Identifying emotions

My son has started naming his emotions and feelings lately. He has been telling me when he is happy, sad, hurt, hungry, has to go potty, I’m hot/cold, that’s funny… etc. all things that have to do with his body and emotions. I have noticed that I have been asking him questions more often like “Are you tired?” “Are you hungry?” “Are you hot/cold?” “Are you sad?” “Isn’t that funny?”.judedrink

Now I am not teaching my son these emotions. They come naturally. Isn’t it strange how you do not have to teach a child to hit or scream but they seem to do it naturally? It is the same way with affection as well, there are certain gestures that just seem to come naturally. No, my son is not learning emotions, he is learning how to identify emotions.

In the years that I have worked around and with young adults in a therapeutic type of environment, I have observed as these young adults struggle to identify emotions. Emotions come naturally; identifying them takes practice and encouragement, as well as a safe environment where one is allowed to explore each emotion at length. There have been times when we have had to use a happy/sad/angry face chart with young people because the needed a visual image to match their emotion to so that they then could identify and then express that emotion.

Learning to identify ones emotions takes time and it takes nurturing. That is why it is so difficult when a child is not attached properly, they learn to identify their emotions wrongly or to ignore them completely.

Lately emotions have been overwhelming my son. He comes to a point where he is feeling too many or too much of one emotion and he goes on overload. It is then my job to step in, wrap him up in my arms or give him his own personal space to sit in, thus giving him a safe, secure and secluded environment where he can peacefully identify, experience and then deal with his emotions.

Jasmine is a co-housing, home birthing, missions minded, community living mama with a passion for fierce writing. She blogs.


Healthy boundaries

2226095398_e9d7f5d970At our home there is a continual rotation of people. We have interns in and out pretty much all year round. Most of these people are temporary, staying anywhere from 2 weeks to 6 months with us. Just recently we had a young man, the brother of my brother in law, stay with us for a prolonged period of time. He recently left for school. He and my son had been quite close. My son had not shown much distress in the first couple of days or weeks of this young man leaving. In truth I thought he had pretty much forgotten all about him. Turns out I was in for a bit of a shock. A week ago we went to pick up a few new interns. When I returned home with them my son started asking for this young man. He quickly escalated from asking for him and then crying for him; very soon he was in a state of semi-hysteria. I was shocked. He was inconsolable. I ended up calling the young man on the phone and having my son talk to him. That did the trick. He calmed down and hasn’t asked for him since.

All this time I did not know that my son was dealing with grief in some way. I have spent this last week coming up with ways that my son is able to interact with the interns that are in our home and sharing our lives and yet creating healthy and firm boundaries.

My son is not at an age where he can understand why people are coming and going but I am able to create an atmosphere in which he can learn to attach himself to people and yet do so in a way that when they leave it will not bring on the large amounts of grief demonstrated earlier this week.

One of the biggest difficulties I have experienced with the interns is that they want to become close with my child even though they will not be staying for a long period of time. They want something more than just friendliness from my son. They want a firm attachment. I have recently had to step up and remind these young people that they will not be staying and that for the sake of my son it is good for them to be friendly and to enjoy each other but to create a deep bond is not with my child is not what they are here for. People love for children to be affectionate and most people even like it when a child expresses distress when they leave even though that child is not theirs, not realizing that their gratification is costing that child.

My job as I see it this summer is to help my son create healthy boundaries with people while still enjoying their company.

Jasmine is a co-housing, home birthing, missions minded, community living mama with a passion for fierce writing. She blogs.

Photo from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/vizzzual-dot-com/2226095398/

Attraction Rather than Promotion

There is a famous group that takes the attraction rather than promotion approach “in all its affairs.” Now don’t get me wrong I think that getting info out to the masses is very important. If people aren’t able to see it then they are not able to make the choice because they do not know what is available to them. On the other hand in this time of wonderful materials, blogging, online articles and the millions of other ways that we can use promotion to the benefit of AP and all that encompasses there is sometimes the most vital thing missing. Attraction. 2247415251_1dcff687eb

I have been known to post many things that “prove” that AP principles are correct and are better for mothers, fathers, babies, other children… etc. I have read articles and books and know about many of the things that promote good attachment in an infant and throughout a child’s life. I lived with the consequences of children not being attached. Somewhere in there I thought that I had every right to let people know and then to be disturbed when they did not make the right choice.

There is nothing wrong about being concerned about the choices others are making but there is something wrong when it starts disturbing your own peace. Why? Because your peace is the balance of a family home. And when we become full-time promoters that are constantly promoting we end up with no time to do the one thing that will actually change the hearts and lives of many. Attraction.

Who would want to be like me when I am run ragged from promoting all the benefits of breastfeeding, babywearing, healthy food, natural childbirth, spending time with your kids… and the list goes on and on. Wouldn’t they rather see it demonstrated in my life? Wouldn’t I rather see it demonstrated in my life?

I don’t know about you but I like seeing other people’s flaws and failures. Not because I want to gloat and say “see I do better than that” but because I want to come in to some sort of human contact with other parents. I want to see their flaws and errors and yet see their children flower into wonderful people because the they, we, are constantly striving for pure attachment to our children and them to us.

Attraction is an intoxicating thing. I am attracted to many things. It is what makes life so enticing. Smells, tastes, sounds and touch. Those are what drive our human bodies. And then there is something deeper. The underlying spiritual life of every human being. Something has to appeal to one or all of these things to make it attractive to someone.

Promotion can convince someone that something is right but they can just as easily be convinced that it isn’t. I knew a family when I was growing up who was constantly changing their mode of discipline and I mean constantly. Every six months it would be something different. This built confused and frustrated parents and children. Each new mode of discipline was promoted so well that the parents were convinced that this was finally the “right” way to do things.

I personally have been convinced of things through promotion. I mean look at commercials. They work! But it does not mean that they product itself will work in actuality in your or your child’s life. Why? Because promotion is all about putting something in the best light possible even when it is reading off a list of sometimes deadly side-effects. Not only that but I have a theory that many of us like to choose the promoted item because if it does not work it is not our own personal failure but the failure of the promoter to inform us fully or the item to work like we were told it would or anything to avoid personal failure.

Attraction comes with all the bumps and bruises of failure. Sometimes I try things and they just don’t work and I have to go back to the parenting drawing board. The difference is I am taking personal responsibility for the action and success, growth and failure of my parenting life. And hopefully as my life is being refined the fragrance from the constant crushing is smelled by those few and many who will smell it and it will attract them in to a fulfilling, ever-changing, attached life.

Jasmine is a co-housing, home birthing, missions minded, community living mama with a passion for fierce writing. She blogs.

Photo used from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/araswami/2247415251/

Mom on Mom Violence

Mom on mom violence. It’s everywhere. It’s on message boards. It’s in magazines. It’s in our life and the lives of our friends.

374268661_c63d40d3b5There seems to be something horrible happening. Mom on mom violence is virtually everywhere. I have recently been so saddened to see mothers tearing each other apart over all kinds of mothering choices such as breastfeeding, home birth vs. hospital birth, natural eating, sugar or no sugar before a year, extended rear facing vs. turn ’em around when it is legal.

I was recently on a discussion board where I thought I belonged, why did I think I belonged? Well I am a mom, I have a toddler, I want to talk to other mothers, especially other mothers who are AP and who believe in raising their children “naturally”. I wanted advice. I wanted to help other mothers. But even more than that I wanted to share with other mothers the joys and hardships of being a mother. I wanted to be a part… a part of being a mom with other moms. I wanted to know I was not alone. I was criticized, de-moralized and censored by the board moderator (for no other reason than something I said didn’t jive with what they thought I should say). I could believe it.

I was watching a discussion on Facebook between some mothers and could not believe how everyone was telling everyone else how it should be and how their experience was not as authentic as the next mother because they had not done things the same way as said mother.

I was discussing extended rear facing vs turning a child at a year with some mothers and was told what a terrible mother I was and how I valued my own comfort over the safety and security of my son.

Even though many of these things “shouldn’t” be taken to heart, I “should” be a solid rock and be confident in my mothering but every time mom on mom violence happens I leave disappointed, angry and sometimes hurt.

I thought being a teenage girl was bad and it was but it is a whole different ball game playing with the big girls.

I have experienced mom on mom violence. Have you? Tell us your story.

Jasmine is a co-housing, home birthing, missions minded, community living mama with a passion for fierce writing. She blogs.

Photos from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/aussiegall/374268661/

Spring Mini Series Installment #3 – De-moralizing mom

I will start with a direct quote from Babywise because when I read it I actually had to re-read it several times to make sure that I had read it correctly. I quote from page 150 of Babywise “Mother’s decision without assessment can be dangerous… They should not be driven by their emotions.” DSC05843

It isn’t only Babywise that erodes the confidence of mothers but culture as a whole. We start as soon as a mother gets pregnant; she must be seen by a birth specialist (OB) so that they can be told what to do and when to do it because mothers can not trust their bodies and they can’t trust their emotions. It just gets worse.

When a mother goes to birth her child she is (normally) told when, many times she is induced, then she is not trusted to be able to “handle” things so she is “assisted.”

Because her confidence has been completely demolished, “good” mothers pick up a book to read to assist us with raising a child, not knowing that we are going to wrap our eager hands around is something that is going to demoralize us even more by telling us, in a nutshell, that we are over-emotional and not trustworthy.

Now I know that many of us learn very helpful things from books and from other people but I do believe that there is no replacement for the mothering mind and there is definitely no replacement for the mothering emotions. The statement that mothers must assess all of their actions because they may be “dangerous” is demoralizing. What is dangerous is demoralizing a mother, eroding her foundations and ignoring her emotions.

The real danger is not the mother. We, as mothers, have housed and protected our children from the beginning and will continue to house, nourish and grow them up throughout childhood. Then, when they’re adults, we’ll be a shelter that continues to be emotional confidence and stability for our children.

Jasmine is a co-housing, home birthing, missions minded, community living mama with a passion for fierce writing. She blogs.

Photos used from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/proimos/3524157411/

Sticking Up for Your Child

I am going to take a little Babywise vs AP blogging break and talk a bit about something that touched very close to home this past weekend though the incident(s) were not a one time thing  but something that seems to happen fairly often in my new parenting life.

People seem to think that children are property of some sort that are just up for grabs or up to the discipline of anyone that randomly feels like stepping in and “parenting” for a moment. As you can tell I can be a little bitter about this topic. Maybe bitter isn’t the word for it. I am not bitter I just believe very firmly that the only people that should discipline a child is someone who is invested in that child’s life. When you are invested in a child’s life, when you love them, then you will discipline accordingly.

I have been in several frustrating situations regarding this issue. Just this past weekend it was actually a young girl who followed my son around and told him no or re-directed him every time he did anything for a while. I just remained silent and kept removing my son from the situation but it finally became apparent that I needed to do more. I calmly turned to the girl and told her that I appreciated her attempt to help but I that I was his mother and was watching him carefully and would be the one to discipline him if need be. Believe it or not my heart was pounding and I was nervous to say anything!
Continue reading “Sticking Up for Your Child”

Spring Mini Series Installment #2 – Baby Training and Sleep

My dad always used to say “dead man don’t need no sleep” and we would all laugh. We would laugh because we did not yet understand the depth of those words. Parenting is not a literal death but it is definitely dying to oneself in a whole new way and in hardly any other way is this more evident or more felt than in the sleep arena.

Sleep is a very hotly debated topic among parents and understandably so since of all the things in life after baby sleep is in short supply and emotions and exhaustion are running high. There is a line of thought that babies need to be trained to sleep that they are born with messed up sleep patterns that must be set straight by their parents so that they learn “healthy” sleeping habits. To sleep-deprived parental minds and bodies, nothing makes more sense than that. I mean how can it possibly be that waking every few hours is healthy? How can it be that someone can’t wait to eat until later? How can it be that day is a better time to sleep than night? And doesn’t it make sense that a baby must learn what is healthy and right? How else do they know to sleep when it is dark? Plus every other internal signal doesn’t seem to line up with ours and it has to some time, right? Continue reading “Spring Mini Series Installment #2 – Baby Training and Sleep”

Spring Mini Series Installment #1 – Baby Training and the Breast

Baby training stems from the idea that babies need to become independent as quickly as possible. It is beneficial to everyone involved if a baby conforms to some sort of schedule. The primary thought being that babies need to fit in to the family instead of the family flexing around the new child.

The starting point for all this is generally eating, which is what this blog post will focus on.

It is a commonly held belief among baby trainers that children should be fed on a set schedule so that they are able to sleep better and do not suffer from digestive problems. That may sound all well and good but there are some difficulties that immediately arise from this train of thought. The first question may be how often do you feed your baby? Baby training would have a “flexible” set schedule. That immediately caught my attention. How do you have a flexible set schedule? Aren’t flexible and set opposites? Parents who are baby training are to set a strict schedule that allows for flexibility (go ponder that one for a while). This “flexible” set schedule is desired so that you can have your baby sleeping through the night and eating on your schedule as soon as possible. When performed by a trusted and experienced plastic surgeon like Dr. Jim Brantner M.D., breast augmentation is a safe and relatively pain-free procedure with an abundance of benefits. Studies have shown that breast implants or breast augmentation surgery can help boost confidence, self-esteem, body image, and sexual satisfaction. Breast augmentation can also give you a more youthful appearance and open up a whole new world of style and fashion choices for you. Once you’ve discussed your options with Dr. Brantner and decided on the perfect size and shape for your new breasts, you’ll be ready to go in for your procedure. During treatment, you will undergo anesthesia from one of our board-certified anesthesiologists. We recommend general anesthesia which will allow you to sleep comfortably through the procedure, minimizing stress. For the surgery itself, two incisions will be made according to the plans you discussed with Dr. Brantner and the implants will be placed and adjusted until the shape and fit are perfect.

Continue reading “Spring Mini Series Installment #1 – Baby Training and the Breast”