Archive for the ‘Parenting for Peace’ Category
I have written often about the shaping power of prenatal life, and the huge influence a mother has on her child’s development during pregnancy. Mounting evidence tells us that circumstances in the womb program our health in critical, life-altering ways. The prenatal environment is equally as important as genes, perhaps even more important, in determining lifelong physical and mental health. The field of prenatal psychology has amassed decades of research to illuminate the impact of a pregnant mother’s inner life upon her child’s personality and lifelong wellbeing.
Shirley’s Mom Knew The Power of Prenatal Life
Many wisdom traditions instruct the pregnant mother to fill her mind with thoughts and images of the splendid qualities she and her partner dream of for their child. This makes pregnancy a wonderful time to read biographies of inspiring peacemakers and innovators whom you admire. We still know so little about the how’s behind the important functions of imagination and joy in pregnancy for the lifelong qualities of the individual, who is steeped in whatever his or her mother experiences during those nine months, so why not?
It seemed to work for Shirley Temple’s mother, who embraced these practices and gave birth to one of the most endearing actresses in our history, who went on to be a devoted humanitarian. Included as a footnote in my book Parenting for Peace, here is a passage from Shirley Temple’s autobiography, Child Star: {Read more at mothering.com}
Tags: prenatal psychology, shirley temple
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It makes me sad that so many parents not only struggle with parenting, but struggle with the very fact that they are struggling and might need some expert help! In every other endeavor in which art meets skill, coaching is a central and valued element. With the Olympics upon us, we are vividly reminded that from ice skating to acting, baseball to ballet, soccer to singing, the really gifted world-class contenders wouldn’t make a move or a toe-loop without their coaches.
It’s funny to me that parent coaching appears to many as a luxury or extravagance — or even unnecessary. Or worse, evidence that you are failing somehow, or less-than. Parent coaching, like all other coaching, helps by holding a vision of success when you, for whatever reason, cannot. A coach sees the powers inside you and guides their unfolding. In singing, soccer, life in general — and in parenting. {Read more at mothering.com}
Tags: angry parents, discipline, parent coaching, parenting, toddler discipline
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Exactly 23 years ago I marveled at my 7-hour-old daughter, my Eve. In those blissful early moments I thought I might have slipped the skin of pain that had cinched me for a long time after my son’s birth 3 1/2 years earlier. But it was not to be. After a momentary grace of one season…three months…of empowered, unfreighted mothering, Life circumstances stepped in to pull me down again. Into postpartum depression, again.
As odd as it sounds, my children were both in their teens before I realized that I had experienced postpartum depression with both of them. What led to this tardy epiphany? Not the several years of deep therapeutic work with two different therapists and a variety of bodyworkers; not the many years of deep scholarly work pursuing my doctorate in early human development, including the study of pregnancy, birth and postpartum issues; and as you can probably guess, not from my own OB/GYN.
I have Brooke Shields to thank for my big ah-hah. {Read more at mothering.com}
Tags: postpartum, postpartum depression
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As I contemplate the 23rd anniversary of my daughter’s birth this week, my thoughts go back to the oh-so-tender moments surrounding birth. How powerful they are, for mothers and for babies. (And for fathers, but that’s for another day!) How imprints from these moments can mark us lifelong.
After Eve was born, she never left my side during our 24-hour ABC room stay. This in contrast to my son Ian’s birth, when I gave in and allowed them to whisk him away to the newborn nursery (against the strong advice of his progressive pediatrician, Jay Gordon). With Ian I was in essence revisiting and reenacting my own traumatic beginnings — as an adoptee who had been separated from my biological mother immediately after I was born. {Read the rest at mothering.com}
Photo
John Axness
Tags: birth trauma, newborn, NICU, preemie, primal wound, separation, trauma
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Gone are the days when we could consider pregnancy a 9-month “grace period” before the job of parenting begins. Mounting research tells us that lifelong wellbeing, including mental health, begins in the womb, and everything parents do – beginning even before conception — shapes their children in critical, life-altering ways.
I began last year by writing about the power of beginnings. This year I invite us to recognize that this applies to virtually everything, from baking a pie to building a company to developing a human: the beginning contains within it the seeds of the project’s ultimate success…or less-than-success. {Read more}
Tags: autism, brain development, fetal origins, oxytocin, pregnancy, prenatal development, prenatal epigenetics, stress
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I really hate the concept of “flu season” — it sets us up to be ready to get sick, right?! But I also have a healthy respect (“healthy” — see what I did there??) for statistics, and it is true that lots more folks get lots more colds and flu during the winter months. Here are three tried and true secrets for not getting sick — tips that staved off many bouts of illness in our family over many years. (My kids are now 22 and 26 and continue to use these with great results.)
I have been sharing these tips for not getting sick with friends for years, and finally decided it’s my moral duty to put them out there to the wider world! {I invite you to read the rest at mothering.com}
Tags: Ferrum phos, flu season, getting sick, homeopathic remedies, hot foot bath, napping, Neti pot, not getting sick, sleep
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One helpful aspect of parent awareness throughout your child’s life is to know when developmental milestones typically occur, while also respecting the individuality of his or her unique timetable. I was reminded by last week’s Wall Street Journal article about waving bye-bye, of just how delightful “milestone spotting” can be over the course of a child’s unfolding! (The article points out that a baby typically acquires the bye-bye wave between 10-12 months, and that premature infants have a delayed and different bye-bye wave.)
Here are a few other enchanting developmental milestones to keep your eyes peeled for:
- Toward the end of the forty-day cocoon period, at around six weeks, attuned parents will notice a change in their baby: Like Noah after the forty days, she is “ready to open a window on the world.” She’s becoming more alert, more aware and responsive to the surrounding environment. Her journey toward relatedness is beginning. She is now ready to enter more into family life, needing somewhat less protection from the ordinary household noises, sounds of active older children, visitors, etc. Occasional gentle radio music is now acceptable. But television is still best avoided; the high quality of the sense impressions coming to the baby are fundamental to her newly wiring brain circuitry, making this one of the sensitive windows neuroscientists talk about. {Read more at mothering.com}
Tags: developmental milestones, preemie, premature, wave bye-bye
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For anyone who becomes a mother within nine months of a major holiday season (and, taking into account all of the holidays within every faith and cultural tradition, that means almost everybody!) I have a radical idea for you: Simplify your idea of how the holidays will look this year. Better yet, let yourself let someone ELSE handle everything. That way, your holidays with a new baby can be marked by joy, connection and peace — just as they’re meant to be!
This doesn’t mean that I don’t think you are up to the task of balancing the needs of your infant with brining the tenderest turkey, setting an exquisite table and hostessing with the mostest-ing. Far from it — many new moms I meet are awesomely equipped to perform impressive feats of multi-tasking magic while bouncing baby on their hips. {Read more about this at mothering.com}
Image:
Nguyen Ngoc Tu on Unsplash
Tags: gratitude, holidays, postpartum, postpartum depression, supermom
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“But they’re so awful!”
This is a response I often hear from parents when I recommend Grimm’s fairy tales as basic reading fare. The idea of regaling their young children with stories of orphans and witches, kidnappings and murders—at bedtime no less—is daunting, understandably.
As parents we tend to want to present something of a Hallmark world to our children, so we naturally gravitate to soothing, sunny, children’s books, including sanitized versions of fairy tales classics. Wishing to shield them from the darker aspects of humanity, such as anger, greed, anguish, and cruelty, we wean our children on the proposition that people are all good. The problem is that even the youngest child knows differently in her heart of hearts. {Read more of this post at mothering.com}
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So there you are one afternoon, at the end of your rope with an out-of-control three-year-old. You know you 
