Online Support for Parents

May 24, 2013 Leave a comment


Collaborative Problem Solving

Raising Our Skills

…is a parenting method that is particularly helpful with oppositional children.  I love these kids, because they remind me of myself.  My grandmother used to tell me that my favorite saying was, “I can do it myself!”  Later on, my favorite saying was “You’re not the boss of me!”

Do you have a child like this?  Explosive, unwilling to work with others, easily angered, irritable, and often uncooperative.  Does your child tantrum easily?  Check out Dr. Ross Greene’s online radio show and learn about Collaborative Problem Solving.  Here is a library of past shows that help you understand how to collaborate with children who don’t trust easily, but melt down easily.  Dr. Greene can help you learn how to establish trust with your child, and let go of control.

Radio Library

 

Parental Resilience is the most important factor in bonding with our children! If we want our children’s brains to grow, if we want them to express kindness, patience, and empathy — they need to use our brain to do it! We need the right “lens” of understanding the skills our children need.  We also need to feel calm, regulated, and supported.  How do you stay calm and enjoy life? How do you keep regulated?  There is always yoga, exercise, and music.  What about relationships that support you?

 

Parents Anonymous

…is a group that provides support to parents, where we can help each other parent with compassion.  We need each other to problem solve, to feel less alone, to be reminded that our struggles with our children are normal.  We need to know that the problems we are trying to deal with, other people have dealt with – successfully!  We are not alone!

There are many online parenting groups.  I swear by them!  I learn so much in my local Bellingham Unconditional Parenting Mothers Group.  If you need support, reach out.  What about Parents Anonymous?  Parents Anonymous has an online LIVE group that any parent can join.  Facebook:  Parents Anonymous

Parents Online LIVE Support Group

Parents can log in to the group to see what it is like. It is simple!

Just select Parent Support Group Online in the left-side column, and click Group Chat twice.
 You can then create a screen name, enter your e-mail address, and create a password.
You will be greeted by the facilitator named “Chess.”

Online parenting groups are for 2 hours:
Wednesdays 9PM – 11PM (Eastern Standard Time, EST)
Thursdays 12 NOON -2PM EST

Everyone is welcome! That includes fathers, mothers and anyone who a caregiver, including grandparents.

Filed under Parent Education Tagged with , , , , , ,

Preschoolers VOTE for Non-Violence

May 1, 2013 7 Comments


Teacher-Tom

Here is a beautiful article by Teacher Tom, one of my heroes, who shares some of the most incredible ideas about how to be in relationship with preschoolers.  Knowing that he can work non-violently and democratically with a gaggle of preschoolers inspires me to know that I can do the same with my ONE preschooler!

Click here to read Tom Hobson’s well thought out review of the destructive nature of spanking and the need to absolutely end it. Thank you Tom! Namaste.

Teacher Tom takes a heroic stand on behalf of children, “It’s Time to Ban Spanking!”

Filed under Parent Education Tagged with , , , , , , ,

Need Help Talking About Spanking?

April 29, 2013 5 Comments


  • Do you get too emotional?

  • Are you unsure about the research?

  • Are you afraid of offending?

This “soft touch” pamphlet can help you raise the topic of spanking with your neighbor, friends, family, and your clients in a respectful, supportive way.  It is a fully illustrated story of loving parents, Betty and Al, discussing how they want to discipline their little boy.  The parents discuss the usual issues concerning whether or not to spank and they come to the conclusion that it is just too risky, and there are much better alternatives.

DecidingPlease contact us for a copy:

ONLINE Pamphlett

Screen Shot 2013-05-01 at 11.30.08 AM

Our Powerful Parenting pamphlet was created from the idea that creating relationship is the best way to help change behavior, not just with kids but parents too!

When I asked Child Psychologist, Dr. John Allan, how can we help parents understand that spanking is destructive and help them stop doing it, he answered,

“The question is, how does change actually occur? Psychology says in order for change to occur, you have to hear that person’s perspective, that person’s point of view.  So mothers and fathers that are spanking have to have their point of view heard.  The most important thing is the relationship between the parent and the helper who is trying to help the parent talk about their experiences of being spanked.  And it is really only when the parent is able to move from the cognition (the words about that experience) into their feeling about being spanked, that change will occur.  So many parents say initially, it hurt like hell but it was the best thing for me, otherwise I wouldn’t have changed.  So then the helper has to get into the belief system of the parent. “So that is what you believed. You felt that you were so willful or you were so wrong that though the spanking hurt that is was the only thing that would help your willfulness and your angry feelings.”

The objective of this pamphlet is to offer “helpers” a tool to begin growing that relationship and to open the door to listening and sharing with parents.

Filed under Parent Education Tagged with , , , , , ,

More Children Under Age One are Hospitalized from Physical Abuse than from SIDS

April 16, 2013 Leave a comment


Screen Shot 2013-04-27 at 8.46.00 AMAccording to a report released by the Yale School of Medicine, nearly 4,600 children were admitted to a U.S. hospital in 2006 as a result of physical abuse and 300 died because of the abuse.  According to the findings, children were at their highest likelihood for serious injury within the first 12 months of life.

Nationally, the cost of physical abuse during the year was estimated at $73.8 million, Leventhal and colleagues reported online and in the March issue of Pediatrics.  The study “Child Abuse in One Year Costs Billions“ attempts to pin down the burden of child abuse. Researchers from the CDC and colleagues estimated the lifetime costs of one year of all forms of child abuse — physical, sexual, and psychological abuse, as well as neglect — to be about $124 billion.

Analysis by age showed that:

  • Children under age 1 were most at risk for injury and death
  • Children on Medicaid and under age 1 were at markedly higher risk
  • Risk of dying was also higher among the abused children

Head researcher Dr. John M. Leventhal, professor of pediatrics and medical director of the Child Abuse and Child Abuse Prevention Programs at Yale-New Haven Children’s Hospital, said the findings were “alarming.”

These numbers are higher than the rate of sudden infant death syndrome. This speaks to the importance of poverty as a risk factor for serious abuse.  These data should be useful in examining trends over time and in studying the effects of large-scale prevention programs, says Dr. Leventhal.

Original Research:  “Using US Data to Estimate the Incidence of Serious Physical Abuse in Children,” Pediatrics, March 2012  J. M. Leventhal, MD;  K. D. Martin, PhD;  J. Gaither, RN  http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2012/02/01/peds.2011-1277.abstract

http://jjie.org/report-uncovers-alarming-rate-of-child-hospitalization-due-abuse/73123

http://www.medpagetoday.com/Pediatrics/DomesticViolence/31022

Filed under Spanking Research Tagged with ,

Attitudes About Naughty Children Make Parents More Aggressive

February 9, 2013 1 Comment


Attitudes about TantrumsA study (page 22) of Swedish, Canadian, Iranian, and Pacific Island mothers shows mother’s negative perception of child increases likelihood that she will use corporal punishment. Children who were perceived to be troublesome, deliberately bad or disobedient, were at greater risk for being spanked.  The study indicates a connection between corporal punishment and our perception of children.

Dr. Dan Siegel, author of “The Whole Brain Child” describes a tantrum as a child’s brain being in distress.  In a New York Times article Seeing Tantrums as Distress, Not Defiance, he describes “During those early years, the ability to coordinate and balance your own subcortical source of emotion is dependent on a caregiver’s response to you,” he says. We freak out, they freak out. Our ability to stay tuned in to them literally helps their brains grow.

“With repeated patterns of attuned communication – bringing them close – basically it activates the pre-frontal area that will start growing, so that what was regulation of emotion dependent on another person, becomes more autonomous. We call that self regulation.”

Our attitudes about our children guide how we respond to them.  If we see them as contrary and defiant, it can activate our own aggression and irritability.  This is likely to dysregulate our own brains.  Dr. Seigel emphasizes how important it is for parents to remain calm and mindful (tall order!)  If we see our children as lacking skills and lacking brain development, then we work to find a way to help them out of their distress so we can help them solve their problems.

Citation: Broberg, Anders: Corporal Punishment and other child rearing methods: a cross-cultural perspective.  Foredrag vid Nordiska Barnavardskongressen, 1997)

Filed under Spanking Research Tagged with , , , , , ,

Spanking is a Brain Bath

February 1, 2013 Leave a comment


Spanking is a Brain BathNeuroscience describes spanking as a brain bath, or in other words it’s like being under water at a pool, you can hear people talking on the pool deck, but you cannot understand what they are saying. So if you are trying to ‘teach your child a lesson’ by spanking them, literally they cannot learn.

Why? Because the minute a child feels that painful stimulus they release stress hormones, adrenaline and cortisol, bringing on the brain bath and the child then only wants to avoid the source of that pain (the parent). This in turn confuses the child because the object of their great affection (and attachment) is also someone to fear and someone whose touch they cannot trust.  Spanking activates the stress response and thereby short circuits the ability to learn, think clearly, and feel for others.  Instead it heightens a child’s hyper-vigilance and interferes with the child’s ability to self-regulate or think clearly about her actions and the consequences. It is no surprise that most children can recall a spanking, even years later, but cannot remember what they did wrong. The brain stores a memory of the threat, but brain did not record any meaningful learning.

To learn more about your child’s brain and how to encourage self regulation, check out Dr. Bruce Perry’s  parenting website.

Dr. Bruce Perry: Self Regulation, A Second Core Strength

Dr. Bruce Perry:  Violence and Childhood

Filed under Parent Education Tagged with , , , , , ,

Instead of Spanking, TRY THIS!

February 1, 2013 Leave a comment


Instead of Spanking TRY THISA charitable organization, SmileAtYourBaby, in Pullman, WA teamed up with us at StopSpanking.org to create a flyer to help parents choose alternatives to spanking.  KXLY.com of Pullman & Moscow covered the story Smile At Your Baby releases educational flier to help stop spanking

Filed under Parent Education Tagged with , , , , , ,

← Older posts

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 29 other followers

%d bloggers like this: