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.
I think a lot about the deals we establish with our littles—babies and even dogs! They often find comfort and safety in familiar routines, which is crucial for their development. After all, we need to feel safe in order to learn.
But as they grow, sometimes we need to change the deal.
Take sleep, for example.
My words this year are celebration, self compassion, and guts. And this week in particular I’m working on savoring the celebrations. That has just brought to mind a lot of fun stuff. One of them is this video of a father and son watching TV together and talking about what they see. This video just makes me smile.
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.
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.
It can be hard for kids to transition from being active to slowing down for sleep. I’ve been collecting ideas that you can experiment with to see what works for YOUR child. I would suggest that you offer these as choices that your child can pick from. I suggest all the time that we offer as many choices as we can, and only offer choices that are OK with us.
When I think about songs that remind me of why I do what I do, one of the top songs that comes to mind is “Escape (The Piña Colada Song)” by Rupert Holmes. It’s an oldie but a goodie. :)
If you haven’t heard it in a while, click on the link above and give it a listen. Then come back and check out why this song is so important to me. And I bet that you’ll be singing along as you read, just like I am doing as I write!
A couple of days ago, I created a “Welcome to Little Elf Family Services” video. I thought it turned out decently well, and I posted it. I watched part of the captions and changed the spelling of “mountain cur” but only realized after I had posted the automated captions that they misspelled my name.
My name is Lara. It isn’t Laura.
Parents often report that their kids lose it when they say “no”. There are a couple of responses that I have to that.
1) I suggest offering (usually 2) choices that are ok with you. You don’t necessarily need to say “no soda!” but instead you can say “Would you like milk or water?” Try to offer of as many choices as you can throughout the day, because sometimes “it’s my turn to pick.”
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 think it’s so important to take some time to celebrate. One of my many favorite quotes is that “Being acknowledged for her competence helped her become moreso (1).” And that is one of my personal goals with all of the families that I serve: to help them to acknowledge their competence. I love to have a final (or almost final) session that’s just 15-30 minutes long, where we just take the time to celebrate what’s working and what impact it is having.
Just wanted to share my favorite play dough recipe that I’ve used over the years. The recipe was given to me by a colleague years ago, and I love knowing exactly what’s in the play dough and being able to easily make more. If you’re careful with the temperature, you can get the kids to help make it!
Most children and adults have to be laying still for about 10-30 minutes to start to enter Non-REM sleep. Learning to lay still can be very challenging for some children. They don’t know how to down-regulate to help their body to lay still for that amount of time.
Toddlers and older children need to be learning what they can do to help themselves get to sleep. Even adults tend to do a transitional activity for 10 minutes - reading or scrolling.
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:
Today I am reflecting on the relationship between healthy eating and sleep. This morning, I was listening to the audiobook “The Sleep Prescription” by Aric A. Prather, Ph.D. I’ve been slowly working through his sleep “class” in HeadSpace and decided to listen to his audiobook as I work to improve sleep both for myself and for my clients. I’m just on day 2 at the moment, but this quote really struck me.
I asked ChatGPT for ideas for how to celebrate a win without spending money, and I liked what it came up with! One of my favorite quotes is that “By acknowledging her competence, (s)he helped her become more so.” So this fits perfectly with that!
Celebrate Your Wins (Without Spending a Dime)
A reminder that every step forward deserves a moment of joy. Here are some free and meaningful ways to celebrate yourself:
When should new moms should start pelvic floor exercises? When should they start walking? How can new birthing parents find a balance between "not too much too soon" and "not too little either"? When can they resume high impact exercises like running? What are signs that new moms should pay attention to after birth, which may indicate they need to scale back their activity level?
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:
Over the last year or so, I have had multiple people tell me that their kid is afraid of pooping in the potty. So I wanted to share some ideas for what can be done in this situation.
A few things to consider
Create an environment that is relaxed, semi-private, and includes laughter.
Look for ways to be patient, consistent, and understanding.
Resources:
©Lara Elfstrand, MA ECSE, IF-ATMHP, CPSI - Little Elf Family Services, P.O. Box 5098, Auburn, CA 95604
