Presence – Page 13

A lesson in button pushing

Editor’s note: Welcome to APtly Said’s celebration of mothers! This year’s theme for Mother’s Day is “Life Lessons” as Attachment Parenting International celebrates with an inspiring series from May 7-11. We hope you enjoyed your Mother’s Day and were able to reflect on what you’ve learned through your motherhood journey.

When my first son transitioned into toddlerhood, I discovered that I had a lot more to learn about raising children than I realized! The most compelling question I asked myself was how to preserve our warm and loving relationship when I also had to say, “No, you can’t have that,” or “No, you can’t do that.”

I still remember the day he was able to pull out the books from the lower shelf of a bookcase in our living room, crumpling and ripping the pages with his sweet, pudgy little hands. How could I stop him without hurting or alarming him? I thought about how challenging it was going to be to guide him without provoking his defenses against me.

The more he grew and became independent, the more insight I needed to navigate the daily incidents that cropped up and compelled me to steer him in the right direction. “We have to put the toys away before taking out more,” “Bedtime is now,” and “Homework comes before television,” were only some of the daily situations that I had to take charge of.

When our children are not inclined to follow our instructions, they push our buttons and we lose our patience. For the first time, it occurred to me that parents might be pressing their children’s buttons when we don’t understand what makes them react to us the way they do.

I have 6 children. As the years went by and I became more seasoned in my parenting, I saw how easily their buttons could be pushed — how easily they could become alarmed, frustrated, and insecure.

It was easy to get the right behavior out of children by scaring them, threatening them, warning them, or taking away things from them that they cared about. “I’m counting to 3, then I’m leaving without you!” has always brought forth the right behavior in young children, but at a very high price. When you push your child’s alarm button too often or too many times, the very system that alerts him to beware of a risky situation begins to work in a distorted way and new problems start showing up.

This is an even more startling revelation when it comes to adolescents, because this same alarm system in the brain continues to harden the defenses even more when their buttons are continually pushed. They become tear-less and fearless, as they lose their caring and other vulnerable feelings altogether. This is on a continuum and can potentially lead to addictions and other problem behaviors like cutting.

When my children grew past the years of breastfeeding and needing to be attached to me through physical closeness, I learned that I was only at the beginning of the attachment story. The work of attachment was my responsibility, so they could rest in the relationship and be free to discover their own selves.

It was not a given that the relationship would be preserved simply because it got off to a good start. The relationship was still fresh and tender, and still needed to be cultivated, secured and deepened throughout all the years ahead of us. This was to be the shield from hurtful people and environments outside of our relationship. A deeper attachment was the answer to ensuring a healthy alarm system and preserving my children’s ability to experience all of their vulnerable feelings, so they could develop meaningful and deep relationships as well as develop their individuality and the traits that characterize maturity.

I needed to keep my relationship with my children clean from wounding. Their buttons might have been pushed by their friends or even by their teachers, but I needed to be aware of not being the one to provoke their defenses. I wanted to be that safe place — a home base or haven — where they could feel rest and comfort, no matter at what age. This challenged me to find ways to stand by my rules and limitations, preserve order, and transmit values in a way that protected our relationship.

This was my greatest learning experience, so that I could do the most important work than any parent does — help my children grow up to be mature, responsible, caring, and considerate adults.

Unconditional love

Editor’s note: Welcome to APtly Said’s celebration of mothers! This year’s theme for Mother’s Day is “Life Lessons” as Attachment Parenting International celebrates with an inspiring series from May 7-11. We hope you enjoyed your Mother’s Day and were able to reflect on what you’ve learned through your motherhood journey.

My daughters are two of the most amazing teachers I have ever been around. Every day, I feel grateful to have them in my life and for the many ways they shower me with unconditional love.

My children have gifted me with the opportunity to open my heart, as I have learned that love can be felt and expressed without anything attached to it.

Before having children, I disliked change and I craved structure, schedules, and predictability. I never thought that motherhood would challenge all of these needs. Through the gift of unconditional love, I found myself willing to surrender to the present moment and to embrace change. I realized that the more I tried to control my children, the more we struggled, but when I was flexible, all the structure came down and each one of us could rest in the beauty of what we were doing.

Along the way, I saw that there is a path that each of my daughters will take, and while I am a part of their journey, it is not mine to own nor is it static in any way, shape, or form. It is a fluid, ever-changing, and evolving road that is based on their individual needs, emotions, and wants. When I am in recognition of this, then there is a flow that allows each moment to unfold exactly as it is meant to, and I don’t have to hold the energy to make it happen, because no matter what I do it is going to happen.

I can relax. I can enjoy. I can breathe, and I can trust that what my children are experiencing is perfect and that they both know that I am available to guide, support, and witness all of it.

Both of my daughters have invited me into one of the most emotionally intimate relationships that exist between two people. What I have learned is that in order to be completely available to both of them, I have to be willing and open to look deeply inside myself — to welcome all of the good and not-so-great qualities that have made me who I am today. When I do this, then I am owning what has arisen for me on my path so that I am not projecting it onto theirs. I am examining all the hard emotions and sticky thoughts that I have held onto for one reason or another.

When I look into the eyes of my children I can see a reflection staring back at me that trusts that I will be available…that I will take care of them…that I will do the work that is needed to surrender into me, into the moment, into who they are so that I am present for each of them to blossom into the great teachers that they are and will continue to become.

Trusting that everything is happening exactly as it is going to and that I will know what to do in each moment is a lesson that I will take with me throughout the rest of my life. From the unconditional love my daughters offer me, I am at peace with who I am, and I offer this love back to both of them so that they may be held and supported in all that they do while they grow into the beautiful humans that they are.

Trusting my intuition

Editor’s note: Welcome to APtly Said’s celebration of mothers! This year’s theme for Mother’s Day is “Life Lessons.” Effie Morchi, Attachment Parenting International‘s Assistant Editor, has put together a truly inspirational series, running May 7-11. We hope you enjoy your Mother’s Day and are able to reflect on what you’ve learned through your motherhood journey.

At the age of 7 years old, I learned a lesson I truly understood and lived by when I became a mom: I learned that trusting my intuition is imperative — it can even be a matter of survival.

I narrowly escaped a dangerous situation I was in, with a man who lured me away from a bus stop to an abandoned building in a field off a main road. I vividly recall the immediate physical reaction and sickening sensation I felt when he approached me. I knew I was making the wrong choice, but I felt compelled to follow his lead as he was the adult — the authority figure — and I was the child, the subordinate. I didn’t listen to the natural feeling that signaled my body to avert the situation. Once I sensed real danger was imminent, I was determined to find a way out and I managed to run away.

Twenty-two years later, my first child was born. I didn’t have a vision in mind as to what type of parent I would like to be. Being career-oriented and driven, I surprised myself when I decided to quit my job and become a stay-at-home mom. I viewed it to be the only suitable choice for me to raise my child.

I didn’t delve into parenting books or seek much advice. I cared for my baby following what made sense to me. I was task-oriented, focusing on taking care of the precious miracle-of-life I carried in me for 9 months. I put my wants on hold to attend to my baby’s needs — every minute of every day.

I followed nature’s flow, and without resistance, I swam in the direction the waves took me. Stroke by stroke, I kept on swimming — unaware of the beautiful, enlightening destination the currents of the ocean would lead me to. I was practicing Attachment Parenting, though at the time, I didn’t have a name for it, nor did I need one. It simply felt right in my body, my heart and my soul.

I was confronted by some who suggested I redirect myself and swim in the opposite direction — after all, that was the direction most others were swimming in, struggling and fighting against the waves.

There were times I felt isolated and all alone in the vast ocean, but somehow I managed to see the shoreline. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I was swimming in the right direction — my body told me so. As always, my intuition was on my side — this time, I listened.

As I was in tune with my baby’s needs, I was increasingly becoming more attuned to myself, developing deep personal insight and awareness. In recent years, along with other transforming events in my life, I reflect on how motherhood transformed me, and I recognize I have been guided by my instincts and intuition in the way I have been nurturing and raising my kids. My intuition has been a guiding light — shining the way for me, always leading me on the right path.

The role of a mom has been a pivotal one for me. The importance of trusting my intuition is a life lesson I mastered with this role. My children have been the inspiration — carrying me through the ocean to the intended destination of who I am and where I am today in my life’s journey. Being their mom has taught me that, above all, my intuition is the source of much of the love and light I have been blessed with.

Parental presence: A compromised human right

A little more than half of all babies in the United States — 53% — are born into families that income-qualify for WIC, a federal supplemental nutrition program that serves low-income pregnant, postpartum and breastfeeding women and their children from birth to age 5 in the United States.

Think about that for a second: Half of all U.S. babies are born into low-income families, the population segment least likely to be able to take parental leave of any type — paid or unpaid — after the birth of a baby.

We like to think that the U.S. Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) covers all families so that even if a couple does not get paid maternity and paternity leave, they can at least take off some time from work without losing their jobs. This isn’t remotely true.

Unless you work for an employer with more than 50 employees within 75 miles of the company, you are not even guaranteed leave under FMLA after the birth of your baby — even unpaid. (There are some state laws that do guarantee maternity and paternity leave, usually unpaid, for companies with fewer employees, but there is nothing consistent from state to state.) That means that millions of moms, if they are not employed by large companies, risk losing their jobs if they stay home for the medically recommended 6 to 8 weeks following childbirth.

I’ve known moms who’ve been forced by their circumstances to go back to work at 1 week postpartum, or even sooner.

This is a tragedy of human rights in itself, but what does this do to the mother-baby bond?

Bonding time with a newborn in the early months isn’t just a “nice thing” to have or for a mom to get to do if she’s privileged enough. That mother-baby bond — whether secure, shaky or absent — has a significant impact on the trajectory of that child’s life…not only through childhood and in school, but who that child will grow up to be, what socioeconomic status he or she will have, and how he or she will be as a parent, employee and fellow member of society. Just think of what the future may hold for any of those 53% of U.S. babies born to mothers who are not even guaranteed time off from their jobs for even a week after childbirth — let alone the minimally acceptable 6 weeks that is still woefully short of what research shows to be the key bonding time during the newborn months.

Privilege shouldn’t have anything to do with parental leave — paid or unpaid. Because presence, or lack thereof, can have such great influence on the future of each baby born, parental leave is a human right that should be granted to every mother and father, and parental presence is a human right for every newborn baby.

So first the United States needs to work on guaranteeing that all parents have access to at least parental leave after the birth of a baby. But a very close second is to ensure that all parental leave is paid.

Right now, only 12% of U.S. workers in the private sector have access to paid family leave, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. This means that for the millions of moms whose jobs are protected under FMLA, they still likely cannot take off work for the 6 weeks to 3 months allowed because they cannot afford to do so. Their parental leave is not unprotected as is the case with many low-income parents whose jobs aren’t even covered by the FMLA, but it is still under-protected in that they cannot enjoy their full rights and their bonds with their infants may still suffer.

Our goal at Attachment Parenting International (API) is to keep the discussion on parental leave moving forward, while supporting mothers and fathers no matter whether they have access to paid or unpaid parental leave or even no leave. We were able to generate great momentum during our Attachment Parenting Month in October 2015 with activities centered on the theme of “Parental Presence: Birthing Families, Strengthening Societies.”

In the latest issue of The Attached Family, we provide a recap of these AP Month editorial pieces as well as a few new articles, with features on:

“5 Tips for Parents With — and Without — Access to Paid Parental Leave” by API Knowledgebase Coordinator Art Yuen, editor of the Journal of Attachment Parenting
“Who Will Baby Attach To?” by API Advisory Board member Sir Richard Bowlby, Bt, the son of the late John Bowlby who developed Attachment Theory
“Parental Presence, Real-life” by 5 API parents on how they made mostly unpaid parental leave work for their families to be able to prioritize their baby’s attachment needs
“Parental Leave Benefits Employers, Too” by journalist Stephanie Carson
“A Need for Paid Parental Leave” and “What Really Matters When It Comes to Daycare” by API Cofounders Lysa Parker and Barbara Nicholson, coauthors of Attached at the Heart
“Moments to Cherish” by API blogger Yvette Lamb
“Parental Leave Isn’t a Privilege: It’s a Necessity” by API Executive Editor Rita Brhel
“18 Days of Presence Inspired” — a collection of quick tips and quotes compiled by AP Month Coordinator Kelly Johnson and other API Staff, to help keep your focus on the importance of parental presence for your child
“Partners in Presence” — a look at the 11 partners and sponsors who teamed up with API in adding to growing national and international discussions on the importance and logistics of paid parental leave.

We hope that this issue of The Attached Family will inspire you to find ways to balance your child’s attachment needs with your family’s financial needs, as well as to join in the national and international discussion on parental leave as a human right to be guaranteed to all families — no matter their employer size or personal financial resources.

Help API continue being able to offer The Attached Family free of charge as an online magazine to families around the world. API is a nonprofit organization and depends on your tax-deductible donations. Even $5 goes a long ways!

*Top photo source: FreeImages.com/Soňa Psotová

Editor’s pick: 6 evolved needs for healthy human development

“…we have forgotten that we are social mammals with specific evolved needs from birth.” ~ Darcia Narvaez, PhD, Notre Dame Psychologist, member of Attachment Parenting International‘s Board of Directors

The Attachment Parenting approach can be regarded as parenting guided by nature’s lead — being attuned to our own feelings and instincts as well as our child’s needs, such as following our natural instincts to breastfeed, respond to a crying baby and provide ample physical contact to a developing human baby.

Psychologist Darcia Narvaez has been conducting research on moral cognition, moral development and moral character. On her blog, Moral Landscapes at Psychology Today, she often writes about raising healthy, happy children and parenting. In her writing, she examines the importance of parenting practices that match up with our evolved needs. Narvaez refers to the Evolved Developmental Niche (EDN) as the early “nest” that humans inherit from their ancestors, which matches up with the maturation schedule of the child, emphasizing 6 components:

Naturalistic perinatal experiences
Responsiveness to a baby’s needs including sensitivity to the signals of the baby before the baby cries
Constant physical presence with plenty of affectionate
Extensive breastfeeding
Playful interactions with caregivers and friends
A community of affectionate, mindful caregivers.

These evolved needs align with Attachment Parenting International’s Eight Principles of Parenting.

This week’s featured article is a recent study featured in a report by WSBT Television and soon to be published in the Journal of Applied Developmental Science. The study by Narvaes and colleagues Lijuan Wang and Ying Cheng shows that childhood experiences that match with human evolved needs lead to better outcomes in adulthood.

In the study, adults reflected on the EDN in their childhood. The findings point out that children with parents who were affectionate, sensitive and playful developed into happier and healthier adults with better mental health — feeling less depressed and anxious — and better social capacity.

According to Narvaez, one of the reasons that the well-being of children in the United States lags behind that of children in other advanced nations is because “we have forgotten that we are social mammals with specific evolved needs from birth.”

Young children’s needs and wants often get confused or misunderstood. Perhaps, with a clear understanding of the distinction between the two — needs versus wants — it may be easier for some to realize and accept the importance of meeting early childhood needs. Babies need — not merely want:

Their parents to respond when they cry at night.
Physical contact — to be held and get a lot of affection.
Their parents to be mindful and responsive.
To interact and play with their caregivers.

It is reassuring that, increasingly, scientific research shows what our instincts already know: Children need attachment, affection and sensitivity to thrive.

Learn more about how to discern between needs and wants with our infants and children with these API audio recordings — each just $9:

“Needs vs Wants: How to fulfill a child’s needs yet discern his wants in a way that preserves healthy attachment” with William Sears, MD

“How Much is Enough? Attachment Parenting, permissive parenting and overindulgence” with Jean Illsley Clarke, PhD, CFLE

5 tips for mindfully coping with chronic illness — for your child and you

The practice of mindfulness can be tremendously helpful under all kinds of life circumstances. Today, I want to chat about how mindfulness can help your child — and your whole family! — deal with chronic illness.

After years of guiding, counseling and working with hundreds of families, blending more traditional psychotherapy approaches with mindfulness and yoga, and creating 2 mindfulness-based coping group programs — MAPLE MINDS for toddlers and parents, kids and teens as well as MindBodyFeel for adults to helping people cope with stress, illness, pain and whatever else life throws our way — I’ve got a few takeaways to share with you that might help lighten your load and help you feel a little more happy, confident, relaxed and at ease…no matter what is currently going on in your life.

Let’s start right here and right now by…

1) …Mindfully acknowledging, identifying, accepting and welcoming all emotions that arise — our child’s emotions as well as our own! — be they pleasant or unpleasant. Of course, as parents, we want our children to be well and happy. The last thing we want is seeing them feel pain, severe anxiety, nervousness, tension, anger or despair. So all too often, while providing comfort for our little ones, we might “automatically” find ourselves quick with suggesting distractions, pushing those uncomfortable feelings away as fast and as far as possible, and rushing to move on to something more pleasant and enjoyable.

However, the practice of mindfully acknowledging, identifying, accepting and welcoming all emotions that arise will help your child understand that all emotions are valuable, welcome and have their place in our lives. It can be a huge relief to feel that it’s OK and “normal” to be upset/angry/anxious every once in a while. We all do. It’s totally fine. And from here we can learn how to cope with it.

2) …Mindfully connecting to ourselves, our breath, our body, our bodily sensations, our emotions and our thoughts – and reconnecting to ourselves if we got lost somewhere. Let us be positive role models for mindfully strengthening our intuition as a source of our own inner health and wellness guide. If we re-learn how to look within, connect and listen to our intuition, we will have an easier time making smaller and larger decisions and figuring out what is good for us in any given moment of our life. This is great news in general, of course, and especially helpful when you have to navigate your way through tough medical questions and decisions.

It can be as easy as one big belly breath, as I wrote about here.

3) …Mindfully exploring our body and experiencing it as whole and complete — just the way it is in this very moment, whatever this might look like. Especially when we grow up while over and over getting the message that something is “wrong” or “does not work quite right” in one or more parts of our body, we risk developing a negative or otherwise dysfunctional body image and self concept. From here, it is a slippery slope downward, possibly drowning us in all sorts of self-doubt, negative messages about ourselves and our bodies, and general pessimism.

While we might not be able to shield our child from all of this, there are things we can do to mindfully and gently support a more supportive self-concept and body image. It is tremendously helpful, especially for these kids, to enjoy moments — as in age-adapted mindful meditation, in visualization practice, or in yoga and mindful movement guided by our breath — where they experience their body as whole and good and complete just as it is…as opposed to a fractioned collection of body parts that are more or less “functional.”

4) …Mindfully experiencing and expressing gratitude, even in the midst of what might sometimes look like a complete disaster. Yes, you might experience moments of despair, of complete helplessness and hopelessness. And some of these thoughts might creep up in your mind, triggered by all your understandable anxiety, tension, sorrow, worry and pain: “Why my child?” “Why does her life look like this, while all her friends lead a normal life?” “How did we deserve this?”

It is important to again mindfully acknowledge all your thoughts, emotions and sensations that arise and to give yourself honest permission to feel and explore these. But sometimes we risk letting ourselves get too carried away by these, thus possibly paving a path for depression and other conditions which might not be so helpful, adaptive and desirable.

So what to do? Try installing a regular gratitude practice with your child or, better yet, with your whole family. Make it a daily habit to briefly reflect on what made you feel happy, grateful or plain good today. I call this “Smiley Practice” when leading MAPLE MINDS groups for the younger kids. We roll around a smiley ball while sitting in a circle, and each of us shares something that made us smile today. This can be something very small like a smile someone gave us, a flower or some beautiful leaves we saw outside, or the fact that the sun is shining today.

I make it a point that this practice is not about pretending that we are happy when we are not — which would totally counteract point #1 above. It is about re-sensitizing ourselves for all the beauty, happiness and love that surrounds us in each and every moment — a skill that many of us tend to lose when faced with arduous conditions like chronic illness or pain. Only if we were to discover how it works, we can re-train our brain! And while this might not cure our child’s disease it can have quite a deep effect on our mood, coping capacity and general outlook on life.

5) …Last but not least, trying to put your mindfulness practices in effect when connecting with your family, with like-minded peers and, very important, your team of healthcare specialists. This way you will be able to intuitively find and create a support network for your child and your family which will help you feel more connected, embedded and understood.

Even if dealing with your child’s chronic illness might oftentimes feel like a dark, desperate, painful and very lonely journey, there is always support out there just waiting for you to be uncovered! A mindful approach can help you here. You are not alone!

**Lotus flower photo source: FreeImages.com/Jin Neoh

Editor’s pick: Mindfulness in school and home

A huge part of Attachment Parenting (AP) is learning, and teaching our children, how to be mindful — that ability to calm our minds, connect with our emotions in the moment, work through any conflicting feelings, and respond to others in truth and compassion.

This week, I have two features for my Editor’s Pick. The first is a YouTube video, “Just Breathe,” created by Julie Bayer Salzman and Josh Salzman of Wavecrest Films and inspired by their 5-year-old son talking to a friend about mindfulness exercises he was learning in Kindergarten:

While Attachment Parenting International‘s Eight Principles of Parenting provide families with the parenting behaviors that are shown scientifically to create a secure parent-child attachment, API’s ethos takes Attachment Parenting a step further — to promote a way of living that is based in peace and empathy.

This is where mindfulness fits in.

Clinical psychologist and mindfulness instructor Inga Bohnekamp defines mindfulness in this API post as “presence of heart” and mindful parenting as “parenting from the depths of our hearts,” rather than letting us be guided by a set of pre-fixed, often unreflected, standards or rules about what is right and wrong.

API’s Eight Principles of Parenting aren’t intended to be a set of 8 rules that AP parents must abide to, but rather guides of which parenting behaviors are associated with secure attachment. They are provided for parents who often need that information. Many parents who seek out API’s education and support did not grow up in an environment where they were exposed to consistent nurturing behaviors. API’s Eight Principles of Parenting help parents to get back in touch with their hearts so that they can be intentional about parenting choices, rather than react out of subconscious reasoning that is rooted in early childhood experiences often beyond our conscious memories.

Our childhood experiences may have predisposed us to certain coping skills that do not allow us to easily access the emotions behind our actions, especially in times of stress and strong emotions like anger and fear. Mindfulness is a behavior that can help us teach ourselves how to access those emotions and then be able to act from a place of intention.

This week’s second Editor’s pick is the article, “More Focused, Better Behaved Kids, Through Mindfulness,” by journalist Tori James on My Mother Lode — through which we learn the outcomes of teaching mindfulness to students at a California, USA, elementary school.

It is exciting to see this aspect of Attachment Parenting being incorporated into the school setting, and to hear the overwhelmingly positive feedback from teachers and students.

According to the article, mindfulness not only helps prevent bullying but also improves children’s ability to regulate emotions and calm down, pay attention, feel compassion toward others, change behavior patterns and build emotional resilience to life’s ups and downs.

This is powerful stuff. Mindfulness has the capability to change the trajectory of individual lives, and — when being taught on a community level, such as through school — has the potential for changing whole generations in a community.

In the article, mindfulness instructor Sally Arnold referred to a recent Harvard study that found that people spent about 52% of their lives outside of the present moment, with the balance either worrying about the future or ruminating about the past. By not giving enough thoughtful attention to the present moment, we are setting up ourselves to make decisions based on the emotions from our primitive part of our brain — the amygdala — which is set up to impulsively react in “fight or flight” mode.

Positive discipline educator Kelly Bartlett explains what happens in the brain when we “lose it” in this API article.

Mindfulness retrains our brains to reflect on the moment, creating the space and power to think before we respond. Mindfulness exercises, such as the one that Inga introduces in her API post, allows a person to be able to access their whole brain during stressful moments, including the logic and executive functioning of the prefrontal cortex.

The difference is profound. Consider this scenario:

You walk into your kitchen with a laundry basket full of clean clothes to find your toddler drawing on the wall. How would you react?

Someone reacting out of the amygdala may become very angry very quickly and react in a way that they later regret and that leaves the child in tears.

Someone who is practiced in mindfulness, and therefore able to access the whole brain during stressful moments, is more likely to be able to respond sensitively to the child and effectively discipline through problem-solving without risking their attachment relationship.

Mindfulness does take practice, but each time you practice it, it actively changes the neural pathways in the brain so that it’s easier to respond mindfully in stressful moments rather than continue to struggle with the primitive “fight or flight” reactions.

While it may seem awkward at first, a practice of mindfulness is able to transform the very way you think until you get to the point where you don’t have to even think about being mindful — it just comes naturally!

Think about how profound of an experience it would be for a child to grow up in a mindful home, without the fear of incurring the wrath of a highly reactive parent. Many of us remember feeling that fear ourselves, and understand how that fear (and probably anger) lives on today in our relationships. Teaching our kids to be good people starts with their education, that’s why I sent my kids to Seton College where they have catholic education, so they teach them great family values.

What a gift we can give our children to learn how to be mindful, especially in our moments of stress — and then to be able to model and teach that mindfulness to our children, so that their relationships can be rooted in peace and empathy rather than fear and mistrust.

*First photo: FreeImages.com/Alissa Horton

**Second photo: FreeImages.com/Jenny Rollo

Being present for another

Editor’s note: This post was originally published on Oct. 26, 2008, and it continues to inspire parents to give presence to their children.

I find the whole concept of “being present” for another person so relevant to our world. How many of us have not really been given sufficient presence by our parents while we were growing up or even by other influential adults that helped to shape our lives?

There really is so much to be said for looking another person in the eye and just listening to what they are saying no matter what their age. “I hear you,” “I hold this safe space for you,” and “You matter” are the subliminal messages of this action, and it feeds a person’s soul on a deep level.

When we do this with our children, we are teaching them that they are important and deserve to be heard. They then can learn from a very early age that the most important people in their life — their parents, who hold so much power in influencing their self esteem — really do care about how they feel about things and what they have to say. We just have to hold the space for them to do that.

Since my son is a preschooler, this skill is becoming ever increasingly more valuable to our family. He wants to talk to us more often now about many different thoughts he has, and both my husband and I try to always look him in the eye and either hold him or sit next to him or play toys with him while he is speaking, or if he was off in another room, making sure to enter into that same room with him.

Giving him direct attention while he is speaking about something really makes him feel so validated, and it boosts his confidence in himself. I try to recap what he has said each time to let him know that Mommy understood his thoughts and ideas. He then usually goes on into greater detail on the topic, because he knows that I listened to him and he feels so happy about it and wants to share more with me.

We have started teaching him about how when another person is talking, we all need to pay attention to that person just like we paid attention to him when he was speaking. It seems to be getting through to him as I’ve seen him give this kind of presence and respect to both of us and even to some friends lately.

To me, this is one of the most important life skills a person needs to develop to live in harmony with the world around them. Not only do our children need to be given presence, but we all must give presence and respect to each other and be the example of this for the younger generations to emulate.

Editor’s note: Melissa formerly wrote about sustainability, green living, alternative health, nutrition, parenting and life in general at Nature Deva.net