Midwives: Guardians of Normal Births

By Olympia Franklin, LM, CPM

Throughout history in each society and community, it is midwives who have attended the births of babies. These women were called upon to watch over new mothers and assist them in the personal and cultural rituals that helped them to give birth.

Midwife means with woman and is influenced by the word to mediate. In many communities, the midwife has maintained a role as traditional healer. Now, the range of choices that midwives in regard to how they develop their role and where they practice has created a variety of paths for those in the practice. In California, as in many other states, there are several types of midwives who practice in a variety of settings- homes, birth centers and hospitals. While most midwives are women, there are also a handful of male midwives. Sorting out what the varying acronyms and midwifery credentials mean can be confusing so here is a quick guide:

Direct Entry Midwives (DEMs)
Direct Entry Midwives, also known as “lay” midwives, are the most undefined roles. These are women who have not attended any formal midwifery program. Instead, they may have learned through self-study, experience, and/or the traditional apprenticeship.

Certified Professional Midwife (CPM)
A CPM, as defined by the North American Registry of Midwives (NARM), “is a knowledgeable, skilled and professional independent midwifery practitioner who has met the standards of certification set by NARM and is qualified to provide the midwives model of care.” The CPM is the only international credential that requires knowledge about and experience in out-of-hospital setting.

California Licensed Midwife (LM)
The California Licensed Midwife successfully completes a three-year postsecondary midwifery educational program accredited by an organization recognized by the United States Department of Education, Division of Accreditation, and successfully completes a comprehensive licensing examination adopted by the California Medical Board. These Midwives are licensed to care for clients through pregnancy, birth and postpartum as well as to offer well-woman care through out the life cycle.

Certified Nurse-Midwife (CNM)
Certified Nurse Midwives are registered nurses who have advanced training in midwifery and have passed an examination administered by the American College of Nurse-Midwives. Most CNMs work under the supervision of a physician in hospitals and birthing center.

The Midwives Model of Care is based on the fact that pregnancy and birth are normal life events and includes: monitoring the physical, psychological and social well-being of the mother throughout the childbearing cycle; providing the mother with individualized education, counseling and prenatal care; continuous hands-on assistance during labor and delivery and postpartum support; minimizing technological interventions; and identifying and referring women who require obstetrical attention. The application of this model has been proven to reduce the incidence of birth injury, trauma and cesarean section.

Key Points in the Midwifery Model of Childbirth Care:
-The woman maintains power and authority over herself.
-Responsibility is in the hands of the woman herself, shared with her midwife.
-The goal is to assist the woman toward self-care as a healthy person in a state of normalcy.
-The mother and baby are a unit whose medical and emotional needs are complimentary; what meets the needs of one meets the needs of both.
-The woman’s body is a well-functioning home for herself and her baby. Its needs and workings are best known by the woman herself.
-The emphasis is on pregnancy and birth as times of physical/psychological/emotional growth for mom and fetus.
-Childbirth is seen as an activity that the healthy woman engages in.
-The midwife guides and educates the woman during her experience.
-Childbirth is seen as a normal event in the of the woman and her family members. The woman’s active birth-giving is enhanced by education, support, and skilled care. Midwifery is safeguarding the natural process of pregnancy, labor and birth.

Olympia Franklin is a midwife practicing with Vital Roots Birth Services, a four midwife practice offering complete preconception, prenatal, labor and post-partum care, as well as a variety of women centered classes. Vital Roots offers homebirth, waterbirth, and doula services.Our service area ranges from Petrolia to Bridgeville, Benbow to Eureka. Please contact them to learn more. Olympia 223-5322 Laura 223-1638

Getting Organized

On some mornings, kids dawdle, eggs intended for the pan break on the floor instead, and the clean outfit gets covered in mud before your child even gets to the car.  Meanwhile, Mom or Dad’s deep breathing through the predictable chaos might be getting shallower as the hands of the clock push them closer to tardiness at school and work. It’s in these kinds of moments that being able to find what you need before heading out the door can prevent a parental meltdown.

Being able to find things when we need them can be one of the pillars of parental sanity when times get tough.  For parents, getting and staying organized becomes more than the aesthetic endeavor it might have been pre-children; with kids, it’s a survival tool.  Given this, it seems a little unfair that getting organized while parenting can seem like a daunting and impossible task.  Some days, it’s hard enough just to get a shower.

With small steps, a few basic guidelines, and a commitment to the goal, getting organized can happen even in the heart of the messiest parenting jungle.  It helps to remember that even a little time invested in the project of organizing can yield worthwhile results. If one little corner of the house gets tamed, it creates one place of calm, orderly and intentional ease that can carry throughout the household.

If that’s not persuasive, the added benefit of teaching our kids to get and stay organized should be.  Play your clean up cards right, and your child will be doing more and more of the organizing with you.  In the process, they develop healthy, lifelong habits that will serve them well in their future academic, work, social and inner lives.

Spring is in the air. It’s a natural time to tackle the clutter and throw open those closet doors to bring new order to the looming messes that lurk behind them.  Let’s get started with some basics from our local guru, Claire Josefine, author of The Spiritual Art of Being Organized.  Josefine begins her book by stating her organizing belief, which is “Being organized is a spiritual process  Chaos is conquered as much by awareness, gratitude, grounding, and breath as by a well-labeled filing system.”  Ahh… doesn’t it feel good to think about it this way instead of some losing battle to be fought in vain?

Josefine’s Zen approach is shaped by the following 12 principles:

1.    Think! Think vertical, think verbs, think function, think consequences.
2.    Put like with like within zones created by function.
3.    KISS (Keep it Simple, Sweetie).
4.    Create, and use, habits and schedules.
5.    Be realistic.
6.    Set Boundaries.
7.    Dishes before dusting.
8.    Slow down and pay attention.
9.    Adopt an attitude of gratitude.
10.    Base decisions in love instead of fear.
11.    Remember that we have choices.
12.    Ask for help.

Each of these principles is usefully spelled out in Josefine’s book with concrete steps and tips for how to bring order into your life. Here are some examples:

Little by Little: Start with short organizing sessions, i.e. 15 to 60 minutes.  Longer than that, says Josefine, and you may get overwhelmed and tired.  Keep it positive by not biting off more than you can chew.  “In order to facilitate a sense of accomplishment in a short amount of time,” decide on a small project like one drawer or one cupboard and spend a limited amount of time totally focused on organizing that area. Set a timer if you need to.  If you do this consistently, your entire house will get organized without wearing you out in the process.

Give things names: You don’t have to remember where every item goes, nor do you have to get repeatedly annoyed with family members who put things in the wrong places.  Use labels.  Labels don’t have to be aesthetically problematic. You can make your own using color, embroidery, photos, drawings, carvings, etc. to fit your taste. “You can even hide labels by putting them inside cupboards and drawers,” reminds Josefine.  “Labels are especially important to children who are learning to read… work with them to label the shelves and containers in their room… make a label that has both a picture and a picture of the category and the word, printed clearly… [this] will enable your young ones to put away their toys more easily and will build literacy skills at the same time.”

Put Like with Like within Zones Created by Function: Identify the “zones” within your home based on what happens there, then put the tools that go with it within that “zone.”  Group like things with like things. Some ideas for “zones” or “lands” are:  sleep land, clothes land, bath land, food land, entertainment land, reading land, etc.  In each zone, you group/store the “tools” for the activity that takes place there. For example, in sleep land you would obviously have a bed and only things that go with sleep like jammies, a lamp, maybe a clock, inspiration or relaxing reading, etc. This area shouldn’t contain large electronic devices or anything stress-inducing.

So, when you feel that spring-cleaning urge, go with it and keep simplicity in mind. If you aren’t getting the seasonal urge to purge and organize, pick a drawer and schedule yourself 20 minutes to work on it. Put on some music and just chip away at it. When your time is up, take a break. One step at a time….

You can get more ideas, inspiration, and order the book at www.clairejosefine.com.

Download the Full March 2010 Issue of Hum Mums

by Jen Briar-Bonpane

Discipline. What a loaded word. What comes to mind when you think of that word? Orderly rows in the classroom? Kids in time out? Losing privileges? ‘Logical’ consequences? Removing toys? Getting grounded? Yelling? Spanking? As with everything we do as parents, we carry the experience of how we were parented alongside our own approach. Sometimes, these two are identical. Many times, they are not.

In her book, Positive Discipline, Jane Nelson explores the traditional approaches to discipline that most of us were raised by. While punishment in various forms seems to be the crux of most discipline, Nelson argues that though it can be very effective in the moment, punishment does not serve children well in the long run.

“Where did we ever get the crazy idea that in order to make children do better, first we have to make them feel worse?” Nelson asks. Punishment generally results in kids feeling embarrassed, in trouble, rejected, ashamed, mad, inadequate, or sad. Punishing a child will likely stop the misbehavior for the time being, but as Nelson warns, “beware of what works when the long-term results are negative.” As a long-term result of routine punishment for misbehavior, most children take on one of what Nelson calls the “4 R’s” punishment. They are:

1. Resentment
2. Revenge
3. Rebellion
4. Retreat

What is the alternative to punishment? Nelson is adamant that permissive parenting is not a solution and carries negative outcomes of its own. Instead, she recommends an approach called Positive Discipline which involves “mutual respect, cooperation, and focusing on solutions.”

There are 5 criteria for effective discipline that respects children’s need for connection and belonging.

Effective discipline:

1. Helps children feel a sense of connection (belonging and significance).
2. Is mutually respectful and encouraging (kind and firm at the same time).
3. Is effective long-term (considers what the child is thinking, feeling, learning, and deciding about himself and his world – and what to do in the future to survive or to thrive).
4. Teaches important social and life skills (respect, concern for others, problem solving, and cooperation as well as the skills to contribute to the home, school or larger community).
5. Invites children to discover how capable they are (encourages the constructive use of personal power and autonomy).

Positive Discipline can work at home and in classroom settings. “Aimed at developing mutually respectful relationships, Positive Discipline teaches adults to employ kindness and firmness at the same time, and is neither punitive nor permissive. The tools and concepts of Positive Discipline include:” (from Nelson)

1. Mutual respect. Adults model firmness by respecting themselves and the needs of the situation, and kindness by respecting the needs of the child.
2. Identifying the belief behind the behavior. Effective discipline recognizes the reasons kids do what they do and works to change those beliefs, rather than merely attempting to change behavior.
3. Effective communication and problem solving skills.
4. Discipline that teaches (and is neither permissive nor punitive).
5. Focusing on solutions instead of punishment.
6. Encouragement (instead of praise). Encouragement notices effort and improvement, not just success, and builds long-term self-esteem and empowerment.

Positive Discipline can be used to address all the usual– and challenging– behavior issues that turn parents’ hair gray. Nelson offers piles of very concrete examples and suggestions for ways to shift and adapt your disciplinary approach to a positive one. With a PhD and the parent of 6 children herself, Nelson offers the Positive Discipline model that was derived from research as well as her own rugged experience in the playroom.

To learn more about how to discipline your children with kindness, respect, and firmness,
check out the Positive Discipline website at http://www.positivediscipline.com/what-is-positive-discipline.html.

by Jen Briar-Bonpane

Download February 2010 Issue

Even without children, long-term partnership can be a bumpy road at times. When we add children to the mix, it indelibly changes our relationship with our partner.

This change is full of amazing, joyful, miraculous aspects. Of course, there are the more challenging shifts as well. With the responsibilities that come with parenting, the upkeep of our relationship with our partner generally gets bumped to the end of a long list of more pressing priorities.

There is less focused time together, less intimacy, more things to negotiate, and less individual time to refill the well to make us patient partners. When we enter the realm of parenthood, we’re no longer only our partner’s spouse, girlfriend, boyfriend, or partner – suddenly we’re someone’s mother or father, too. Our bodies are now clung to, climbed on, and not entirely our own. This can really change our interest in and energy for intimacy with a partner. Then there are the pressures of planning for our children’s health care, childcare, schooling, and development….we are loaded with hefty decisions to make.

Ahh… but, “What about us?” we might think in those fleeting moments when our parenting minds get to wander beyond the endless questions of snack, school, discipline, sleep, and potty. “Remember us?”… If you’ve fallen into the easily traveled path of relationship neglect after children, you’re not alone. It’s as if there is a gravitational pull toward the responsibilities and joys of parenting that in turn makes it more difficult to connect with our partners like we used to.

The great news is that it’s never too late to start building more balance in your relationship by giving some dedicated attention to your mate. Here are some ideas for getting started:

(From Becoming the Parent You Want to Be by Laura Davis and Janis Keyser and Mother Nurture by Hanson, Hanson, and Pollycove)

• Make time to enjoy your child/children together. Most parents fall into a pattern of constant trading off and tag team scheduling. Build in some family time to be together and marvel at your little one(s) together.

• There’s not a lot of time to connect with your partner so make the most of intimacy in the moment. Expressions of love and affection can happen in brief encounters: a quick hug, an “I love you,” holding hands, etc.

• Take time to be together. If you have a baby, it’s important to wait until you are ready to be away and to not feel pressured to do this before you’re comfortable. Get a sitter, ask a relative or friend, take an afternoon off work while your kids are at school, join a babysitting co-op, trade with other trusted parents… get creative with this and remember to start small if you need to. An hour goes a long way.

• Plan ahead and make it regular. Yes, it’s not as spontaneous as it used to be before you were someone’s mom or dad but making regular time with your partner is worth the effort. Knowing that you both have designated, child-free time together on a regular basis also helps take the pressure off your dates.

• Try a morning date. If it’s too hard to stay awake to be together at night or there’s nothing left of you to give by dinnertime, try spending time together in the morning. Kids are often more amenable to spending time in someone else’s care when they are fresh and rested in the morning.

• Prioritize your relationship. Don’t put off attending to your relationship until your kids are older. You and your partner deserve and need to be nurtured as a couple in an ongoing way.

• Try to ask each other 3 questions each day… questions that have nothing to do with bills, planning for the week, or other family logistics. Be sure the questions are free of hidden criticism or advice. The point is to connect and hear about your partner’s experience, feelings, and thoughts beyond the parenting script that can take over our communication.

Resolutions and Reflections

for Parenting in the New Year

The planet we call home has completed yet another trip around the sun and a new year is upon us. Since this time of year is replete with resolutions, declarations, and celebrations, we’ve dedicated this issue to offering exercises and questions to inspire reflection on the potent business of parenting. Nancy Samalin wisely said, “Our children give us the opportunity to become the parents we always wished we had.” As you read through this month’s issue of Hum Mums, we hope you’ll steal some quiet moments to consciously reflect on this ‘opportunity’ by exploring at least one of the activities or questions that fill these pages. Starting the New Year with some thoughtful intentions, goals, and hopes for your parenting is a gift not only to you but your little one as well.

The activities shared in this issue are taken from The Center for Nonviolent Parenting’s Parent Education Manual.

Heart Drawings
(From the Center for Nonviolent Education and Parenting’s Parent Education Curriculum)

Draw a heart. Imagine yourself as a newborn. Put words inside the heart that describe you when you were born. Outside the heart, write the messages you think you received from your family as you were growing up.

Now, think about your child. Turn your page over and draw a second heart. This is your child’s heart. Around the outside of the heart put the message you want your child to hear as she grows up. Inside the heart, imagine the feelings you would like your child to feel as she grows up. Inside the heart, imagine and write the feelings you would like your child to feel as she grows up.

Creativity

Kids seem to be naturally creative. If we make space for them to mess around and create from their own well of imagination without criticism or evaluation, that creativity can flourish. Research suggests that encouraging kids to be creative engages and expands aspects of their intelligence that can bolster math, reading, and science skills. Creativity supports problem solving and can help kids become inventive and flexible thinkers. That’s right, playing with clay, banging on a drum, and doing science experiments with the contents of your refrigerator can actually make your child smarter.

In his book, Frames of Mind, Harvard professor Howard Gardner explained his theory of multiple intelligences and identifies seven types of intelligence (the 8th was identified by Gardner since publication of Frames of Mind):

1. Visual/spatial
2. Verbal/linguistic
3. Musical
4. Bodily/kinesthetic
5. Logical/mathematical
6. Interpersonal
7. Intrapersonal
8. Naturalist

Kids’ creativity can be nurtured in relation to these multiple intelligences. Think about what your kids love to do most or seem to do best in relation to these intelligences. Does your child love to build, draw, arrange furniture/flowers, do puzzles, or find faces in a crowd? These are all expressions of visual/spatial intelligence. Kids who are very aware of their own feelings, tend be self-motivated, and sensitive to values are demonstrating intrapersonal intelligence.

Your child can be smart and creative in so many ways. Keeping multiple intelligences in mind can help parents recognize the unique strengths of their children. Laurel Schmidt, author of Seven Times Smarter reminds us “when we overlook their gifts, kids feel confused and ashamed. They don’t just hide their talents – they bury them. Which means they may never get a chance to feel and act as smart as they are.”

School settings can encourage or ignore the children’s creativity and multiple intelligences. Most schools are under pressure to produce good readers and mathematicians and many focus so intently on doing so that “they routinely dismiss the other five intelligences, even though research shows that studying math or art helps kids improve in all their subjects. (Schmidt)”

What happens when the 8 intelligences go to school? Schmidt offers many examples of how children’s’ intelligences get overlooked and thwarted; “a child with extraordinary interpersonal intelligence may be dismissed as a social butterfly, when she should be encouraged to run for president of the student council.” Kids with high bodily/kinesthetic intelligence may really struggle with the expectation that they sit still and quiet for long periods of time while focusing on repetitive tasks. Those children may then be identified as unmotivated or having some kind of deficiency.

As parents, we can be aware of our children’s’ need for creative exploration and opportunities to explore their multiple areas of intelligence. By noticing the unique strengths of our multi-talented children, we can be better advocates and supporters for positive, growth-promoting experiences both at school and at home.

Schmidt offers these tips for encouraging and supporting your children’s creativity and developing intelligences. She calls them “rules for responding to miracles”:

1. Be a supporter: Celebrate accomplishments and efforts even if they are messy or don’t look like much to you. Compliment their efforts in front of siblings and significant adults.
2. Be a good listener: When your child talks about their ideas, projects, or inventions, smile, listen, and respond with genuine curiosity
3. Ask good questions: Open ended, evaluation-free questions that express your curiosity and invite their thinking like…what made you think that? What else could you do? What part to do you like best? How did you get that idea?
4. Do nothing for kids that they can do for themselves: avoid finishing their projects or telling them how their poems should end
5. Avoid criticism: “When you look at their painting and say ‘Why don’t you make the horse brown?’ you may notice that your child’s interest falters. She may even abandon her work…because she was going to paint the horse blue. Now she has to decide whose idea is better, yours or hers…”
6. Be patient: It might take days, weeks, or even months for your child to finish a project, book, or artwork. They might even be destroyed or changed again and again…”but habits of the mind are continually developing, sometimes with little physical evidence”
7. Be a good watcher: “When kids really tap into their intelligence, you’ll see the signs. They’re excited.. their ideas grow and take up more space.. they return to the activity over and over…step back and enjoy the view.”
8. Be a good cheerleader: “Convey your delight in whole sentences, not just smiles and nods”

Download November 09 Issue pdf

What is the best “investment” you can make in your child’s life?  Among the winning answers seems to be focusing on the quality of your relationship with your child.  A highly responsive parenting style called attachment parenting centers around building a loving and secure relationship between parent and child.  Research has shown that children who have at least one parent or caregiver who “responds appropriately, promptly and consistently to needs” (also called secure attachment), do better in nearly all areas of development and gain healthy traits that help them throughout their lifespan.

Here are some of the benefits of secure attachment by age as compared to children who did not experience secure attachment (from Attachment 101 By Willemsen and Marcel):

• 0-3 years: more independent and have an easier time separating from parent without anxiety, positive sense of self, increased self-awareness, enhanced sensorimotor skills
• Preschool years, Ages 3-5: better able to play in non-destructive and socially acceptable ways with peers, more readily able to learn from environment, advanced language development
• Middle Childhood: better relationships with teachers and peers, early reading skills, more socially competent, fewer behavior problems
• Adolescence: more likely to be socially well-adjusted, better able to regulate their own emotions, stronger internal sense of what behaviors are appropriate, more able to cope with stress
• Adulthood: higher relationship satisfaction with partners/spouses, more likely to form secure attachment with his/her own child, less likely to abuse his/her child, higher self-esteem, greater job satisfaction

Fostering attachment with your child can start at birth.  Dr sears offers what he calls the 7 Baby B’s tools, for promoting healthy attachment in the earliest months in a child’s life:

1.    Birth Bonding: Connect physically and verbally as often as you can with your baby as soon after birth as possible.  Holding baby, making eye contact, talking to your baby, and keeping the baby close are all ways of bonding early on.
2.    Breastfeeding: It’s an “exercise in babyreading”.  Nursing your baby helps you tune in to your child’s cues – not to mention that breast milk is source of vital nutrients for baby and since breastfeeding triggers the release of healthy and helpful hormones for mom, it helps you, too.
3.    Babywearing: Babies that are carried tend to be less fussy.  Babywearing also helps keep baby close and deepens your attunement to one another.
4.    Bedding Close to Baby: It’s important to find a sleeping arrangement that allows mom to get as much sleep as possible.  If you are able to sleep in proximity to your baby, co-sleeping helps babies feel safe at night, reducing nighttime anxiety.  It’s also a great way for parents who have busy schedules during the day to reconnect with baby at night.
5.   Belief in the Value of Your Baby’s Cry: “A baby’s cry is a signal for the survival of the baby and the development of the parents.”  When you respond to your baby’s cries by soothing him, it builds trust.  “Tiny babies cry to communicate, not to manipulate.”
6.    Beware of Baby Trainers: Parenting approaches that urge you to go by a clock rather than your baby’s cues can create distance between you and your child.  Though it might feel convenient in the short term, it’s a “long-term loss.”
7.    Balance: It’s easy to lose track of your own needs when you have a little one to care for.  Prioritize your own needs too and practice asking for help when you need it.  If you aren’t taking care of yourself, you’ll be less able to respond to your baby’s needs.

The 7 Baby B’s are just the beginning of promoting attachment with your child.  For more information about attachment, check out these resources:

Attachment Parenting International: http://www.attachmentparenting.org/

AskDrSears.com: http://www.askdrsears.com/html/10/T130300.asp

Sources:

The Attachment Parenting Book, William and Martha Sears, Little Brown & Company, New York, 2002

Askdrsears.com

Attachment 101 for Attorneys. Eleanor Willemsen and Kristen Marcel, Santa Clara University.

Focus on Feelings

Download the October 09 Issue of Hum Mums

As you know, there’s much more to your child than reading, writing, and arithmetic. These are monumentally important areas in your child’s learning and development as are the observable milestones such as learning to sit up, crawl, walk, talk, etc. However, they aren’t the whole picture. While most parents stay on top of tracking junior’s motor skills, knowledge of the alphabet, and homework completion, there’s a critical and related part of the child that is constantly engaged, emerging, and evolving- often without much guidance. A child’s emotional life and development, though harder to observe with the naked eye or during a well-child check-up, underpins major components of their personality and can shape their functioning, social interactions, worldview, and behavior.

Children’s emotions are, in part, reactions to what goes on around them as well as drivers of their behavior. Added to the mix is individual temperament, which can vary dramatically from one child to the next. Some children bounce back quickly from upset while others can sustain an extreme level of distress for long periods of time – as though their high-powered emotional systems, once revved up, have a hard time calming back down. Neither is “wrong,” but each having unique needs and both can benefit from guidance, nurturing, modeling, and teaching.

Emotional development, which is intertwined with all other areas of development (especially social skills), may seem like a big, vague thing to take on as a parent. Nevertheless, it doesn’t have to be out of reach.

Dr. Bruce Perry, a senior fellow at the Child Trauma Academy, developed the following list of six core strengths for healthy emotional development that can provide a “strong foundation for.. health, happiness, and productivity:”

1. Attachment: How to form and maintain healthy relationships. Children begin to learn this in infancy based on their experience of bonding with a safe, trusted caregiver or parent.

• One thing you can do: Do special projects together.

2. Self-regulation: The ability to think before acting, which also involves learning to notice and manage urges such as hunger and sleep and feelings of anger, frustration and fear.

• One thing you can do: Model self-regulation by using a calm and matter-of-fact tone when responding to your child’s mistakes. Label your own feelings in a calm way, i.e. “I am feeling frustrated because…”

3. Affiliation: The ability to join others and contribute to a group. This strength is very related to a child’s ability to form attachments.

• One thing you can do: Get to know your child’s friends and offer opportunities for your child to be with peers their age at your home or in your presence.

4. Attunement: Thinking of others. This strength is about recognizing the needs, interests, strengths, and values of others. Responding to the needs of others is a core element of successful human communication.

• One thing you can do: Talk with your child about how to listen to others. Model un-biased approaches to interactions and people rather than stereotypes.

5. Tolerance: Accepting differences. This is the capacity to understand and accept how others are different from you.

• One thing you can do: Notice judgmental statements and work with your child to correct them whenever possible. Model openness to and interest in new situations, places, and people.

6. Respect: Respecting self and others. This involves appreciating the value in yourself as well as others.

• One thing you can do: Help your child feel valued and special; this builds self-respect and allows them to respect others. Focus on the positive with your child and remember the power of your words to undermine the development of a positive sense of self- especially critical/negative/disrespectful comments.

Building your child’s self-awareness about their feelings is a big piece of the emotional development puzzle. There are lots of ways to teach children to identify and verbalize their feelings while also having fun. Here are just a couple of ideas to get you started:

• For young children, put up a feeling faces chart somewhere central, like the kitchen. While you’re making meals, ask them to point to how they are feeling.  Download basic blank feeling faces chart or follow this link for some other chart ideas.

• Using a sharpie and a Jenga game, write feeling words on each Jenga wood piece. Play the game according to the instructions, adding that when a player removes a block from the stack during the game, they have to talk about a time they experienced the feeling written on their piece of wood. Follow this link for a list of feeling words you can use for your game.

Nature

There is mounting evidence that connection with nature makes children healthier, happier, more likely to care about the environment, and less prone to problems such as obesity and ADD. Though the importance of nature may seem obvious to many of you, frequent interaction with nature is not a part of life for the majority of families in this country. Kids are spending less time playing outdoors and for many families, accessible green space is nowhere to be seen. When you add in the time crunch faced by hard working parents, tech-fed kids, and parental fears about letting their kids play outside, we see what author Richard Louv calls “nature-deficit disorder.”

In his book, Last Child in the Woods, Louv makes the case for nature-deficit disorder, which is “not an official diagnosis but a way of viewing the problem, and describes the human costs of alienation from nature, among them: diminished use of the senses, attention difficulties, and higher rates of physical and emotional illnesses.” A University of Maryland study revealed that from 1997-2003 “there was a decline of 50 percent in the proportion of children 9-12 who spent time in such outside activities as hiking, walking, fishing, beach play, and gardening.”

The number one reason cited by parents for not letting their children play outdoors is fear about their child’s safety. Crimes against children are terrifying and unacceptable at any rate. Obsessive media coverage of such events may contribute to a perception among parents that violent crime against children by strangers is on the rise when, in fact, most abuse and abductions are perpetrated by relatives or family friends. In addition, the rate of violent crime against children is not rising; it is currently lower than 1975 levels (Children and Nature Network). Parents are wise to be protective and thoughtful about child safety, but it also seems important to weigh safety fears against the very real risks of fostering a sedentary, indoor lifestyle. “For public health workers, the effects of sedentary indoor lifestyles are already evident among children: startling rates of obesity, the onset of one-time adult conditions such as diabetes and a shortened life expectancy “ (from the October 2007 issue of The Nation’s Health). The need for more active engagement with nature is an emerging public health issue that has inspired a growing movement. As stated on the Children and Nature Network’s website, the “central goal of the children and nature movement is to help shape a society in which the public once again considers it to be normal and expected for children to be outside and playing in natural areas.”

Parents report that the number two reason for a lack of outdoor play is their children’s use of television and computers games. Kaiser Family Foundation did a study that found children age 8-18 spend an average of 45 hours per week using electronic media (2005 and 2006). In our tech-heavy culture, parents need to empower each other to set limits on computer and television use so that technological time does not usurp outdoor time spent doing activities that can enhance health, development, environmental awareness, and cognitive functioning.

The third most common barrier reported by parents is a lack of time to spend outdoors with their children. This is a factor of long workdays driven by economic need as well as poor urban planning. Families who live in urban settings that are low on public park space face additional burdens of travel time, planning, and potential traffic that could make getting outdoors a real hassle. Ensuring living wages and the development of accessible green space for all families need to be public health and child welfare priorities.

In the meantime, children benefit from our deliberate efforts at creating frequent and unstructured opportunities for them to play outdoors. If there is no green space nearby, consider filling a bucket or planter box with dirt and planting something (check out the gardening ideas in this issue’s Toddler Time). If necessary and/or possible, plan for excursions to more natural settings on weekends. Go camping during summer break – it’s a cheap and low-impact vacation option that promotes bonding and allows for lots of time spent breathing fresh air, tuning into natural rhythms, encountering wild animals, and getting away from the lure of computer and TV screens.

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When babies are new, we not only hold their bodies, but all their needs as well. Our mental and emotional landscape changes so that our thoughts, feelings, and interests re-orient around the priorities of protecting the infant and meeting all the baby’s basic needs for food, love, and attachment. This re-wiring is sometimes called the “maternal matrix.”

If mom is now holding all the infant’s needs, who or what is the holding environment for the mother? Who is holding her needs and supporting her in her expansive responsibility? This is one place in which the importance of community is clear. Moms benefit from support and connection with other mothers. In fact, their lives might depend on it.

Research has shown that the more friends women have, the healthier they are as they age. A Harvard Medical School study found that not having close friends was as damaging to women’s health as being obese or smoking cigarettes.

“All families need and deserve a community to support them in the critical work of nurturing and teaching the next generation” (from Becoming the Parent You Want to Be by Laura Davis and Janis Keyser). When we become parents, sometimes our relationships change along with everything else. Friends and activities that used to click might not mesh as well or at all now that there are kids in our lives.

Building a new support system once you have a little one is a worthwhile project. If you live far away from extended family support or don’t live in a place that where community organically develops around you, here are some ideas to explore:

• Playgrounds are great places to meet other parents.
• Parenting groups and moms’ gatherings like La Leche League, North Coast Parents, and playgroups are places you can get support on a regular schedule.
• Classes, i.e. parenting classes, Shoshana’s Thursday morning family belly dancing, creative movement for kids and parents at Ferndale Dance, Natural History Museum classes, etc.
• Volunteer at your child’s school.
• Connect with other moms 24 hours a day though discussion forums like mothering.com.
• Get information about local parenting events and ideas on local websites like Humboldt Bay Baby and North Coast Parents.
• Neighbors… why not invite the new family down the road over for a barbeque or some dessert? Kids can be great buffers for social situations like this… you can always talk about parenting them!

Creating and valuing community keeps us connected, promotes health, and can take the edge off when times are tough. It is also great modeling for our kids. When they see us valuing friendships and sharing our lives with other people they learn deep lessons from our example:

• Modeling positive social skills teaches positive social skills.
• Modeling caring, inclusive, and supportive relationships with friends teaches our children friendship skills.
• Kids whose parents have support feel the positive effects of healthier, happier, and less isolated parents.

Embracing a sense of community creates a model for our children about how they can be in the world as they grow and become independent adults. They will be healthier for it and so will we.