Tag Archives: Juli Idleman

Building Support for Your Parenting

Photo (C) Julia Freeman-Woolpert 2007

When I was pregnant many people said, “Your life’s going to change once you have kids.” And while I nodded in agreement, nothing prepared me for the moment my daughter was born and my life really did change. As I held this perfect little person in my arms I realized I would do anything for her. And so, my journey as a parent had begun.

Parenting has been a path of joy and hardship for me, from sweet moments filled with snuggles and giggles to challenging moments filled with little fists and harsh words. No matter how dark my path has seemed at times, I continue to follow the light of connection toward my daughter. With the support I have found through Hand in Hand and my listening partners I see my priorities are shifting. I remind myself connection is more important than getting to school on time and playing in the rare rain of Central Oregon is worth postponing bedtime.

When parenting gets hard I now have a network of people who hold the space that I will find my way through this. My wish is to connect parents everywhere with the support they deserve. I hope you’ll join me for this months teleseminar on Building Support for Your Parenting. Please comment here with any questions you have on this topic and we’ll try to answer as many as possible during the call.

In the meantime, check out the Yahoo Group Hand in Hand Discuss. This online community is a wonderful resource for parents using the Hand in Hand tools. You can also connect with parents by searching the Yahoo Group Listening Partner Database (once you’re a group member) or check out the comments in our previous blog post Finding Parenting by Connection Parents in Your Area.

Let’s support each other in the worthy (and hard!) work of nurturing children!

~ Michelle Pate, Parenting by Connection Instructor and Consultant. Join her Building Emotional Understanding course, beginning September 13.

2010 Instructor Certification Program

You can make a difference in how the next generation is raised. Apply today.

Learn to support parents in your community and help them build strong families where children get what they need to be physically and mentally healthy, achieve well in school, lead nonviolent lives, respect their bodies and turn into compassionate and caring adults themsleves.

This year-long program is open to individuals with the skills and experience to teach, support and mentor parents and child care professionals as they learn the tools of Parenting by Connection. Due to the high level of interest in Hand in Hand certification, we will offer a distance learning program along with the local training sessions. Even so, there still may not be room for all the highly qualified candidates we would like to accept. We hope to continue to increase the size of the program in 2011 to allow us to train all the qualified candidates who apply.

The Healing Power of Parenting

shadowI have been attending Hand in Hand PlayMornings with my daughter for about six years now.  She has grown from an active, spunky, determined and loudly expressive toddler into an active, spunky, determined and loudly expressive third-grader.  But the changes in me are much more pronounced. 

Already thirty-five when my daughter was born, I had been looking forward to parenthood for many years.  I had worked with children, watched carefully as my friends and relatives sailed into family life and read all the books about child development and what to expect.  In other words, I was as clueless and unprepared for the reality of life with an infant as any average parent.

Sleep deprived, begrudgingly recovering from an unplanned C-section and terrified that I was doing a ‘bad job’ because my new ‘boss’ cried even when I thought I was parenting by the book, I gradually became afraid I was coming unhinged.  I looked fine on the outside.  I went to playgroup and Gymboree and baby music lessons.  I took care of myself and my daughter.  I compared Well Baby visits and teething tales with other moms in the park.  Yet, at odd moments, I found myself seemingly irrationally furious over bits of my own childhood I hadn’t considered in decades.  Why was I plagued by thoughts of my less-than-ideal childhood when I should be enjoying my daughter’s happy one?

That question nudged me forward into the eventual discovery of Hand in Hand and a much needed Tantrum Training class.  I remember feeling physically relieved and comforted by the time I left the first session of class.  With the class gratefully completed, I still struggled with restimulation and being distracted from my daughter’s present by my own past, but I had learned that was part of the package and a powerful opportunity for growth.  Many re-readings of the Listening to Children booklets accompanied me on further journeys that opened up Special Time and Playlistening possibilities in my parenting and helped me move from the fog and anxiety of restimulation into the natural connection and joyful silliness I share with my daughter today. 

So,  I hope you will join me in reaching out to new parents.  Even if they look like they have read all the books and know what to expect.  I have a feeling some of them might appreciate a hand more than you might think.

- Juli Idleman from the January 2008 Connecting! Newsletter

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The Value of a Good Tantrum

cryingtoddlerLast weekend, somewhere between the collards and the spinach, the peaceful plodding of putting in our Fall garden went wrong and I got really grumpy with my husband, Tom.
One minute we were chatting over seedlings and the next I was feeling wronged and misunderstood.  After some less than helpful squabbling, Tom, brilliant man that he is, took a deep breath, looked right at me, and said, “OK, tell me all of it.”"I hate it when you judge me!” I ranted and raved.  I went on recounting inconveniences that were building steam in the back of my mind as resentments.  Before I knew it, I was talking about the hard look in my mother’s eyes when she deemed one of my childhood accomplishments beneath her notice. He was sitting right beside me handing me a Kleenex.  And I was already starting to feel better.

When I stepped into the garden half an hour before, I had had no idea all of that was brewing inside of me.  If my husband hadn’t stopped to pay attention and listen, I might not know it now.  That gift of caring attention helped me release the feelings that were interfering with my ability to relate to Tom and feel connected and understood.  I also learned some important things about myself while building a stronger sense of closeness in my marriage.

And this is exactly what children need when they have their tantrums.  Whether you are four or forty, being human means having to deal with a lot of feelings, feelings that don’t come with a time stamp. They can sneak up on you, just like Tom triggering memories of how small and insignificant I felt as a child under my mother’s judgmental gaze.  And we all, big and small, deserve the opportunity to share how we feel in a caring, thoughtful and non-judgmental space.

It saddens me when I hear parents proudly say they don’t put up with tantrums and send their kids off to the solitary confinement of their rooms until they can behave “properly.”  I know they love their children, but what a lost opportunity to nurture and support them!  That would be like my husband telling me, “I have no intention of loving all of you.  I only want to see the parts that work for me.”

We are social animals.  We all need connection with others.  And sometimes, when we are overwhelmed with feelings, relating “properly” gets hard to do.  But opening your heart and your arms to the feelings that are overwhelming your child clears her mind, allows her to think and learn unhindered by emotional baggage and builds an essential level of trust and closeness in the relationship between you.

So, the next time your two-year-old starts to fall apart in the grocery store, just imagine I am there with you, with one arm around your shoulders saying, “Wow!  You’re a lucky parent. What a great chance for you guys to get closer.”  Maybe that will help you take a deep breath, bend down, and say, “Tell me all of it.”

–Juli Idleman

Finding Parenting by Connection Parents in Your Area

USMapAre you looking for other Parenting by Connection parents near you to share a Study Group, exchange Listening time, help bring Hand in Hand to your area for a workshop or to build community around your parenting?

You can leave a comment below with your location, what kind of connections you’d like to build and be sure to include the contact info you’d like to share. (Write out your email address as “you at yourdomain” rather than “you@yourdomain” to keep away spam.) Other parents in your area can read your comment and connect with you and we’ll all be able to support one another a little bit better.

Thanks for Listening!

Juli
Julianne Idleman
Hand in Hand Program Director

Putting Limits on Fear

stairsI had about had it with not being able to go to the bathroom alone. My normally independent and self-directed daughter was going through a fearful stage where she would literally scream if she discovered she was alone in a room, even if she could hear you right in the next one.

If she had to go to the bathroom, she wanted you to come with her.  If she needed a toy from upstairs, she would insist she could not possibly get it without adult company. I was sorry she was scared, but I wanted to find a way to encourage her back into living her life without her Mommy-as-security-blanket.

So one Sunday my husband and I spent the whole day with my daughter. We took her out for the day with some of her friends and then the three of us had a quiet dinner together at home.  When we were cleaning up the kitchen after our dinner, I asked my daughter to run upstairs and get the breakfast tray she had left at the foot of my bed that morning.  She refused, saying she was too frightened.

I took a deep breath.  It had been a really good day.  I thought maybe it was time for us both to face this fear head on. Setting limits isn’t my favorite part of parenting.  I’m not always certain about when to nurture and when to foster independence, what is an appropriate challenge and what is asking too much of my child.

I bent down and looked at my daughter. Then, softly but with certainty, I told her that I knew she could do it and that I would stand downstairs, where I could see her go down the hall because there’s a balcony.  I reminded her that she was safe.  She began to cry and rant that she couldn’t get the breakfast tray and she would not get the tray.

I was in a good place after a nice day together with my daughter and her stepdad, so I decided to hold the limit and let the feelings come.  I touched her shoulder and softly told her I could see that she was afraid but that I knew she could do it and I would watch from downstairs.  She insisted she would die of fright.  I told her that I could see she was so scared it felt like she might die, but that she could do it. We went back and forth like that for 45 minutes, which built into shaking and crying and at one point she even screamed for “Help!” over and over.  I don’t know where it came from but there was certainly a big pile of terror packed into that little girl.

But she eventually did it! When she finally made it down the hall and got the breakfast tray, she threw the tray as hard as she could down the stairs, still crying heartily.  I gave it back to her.  She threw it two or three more times before carrying it down into the kitchen.  Downstairs she let me hold her while she cried the rest of the available fears out.  “You did it,” I reminded her.

Then she sat up, got herself a glass of milk and said, “I’m going to watch a show before bed.”  Her stepdad and I stared at one another a bit shaken from all the emotion.  But she just walked off, into another room, all by herself, without a backwards glance!

I felt so glad she could trust me with that big chunk of terror.  If I had rushed in to rescue her, comfort her, tell her I would go with her to get the tray, she wouldn’t have been able to let the feelings out and all that nasty stuff would still be stuck inside her festering.  This way is loud, shaky and messy, and I know I’m not helping her perfectly, but at least I know that we can both survive whatever it is she may need to feel and still be able to move forward with both our lives.

–Juli Idleman

Keeping Feelings Moving

One of our longtime instructors tells a story about an interaction with her daughter that happened early in her divorce. The instructor was angry and frustrated with her soon-to-be ex-husband. She had just ended a difficult phone conversation with him. She was brimming with emotion as she stood at the kitchen sink in tears. Her young daughter came into the room and asked her what was wrong. She told the girl, honestly but briefly, “I’m upset about your dad.” The daughter opened her arms and ran across the room to hug her mother saying, “I miss him too,” and burst into tears.

In this moment, parent and child were able to share comfort and connection, even though their feelings of upset had different beginnings and tones. Children need to share their feelings with us. They need our loving attention in order to feel safe enough to fully experience their often intense and sometimes frightening emotions. Human beings of all ages have a basic need to “feel felt.” We are social animals built to experience and share our lives with others like us. When the full range of our emotional experience is welcomed, we feel connected, whole and well.

One thing we all know about emotions is that they rapidly change. (The word emotion comes from the French esmovoir “to set in motion, i.e., to move the feelings.”) Tempers can flare in an instant. And just as easily, an experience that made us furious when it happened becomes an amusing anecdote once we get a little distance from it. The classmate we couldn’t stand in fifth grade becomes much more appealing as Senior Prom rolls around.

Our mood fluctuates like internal weather; sometimes our attitude is sunny, sometimes it is stormy, but it is always ready to flow into something else. Being stuck in one emotion is a sure sign that children need our loving attention in order to coax the natural process of emotional flexibility back into action. Our warm acceptance brings out the upset that is clogging the works and allows the child to feel felt as they share whatever rain needs to fall before their internal skies can be sunny again.

“Sounds easy on paper,” you say, “But how exactly do I do that?” Tomorrow, set aside some time to notice what your child is feeling. Do they wake up grumpy or delighted? Are they pleased they dressed themselves or dismayed that Special Time is over? Watch how they shift through a range of feelings over a short amount of time. Notice when feelings get “stuck,” or are carried from one situation into the next. Be aware of any tension building. When upset builds (which happens to all of us sooner or later), go to your child, make eye contact, touch him warmly and reassuringly, show your interest, and see what happens. As children take in your willingness to share emotional moments with them, they will increasingly accept your offers of connection to show you the feelings they carry, so they don’t have to manage them alone.

As your child’s built up feelings start to find expression, your job is to attend to these emotions. We call this Staylistening, and it’s your key to helping your child feel felt. His emotions might be loud and they probably won’t be pretty, but they are normal.

Listening to the feelings loosens their hold on your child. There’s nothing you need to fix or change. Simply give your child your warm, caring attention. You don’t need to agree that the emotions are warranted or feel responsible for redirecting your child into a different, more sensible response. Your child will feel felt whenever you can act as a generous and interested audience that is ready to share in the processing of these feelings. (His appreciation of your steadfast caring comes at the end of his emotional outburst, though–he can’t manage to give you love or reassurance during the upset.) His great big feelings can then dissolve into the flow of feelings that move and change with your child through the day.

For more in-depth information you may want to read the Listening to Children booklets you can order through our website: www.handinhandparenting.org

- Juli Idleman and Patty Wipfler