Body language, breathing, and willpower

I notice body language. Fathers and mothers of toddlers are beginning to hunch over in perpetual assistance to their wobbly ones. I notice breathing. Mothers, unacquainted with the breath, getting caught in the whirlwind pace of two year olds and their intense emotional displays.

A practice to increase willpower was suggested by scientists: Whenever you think of it, adjust and improve up your posture. Results of the study showed that exercising that little bit of willpower helped improved other areas of participants lives, such as healthier lifestyles and increased financial well being.

Amy Cuddy presented a talk on TED about the power of body language, in which she presented her study that individuals who stood in a "power pose" rather than a disempowered pose for two minutes increased their testosterone levels and decreased their cortisol levels immediately and therefore performed much better in a stressful interview experience.  A power pose, by the way, is something like extending your arms above your head like a champion, or putting your hands on your hips like wonder woman.

In practicing mindfulness we always return to the breath and thereby we notice the shallowness that happens when we begin to let our minds wander to stressful thoughts. Most of our day we don't ay attention to our breath, but we can always come back to it. I practice noticing when I feel anxiety and then deepening my breath around it. Anxiety doesn't help me find the creative solution. Frustration with children is just a fight against what is, and breathing helps regain a more beneficial, peaceful, happier perspective.

Most people breathe just enough to get by. It's contributing to disease and stress. Runners get to breathe a whole lot. Breathing might be the best part about sex, and without proper breathing, orgasm is impossible. It moves the energy through our bodies.

Willpower. Parenting uses up a lot of willpower! And studies showed that after doing exhausting and challenging tasks, participants had no leftover willpower to choose fruit salad over cake! it's good that I know that, because then I don't have to form a belief that my eating cake when it's presented to me means I have weak willpower. It just means being a preschool teacher is challenging and my exercising patience and peacefulness amidst the occasional chaos uses my reserves which usually help me make the good nutritional choices!

So, just keep practicing. One day, when the little ones have grown past the sociopathic two year old phase ;) parents will discover a huge willpower muscle that we will then collectively use to light up the world!!!

Free from external pressure

"I am free of the good and bad opinion of others"
That's a mantra i learned from Brian Johnson of Philosophersnotes.com
Its not one that follows me every day, but recently while on a family vacation I was able to embody that Word-Tool in my actual attitude towards a critical opinion of someone. I said matter-of-factly, "I hear what you are saying, but I'm not going to agree with you on that." It was regarding haircuts on my boy, but it extended itself to opinions on when i ought to wean him (or that he ought to be weaned sooner rather than later) and other opinions.

It is true that I spent a lot of my past observing parenting behavior and i will inevitably continue to do so, but there is a feeling of judgment that will be lacking from my observations and I aspire to carry an open heart filled with compassion and understanding. That means that I carry with me the understanding that I do not fully understand the suffering of many.

So my freedom from external pressure goes both ways, that i not put negative external pressure on others in an unsupportive or diminutive manner, as well as that i do not become weakened by external pressures that inevitably come my way.

Good parenting! Voila.

Usually I notice distracted parents, authoritative parents, unreasonable parents, uninspired, tired parents... So I am happy to report in my playground observations a day of witnessing good parent after great parent. A dad was playing a bilingual word game wIth his three year old. ¿Como ce dice...luz... En ingles? He was really working hard to come up with words for her to translate. And English is his second language. Him and his partner decided to speak Spanish at home so she learns both English in the world and Spanish at home. As a trilingual speaking kid, I appreciate his parental efforts. At one point daddy's little girl hurt herself and he said, aww vamos a la casa. And she stared screaming louder. He was so sensitive to her crying he wanted to retreat home. I started mumbling under my breath that she is hurt but doesn't want to go home, and I was afraid he wouldnt hear her, but the girl used her articulating skills to say she would just like some ice on her forehead and a drink of water, and not to go home. Very sweet! Good parenting efforts paying off.

Bad labels on children

I am tired of hearing people projecting their fears onto children! I'm sick of hearing adults voice their negative expectations of their children.

Never say a child is bad, demanding, or spoiled. This is an awful thing to say to a child who knows not what he does. When a 1-3 year old says 'fuck you' because they heard it in their environment, they are not bad. They're just repeating what they see. If you are a parent and your child is parroting negative environmental inputs, change the environment. Step it up. Switch daycares, stop cursing, stop hitting, laugh more, et cetera.

Practice not giving attention to your unfounded fears, and practice imagining the grand possibilities. See your child as full of potential, and not a time-bomb waiting to set off.

Avoid The Lecture

A lecture is only appropriate when the receiver is also intellectually engaged. It is not appropriate when the receiver is emotional, because reason and logic are temporarily disabled when upset!

Its not productive to explain the reasons we lost something. Acknowledge the upset first.

"Aw, you're really upset. It's a really nice stick! Its smooth with a nice bump on the end, and its bigger than you yet easy to carry. Its such a nice stick. And now someone else is playing with it and you feel like you lost the stick. That is really upsetting :( sad face :( "

and when the child feels like you're sympathizing, the screaming and anger will cease and then they'll just be grieving a little bit, and then you can nudge them in a positive direction, like, "If you loved the stick so much and then left it on the ground, maybe he'll do the same thing when he becomes interested in something else." And then, "Let's see what else could be interesting that might distract him from the stick." And then go find a bug, and show the kid with the stick the bug.

This way, the mother wouldn't be the bad guy. because its not her fault that the stick isn't available for play. Its just the way of the world. The mother becomes a source of comfort, instead of the harbinger of restrictions, which is an undesirable way to be viewed by an upset child.

Picky Eaters

Feeding our children is the most important and time-consuming aspect of parenting. Most of us aren't accustomed to thinking about food so much. We aren't all chefs. If you missed that book "French Children Eat Everything" it's a good book to pick up before your child starts eating solids. It tells you how to prepare a variety of colors for your baby when they're being introduced to solid foods to accustom them to the concept of variety. I missed that sensitive period, so I played catch up when my son was weaned. Here is what I have observed.

1. Children don't need to eat as much as we like to see them eat. Keep the excess in tupperware and save it for later. If you prepared a lot of it, freeze it to save time later.

2. Children enjoy taking little tastes of a wide variety of food throughout the day. This can be called snacking or grazing. Get creative. Don't stick to staple snack foods. Mix it up. Hummus, grapes, tomato wedges, red peppers, cauliflower. Offer a few different basic foods and let them pick from the variety.

3. Reflect on the quality of your own diet. Educating yourself in nutrition and cuisine is not an easy task, but it doesn't have to happen overnight. Its a journey that you'll take along with your child. Slowly get rid of the bad stuff and replace it with the good. Taste buds adjust. Eventually all that healthy food will cease to taste bland and will offer a huge variety of flavors never before perceived. If you took care of your body while you were pregnant, you still have the same incentive to continue doing so. You're still eating for two (or more)!

4. Resist breaking down and buying packaged food with high fructose corn syrup, food coloring, or... any packaged food in general. Its dead inside. Shop on the perimeter of the grocery store, only going into aisles for the staples you absolutely know ahead of time that you need, like corn tortillas and salsa! 

5. Avoid stress around food. Prepare food together with them. They're more likely to eat it then, anyway. There's tons of resources on cooking with kids through sites like Pinterest.

6. In order to not stress around food, you need to feel good about what they're eating (99.8% of the time). You can sneak in greens by making smoothies or mixing algae tablets in with some apples in a high-speed blender (or the pot if you boil apples to make apple sauce). I like putting kale or spinach with banana and a little bit of peanut butter. My son doesn't always want some, but occasionally he'll devour it. So again, their bodies want different things at different times. Take care of your own body, and let them share your food when they want it. If you eat well, they'll eat well. 

You don't have to drastically change everything you eat in order to be healthy. After tweaking a few aspects about what you eat, a rhythm emerges. In place of cereal from a box and milk you may pour oats, raisins, chia seeds, chop up some banana's, drizzle some honey on top, and pour in some almond milk. You'll live longer, you'll feel better, and the kids will eat better. 

"Non Violent Communication"

I just wanted to put this picture here because its hilarious. Not entirely relevant, except that if you use non violent communication with your child, they won't become a douchebag.

 My son is in the range of the horribly named "terrible" two's. Its an age where they're learning to communicate. Many parents don't know how to communicate, and so the honeymoon phase of having a perfect infant is over. Now its a relationship, and lord knows, we could all use help relating better.

What do we do when our own needs are conflicting with the desires of our child?

I have briefly studied Non Violent Communication (NVC), but haven't had much practice. There are groups in metropolitan areas where one can practice in groups if you're interested in learning more.

My son was waving his hand close to my face. In an effort to practice NVC i said "I feel attacked!" and i retreated. I looked at him, and then I tried to see why he was doing it. I hadn't really looked at him in a while, and he wanted me to look him in the eyes and to connect. He showed me what he wanted, and I was able to give it to him. Alternatively, I could have just said "Don't hit me!" but that wouldn't have addressed his need for connection. I could tell him "Go play somewhere else." and cut off connection, but that would become a habitual response in our relationship and we'd create a wedge in our relationship. NVC works to always get closer, and to create more understanding with each other. Its a great way to feel heard, to create a change in behavior, and to become more satisfied. Identifying needs and feelings is a key to non violent communication, so it requires practice, but once you get acquainted with the various needs and feelings, you can access creative solutions to relationship conflicts. So, to summarize NVC briefly here:

First, make an observation without evaluating it further. "I noticed that you're frantically waving your hands in my face." Then state what this situation made you feel. "I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed and slightly afraid for my safety." Then, state what need the feeling was prompted from. For example, "I feel attacked! I'd like to feel safe, loved, connected, and/or nurtured." Then, offer an action for the other person to take that would help you feel that way. For example, "Could you touch me gently?" Of course, you can also go to the other person and say "I'm wondering what you're feeling, what you're needing, that you want to frantically wave your hands in my face. I'm just guessing, but perhaps you want to play?"
Here is a video about non violent communication in regards to parenting.