guilt busters Archives - Happy Healthy Kids

Holiday Goal #3: Be Kinder to Yourself

December 11, 2015 by Kelley Leave a Comment

As we go full-steam into the busy holiday season, we’re featuring guest posts from three wellness professionals who specialize in helping parents feel more centered and energized. On January 23, coaches Cory Halaby and Molly Maguire Shrewsberry and nutritionist Stacy Kennedy are also leading the Wellesley Wellness Retreat, where they’ll teach moms strategies for self-care and managing family life all year long. If you live anywhere near the Boston area, register now for the morning program as well as yoga, private coaching sessions, nutritional counseling, and massage in the afternoon. It’s sure to be a motivational and relaxing day.

In the final post of the week, wellness coach Molly Shrewsberry reminds us to be kind to just about the last person on our minds this month: ourselves. Molly is a health and wellness coach and creator of Love Well Live Well, a blog platform focused on the role of self-love and its impact on overall health and wellness.

During the holidays we tend to be extra hard on ourselves. The expectations we set are high: mailing out the perfect card, starting new traditions, attending every event we are invited to (and making sure we bring a delicious dish), finding meaningful gifts for all on our list, and creating a blissful atmosphere filled with nothing but positive, happy memories for our children.

These unrealistic expectations often end with disappointment, mixed with more than a few moments of guilt, negative self-talk, guilt, comparing, stress, irritation—and did I mention guilt?

This year, instead of giving into the madness, why not focus instead on giving yourself the gift of self-compassion. Parenting is hard work everyday, but extra challenging during the holidays. You are doing an amazing job…no matter how many things haven’t seemed to go your way or how long your to-do list is.

And when it comes to gifts for other people, let me simplify it for you: When it comes down to it, YOU are what people—in particular, your kids—want for the holidays. Spending time with mom and dad is more important to them than the toys on their list (as much as it doesn’t seem that way!) Don’t believe me? Watch this video. It’s a tear-jerker and great reminder.

As an added bonus, when you give yourself a break—and focus on things you need to do to be, above all, present and happy—you give the gift of modeling self-compassion for your kids. There’s nothing better than that.

How to start being more compassionate to yourself this month? Dr. Kristin Neff, the self-compassion guru, breaks this down to three elements.

1. Self-Kindness: “Self-compassion entails being warm and understanding toward ourselves when we suffer, fail, or feel inadequate, rather than ignoring our pain or flagellating ourselves with self-criticism.” Be gentle with yourself, like you would someone close to you. If your friend told you she wasn’t going to mail out holiday cards, you wouldn’t make her feel ashamed about it. Remind yourself that you are doing the best you can.

2. Common Humanity: Parenting is filled with inadequacies and they tend to be over-exaggerated during the holidays. Not to mention the childhood memories and feelings that come up. The good news is that you are not alone! Everyone struggles and nobody is perfect. It’s what makes being human so amazing. Getting in touch with a friend who can relate will take you out of your “everyone else is perfect” mentality and bring you back to reality. I love laughing with friends about our shortcomings and mistakes. Friends also help to bring perspective. Do you really have it so bad? With the busyness, it’s easy to lose sight of what we really want to gain from the holiday season. It’s helpful to step back and think, “What do I want my children to look back and remember from the holidays?” I’m guessing it won’t be toys and a stressed-out mom!

3. Mindfulness: Mindfulness is a beautiful balance of acknowledging your feelings, but not focusing on the negative. Being mindful makes it easier to acknowledge your feelings and negative self-talk, realize you are not alone and remember the steps to be kind to yourself.

Now, you that you know the three components of self-compassion, here’s how to implement it into your life this month. When you’re exhausted, have a to-do list a mile long and have just yelled like a crazy person at your kids (again) for fighting and not listening to you, find a quiet few minutes and try this Self-Compassion Break Exercise: Realize this is a moment of suffering that is painful; remember suffering is a part of life; and then put your hands over your heart and feel the warmth of your hands on your chest.

With your hand over your heart, say to yourself phrase or two along the lines of “may I be kind to myself.” Here is one a loving-kindness meditation to try:

May I be filled with love.
May I be well.
May I be peaceful and at ease.
May I be happy.

It’s amazing how things shift when we are as compassionate to ourselves, as we are with others.

Here’s to a self-compassionate, loving and accepting holiday…. however it may turn out!

—Molly

To find out more about the Wellesley Wellness Retreat and register yourself or a loved one, go to the website here. The event will be on January 23, with morning and afternoon sessions.

Great Audiobooks for Kids

November 4, 2015 by Kelley Leave a Comment

Audiobooks have been a classroom staple since we were kids—which is maybe why many parents overlook them. But if you haven’t downloaded a library of stories on a family phone or tablet yet, it’s time. The scratchy cassette tapes of our youth have given way to vivid re-tellings, often by celebrities or the authors themselves, that can be downloaded in seconds. Best of all: you don’t have to feel guilty about plugging in. “Audiobooks are valuable media for your children because they don’t pre-digest imagery for them,” explains pediatrician Michael Rich, M.D., in his “Ask the Mediatrician” blog for Boston Children’s Hospital. “That means that as your kids listen to the stories, they’re given the exquisite experience of actively imagining the worlds they’re hearing about. Their brains can paint the characters and actions in ways that resonate most with them.”

Audiobooks can also boost literacy. In a recent multi-center study, researchers found that kids’ participation in a weekly audiobook club significantly improved standardized test scores as well as attitudes towards reading. “The impact of this project was more far-reaching than the researchers ever anticipated,” authors wrote. “While the teachers were initially pleased to have some outside help with their struggling readers, most were satisfied to send in a list of students and leave it at that. The teachers’ responses, however, indicate that by the end of the study they were sold on the use of audiobooks.”

We’re sold, too. Audiobooks have become my number-one favorite family chill-out tool. We play them during car rides (even short ones), quiet time, and sometimes just before bed. Listening together unites us in a way that reading to them doesn’t—perhaps because we’re experiencing the story in the same way. They’re also genius for sick days: Dim the lights, fluff up some pillows, and set up some stories on low volume as kids drift in and out of sleep.

You can pay to own titles at iTunes or Amazon’s Audible.com (first story is free), or borrow from the local library (most now offer instant streaming through Overdrive.com). Here are some terrific selections to start with.

Preschoolers

Skippyjon Jones and the Big Bones by Judy Schachner. You think you have fun attempting “kitty boy’s” loco language? Author Judy Schachner is hilarious in this installment of Skippyjon’s adventures—in this case, pretending that dog bones (filched from canine nemesis Darwin) are dinosaur fossils. My kids giggle out loud.

Frog and Toad Audio Collection by Arnold Lobel. A rare example of little-kid fiction in which illustrations are fairly superfluous, the Frog and Toad series brings together a string of short (5-10 minute) tales which are cute and simple with wry wit that older children and grown-ups can get into too.

Grades K-2

Nate the Great Collected Stories Vol. 1 by Marjorie Sharmat. John Lavelle is perfectly deadpan as kid-sleuth Nate, who takes his cases (of missing cookie recipes and the like) seriously. His interpretation of dotty Rosamond is especially funny.

A Bear Called Paddington by Michael Bond. Something about Stephen Fry’s crisp accent and Paddington’s wanderings about London makes for great, cozy listening. Kids will laugh and feel empathy at the sweet bear’s misadventures.

Grades 3-6

How to Train Your Dragon by Cressida Cowell. The movies are entertaining, but the original series by Cressida Cowell is the real deal, and a vocab-boosting triumph of kids’ fiction. British narrator David Tennant is at his cheeky best as he relates how hapless Hiccup tries to live up to his lofty Viking heritage.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum. Wasn’t Anne Hathaway born to play Dorothy? She is spot-on in this voice and others in this treat of an audiobook, which may capture today’s kids’ interest more than the print version.

Treasure Island by R.L. Stevenson. The amazing Alfred Molina skips back and forth between gentlemen and salty pirates effortlessly. Wait until you hear his Long John Silver. My 9-year-old was hooked from the start.

Photo credit: “Pondering” via Photo Pin, cc

“More” Isn’t Key to Time with Kids

April 2, 2015 by Kelley Leave a Comment

This is part of a series I’m calling “Guilt Busters”: Research-proven reasons to cut yourself some slack. More here.

Studies show that today’s parents spend more time with their kids than ever. And yet, I’m going to hazard a guess that whether you work out of home or stay at home, you probably feel you aren’t spending as much time with your kids as you think you should. More floor time, reading time, talk time, toss-a-ball-together time—all of those things would be great, if only we didn’t have to make a living, keep a habitable house, and communicate with other adults on occasion. But recent research from the University of Toronto and reported by The Washington Post’s Brigid Schulte tells us that more isn’t necessarily better when it comes to the time parents spend with kids.

In the first major longitudinal study of its kind, Toronto sociologists found that the number of hours mothers spend with children ages 3 to 11 has no effect on kids’ grades, behavior, emotional health, or more than a dozen other well-being measures. For teens, there was a small positive association between the amount of time spent with mothers and lower risk of delinquent behaviors, but no other health measures. And for those days when you’re stressed, sleep-deprived, or anxious? Spending more time with kids and teens actually has a negative impact on their well-being.

Study authors emphasize previous research showing that high-quality interactions—reading, sharing meals, exhibiting warmth—are beneficial for kids. What doesn’t seem to matter is the sheer quantity of time.

What’s the takeaway? For me, I’m going to worry less about hiring a sitter, signing the kids up for after school, or retreating to my office when I have extra work to do; but think a little more about what we are doing, as a family, when the articles, chores, and emails are done. Taking an hour to get my life in order, in peace, and then devoting the next hour to take a walk or play is far better for everyone than two hours in which kids are begging for attention while I tap away on my phone. Ironically, spending less time with my kids might actually take a bit more proactive scheduling and discipline on my part. But it just makes sense, doesn’t it? I’ll report back on how it goes.

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Do You Have Exercise Guilt?

November 24, 2014 by Kelley Leave a Comment

Pre-kids, “exercise guilt” might have been induced by a long weekend morning reading The Times rather than jogging around Central Park, or sabotaging a 6 p.m. spin class with a second piece of conference-room birthday cake. Barring a seriously pressing work assignment, whether I worked out or not on most days stemmed from a simple question: Do I feel like it?

Nowadays, there are so many compelling reasons to bag exercise, starting with the two big hazel eyes that tear up as soon as I start to lace up my running shoes on a Saturday or Sunday morning. With three kids, an extra-busy husband, writing assignments, school commitments, and a household to manage, even a short run around the neighborhood can feel like a selfish luxury. Exercise guilt comes not from skipping a workout, but making (precious) time for it.

On the weekends, my husband and I try to trade off, shoehorning exercise between hockey practices or during Dora. Weekdays, I usually make it work on two mornings when all the three boys are in school, an alignment of stars that would have seemed freaking incredible to my newer-mom self a few years ago, when I once actually tried to do calf raises while nursing one day, in a moment of sleep-deprived delirium. But everything is relative, of course, and these days, I often find myself filling that time with extra writing, extra school volunteer projects, or extra time trying to figure out whether Pull-ups are a better deal at Target or Amazon. Before I know it, I’m late to toddler time pickup, and by day’s end, those exercise pants I pulled on that morning will have been pointless.

I realize that this is a first-world problem, and a much bigger issue for full-time working parents with inflexible work schedules. And yet, exercise guilt is incredibly common, says Happy Healthy Kids’s adviser Monique Tello, M.D. A mom of two who specializes in women’s health in her primary care practice in Boston, Dr. Tello deals with exercise guilt on a personal and professional level. Her kids, too, grab her legs when she’s about to head out the door for a run, and her patients often reveal that when they say they’re “too busy to exercise,” they really mean that they feel guilty for taking time that could be spent with their family or at their job.

“Believe it or not, this has actually been studied,” says Dr. Tello, who’s also writing on the topic this week in her own blog, Generally Medicine. “Research has shown that physical activity consistently declines with parenthood.” In a study just last month, Kansas State researchers asked parents why that they think that’s the case, and both dads and moms pointed mainly to a lack of time and, yes, guilt. (One interesting difference: While all parents felt that fitness cut into family time, dads were more likely to feel guilty about exercising in the evening, because it took away from time with their spouse; moms were more likely to feel guilty about exercising during the workday, because it took time away from their job.)

The thing is, while it may seem that “just one more story” or an extra half-hour fielding work emails can feel critical in the moment, a long run might be better for the whole family in the, well, long run. Fitness can help protect against all sort of health problems, from heart failure to depression, and, by and large, happy, healthy parents raise happy, healthy kids. If missing a run or a boot camp class is going to make you cranky, you won’t be a fun person to be around, no matter how many pancakes or Rainbow Loom bracelets you make.

Which doesn’t mean that some very real obstacles—sick kids, traveling spouses, pressing deadlines, pregnancy—aren’t going to prevent you from maintaining the type of hardcore exercise regimen you might have followed as a singleton. But this, says Dr. Tello, is where a little can go a long way, especially when it comes to exercise’s mental benefits. On days she’s unavoidably busy, she’ll do, say, 5 minutes of core work on her bedroom floor after the kids fall asleep, and take the stairs rather than the elevator at the hospital where she works. “When kids see their parents value exercise, they are more likely to value exercise,” she says. “We sometimes do things as a family, like hiking, or kicking a soccer ball around. Someday, I hope we can all run races. Thinking about all that doesn’t just ease the guilt, it erases it.”

I like that line of thinking. During the crazy-busy month ahead, I’m going to resolve to keep doing at least just a little bit most days, no matter how much I have on my plate. (Especially if that plate contains extra Christmas cookies.) Because no one really gains anything if I skip exercise, except for maybe me, and not in a good way.

Photo credit: Thomas Hawk via Photo Pin, cc

How-to: Fighting in Front of Your Kids

October 29, 2014 by Kelley 1 Comment

Okay, obviously this post isn’t an endorsement of brawling with your spouse in front of your children. But I’m hard-pressed to identify any couple who doesn’t get, shall we say, mutually testy from time to time, and if you live with kids, they’re going to pick up on it. They might not hear your 17 requests to remove the Lego bricks that somehow found their way to your shower floor, but if one parent so much as whispers something critical to the other, you can almost see their little ears perk up.

Turns out, kids learn a lot from the way their parents fight. Multiple studies have shown that young kids whose parents fight aggressively (physically or verbally) are at higher risk for depression, anxiety and behavior problems as they grow. But other research suggests that constructive disagreements—in which parents demonstrate affection and attempts to problem-solve—might actually make kids more empathetic and socially skilled than their peers.

To learn more about how exactly to role model healthy discord in front of the kids, I spoke with our advisory board member Erica Reischer, Ph.D, a psychologist and parenting coach who has her own blog, What Great Parents Do. In her practice, Dr. Reischer finds that “parenting problems” often stem from unresolved conflict between parents, and so she spends a lot of time working to foster more productive communication within couples. The trick, she says, isn’t to hide your fights from your children, but demonstrate respectful disagreement and—even more important—eventual resolution. Here are some keys to making that happen:

Question actions, not character. If you’re upset that your husband didn’t help out with the kids’ bath time like you’d asked, say that. There’s no need to throw words like “lazy” or “forgetful” into the mix. “Name calling, shaming, and hurting your partner’s feelings sends a particularly bad message to kids,” says Dr. Reischer.

Watch your tone even more than your volume. Yelling is normal in conflict—we all get agitated, and when we do the volume and pitch of our voice naturally rises, says Dr. Reischer. She’d rather parents focus less on lowering their voices and more on using respectful language and allowing others to speak. In other words: It’s worse to be quietly sarcastic than to loudly—but constructively—communicate your discontent.

Take a time-out if things get too heated. If you sense emotions are about to boil over, tell your spouse (and your kids, if they are present) that you need to take a grown-up time-out to yourself. This is better than taking it to another room, which just implies to kids that it’s okay to aggressively argue as long as it’s in private. “It’s good for kids to learn that they should take it upon themselves to go somewhere and cool off if need be,” Dr. Reischer says.

If you start a fight in front of the kids, make sure they see the kiss-and-make-up part, too. Even if you’ve shared words you wish you hadn’t, or one of you has stomped off in the middle of a fight, it’s still—if not even more—important to let them witness how you resolve the disagreement. Watching parents give some ground, see the other’s side, or even agree to disagree will not only make them kids feel better, it will also teach them the benefit of working together to solve difficult problems.

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Guilt Buster: A Little Video Games OK

August 12, 2014 by Kelley Leave a Comment

Now here’s a head scratcher: A little time playing video games actually may be better for kids than not playing video games at all, according to Oxford University researchers. In a study of nearly 5,000 British children between ages 10 and 15, those who played for up to an hour a day were happier, more sociable, and less hyperactive than peers who played more than that (no surprise) or not at all (what?!)

To be sure, parents who allow kids to dabble in video games —some 95 percent of us, it seems—aren’t likely doing so out of any character-building or behavior-modifying aspirations. We allow a little video game time because it seems, well, fun. But the study authors suggest that this is precisely the point. “Games provide a wide range of novel cognitive challenges, opportunities for exploration, relaxation and socialization with peers,” researchers write. “Like non-digitally mediated forms of child play, games may encourage child well-being and healthy social adjustment.”

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In other words, when played in moderation, these games give our kids license to chill out and bond with their friends, which aren’t bad things. Just take care to make smart choices when buying or downloading. While the study didn’t address the type of video games that were being played, experts warn against exposing kids games that contain rated R content, especially violence. (Common Sense Media is a great website that rates many video games and provides suggested age ranges.) Parental controls on the TV and computer are no-brainers, too. And don’t forget: Put a timer on playtime. (Literally. I’ve found a simple kitchen timer by the computer works wonders.) A little bit may be better than none at all, but too much gaming isn’t good for anyone—especially kids.