Yesterday, my daughter and I decided to make a video of our favourite board games to share with other families. (She did the filming!) It was our way of having some fun while connecting with community online.

We hope that in these unfamiliar days, it might give you some new ideas of things to do together.

You can view the video here.

If you are curious about what games we chose, but don’t want to watch the video, here they are:

1. Outfoxed – cooperative game for 2 to 4 players. Ages 5+
2. Forbidden Island – cooperative game for 2 to 4 players. Ages 10+ (but I’ve played with our 6 y.o.)
3. Qwirkle – 2 to 4 players. Ages 6+
4. Rummycub – 2 to 4 players. Ages 8+
5. Azul – 2 to 4 players. Ages 8+
6. Tiny Towns – 1 to 6 players. Ages 14+ (again, played with our 6 y.o. with modified rules)
7. Anomia – 3 to 6 players. Ages 5+

Happy Playing,

Suzanne

Think about what you are hoping to convey to your child when you have a conversation with them – the deeper level of what you want to convey, not the immediate subject matter. When I think about what I wish to impart to my children, it is this: I want them to know in a felt sense that they are loved and precious beings. Their knowing this deeply, throughout their whole being, is entirely dependent on how they see themselves reflected back by their dad and I.

It works like this. A child thinks, “If my parent/caregiver/attachment figure believes that I am worthwhile, then I am worthwhile. I know that they believe that I am worthwhile because I can see myself, my true self, reflected in their eyes.”

And how do we reflect back to them that they are worthwhile? We listen to them mindfully, compassionately, without judgment and with all our senses. Look up from your screen, book or whatever you are doing and give your child your eyes. Notice their facial expression, body posture, and tone of voice to pick up clues as to how they are feeling. Listen for the emotion and the need being expressed behind the words, And then let them know what it is you think they are saying. My daughter saying, “I’m bored,” might really mean, “I miss my friend and I’m lonely.”

Now, listening with intention is impossible to do 100% of the time. I try to limit the amount of time my children see me on my phone, but I have on more than one occasion said, “Just let me finish this text.” I also get tired, irritated, frustrated, hungry, and overwhelmed – all of which challenge my ability to listen with intention. So I also practice self-compassion. I do my best and I am human. Sometimes, I circle back and apologize for being distracted. I don’t say it won’t happen again but I might say something like, “I’m sorry I was so distracted just now. I was upset because I just realized I forgot to send a birthday card I meant to put in the mail.”

I work on the belief that if I am able to be present, engaged and listen with intention most of the time, then my children will know deep in their bodies that they are loved and they will feel seen and valued for who they are.

And this is what I wish for them most in this world.

Warmly,

Suzanne

When you notice that your heart rate is rising, your shoulders are tensing up, and you are thinking, “This is not going to end well,” taking a mental step back and giving yourself some space can help you respond to a situation rather than react. When we respond, we are more mindful of our tone of voice, the words we are using and how our own emotions are contributing to the situation. It doesn’t mean that we are okay with any behaviour our kids (or others) dish out, but it does mean that we respond in a way that is helpful rather than in a way that adds to the situation.

Here are four strategies to help you take that mental step back so that you are more able to respond from a grounded place. You can try these strategies in the moment and see if they help. There might be one or two that work better for you than the others. Those are the ones you can return to whenever you notice you need to take a moment.

1. Name 5 Things – When you feel like your head is spinning and everything is getting overwhelming, take a moment to name to yourself five things you can see around you. You try it now. “I see a chair. I see a shoe. I see a clock. I see a window. I see a tree outside.” Bringing your attention to your sense of sight helps bring you back to the here and now of your body. When I do this, I notice my breath slowing down as I name the objects I am seeing. You can also do it by naming the sounds you hear around you. It does the same thing of bringing your mind back to the present. You can name the objects or sounds silently to yourself, so that even if others are around, they are unaware that you are practicing this strategy.

2. Ground Yourself – For this strategy, breath into your centre (about an inch beneath your belly button) and notice your feet on the ground, feeling where the soles of your feel make contact with the earth. If you are sitting, you can notice where your body touches the chair. Again, this strategy guides you back to your body in the present. It gives you a moment to take that step back and respond mindfully to the situation.

3. Breathe – Bringing your awareness to your natural breath is another way to settle yourself. You don’t need to change how you are breathing, just bring your awareness to it. If you have a particular breathing technique that you like, such as square breathing or belly breathing, you can use those as well. In the moment, simply noticing your breath will give you the pause you need to respond rather than react.

4. Notice Your Emotional Elevator – You can imagine your emotions as an elevator. At the top is where the high-energy emotions like anger and rage as well as excited and ecstatic live and at the bottom is where the low-energy emotions like calm and restful as well as sad and bored live. Taking note of where your emotional elevator is and then visualizing it going down (or up if needed) can help you regulate your emotions in the moment.

All of these strategies can be done quickly and without anyone else around being aware of what you are doing. If you are with your children, and it a situation with them that you are trying to manage, you can also practice these strategies out loud. Doing this models for them that we all feel overwhelmed at times and need to have strategies to regulate ourselves so that we can respond mindfully. It also gives them strategies that they might choose to use later when they need to pause and take a mental step back.

Do you have other strategies that you use? I would love to hear about them in the comments section.

Wishing you all a December that is filled with ease and moments of connection and joy,

Suzanne

Research has also linked families who eat together frequently with increased child and youth health. What has not been clear is if families who ate together more frequently were just healthier to begin with or if it was because they ate together that the children were healthier.

This recently published study out of the University of Montreal looks at the relationship between meal times eaten together as a family and the associated physical and mental health benefits over a ten year span. PhD student Marie-Josée Harbec and her supervisor, pyschoeducation professor Linda Pagani, studied a cohort of children born between 1997 and 1998 from 5 months of age until 10 years of age. Studying families since almost the birth of their child and over such a long period of time allowed them to adjust the findings to account for many factors (such as cognitive abilities, child temperament, family configuration, maternal education, and depression) that previous studies weren’t able to. The families started reporting data on meal times when the children were 6 years old. When they reached 10 years of age, parents, teachers and the children, reported on their lifestyle habits, academic achievement, and social adjustment.

The results show that when the quality of the family meal environment is better, children consume less soft drinks, have a higher level of fitness and increased social skills (reporting less aggression and oppositional behaviour).

Setting the intention to eat two or three times together a week can go a long way to raising healthy, socially and emotionally resilient children. With busy families, it is difficult to find a time when everyone is home and can sit down together, but I encourage you to try to do it when you can as the payoff is tremendous.

Warmly,

Suzanne

Figuring out what practices work for you and your family – whether they be mindfulness, kindness, compassion, gratitude or any other type of practice – is a process. My daughter, when she was four, used to tell me quite emphatically, “I don’t want to take deep breaths!” I’ve since learned more playful ways of introducing breathing rather than just asking a four year old to “take some deep breaths” in the middle of a meltdown!

We’ve also learned as a family what works for us. One of the things we’ve learned is that we like to mix it up – sometimes we do breathing or other mindfulness activities at bedtime, other times we take turns at the dinner table saying what we’re grateful for. Currently, we have an Acts of Kindness Jar where we record on slips of paper either kind acts that one of us has done for someone else or that someone else has done for one of us.

I used to worry that not doing one practice consistently would be counter productive. I feel better though, after hearing Dr. Kimberley Schonert-Reichl speak at the Heart-Mind 2018 conference this March. One of the things she said was that research suggests that it may be best to “mix it up” with children. Anecdotally, my daughter does internalize and then use the practices that resonate with her. One of the advantages of exposing children to different practices is that they can choose the strategies that work for them.

Above is a video that I took of Elli last summer. She had been in a bike camp the previous week and, as she tells me in the video, she wanted to calm down her body. To regulate herself, she used some of the strategies that we had been doing together. I was awed at how she was able to transfer what we had been doing at home to “the real world.”

We’ve both come a long way from “I don’t want to take deep breaths!”

This video is shared with Elli’s permission.

Warmly,

Suzanne

The research backs up this idea that “we are all in this together.” Children as young as three months have been shown to have a preference for helping behaviours over unhelpful behaviours. Dr. Karen Wynn and her team from The Infant Cognition Centre, otherwise known as The Baby Lab, at the University of Yale ran a series of studies looking at whether babies recognize prosocial behaviour. In one study, 5 and 9 month old babies were shown a scene with puppets. In the scene, a puppet was trying to get a colourful rattle out of a box. The babies are shown two variations of this scene – in one variation, another puppet comes along who helps the original puppet open the box and take out the rattle. In the other variation, the puppet that comes along sits on the box, making it impossible for the original puppet to open the box. After watching both variations, when presented with both the helping and non-helping puppets, the babies showed a preference for the helping puppet by gazing longer at and reaching for the helpful puppet.

Research out of Dr. Kimberly Schonert-Reichl’s Social & Emotional Learning Lab (the SEL Lab) at the University of BC found that children ages 9 to 11 who are asked to perform three acts of kindness per week for four weeks, showed increases in happiness and how well-liked they were by peers. This is important as preteens who are well-liked also demonstrate more inclusive behaviour. Another study from the SEL Lab looked at the benefits of volunteering. Grade 10 students who volunteered one hour a week for 10 weeks with elementary school children, lowered their cardiovascular risk as compared to the control group.

Research is showing that prosocial behaviours, including kindness, are more ingrained in us than previously thought. This doesn’t necessarily  always make kindness the “go to” behaviour though. Kind isn’t always easy and sometimes, in the short-term at least, the power we feel with anger and revenge can be sweet. So how do we encourage kindness in our children? You are probably already doing most, if not all, of the ideas listed below. The key is being intentional and knowing why we are doing what we are doing when we are doing it!

1. Model kindness – Our children learn an incredible amount by watching how we treat others. Do you show kindness and understanding in your interactions with your friends?  Do you tell your child to stay away from the student in their class who is having difficulty on the playground and leave it at that, or do you talk about how some children have a harder time learning how to get along with others?
2. Talk about being kind – What does it mean to be kind? What does it look like and sound like? Notice and name when your children are being kind (“I saw you give the red crayon to Lily when she asked for it even though you were using it.”) Don’t, however, reward them for their kindness. External rewards have been shown to lessen internal motivation.
3. Make it a family value – “We treat other people with kindness in our family.” Let your children know that kindness is important.
4. Create an Acts of Kindness Jar – One way to notice and name kindness is by tracking acts of kindness. You can track them by journalling, talking about them at the dinner table, creating an Acts of Kindness Jar or any other way you can think of. Track both kind acts that they (and you) have received and those acts that they (and you) have done for others.
5. Read stories with kindness themes – Books such as “Plant a Kiss” by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and “Boo Hoo Bird” by Jeremey Tankard are great for younger children. “Wonder” by R. J. Palacio and “Blubber” by Judy Blume are two for older children. Heart-Mind Online has book lists that you  can find here, for the younger ones, and here, for older children.

The Dalai Lama has said, “Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.” Not always easy, but possible. Hopefully you have a little more information to help your child(red) choose kind.

Warmly,

Suzanne

Valentine’s Day, as a day to celebrate your sweetheart, is full of social pressures. What if you don’t have a sweetheart? What if don’t want a sweetheart? If you do have a sweetheart, what if you don’t want to partake in what is essentially a commercial holiday?

Elementary classroom Valentine’s Day celebrations are already a celebration of friendships and not romantic relationships. Most teachers ask that students, if they are going to bring Valentine’s Day cards to class, bring one for every child. In my conversations with my daughter, I make sure that she understands that she is giving cards to every classmate not because that is the rule, but because it is kind and thoughtful to include everyone.

I wonder if maybe Valentine’s Day as a way to celebrate kindness and friendships – for everyone, not just elementary school students – is gentler and less angst-filled. What if we all celebrated Random Acts of Kindness Week instead?

The spirit of Family Day, spending time with loved ones whether they are family or dear friends, feels more like the gentler Valentine’s Day that I wish for. Pulling in, reminding myself of my many blessings, slowing down and playing with my children – that is what I want to do. The memories that spending time together will create for my children, the deep message of “you are loved” that it gives them, the priceless opportunity I have to share my values with my children as I play and talk with them – that is what I want to do.

Last week I signed up for an online course called Unclutter. You can read about it here. It is facilitated by Amy Kervin, who blogs and offers parenting courses on her website, Love Uncluttered. On her website, Amy advocates for “simplifying childhood (and parenthood) so that you can focus on the relationships that matter most.” In Unclutter, the course I participated in, Amy sends you seven emails, one a day, for a week. Each centers on something you can do in with your family to simplify – get away from “stuff” – in order to free up time and energy so that you can focus on each other.

My timing in signing up was perfect. As this week of Valentine’s Day and Family Day drew near, the questions that Amy posed were a good reminder of what is important to my family and me. Reading and thinking on her emails helped me articulate what I had been feeling but not able to put words to easily.

There are still wonderings I have about Valentine’s Day and how I want to celebrate it – I think I may always wrestle with this one. I have, though, been able to remind myself of how I want to be with my family and what values I want to share with them. For me, these values are more in line with Family Day, so that is the day that we are celebrating more than Valentine’s Day in our house. And we are celebrating it by spending time together, being grateful for each other, and being kind.

Happy Family Day,

Suzanne

Young children are not always able to regulate their emotions themselves and they will need you to help them manage and stay focused. Children also don’t have control over the family social calendar, which can add to the sense that their world is moving a little too fast. They can easily become overwhelmed. Often young children are not able to put words to feelings, so you might see their overwhelm come out in their behaviour. Maybe they are tearier than usual, or quicker to anger. They might also have more physical complains like stomachaches and headaches.

Here are some ways to help your child keep their feet on the ground this time of year:

• Help them put names to their emotions – saying something like “I’m excited that we’re going to the party. My tummy feels jumpy. Are you feeling excited as well?” or “You are running around the house a lot, are you excited that we’re going to the party?” helps children identify their emotions. Being able to name our emotions enables us to be in control of them. Brain research supports this. When people are able to name what they are feeling, their amygdala is less activated.
• Plan when you are going to let your child know the schedule for the day. You don’t want to tell them too early about an exceptionally thrilling event – telling a three year old that you are going to a favourite cousin’s party the week before the party will result in a very eager 3 year old asking every day if today is the day of the party. You do want to tell them in enough time so that they can anticipate the event and it doesn’t feel like everything “just happens.”
• Prepare children in advance of what to expect on a busy day. “We are going to the theatre and then a party, so you might feel tired or overwhelmed with all the places and people. Let’s keep checking in with each other to see how we are doing.” A quick, “How are you doing?” with gentle eye contact can help your child feel connected to you and less flooded with stimuli.
• Take care to schedule some down time to reconnect with your child when both of you can recharge. Do a puzzle, play with a favourite toy, read a book, or enjoy a snuggle together.
• Be ready to change plans. If your child is just not able to cope with yet one more activity, maybe it’s time to leave the party early and head home.
• Look after yourself. It can take an immense amount of patience to help a frazzled child regulate. If you are feeling tired and overwhelmed yourself, you will find it difficult to help your child.
• Lastly, be kind to yourself. When you are impatient with your child in the face of their meltdown, remember that you are human and that this is real life. They will get cranky and you will get irritated. Take a breath and offer yourself some kind words (think of what you would say to a friend). You will be better able to weather the next storm if you treat yourself with kindness instead of berating yourself.

There are so many emotions that we might experience at this time of year; joy, love, contentment, wonder, frustration, anxiety, and disappointment, to name a few. We can experience these emotions at any time of course; it is the intensity and pace of December that make them more challenging to cope with now. Learning to stay balanced and regulated in the face of all that is happening is a skill and it is one that we can help our children develop.

Wishing you peace and joy into 2018,

Suzanne