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The Whole Brain Child

I just started reading the The Whole Brain Child by Daniel J. Siegel, M.D. and Tina Payne Byrson, Ph.D. The sub-title states that it is twelve revolutionary strategies to nurture your child’s developing mind.

I won’t pretend that I’m a brain expert or even good at explaining the brain, but I like what I’ve read in Chapter 1 “Parenting with the Brain in Mind:”

“What molds are brains? Experience…It means that we aren’t held captive for the rest of our lives by the way our brain works at this moment…Genes, of course, play a large role in how people turn out, especially in terms of temperament…parents have much they can do to provide the kinds of experiences that will help develop a resilient, well-integrated brain…An integrated brain results in improved decision making, better control of body and emotions, fuller self understanding, stronger relationships, and success in school.”

Honestly, I felt relief that I didn’t cause Elise’s temperament, but at the same time, there’s probably much I have done to influence how she handles herself through out day. Thankfully how Elise has learned to relate to the world can be influenced by experiences; she can learn. And I can learn how to better nurture her developing mind, too; we don’t have to feel stuck (held captive) to our current experiences. To help me and Elise on this journey, the authors talk about navigating the waters between chaos and rigidity:

“So one extreme is chaos, where there’s lack of control. The other extreme is rigidity, where there’s too much control, leading to a lack of flexibility and adaptability. We all move back and forth between these two banks as we go through our days – especially as we’re trying to survive parenting. When we are closest to the banks of chaos or rigidity, we’re farthest from mental and emotional health.”

I think we have definitely experienced some days where we were far from emotional and mental health. So as we enter into the summer days that were very trying for us last summer, I am thankful to have a book that will help me navigate the waters between chaos and rigidity. Here’s to hoping we all end the summer in good mental and emotional health!

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In the Depths

Elise was pretending to make a mad face in the picture to the left, but that face is reflective of how everyone in our family felt over the weekend.

We feel like we have been in the depths these past couple of days. A flurry of activity, a little sister’s birthday party, Mother’s Day events, scary blue monsters, bears, and ants waking us up in the middle of night (AKA nightmares), parents being accused of all manner of things (by the children), trying it again and again and again, and “time in” (as opposed to “time out”) have made for an exhausting weekend. The kind of weekend where you planned family time to celebrate a birthday and Mother’s Day, but your children just wanted their regular routine. And you are left trying to salvage the day without losing your mind. When will it end, we wonder? Will it end? Will we get back to normal again?

NT Wright offers this prayer: “Gracious Lord, when we are in the depths, come to us with your mercy and assure us of your power to rescue. And give us the patience to wait for you to do it.”

I mean that prayer to be directed at me, not my children. I need the Lord to rescue me from my exhaustion, impatience, and surly attitude so I can reconnect with my children. I have the knowledge; I have read the books; I have done the training. But can I keep my cool and recall what will best help my children or do I lose it?

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Try it Again

When we first learned about the Empowered to Connect concepts, Elise was eighteen months old. We still started implementing what we learned, and we are thankful that we had tools to help us through various conflicts. The tool that is helping us the most right now is “try it again.” We try everything again. At the first hint of correction, Elise will usually try to head you off by asking if she can try it again. Sometimes Elise even recreates scenarios days later so she can try it again and again and again. She loves it, and we do, too.

But sometimes, I find myself the one needing to try it again. Only, I’m not as quick as Elise to jump at a chance to redo. Usually, I’m chastising myself for losing my temper or patience again, instead of offering myself the same chance to try again at connecting with Elise – instead of modeling the behavior I want Elise to learn.

Do you let yourself try it again or only your kids? Do you give yourself grace and compassion too or only defeat and chastisement? Do you ask for forgiveness or only expect your children to?

Watch as Amy Monroe talks about learning and modeling how to repair.

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Experiencing Different Textures

My oldest daughter has been in my home longer than she was in an orphanage in Vietnam. And sometimes it’s easy to convince myself that those 6 and ½ months in the orphanage didn’t have much of an effect on her, but I am often reminded that it did. As my youngest daughter, who is 8 months old, explores and crawls around our home, it triggers memories of Elise doing the same.

As my youngest crawls everywhere seamlessly transitioning from seasgrass rug to laminate flooring to carpet, a memory of Elise walking around the edge of the seagrass rug for several months comes to mind. As my youngest grabs Elise’s plush hand me down toys, it strikes me that Elise never played with that toy, but she did enjoy all things plastic. As my youngest, latches on to a lovey, a baby doll, or a stuffed purple monkey, I remember Elise not loving a stuffed animal until she was one. And since turning three in June, Elise now has many stuffed animals and a favorite blanket.

After many months, Elise learned to branch out from just plastic toys, and she stopped walking around the edge of our seagrass rug. Currently, she prefers cotton knit pants to jeans and will occasionally don a bathing suit in the winter, but that could just be three-year-old antics.

The way Elise coped with different textures is a part of sensory processing. Sensory processing is something adoptive parents should educate themselves about. Dr. Karyn Purvis talks about sensory processing in this video:

Understanding Sensory Processing from Tapestry on Vimeo.

This post also appeared on http://tapestryministry.org/blog

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Overreacting

I’m sure no other parent is guilty of overreacting. My daughter can be quite dramatic and sometimes the things she says are worrisome, “Momma my legs are sore because there’s blood all over.” There’s clearly not blood all over her legs. But what does she mean? I wanted to be thorough, so I talked to some friends who helped me rule out blood clots, remembered that her infant multi-vitamin had iron in it, and googled iron deficiencies. After all, she went through a battery of blood tests between 6 and 8 months and follow up tests at a year and 2 years to check for a specific kind of anemia. I decided she needed to add iron to her multi-vitamin since she used to take a multi-vitamin with iron as an infant.  Plus Google said her cranky attitude was a symptom of iron deficiency.  (Side note: She has been taking her multi-vitamin with iron for two weeks and her cranky attitude has not been miraculously cured.)

This is just an example of me trying to track down a logical explanation to something my daughter said. Sometimes she’s being dramatic, sometimes she’s avoiding clean up time, and sometimes there is an adoption related issue. Now, I don’t think every parent should overreact or overthink a situation like me, but if you do have questions about nutritionhttp://adoptionnutrition.org is a great resource. Tapestry blogged about the website in this blog post, “Focusing on Food and Nutrition.”

In my defense, iron deficiency is possible in children from Vietnam, but at the end of the day, I was just trying to grasp a reason as to why my daughter is so cranky and why she says there’s blood all over. I’m not sure I’ll ever know what she meant by that statement (or eradicate all her cranky attitudes), but at least she likes her new vitamins.

This post also appeared on http://tapestryministry.org/blog

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Fear

When we made our annual trip to Horn Creek Colorado this past August, I signed up for the high ropes course. I had tried things out like this in my teenage years, but I was not prepared to feel so scared.

As I was climbing up the pole to begin the course, I kept thinking why am I doing this? And then once I was up, my heart started pounding, but I didn’t want to give up. I had to sing “Oh God, you are my God, and I will ever praise you REPEAT And step by step you’ll lead me, and I will follow you all of my days,” just to get across the ropes from one platform to the next. I never looked down, and I just kept singing those words to myself over and over again. When I finally made it to the zipline and touched the ground again, I felt so relieved. I was immediately aware that my heart was still pounding; I was thirsty, hungry, and exhausted. I got some water, a snack, and took some deep breaths until I calmed my body back down, and then I rested.

I was with some families from Tapestry, so we joked about how we needed the some of the strategies we learned in Empowered to Connect to help us through the high ropes course. But the reality is, my body and mind went through a fear response and recovered from it because I knew how to recognize what my body needed. Some of our children can deal with fear responses everyday if not constantly. Their hearts can always be racing as they struggle to feel felt safety. I had never realized how taxing a condition of fear could be until I experienced it for about 20-30 minutes. Is it any wonder some of our kids can have epic meltdowns? If they feel scared or threatened by a situation, we have no idea how long their hearts and adrenaline have been pounding especially if your child is unaware of their need and doesn’t have the tools to help themselves.

Empowered to Connect has some videos made by Dr. Karyn Purvis. Listen to Dr. Purvis talk about impact of fear.

This post also appeared on http://tapestryministry.org/blog.

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Things Were Better Before You Came

I recently read “Things Were Better Before You Came.” It’s a memoir written by Doug Walker, an adoptee.

Doug always knew he was adopted; he says, “The knowledge of my adoption was an extremely significant factor contributing to my self-worth. I had never been given any reason to doubt my parents’ love for me because I believed had been chosen.” Then one day in a moment of frustration Doug’s mother said the words that became the title of this book, “Things were better before you came.” As Doug works through how this statement affected him, he reflects a lot on his relationship with his mother.

What I found most interesting was how Doug considered how his mother’s past affected her parenting. He says, “I am now also able to acknowledge how much pain she had endured and how …[it]… contributed to her struggles as a parent.” Doug’s story is a good reminder to us deal with our pasts so we can better connect with our children. This is something Dr. Purvis talks about in her book “The Connected Child,” and in this video Looking at Ourselves to Help Our Children Heal.

Looking at Ourselves to Help Our Children Heal from Tapestry on Vimeo.

For more from Dr. Karyn Purvis visit http://www.empoweredtoconnect.org

To learn more about Doug Walker’s book visit http://thingswerebetter.com and learn more about Doug visit The Fellowship of the Parks.

This post also appeared on http://tapestryministry.org/blog.