Teaching our children by showing them 

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These last couple of years in particular has been quite stressful for not only us adults but also the children. From fires, to floods, to Covid 19 there has been some incredibly challenging times. So I thought these little things that I try to incorporate into my daily life may also help you and your children. It is a great way to help us to re evaluate our lives as to what is truly important.

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Mindfulness

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Mindfulness is a popular term at the moment.  I like to wake up early and sit on the beach, and listen, really listen to the waves, the birds and if I am lucky dolphins moving through the waves, and sometimes I may come across others who taking their morning walk and smile warmly or say hello. This is mindfulness. It is simply paying attention to what is happening in each moment and noticing elements of those occurrences. By being mindful we are not worrying about the future or what could happen. We do not feeding our fears within and in turn anticipating dread and uncertainty. In these moments we feel calm and relaxed. When we regularly practice mindfulness, we make it a habit and research tells us that the more mindful we are, we will reduce the chances of becoming stressed and anxious. We will all have moments of stress and anxiety; however, we increase our resilience by making mindfulness a habit. When we are faced with adversity, we can refer to one of our tools in our resilience toolkit and in this case, it is mindfulness.

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Meditation

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Some of us do not like to meditate as we feel it is too hard or we are too busy. Research highlights that even as little as 5 minutes each day has many benefits. Such as, it reduce stress, it increases feelings of gratitude and happiness. Meditation is a mindfulness practice. For example, you might choose to listen to gentle music, lay on the sofa and focus on deep breathing or go to a park and sit under a tree and listen to the sounds around you. Another way might be to listen to a guided meditation online or an app such as Calm or Headspace. There are many ways to meditate and it is best to find what works for you. I challenge you to do this for the next week and let us know in the comments below, what changes you noticed.

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Gratitude

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Many of us have heard of or discovered the many benefits of gratitude, and what better reason to start a gratitude practice than the challenges of now. 17 years of research has revealed that there are certain activities that truly happy people engage in.

They are:

· Adopting an optimistic view of life

· Exercising daily

· Setting specific goals and achieving them

· Documenting and expressing GRATITUDE

· Helping others

· Savouring life and the little moments

· Spending time with family and friends.

· Write a thank you letter (post it, read it aloud over the phone or face to face on FaceTime)

· Thank someone in your mind (a silent thank you, like a prayer)

· Create a gratitude journal (purchase or make one for each family member. Write 3 things each day that you all feel grateful for and share during dinner time)

· Count your blessings (write them down)

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Five-steps to emotion coaching children:

 

STEP 1

Awareness of your child’s emotions

· Awareness of your own myriad of emotions

· Tap into your child’s feelings

· Know and teach that emotions are a natural and vital aspect of life

· Observe all emotional expressions - be it facial, body language and tone of voice.

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STEP 2

Connection and intimacy with your child

· Emotions are opportunities for connection

· Avoid evasion of emotions, hoping they will disappear

· Emotions are opportunities for coaching

· Encourage your child to talk about emotions

· Offer coaching before negative emotion builds into poor behaviour.

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STEP 3

Listen to your child with empathy

· Display a sense of respect and take their emotions seriously

· Validate your child’s emotions and show you understand

· Understand how they are feeling from their point of view.

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STEP 4

Name emotions

· Assist your child to label the emotions they are feeling

· Labelling emotions helps calm a child

· Model emotion labelling and talk about your own emotions

· Teach them - emotions are healthy, natural and normal.

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STEP 5

Explore solutions and problem-solve together

· Convey that the emotion is not the issue, it is the behaviour

· Assist them to identify their feelings and emotions and coach why their behaviour was inappropriate

· Encourage emotional expression and set clear boundaries around behaviour

· Problem-solve together, including goal setting in relation to any challenges

· Help by selecting a solution together and perhaps share an example from your life experience

· Be patient and allow for learning

· Watch for your child doing things right and praise her

· Do household chores together and work as a team.