One of my favorite ways to relax is to do a progressive muscle relaxation. To do a progressive muscle relaxation, you go through each body part, tense it, and then feel the difference as you relax it. So I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how to teach kids how to do a progressive muscle relaxation. Here are my thoughts.
Welcome to Little Elf Family Services! I’m Lara Elfstrand. I am a parent coach, and I am here to help parents to feel connected, rested, and thriving. I have a master’s degree in early childhood special education (and a clear teaching credential), and I am endorsed as an infant family advanced transdisciplinary mental health practitioner.
I became a parent in 2007, and it changed me and my life completely. I realized just how much a person changes when they become a parent. It changed my values, my priorities, and my marriage! The things I learned cannot be summarized in one blog post or even in one blog. But here are just a few things that I would start with:
Nesting parties ask us to re-think the way that we celebrate new parents and challenge us to focus on what the expecting parents need. It’s really less of a party and more of an opportunity to provide the family help.
Unlike baby showers, “Nesting parties shift the focus from stuff to support to help families prepare their homes and hearts for life with a new baby,” explains Lara Elfstrand, the pediatric sleep practitioner of Little Elf Family Services.
Gatekeeping is something that I think that everyone needs to just know about, so that we can recognize when it’s happening and maybe make better interpretations of what it means and what we can do about it. First, I’m going to share a story from the person who taught me about gatekeeping, and then I’ll share some of the lessons that I’ve learned about it through my years of working with parents and families. And I’ll leave you with some songs to inspire you.
As a parent, we really want our kids to be ready for school. But what does that mean exactly? What does it look like for a child to be ready for school?
It’s easy to think that it means that they can identify their letters for reading or their numbers for math. But as a child development specialist, I actually don’t think that those things are all that important.
What are some key things that ACTUALLY have been shown to help children in school? Here are my 2 cents:
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©Lara Elfstrand, MA ECSE, IF-ATMHP, CPSI - Little Elf Family Services, P.O. Box 5098, Auburn, CA 95604
