Power Source Parenting Session 3

 I was too scared to talk to my mother about things I really needed to talk to her about because she was never there for me like that. But I want my son to be able to talk to me about his problems and come to me when he needs advice. I want him to be able to trust me. I want to have a good relationship with my son something I never had. I want him to have someone he can go to no matter what he is going through. And I want him to know I’ll always be here for him no matter what.  17-year-old participant

 We will do as a class.

 ✔ What thoughts, feelings or body sensations came up during the meditation?  ✔ What was the visualization like? Could they imagine being there with their baby?

 Have you ever done something on “autopilot.”? That means doing something without really paying attention to what they’re doing. Like watching TV while eating a bag of potato chips.  One minute there’s a full bowl, next thing you just have a bunch of greasy fingers, but you don’t really remember the experience eating the chips. Or riding the bus and missing your stop because you were thinking about something else.

 Meditation is the opposite of autopilot. It helps us learn to pay attention to what’s happening in the moment.  It helps us “tune in” to what’s going on within us and around us.  What are the dangers of eating on autopilot?  What are the dangers of riding the bus on autopilot?

 There are also some problems of being a parent on autopilot and we’re going to talk about that today.  The biggest problem is that if we’re on autopilot, we’re not really tuning into our babies. We might find ourselves talking in a tone of voice that’s too harsh without really being aware of what we’re doing. Or handling the baby too roughly. Or just not being there for him or her.

 Meditation helps us pay attention to our child in a more tuned in way so we can be more effective parents.

 Objective Introduce the concept of trust and the impact of a trusting relationship on children’s social- emotional development.  Outline Today we’re going to talk about building trust with our children. Read Denise’s story on page 40.

✔ Can you relate to this story. ✔ If so, in what way?  Bonding doesn’t always happen automatically.  Even if you didn’t feel a natural bond to your child right away, it is a connection that can develop with love and patience.

 We’ll talk about how to build a good, strong bond with your baby in this session.  First we’ll talk about why bonding is so important.  Review page 41 regarding the importance and impact of trust.

Why do you think children who don’t have safe, trusting relationships with their parents…  ✔ Do worse in school?  Children who don’t feel safe have a harder time focusing and paying attention  ✔ Have problems making friends?  They learn not to trust people because you could get hurt  ✔ Feel bad about themselves?  They feel that if they were good and worth loving that their parents would treat them better

 Objective: Explore with participants the parental behaviors associated with trusting parent-child relationships.  Outline: Before we can create trusting relationships with our children, we have to know what effective parent skills help build trust.  Read Stephanie’s story on page 44.

 ✔ Can you spoil a baby if you respond to all of their needs?  No. Babies cannot be spoiled.  ✔ Should you always pick up or go to a crying baby? Yes, if the crying persist.  ✔ What do other people in your family tell you about spoiling a baby?  ✔ What does your parenting radar tell you?

 Objective: To explore participant’s own trust histories and to clarify their intentions regarding building a trusting relationship with their child.  Outline: Complete My Trust History worksheet

 Highlight the legacy of trust – how you are raised often determines how much you trust.  ✔ What do we sacrifice if we don’t trust others? Intimacy Love Connections to others  ✔ How might a person grow up feeling like hurt and pain are normal parts of love?

 ✔ Do you see a connection between your trust histories and how trusting you are now?  ✔ Did your trust histories impact your lives in other ways?  ✔ How would you like your children’s trust histories to be different than your own?

 ✔ Can anyone recall seeing a parent or an adult you trusted do something cruel or “messed-up?”  ✔ What did that make you feel like?  ✔ Did it change the way you felt about that person?

 Objective: To increase awareness of negative affect leakage and its emotional impact.  Outline: Children get a lot of their feelings of safety or trust by “reading” people’s faces. For example, you might be mad about something else, but if you have an angry look on your face when you’re changing your baby’s diaper or feeding her, it might send her the message that you are mad at her.

 One person pretends to be the “mother.” The other person pretends to be the “child.”  Read the following scenarios, the “mother” imagines how this situation would make her feel and makes the face. The face should reflect how she would feel if this happened to her. The “child” asks: What are you feeling? (to the “Mother”) The “child” then states how she would feel if her mother were making this face. The “mother” and “child switch roles after three scenarios and repeat.

 #1. You just found out that your friend is talking behind your back.  #2. It’s your birthday and your friends brought you a cake.  #3. You realize you’re 20 minutes late leaving the house because your alarm didn’t go off.  #4. Your mother criticized you for how you take care of the baby.  #5. You can’t find your bag with your wallet in it.  #6. You woke up early to go to school, but realized it’s Saturday and you get to go back to bed.

 ✔ What did you notice about this exercise?  ✔ Were you surprised at the faces you saw in the mirror?  ✔ What did you notice about the connection between your expressions and your feelings?  ✔ What expressions did you remember your own parents having when they were angry?  ✔ If you were the “baby” and saw some of these looks on your parents’ faces, what would you have felt?

 “Fix Your Face” is a Good Move to help participants with affect regulation.  Whenever they notice their faces becoming very angry, fearful, or stressed you are encouraged to tune in and “Fix Their Face.”  Do this by either smiling or simply taking some deep breaths and relaxing the muscles in their faces.

 Objective: To raise participants’ awareness regarding the distorted or negative thoughts they hold about their baby and to modify these cognitions and decrease the expression of potentially damaging labels.  Outline: So far we’ve talked about ways to build trust with your baby like gentle touch, being good listeners, and “tuning in,” and “fixing your face.”

 Now we’re going to talk about something that can eat away at the trust we’ve built.  And that’s when we call our baby’s names or say harsh things about them.  Some people call these poison names or poison thoughts.

 ✔ Can you guess why?  Brainstorm: What are some of the harsh things you heard caregivers say about you growing up?  How did being called those names make you feel?  ✔ How did they make you feel toward your parent?

 Even apparently non-abusive statements like, “What’s wrong with you?” And “You’re just like your father!” send the message that the child is somehow defective.  Effective parenting means being aware of and stopping those thoughts about your baby before you say them.  We call it slam dunking.

 Objective: To reinforce the importance of mindful and sensitive touch as a means of building trust.  Outline Complete the touch poem.

 ✔ Do you believe the statement made by the poem (the quality and sensitivity of touch is sometimes passed from generation to generation)?