http://www.mychildfeels.com/2010/01/learning-from-whales/ http://www.mychildfeels.com/2010/01/learning-from-whales/#comments Tue, 05 Jan 2010 14:00:42 +0000 marshajacobson http://www.mychildfeels.com/?p=619 This feel-good article is sure to brighten your day. At the same time it reminds parents about some basics in parenting.

We all know how uncomfortable tantrums in a grocery line-up can feel! Read “”Whale Done Parenting”: What Parents Can Learn from Sea World Trainers” by Liz Hoffman of  chicagoparent.com and learn what we can learn from sea mammals!

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Marsha Jacobson is author of "Boom... Boom... Boom...: A Story to Raise Your Child's Emotional Intelligence". She is a regular contributor of mychildfeels.com and you can visit her website at marshajacobson.com.]]> http://www.mychildfeels.com/2010/01/learning-from-whales/feed/ 1

For additional help, in my book “Connected Parenting” I discuss gifted children and how to use a technique called the CALM technique to help parents listen effectively, build resilience and protect and strengthen the parent/ child bond.

If she continues to have difficulty, talk to your paediatrician. She may benefit from a few sessions of Cognitive Behavioural therapy to help give her a sense of control over her emotions. Once she has some sense of control over her feelings the best side of her will emerge. She will be happier, more flexible and you will be able to enjoy your relationship with her so much more.

http://www.mychildfeels.com/2009/10/parenting-teenagers/ http://www.mychildfeels.com/2009/10/parenting-teenagers/#comments Thu, 29 Oct 2009 17:43:05 +0000 marshajacobson http://www.mychildfeels.com/?p=480 I know some parents who intimidated me as a young mother. They seemed to get everything just right. Their children were always immaculate, clean and well-behaved. They slept when they were supposed to and ate what was good for them. These same parents found the time to teach their barely toddlers to recognize their abc’s and still find space in a day to work out!

I crawled through those early years, happy to make it to the end of each day without a major calamity or concern.

I noticed however, with great interest, that these same parents seemed a bit thrown when their children reached eight or nine. Those fun years when kids realize for the first time that you, their wonderful parents, don’t know absolutely everything there is to know on this earth. They learn that their mouths move and they’re not afraid to use them. These parents now go into full gear and ground their kids at the drop of a hat and manage, through these and other punitive techniques, to keep their children, yet again, on the straight and narrow for another few years.

Then, TEENAGERS! I’ve come to realize that these years define parents way more than they define children. Parents of teenagers who’ve never doubted their parenting skills could run into serious trouble here. Children of this age want to explore their own wants and desires. They want to experiment with limits and they definitely don’t want you telling them what to do. Parents of teenagers have to become expert diplomats. They have to learn to parent with backbone and understanding in the same sitting.

Parents with control issues do not do well parenting this age group. They take rebellion and withdrawal as a personal attack and lose sight of the true role of parent. They are so hung up on getting their children to listen that they forget to look for emotional and social cues. I’m not saying that parenting teenagers is easy. It’s not. But it doesn’t have to spiral into an endless existence of negativity.

This is the greatest period of adjustment for parents. It is almost, symbolically speaking, the real cutting of the cord. Parents unable to do this will start to do one of two things. They will start to blame their child (for somehow being innately bad) or they will start to blame others – wrong friends, wrong school, wrong area etc. Sadly, many “perfect” parents do not look at themselves.

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Marsha Jacobson is author of "Boom... Boom... Boom...: A Story to Raise Your Child's Emotional Intelligence". She is a regular contributor of mychildfeels.com and you can visit her website at marshajacobson.com.]]> http://www.mychildfeels.com/2009/10/parenting-teenagers/feed/ 1

There are so many wonderful things about Jennifer Kolari‘s book “Connected Parenting” that I hardly know where to begin.

Kolari understands that even when parents feel despair, overwhelmed, angry or feel guilty because they no longer like their child, that these feelings are just a mask for fear and confusion. Kolari never blames parents who have lost their way and find themselves in a vortex of negativity. She understands, as a parent herself, how easily this can happen. Kolari’s book is about repairing and strengthening bonds between parent and child and between all relationships.  It is not about learning to love our child but learning how to love our child so that they feel lovable.

Of course, children and parents begin their journey in different places but all can benefit from learning the techniques outlined in “Connected Parenting.” Kolari provides a wealth of information for general parenting as well as specific direction for parents of children with special needs. Kolari states that the Connected Parenting method is based on, “therapy techniques, not parenting techniques.” It’s important to know this because many times following her techniques feels like the opposite of what should be happening. A general rule of thumb for Kolari is that the times when we feel least like following her techniques are exactly the times when we should.

“Mirroring” is at the crux of Kolari’s method and is like empathy but much, much more. To mirror our child is to empathize in a way that makes them feel that we are listening and have truly understood their experience. We reflect this back to them and use their reactions as a guide for when we have done it right. Children who feel heard and understood also feel validated, safe and lovable. These children will also be more able to understand themselves and will feel more in control of their behavior and feelings. They will also find it easier to understand and accept boundaries.

Kolari refers to a child as feeling “lovable” as opposed to “loved.” This really speaks to her understanding of parents who have arrived at her doorstep not because they no longer love their child but because the parent-child relationship has “frayed” and the experience of love is lost behind the cloud of anxiety, anger and despair. The Connected Parenting method helps us find that love again.

Kolari has some wonderful analogies throughout her book that really help parents understand what she is saying. She says that children need to feel connected to their parents to feel loved and safe so that they can explore their world in a healthy way. We must be careful, however, to not smother our child nor give them too much slack. She uses rock climbing to explain this concept. “When you rock climb, you often have a partner on the ground who is wearing a harness with a rope. … The rope literally connects the climber to his or her partner on the ground, who, in effect, gives him enough slack to move upward. And because the climber trusts the partner and feels the safety of the tension on the rope, he will have the confidence to reach farther and climb higher because he knows he can’t fall. The tension needs to be just right – too much and the climber can’t move, too little and he can’t feel the tension.”

Kolari exudes “realness” both as a person and as a parent. She shares many personal stories about her own imperfect parenting but strongly believes that, “In the game of life you always get a second chance.” She encourages parents to revisit situations that they may have handled incorrectly and rewrite them. She teaches parents that there is no room in the journey of parenting for defensiveness and power struggles. She shows us in clear and often touching ways that loving your child in ways that they feel lovable is empowering to both child and parent.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to improve the quality of the relationship with their child.

Connected Parenting is available for purchase at amazon.ca, amazon.com, and other retailers.

.]]> http://www.mychildfeels.com/2009/09/book-review-connected-parenting-by-jennifer-kolari/feed/ 1 http://www.mychildfeels.com/2009/09/guest-blog-campaign-to-stomp-out-bullying-by-sue-scheff/ http://www.mychildfeels.com/2009/09/guest-blog-campaign-to-stomp-out-bullying-by-sue-scheff/#comments Fri, 18 Sep 2009 15:53:09 +0000 marshajacobson http://www.mychildfeels.com/?p=290 I’m excited to welcome

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Love Our Children USA recently announced that bullying and teasing is at the top of kids’ issues at schools, and with school now open, parents, teachers and school administrators must take caution and sensitivity in handling these issues. Childhood should be a time filled with wonder and joy, but the reality for many kids and teens is often much different. They’re the victims of bullying and cyber-bullying at school or on neighborhood playgrounds.

October 4 – 10, 2009 is National Bullying Prevention Awareness Week.

To observe the week, Love Our Children USA will speak at various schools about bullying, cyberbullying and preventing it.

To signify the importance of the week, Love Our Children USA created National Blue Shirt Day. Specifically on Monday, October 5th, the organization is asking kids, teens and adults to participate in national BLUE SHIRT DAY by wearing a blue shirt to STOMP Out Bullying.

They chose blue because in many diverse cultures blue brings peace. The color conveys importance and confidence.

On Monday, October 5th, Americans across the country will wear blue shirts as they make their way to school or to the office as a grassroots national campaign to STOMP Out Bullying. Participation is expected from major cities and proclamations from leading politicians and civic leaders. This day will be supported with a national media campaign. Last October, the organization created STOMP Out Bullying.

To date over 48,000 people have committed to STOMP Out Bullying. Kids who are intimidated, threatened, or harmed by bullies often experience low self-esteem and depression, whereas those doing the bullying may go on to engage in more serious antisocial behaviors. Some kids are so traumatized by being bullied, that they contemplate suicide. Bullies often have been the victims of bullying or other mistreatment themselves.

Ross Ellis, Love Our Children USA Founder and Chief Executive Officer, remembers only too well what it is like to be bullied. Today it’s a regular occurrence in schools starting as early as kindergarten. It’s not a right of passage as some may think. It’s a crisis. And many kids have committed suicide because the taunting was so torturous. Bullying can be so painful and clearly has played a role in recent school shootings across the country.

While boys are more physical, girls use weapons, exclusion, slander, rumors and gossip. And beware of cyberbullying which is on the rise. This social online cruelty is used in the forms of e-mail, cell phone; pager text messages, instant messaging, defamatory personal Web sites, and defamatory online personal polling Web sites, deliberate, repeated, and hostile behavior, and is used by an individual or group — intended to harm others – especially amongst our youth.

While most kids use the Internet for friendly interactions, more and more kids are using these communication tools to antagonize, terrorize and intimidate others. Ellis said “parents must keep open communication with their children. Look for signs. And school administrators can no longer sweep the issue under the rug. Students should be educated about the harmful effects of bullying. Many schools are sweeping the issue under the rug. Every school should declare No Bullying Policy and enforce it.” Ross Ellis suggests that schools set up a web site where kids can anonymously report the person who is bullying them. That way victims can feel safe in making the report and the school can deal with the bully.

Recent Statistics Show:

• 1 out of 4 kids is Bullied.
• 1 out of 5 kids admits to being a bully, or doing some “Bullying.”
• 8% of students miss 1 day of class per month for fear of Bullies.
• 43% fear harassment in the bathroom at school.
• 100,000 students carry a gun to school.
• 28% of youths who carry weapons have witnessed violence at home.
• A poll of teens ages 12-17 proved that they think violence increased at their schools.
• 282,000 students are physically attacked in secondary schools each month.
• More youth violence occurs on school grounds as opposed to on the way to school.
• 80% of the time, an argument with a bully will end up in a physical fight.
• 1/3 of students surveyed said they heard another student threaten to kill someone.
• 1 out of 5 teens knows someone who brings a gun to school.
• 2 out of 3 say they know how to make a bomb, or know where to get the information to do it.
• Almost half of all students say they know another student who’s capable of murder.
• Playground statistics – Every 7 minutes a child is bullied. Adult intervention -4% Peer intervention – 11%. No intervention – 85%.

Ellis said “helping your children cope with either being a bully or being a victim often requires outside assistance, such as from your child’s school or the community. School is the most likely place for bullying to occur, so discuss your concerns with your child’s teachers and counselor and ask what they can do to help. School personnel can be influential in helping a child modify his behavior. Take advantage of any psychological counseling services that may be offered at your child’s school or in your community.”

Bullying is a form of child abuse and bullies are very likely to grow up as an adult who abuses children. More information about bullying and how to help your children and students can be found at www.stompoutbullying.org

About Love Our Children USA: Since 1999, Love Our Children USA has paved the way as the national nonprofit leader that honors, respects and protects children. Its mission is to break the cycle of violence against children. Love Our Children USA has become ‘the go-to’ prevention organization for all forms of violence and neglect against children in the U.S. It works to eliminate behaviors that keep children from reaching their potential. It redefines parenting and creates kid success by promoting prevention strategies and positive changes in parenting and family attitudes and behaviors through public education. It works to empower and support children, teens, parents and families through information, resources, advocacy, and online youth mentoring. Its goal is to keep children safe and strengthen families — Its message is positive … one of prevention and hope.

Sue Scheff is a parent advocate.  She believes that educating parents on an industry that is extremely confusing is the first step to finding the best help.  Since 2001, Sue Scheff has grown her organization, Parent’s Universal Resource Expert’s (P.U.R.E.™), to be widely recognized and well respected throughout the country and world. Her new book “Google Bomb: The Untold Story of the $11.3M Verdict That Changed the Way We Use the Internet” was released earlier this month.

Daniel Goleman’s book “Emotional Intelligence” (1995) introduced the idea of emotional intelligence to professionals and laymen. It boldly claimed that in predicting personal success, EQ could be “as powerful, and at times more powerful, than IQ.” (p. 34).  Much of this claim was based on previous extensive research on IQ, which found that the predictive nature of IQ on job performance and personal success was seriously falling short.

The correlations were only between 10% and 25%. John Snarey and George Vaillant conducted a longitudinal study in 1985 involving 450 boys and found that IQ had little relation to workplace and personal success. Rather, what was found to be more important in determining their success was their ability to handle frustration, control emotions, and get along with others. While they did not call these traits emotional intelligence, they are some of the central elements to the emotional intelligence construct.

John Gottman, a forerunner in the area of emotional intelligence in children, claimed, “In the last decade or so, science has discovered a tremendous amount about the role emotions play in our lives. Researchers have found that even more than IQ, your emotional awareness and abilities to handle feelings will determine your success and happiness in all walks of life, including family relationships.”

Beyond just academia and formally defining the concept of “emotional intelligence,” the core elements of the construct have emerged in other areas too. A great example of this from popular culture is The Secret, a book and movie by Rhonda Byrne. It believes in the inner emotional power of people. It took the English-speaking world by storm and has already been translated into 10 other languages. More than anything, this demonstrates the world’s readiness to focus on their emotions. The adult population, already saturated by self-help books, was primed and ready to accept these ideas.

It is no surprise now that workforce personnel have enthusiastically supported the investigation and understanding of EQ. Companies are including EQ assessments and training into work regimes. The increasing competitiveness in the workforce has forced those who want to get ahead to actively look for new plausible ideas and run with them. Their approach has been, “This seems to be something that may affect productivity. Lets try it.”

In the area of children and education, scepticism has been more predominant. School boards have focussed on the research showing lack of proof between emotional intelligence and success in later life. Lynn Waterhouse sums up this point of view in her article for Educational Psychologist in 2006. According to her, there exist too many conflicting constructs of EQ to make research possible and the research that has been done is too inconclusive. Many supporters are frustrated at the lack of action taken by schools because they feel that the best time to teach EQ is in childhood.

Perhaps our entire approach to emotional intelligence is wrong. We are trying to place the idea of EQ purely in the scientific world and assessing efficacy and predictability only according to the rules of science. Quantitative research is valuable whenever possible but certainly has limitations when focusing on a construct as qualitative as emotional intelligence. Is there not sufficient evidence that suggests the importance of EQ? Is there not overwhelming evidence that suggests that the lack of EQ creates many of the problems in our lives today? Perhaps we should be focussing on what isn’t working in our human experience rather than resisting the implementation of EQ into our schools.

With the rise in school violence, bullying, terrorism, suicide, job dissatisfaction and loneliness, can we afford to not teach EQ to our children? What can we possibly have to lose by teaching our children to be emotionally intelligent? What’s the worst that can happen? We will produce a generation of people more in touch with their feelings and with the feelings of others? We will produce a generation of people who are taught to be more empathic, tolerant and respectful to themselves and others?

There may be some among us who might like to live in a world like that.

.]]> http://www.mychildfeels.com/2009/09/for-many-children-back-to-school-means-facing-bullies/feed/ 1 http://www.mychildfeels.com/2009/09/name-and-naim-your-child/ http://www.mychildfeels.com/2009/09/name-and-naim-your-child/#comments Thu, 03 Sep 2009 13:00:57 +0000 marshajacobson http://www.mychildfeels.com/?p=155

Parents will spend hours, days, and often months thinking of a name for their unborn child. It can be an agonizing and often unpleasant experience for many. The permanence of the decision feels overwhelming and we feel a weight of responsibility as we ponder the issues of name suitability. We often want uniqueness and conformity simultaneously in our desire to secure the “right” name for our child. We feel as though we are somehow securing their identity and ultimately who they will become.

The care we take in naming our child reflects the beginning of a deep concern for their well-being. We hope that they will develop all the positive qualities that will promote their ultimate success and happiness. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we, as parents, could be active participants in this process? We can. Once our children are named and have arrived, we can then begin the real process of NAIM-ing them.

NAIM is an acronym that will teach your child the abc’s of emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence, also known as EQ, refers to our ability to understand our emotions and the emotions of others. Emotional intelligence is a human skill and like all skills must be taught. We would not expect our children to be able to read without first teaching them the rudiments of letters, so too we must do the same with emotional intelligence.

Name -  Emotional intelligence is about knowing who you are and what you are feeling, acting on this knowledge, and thus determining your success and happiness. Helping your child to name or identify their feelings is the first step to reaching this goal. We can do this in many different ways. The most powerful way is to use your child’s own emotions as they happen. Take your cues from their responses to a situation. You will generally know when you have hit on the right feeling because they will tell you in some way. Affirming their feelings provides them with a feeling of connection; that they’ve been understood. It often has a calming effect. There are other ways you can identify feelings even when you don’t have cues from your child. Using imaginative play with dolls, characters, and games is one; demonstrating emotions through children’s literature is another.

Accept – Once children have acknowledged and learnt how to identify feelings, you then have to teach them that it’s OK to have them. Parents generally have no problem doing this with positive emotions but often have to learn to do this with negative ones. Sadness, anger, frustration, and envy are some emotions that are part of the human experience and your children need to accept them as much as their happier feelings. They will accept them if you accept them. You can empathize and let them know that you have experienced similar feelings and that it’s a normal human experience.

Investigate – Next, you have to become an investigator. You now have to explore with your child why they are feeling in a particular way. This is an essential part of emotional intelligence. Children learn in this phase the interaction between the way they feel and their environment. They learn to understand what situations make them feel happy, sad, angry, excited, etc. Linking their feelings to environmental or situational cues in this way allows them to bring their experience to future situations and to transfer their learning. It brings understanding and increases their abilities to control their emotions and their environment.

Manage – This is the part of the teaching process that most parents understand. Within a family there are rules. Rules of acceptable behaviour and rules of what we say to each other. This is essential not only to families but to society as a whole. We know that people who have characteristics of kindness, empathy, confidence, and perseverance are more likely to succeed than people who are lacking in these traits. Children whose feelings have been heard and accepted are much more likely to be receptive to management. Consequences, suggestions, solutions, and direction are all better executed at this point. Being consistent and resolute is important during this stage. Children need and want boundaries. They need to understand what is acceptable and what is not. If you give your child mixed messages at this point, it can be detrimental to their development of positive emotional intelligence.

The order of this teaching is very important. Children will not listen effectively unless they are heard first. Try to avoid the word but. “I hear how you feel and understand and accept, BUT …,” tends to invalidate the hard work you put into the first two stages.

Remember that we as parents are also human with our own set of feelings. We all make mistakes! These can also be powerful tools for exploring and developing emotional intelligence.

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Marsha Jacobson is author of "

.]]> http://www.mychildfeels.com/2009/08/parenting-how-to-videos/feed/ 0 http://www.mychildfeels.com/2009/08/perspectives-on-perception/ http://www.mychildfeels.com/2009/08/perspectives-on-perception/#comments Thu, 20 Aug 2009 13:00:13 +0000 jonathandanson http://www.mychildfeels.com/?p=129 The experience of ourselves, others and the world is not bestowed upon us, but created by us. The objectivity of events is an illusion, an organizing force born out of our creative minds but attributed to our rational brains. We know what we think and therefore think that we know. Personal perception, however, is anything but the impartial and unbiased entity that we love to imagine it is. Though our insight or intellect may inform our perceptions, they are ultimately guided by an endless array of variables such as biology, personality, upbringing and circumstance. They are moulded by the people we meet, the books we read and the types of people we strive to be.

No one, of course, is wholly guided by perception. Our rational minds are constantly evaluating and revising our perceptions in an effort to more closely approximate the “real” – the true meaning of an utterance, gesture or incident. Often, to be sure, our perceptions are dead on, such as when the intent of an ambiguous gesture is accurately discerned (e.g. a friendly hug is recognized for what it is and not misconstrued as romantic). Other times, contrarily, our perceptions lead us astray, obscuring the reality of a situation with a host of ideas that can result in needless negative emotional experiences (or, sometimes, risky positive ones).

These are hardly new concepts, and they are taken into account by the majority of people at least to some extent in their daily lives. We recognize, for instance, that motivations are often hidden and that we must use the information available to us in order to form as accurate a perception as possible. What we often fail to take into account, however, is that perception in interpersonal interaction is a dynamic process that involves a thinking, interpreting and evaluating mind other than our own. In other words, when we attempt to get at the “true” meaning of another individual’s actions, we may forget that that person’s actions are themselves based on interpretation. Thus, where we seek truth we find only more subjective perception.

Taking a fresh perspective, as is often preached through the adage “walking in someone else’s shoes”, is in my opinion one of the most important steps towards empathizing with and understanding others. By recognizing that our ways of interpreting the world are complimented by infinite variations, we can begin to understand true motivation; that is, the motivation behind motivation. The reasons why some react with anger when we would have reacted with kindness, or how someone’s opinion can be so drastically different from our own, for instance, become more available as we realize that the same forces acting upon our perspectives are acting upon others in varying degrees and combinations.

Asking the question “what might I have done in a situation” will provide some important insight into others’ behaviour and help you to understand their motivations. It is equally important, however, to wonder how others’ unique perspectives lay the foundations for the way they feel, think and act.  Teaching children (and recognizing ourselves) that others respond to their own perspectives, no matter how off track they appear to be, with the same conviction that we respond to ours, will undoubtedly help to foster social intelligence, self-awareness and empathy.

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Jonathan is a Masters student at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto (OISE/UT). His current research focuses on interpersonal variables that affect emotional experience, expression and growth in survivors of trauma.]]> http://www.mychildfeels.com/2009/08/perspectives-on-perception/feed/ 1