Helping kids to slow down and breathe...

Let's take a look at different ways that we can slow down with our kids to savor the moment together.

• I recently discovered a book called "Breathe Like a Bear" by Kira Willey.  It is full of ideas for ways to teach little ones to breathe!  Kira is also a songwriter.  Check out her music on your favorite music player!  I've been enjoying "Bunny Breath" and others!  A few of her strategies include:
  • Pretending that we are drinking hot chocolate, taking sips and saying a long "mmmm" or slowly blowing it to cool it down.
  • Pretending that we are hibernating bears taking long, slow, sleepy breaths.  
•  David Kisor also has some great songs like "Breathe" and "Smell the Flower, Blow the Candle Out"
• I like to teach little ones to breathe by blowing bubbles and trying to see how big we can blow them!  

The "Slow down and breathe" challenge part 3: The benefits

When we do manage to slow down and have dedicated time to just breathe and observe our children, we may find that we can be intentional to think about what we enjoy, we can savor the moments as children grow so quickly, and we might even learn something new about the way that our children grow.

For example:  once upon a time there was a baby who was struggling to sleep. His mama was so tired and frustrated, because no matter what she did, he woke up after just a 30-40 minute nap. But she trusted her baby and new that there must be a reason why he kept waking up. One day, she decided that even though she was so very tired, she would stay up and watch her son sleep. She watched and waited to see if there was a clue about what was waking him up. She noticed that when he started to get into a lighter sleep, his arms flailed out and he startled himself awake. It seemed that his baby reflexes made him feel like he was falling, since he was sleeping on his back.  He startled and woke himself up! This mama started to swaddle her baby for his naps, and he started to sleep better!  When this mama was able to slow down and breathe, she noticed what was going on, and she was able to respond to her baby appropriately. 

Can we parents really eliminate hurry?

One of my favorite quotes is from John Ortberg and Dallas Willard, "Ruthlessly eliminate hurry."  But how realistic is that?  Check out this blog post as we join other parents who struggle with this challenge with us.  

Slowing down

As I mentioned in my newsletter this week, the challenge this month is to slow down and breathe. 

If you watch the Gottman Institute's "What's Baby Saying?" video, Dr. Gottman explains that "it is important to realize that babies operate on a much, much slower time scale than adults.  You may remember when you were a child, a summer seemed to last forever. Now as you get older, summers go by very, very quickly.  Because the world is so much slower for children, it takes time for a baby to react to things. Newborns, for example, will imitate you, but it's a great deal of effort for them to do this. It will take them 10-40 seconds before that imitation really happens. But as busy adults, we are often out of the room doing ten other things by the time the baby has gotten around to imitating us. So one of the first things you have to do is slow way, way down. It will add a lot to your life if you can turn off the television, not answer the phone, and really spend a lot of time in sustained play with your baby, learning how to read your baby's signals. Every baby is different, so you need to get to know your baby as an individual. You don't have to devote 95% of your time to playing with your baby. Just be fully present and engaged when you are playing with your baby. That's another thing that's special about babies. They are fully engaged in the moment!"

Speaking of newborns imitating, I love this video of a newborn imitating his dad! 

Welcome to the June "Slow Down and Breathe" Challenge

Check out our June newsletter here.

The Four Horsemen

As May comes to an end, we wrap up our series on recognizing the "Four Horsemen" that Gottman has found predict divorce, and to use their antidotes.  I'm hoping that these last four months have helped you to be aware of the behaviors that predict divorce, and to know how you can make different choices to build your positive, playful parenting team!  

For more help in this area, join us for a Bringing Baby Home class or schedule a 1-on-1 consultation with Lara!  

For one last summary, check out this article from the Gottman Institute.  

Come back tomorrow to little-elf.org to the 5:1 Ratio Blog for the June "Slow Down and Breathe" Challenge!  

Fighting in front of the kids

When is it appropriate to fight in front of the kids?  In John Medina's book Brain Rules (Updated and Expanded), he talks about "One of the greatest predictors of performance in school turns out to be the emotional stability of the home... Given that stress can powerfully affect learning, one might predict that children living in high-anxiety households would not perform as well academically as kids living in more nurturing households. That is exactly what studies show. Marital stress at home can negatively affect academic performance in almost every way measurable, and at nearly any age... Careful subsequent investigations showed that it was the presence of overt conflict, not divorce, that predicted grade failure.” (Brain Rule #4: Stressed Brains Don't Learn the Same Way, emphasis mine).

Therefore, we can consider ways to reduce how much we fight in front of the children, and how we teach them conflict management strategies.  Some ideas:

• Having a regular time when we bring up conflicts when the children are out of earshot, so that conflicts don't build up over time.
• Looking for regular ways to express fondness and affection for one another, so that we can maintain the positive perspective.
• Taking breaks to calm down so that problems don't escalate.
• Focusing on keeping mealtimes positive, so that kids develop a positive association with eating.

If you think a certain topic may be upsetting to you or your partner, try to avoid talking about it in front of the kids. Wait to bring it up when you are alone.Starting at around age 4, we can have small disagreements in front of the children, but it is important that they see us physically make up at the end.  

Check out this article for more information.  

More tips and tricks

Why take a break?

Stonewalling happens when we feel so overwhelmed or upset that we shut down.  We become like a stone wall.  

Statistically speaking, men are more likely to stonewall than women, and they tend to stay aroused for longer periods of time than women do.  Inside their heads, they seem to be saying, "Just shut up. You'll only make it worse. She can't go on like this forever."  What often happens in this situation is that the other person (typically the woman) feels abandoned, and pushes harder to get a response.  

So why is it so important to make an agreement that it is OK to take a break?  When we are upset and just fight it out, we say things that we regret or we make our partner feel abandoned by stonewalling.  When we take a break to calm down before continuing the discussion, we can use our whole brains to think more clearly.  We gain access to our sense of humor and affection with one another.  

How do we know that breaks work?  Dr. Gottman and his colleagues did research where they brought couples into the Love Lab and asked them to discuss a disagreement.  "...They discovered that a 20-minute break in which couples stopped talking and just reading magazines (as their heart rates returned to baseline) dramatically changed the discussion so that people had access to their sense of humor and affection."

In the 2015 Networker Symposium, Julie Gottman presented her keynote, "What Works in Couples Therapy." In this clip from the presentation, Julie explains why partners get emotionally "flooded," and how this can be remedied. Did you enjoy this video? Check out more from the Gottmans at www.psychotherapynetworker.org.

Come back next Monday to learn more about what a good break looks like. 

You can also check out this article from the Gottman website about the pursue-withdraw pattern.  

What to do if you complain without blaming but your partner still seems defensive?

In this video, Dr. Julie Gottman talks about what we can do if we still notice defensiveness in our partner in spite of our best efforts... 

The most important thing you can do to make your relationship work

When I teach Bringing Baby Home classes, I always give away plastic monsters.  We use those monsters to represent our problems, and to remind us that we need to work together as a team to fight the monsters.  If we let those monsters get between us, we end up fighting each other instead of fighting the problem.  

For more thoughts on this, check out this short video from Dr. Gottman:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUb5iCrSo8g

Accepting Responsibility: Andy Griffith style

What better way to learn about responsibility than to see it in action?  Check out this excerpt from the Andy Griffith show:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJjPni9V4EY

Accepting Responsibility: A Word from Will Smith

I love what Will Smith has to say about fault versus responsibility.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USsqkd-E9ag

Blaming is a way that we discharge anger

Check out this animation from Brené Brown about blame.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2LXnTQh-3s

Welcome to the "Accepting Responsibility" Challenge

We are working on reducing the "4 Horsemen" from our relationships.  In January we worked on identifying when we notice criticism, defensiveness, contempt, and stonewalling in our relationships.  In February we practiced the antidote to contempt: creating a culture of appreciation.  In March we practiced the antidote to criticism: complaining without blaming.  This month, instead of choosing blame and defensiveness, we are going to practice choosing responsibility and accountability.   

"Next, we get down to the hard part. We each have to take some responsibility for our part in the fight. Nobody likes doing this. But when we do, the problem becomes our problem in communicating, and not the diabolical dealings of Lex Luthor, who, of course, is our partner, and not ourselves. Arguments are almost never one person's fault" (excerpt from John Gottman & Julie Schwartz Gottman's book And Baby Makes Three, 2007, p. 109).

Clearly stating what we need

Once we are able to describe the problem without judging the other person, it is important that we are able to clearly tell the person what it is we need.  If we can do that, we are giving them the tools that they need to meet our need.  Describing our needs in clear terms opens the discussion about what may or may not be realistic.  It can be hard to state our needs when we feel that we might be rejected, but it is the way to set ourselves up for success.  

Being polite and appreciative

We all need to feel appreciated. When we say "please" and "thank you", we show respect to our partner and we are modeling good habits for our children.  We can say "I really appreciate it when we do the dishes together.  It makes me feel like I am part of a great team.  Is there any way we can do the dishes together more often?"

Describing our feelings

One strategy for complaining without blaming is to talk about our own feelings rather than talking about the other person.  If we don't know what we are feeling, it is probably safe to say that we feel "upset."  Describing how we feel and how our children feel is a great way to increase children's awareness of feelings as well.  

If you are looking for some help in describing how you feel, check out this feelings chart.