7, for reference}. Mindfulness is noticing our thoughts, what our body feels like, what our ears are hearing, and anything else that is around us and happening right now.

2. Listen to the bell. An easy way for children to practice mindfulness is to focus on paying attention to what they can hear. I’ve used a singing bowl, like the one on the right, for this exercise, but you could use a bell, a set of chimes, or a phone app that has sounds on it. Tell your children that you will make the sound, and they should listen carefully until they can no longer hear the sound (which is usually 30 seconds to a minute). I find that this exercise does have a calming effect on my children, and it’s a fun way to teach them to pay attention to their surroundings.

3. Create a mindful bedtime ritual. Bedtime is a great time to introduce mindfulness to kids. My daughter loves to do a short body-scan meditation before bed — she closes her eyes, and I tell her to bring her attention to her toes, to her feet, to her legs, etc. It is a calming way to return to the body at the end of the day. You can find several downloadable meditation scripts (including body scans) here, and you can read about the bedtime ritual my daughter and I created here.

4. Practice with a breathing buddy. For young children, an instruction to simply “pay attention to the breath” can be hard to follow. In this Edutopia video, Daniel Goleman describes a 2nd-grade classroom that does a “breathing buddy” exercise: each student grabs a stuffed animal, and then lies down on their back with their buddy on their belly. They focus their attention on the rise and fall of the stuffed animal as they breathe in and out. {You should definitely check out the video — it’s less than 2 minutes and explains the exercise and all the good stuff that it teaches kids!}

5. Make your walks mindful. One of my children’s favorite things to do in the summer is a “noticing walk.” We stroll through our neighborhood and notice things we haven’t seen before. We’ll designate one minute of the walk where we are completely silent and simply pay attention to all the sounds we can hear — frogs, woodpeckers, a lawnmower. We don’t even call it “mindfulness,” but that’s what it is.

6. Establish a gratitude practice. I believe gratitude is a fundamental component of mindfulness, teaching our children to appreciate the abundance in their lives, as opposed to focusing on all the toys and goodies that they crave. This post describes my family’s nightly gratitude practice — each night at dinner we each share one thing we are thankful for. It is one of my favorite parts of the day.

7. Try the SpiderMan meditation! My five-year-old son is in to all things superheroes, and this SpiderMan meditation is right up his alley. This meditation from Kids Relaxation teaches children to activate their “spidey-senses” and their ability to focus on all they can smell, taste, and hear in the present moment. Such a clever idea!

8. Meditate with your children. I cannot even tell you how many times my meditation sessions have been interrupted by my children. They know by now what mommy is doing when she meditates, so I will try to continue with my meditation even as they play around me. Sometimes, my daughter will sit down and join me for a few minutes. It’s beautiful.

9. Check your personal weather report. In Sitting Still Like a Frog, Eline Snel encourages children to “summon the weather report that best describes [their] feelings at the moment.” Sunny, rainy, stormy, calm, windy, tsunami? This activity allows children to observe their present state without overly identifying with their emotions. They can’t change the weather outside, and we can’t change our emotions or feelings either. All we can change is how we relate to them. As Snel describes it, children can recognize, “I am not the downpour, but I notice that it is raining; I am not a scaredy-cat, but I realize that sometimes I have this big scared feeling somewhere near my throat.”

10. Practice mindful eating. The exercise of mindfully eating a raisin or a piece of chocolate is a staple of mindfulness education, and is a great activity for kids. You can find a script for a 7-minute mindful eating exercise for children here. This is a fun way to teach children to pay attention to and savor their food, and by extension, the present moment.
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Above all, remember to have fun and keep it simple. You can provide your children with many opportunities to add helpful practices to their toolkit — some of them will work for them and some won’t. But it’s fun to experiment!

​Teach mindfulness to your kids — it can help them develop emotional regulation and cognitive focus.