Catherine DePino - Parenting Mindfully: 101 Ways to Help Raise Caring and Responsible Kids in an Unpredictable World

Parenting Mindfully

ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD

Lanham Boulder New York London

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To my daughter and son-in-law, Shayna and Len,

who love spending time with their children while helping them

become smart, caring, responsible human beings.

The family is the salt of the earth and the light of the world.

It is the leaven of society.Pope Francis

At Rowman & Littlefield, Id like to thank Carlie Wall, managing editor, for her help and kindness and Dr. Tom Koerner, vice president and editorial director, for his constant support and encouragement. I also want to thank Sheree Bycofsky, a caring literary agent.

How Can Mindfulness Help You Raise Smart, Caring, Responsible Kids?

More than ever, life in our world, nation, and communities appears insecure and unpredictable. Every day, new and disturbing incidents pop up on the news that feed this sense of unrest. In our communities, people dont attempt to understand each others points of view, causing compromise to give way to discord and conflict. Politics, lifestyles, and religion are all fair game for fomenting conflict in our divided society.

Many of us live with a sense of tension and alienation because of our uncertain, unpredictable world. This unremitting stress, in turn, filters down to the way we raise our children and the way our kids respond to accepting the values we work hard to impart.

Schools feel the fallout from this sense of insecurity and unpredictability in the form of increased conflict within the school community and increased incidents of bullying. Children of all ages, especially elementary and middle school kids, experience more anxiety these days than kids growing up in their parents generation. They feel the relentless push for academic excellence in which theyre measured against an arbitrary standard rather than against their own abilities. Furthermore, pressure to fit in with peers abounds, often at the expense of nourishing childrens unique sense of individuality and self-worth.

Parenting mindfully can help you provide your kids with a buffer against an insecure, unpredictable world and the stresses associated with it. Following the principles of Mindfulness can help you raise kids who become school smart, street smart, caring human beings. If you want to help promote character traits in your kids like compassion, kindness, and respect for you and others, using mindfulness techniques can help jumpstart these traits in your children. Moreover, raising kids the mindful way can help them navigate an increasingly complex world where uncertainty and insecurity reign.

Stop for a moment. Imagine what it would be like if you could begin to find a way to parent your kids successfully despite the growing negativity in the world. Parenting mindfully can help both you and your kids discover a new and rewarding way of living, and thats a promise.

Many school districts are incorporating Mindfulness programs, and parents are studying its precepts to help them raise happy, well-adjusted kids and to help themselves in the process. Mindfulness, popularized by the Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, and brought to this country by Jon Kabat-Zinn and his Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Program, helps people of all ages live satisfying and fulfilling lives by encouraging them to live in the present rather than in the past or the future. Although meditation is an important component of Mindfulness programs, Parenting Mindfully focuses on using the principles of Mindfulness to help kids ages 6-14 live their best possible lives.

You probably know that once kids get older, its harder to change their way of thinking. Thats why this book targets parents of elementary and middle school kids. You, as their parent and main teacher, are the best person to show your kids how to maximize their talents and potential for happiness while minimizing the stresses and tensions that characterize our frenzied lifestyles.

Using the principles of Mindfulness not only helps you raise strong, resilient kids, it also helps you improve your own physical and emotional health. As you begin to use these techniques to help your children grow and flourish, youll help yourself become more patient, tolerant, flexible, and compassionate. Because youre willing to be an active listener, your children will listen more when you talk and will talk back less. Since youre willing to speak assertively rather than aggressively to your kids, theyll reciprocate by speaking to you in a more polite, respectful manner.

You will find threads of Mindfulness woven throughout all the activities in this book. In a world that stresses perfection in outward appearance and intelligence, Mindfulness assumes that your children are fine exactly as they are, a concept many children struggle with in their interactions with peers. Another characteristic of Mindfulness, acceptance of what happens in the present moment, but not necessarily agreement with it, helps children cope with the many uncertainties they face each day.

Its equally important that kids demonstrate curiosity, another hallmark of Mindfulness, when problem-solving or interacting with other children during mild disagreements or heated disputes. They need to fully understand the other persons message before becoming needlessly upset. Curiosity helps kids ask the right questions to find the best answers. Being curious and asking questions also helps promote better communication. When youre gently curious while talking with your children about their concerns, you can pinpoint problems theyre facing and help them find answers.

Mindfulness in communication helps diffuse arguments and promote understanding. Mindfulness asks us to pay attention to Metacommunication when interacting with others; in this case, our kids. This simply means listening to the messages that go beyond the words we use with one another. Body language, eye contact, word choice, and pitch often reveal the true messages that words dont convey.