Information for Parents

If you have clicked this tab, you are probably a parent searching for answers, ideas, and more tools for raising your child. My guess is that you are struggling with managing all sorts of behaviors: stealing, lying, getting homework completed, completion of chores, hyperactivity, and so many others. You must be STRESSED!! BREATHE my friend. You are in the right place. Did you know that our stress can be felt by our children? Just like we feel their stress, they feel ours. Whew!! The challenge then becomes calming that stress. I love this analogy that Dr. Bryan Post uses...

If you've ever been on an airplane, you've heard the flight attendants tell you that the air masks will fall from above if needed. They say, "Please put your mask on before you help anyone else." Why do they say that? Because, if we are not able to breathe first, how can we help those around us. This fits with parenting too! If we ourselves are stressed, how can we help our children calm our stress?

Look at The Stress Model diagram: (this information was taken from www.postinstitute.com)

The Stress Model says, "All behavior arises from a state of stress. In between the state of stress (albeit good stress or bad stress) and the behavior, is the presence of an emotion. It is through the expression, processing, and understanding of the emotion that we can calm the stress (reducing the bodymind's overwhelming stress reaction) and diminish the behavior.

Critical Points:

• We only have two primary emotions: Love and Fear. That which does not look, feel, and can be perceived as loving, stems from a primary root of fear. Fear is the only viable opposite to Love. Yet, as it stands alone, love truly has no opposite. That which is not love is only fear. Examples of fear are the feelings of anger, jealousy, defiance, attachment disorder, anxiety, and depression, just to name a few. These various feelings and behaviors stem from a primary root of fear.

• The expression of emotion triggers fear reactions in others. When this occurs we are only able to see a threat. For instance, a child saying "no" to a parent creates an immediate stress reaction for the parent. This reaction will lead to a cascade of fear emotions on behalf of the parent. When this occurs the parent is unable to see clearly the essence of their child's behavior. Remember, when you feel threatened or afraid, you cannot see another person's fear because you are in a self-protect mode.

• According to Dr. Bruce Perry, M.D. we all respond to stress in one of two different ways, by becoming either hyper-aroused or hypo-aroused. These two states are referred to as states of affect dysregulation. Our ultimate drive is to live in a state of regulation (love) this state is referred to as the optimal state of functioning and development. Remember, some degree of stress is pertinent to our healthy growth and development, but too much stress leaves us trapped in a state of fear. If your child is chronically acting out or misbehaving, he or she is attempting to communicate to you that he or she is in a state of fear and overwhelming stress that cannot be interrupted without parental assistance.

Wow!! This information is a lot to take in. I know, I remember feeling overwhelmed when I first learned about The Stress Model. Then, I began applying it to my own life and working on my own stuff. What I realized is that many of us are emotionally broken. The Stress Model allows us a framework for understanding and processing some very deep emotions that are important to process. We are a society of stuffers...we stuff our emotions and we often hear that we need to move on. What if moving on is more harmful to us and thereby affects our children? What if we really need to process and understand our emotions to heal? The Stress Model does not say that we hold onto those emotions. The Stress Model says that we must process and understand our feelings so that we can move forward. If we don't recognize, process, and understand our feelings, they will play out in ugly, unhealthy ways. We must heal ourselves first before we can truly be present and understand our children. This is hard work! I truly believe that there is not a parent out there who aspires to be a "bad parent." What occurs is that as parents, we are bringing so much of our own baggage into this new relationship (with our children) that we react from an unconscious level.

The FIRST STEP is to acknowledge our own emotions and truly honor those emotions. Once we do this, we can move into a state of teaching and assisting our children to learn how to regulate themselves. You owe it to yourself to heal your heart. Be Extraordinary and Never Settle!!