If you find yourself needing more support, reach out.
The Canadian Mental Health Association has some great resources they have released this week.
Kelty Mental Health is hosting a series of podcasts for Mental Health Week.
The Crisis Centre has phone lines that are open 24/7 and an online chat line. Call 1800 SUICIDE (1-800-784-2433) if you if you are considering suicide or are concerned about someone who may be. ​310-6789 (no area code needed) for emotional support, information and resources specific to mental health. ​
The BC Association of Clinical Counsellors has a Find A Counsellor resource to help you find a therapist anywhere in BC.

Stay well and stay connected

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

Values are what is important to you; the guideposts by which you’ll make decisions. They are qualities that reflect who you want to be in the world. When we make decisions that take into account our values, we are more congruent and will feel more connected to ourselves. We experience greater fulfillment when we live by our values,

The decisions we make and our behaviours are based on and reflect our values. When we use our values to make decisions, we focus on what is important to us—what we need to feel a sense of well-being.

As parents, we can’t always be there to guide the decisions our children make. The values we impart to our children are what will lay the foundation for the kind of people our children become. They are a map for how we want to be as a family. “In our family, we are kind – we use our words and don’t hit others.”

Examples of values include:

• Inclusivity
• Kindness
• Respecting others
• Spending family time
• Loyalty
• Dependability
• Open-mindedness
• Consistency
• Compassion
• Service to others
• Perseverance
• Courage
• Education
• Environmentalism
• Fitness
• Being outdoors
• Patience
• Acceptance
• Trust
• Safety
• Fun
• Risk-taking

Beliefs

There is a difference between values and beliefs which can be summed up as, “Values unite. Beliefs Divide.”

Beliefs are assumptions we hold to be true. When we use our beliefs to make decisions, we are assuming the causal relationships of the past, which led to the belief, will also apply in the future.  In a rapidly changing world where complexity is increasing day by day, using information from the past to make decisions about the future may not be the best way to support us in meeting our needs.

Beliefs are contextual: they arise from learned experiences, resulting from the cultural and environmental situations we have faced. Values are not based on information from the past and they are not contextual. Values are universal. Values transcend contexts because they are based on what is important to us: They arise from the experience of being human.

An example of how values unite and beliefs divide is spirituality. Spirituality is a value that many people hold; however, some people may believe in a particular god, while others find their spirituality in another god or in nature.

Emotions

How are emotions linked to values? Why is teaching our kids emotions and self-awareness important?

We need to feel and listen to our emotions for them to tell us, and sometimes remind us, what our values are. Big emotions will tell us what we really care about.

For example, when I feel sad that I am not spending time with my children, my sadness tells me my value of connecting as a family is out of alignment and I pay particular attention to how I am spending my time. I might decide to cancel or postpone an afterwork meet up with a friend so that I can reconnect with my family.

Grief is the emotion that expresses love and value for what is being lost.  It points directly to what we care about the most. We feel grief when someone or something we value is lost.

Anger, in its balanced expression, is the emotion that gives us the strength and courage to say “No!” in the face of violation. Anger may be pointing us to deeply held values that are being violated.  Values like protecting the environment and women’s rights are values that people are motivated by anger to fight for.

If you are interested in learning more about values and exploring what your family values are, contact me at 604-733-8409 or suzanne@compassionateparenting.ca to find out when the next Family Focus workshop is happening.

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

Friendship is tricky for all of us. Reading social cues, regulating ourselves in groups of people, balancing our own needs and the needs of others, knowing what to say to join groups – these are complex skills and children are just beginning to learn them. It can be hard as parents to know how to support them as they stumble through learning these skills. Some of us might have a tough time socially ourselves, and guiding our children can seem like a mine field!

These books, and many others you probably already have on your shelves, will give you a starting point for conversations about friendships. You can talk about how it feels to be lonely, like Hedgehog in The Friend Ship, or how we can affect others around us by showing them kindness, like the boy in Rain! 

Rain! by Linda Ashman and pictures by Christian Robinson, is a gem of a book that I first saw at my son’s daycare. On a rainy day in a city, a boy and a man separately go to the local café. The man is not happy to be out in the rain; the boy is jubilant. There is a story of when the boy and the man meet and how one impacts the other; as well, there is also a story in the reactions of the people who the boy and the man come into contact with as each walks to the café. In simple pictures and words, it tells the tale of how we are feeling and our behaviour impacts those around us. It is a great story to begin to talk about social awareness and how we affect each other.

You might start by asking your child how might each character be feeling and how your child knows this (ask them what they are seeing, for example, frown, eye brows pointing down, hand on hip). If they are younger, this might be all you ask. If they are a bit older, you might talk about how the other people in the picture look and what your child thinks might be going on. You can talk about what happened to the man when the child gave him his hat back.

The Friend Ship by Kat Yeh, is a lovely book about Hedgehog, who is lonely. He builds a ship and sets sail in search of friends. Wherever he stops, he asks the animals he finds, “Have you seen the Friend Ship?” None of them have, but they ask to come with him because they would like to find a friend as well. Hedgehog’s ship gets fuller and fuller with animals. It is a beautiful book to introduce questions such as, “What makes a friend?” and “How do you know if someone is your friend?”

Jon J Muth’s Stone Soup, is a retelling of a traditional European folk tale. In his version, three monks are traveling through the mountains when they happen across a village. In this village, the villagers are all wary of each other, to say nothing of the three strangers who walk through their gates. The monks begin to make stone soup, and in doing so, unite and connect the villagers with each other again, making the village and it’s inhabitants happier in the process. Questions you might ask your child after reading this book include, “What happened when the monks started making the soup?” “How might the people in the village have been feeling before they started to make soup?” “How might they be feeling when they were helping make and eat the soup?” and “What do you think happened to change how the people in the village felt?”

There are many books that you can read with your child to begin a conversation about friends and friendship. By doing so, you are accomplishing two aims: firstly, you are developing your child’s social and emotional competencies (go here for more information on social and emotional learning); secondly, by asking questions and listening to the answers, you are letting your child know that you want to have open and honest conversations with them.

I believe that the important part is to begin the conversation and not get hung up on if we are doing it “right.” Even if our children appear to not be interested or only half engaging in the conversation, our intent behind our efforts will stick with them and when they do need honest answers, or have had a tough interaction with peers, they will seek us out. And our efforts to nurture social and emotional skills will most certainly help our children as they grow and learn how to be kind and compassionate people in this world.

Happy reading!

Warmly,

Suzanne

I am also offering two workshops this fall:

Compassionate Parenting

We will explore why being kind to ourselves as parents is so important – for us and for our kids.

For information on the workshops or to inquire about counselling, please email me at suzanne@compassionateparenting.ca

I welcome any questions or comments.

Warmly,

Suzanne