Project Parenthood

How to reduce parental stress with mindfulness

Episode Summary

Stick around till the end to hear about what to do when you realize in retrospect that you could have behaved more mindfully with your child.

Episode Notes

Using respectful parenting tools can make space for you and your child to have a more collaborative and peaceful relationship. And yet it’s extremely hard to use the tools you have when you’re triggered in the present by past experiences, stressed by the daily challenges of life, or overwhelmed during a difficult parenting situation. In this episode, Dr. Nanika Coor explains how making mindfulness a regular part of your parenting can help you see your child - and yourself - with less judgment and more sensitivity. 

Project Parenthood is hosted by Dr. Nanika Coor. A transcript is available at Simplecast.

Have a parenting question? Email Dr. Coor at parenthood@quickanddirtytips.com or leave a voicemail at 646-926-3243.

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Project Parenthood is a part of Quick and Dirty Tips.

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Episode Transcription

 Hey parents! You're listening to the Project Parenthood podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Nanika Coor—clinical psychologist and respectful parenting therapist. Each week, I’ll introduce you to the same respectful parenting practices that I use to help parents repair and deepen connections with their children. You’ll get tips for cultivating more parental self-compassion, more cooperation from your kids, and more joy, peace, and resilience in your relationship with them.

In today’s episode, I’m talking about dealing with parental stress and anxiety by regularly and intentionally infusing mindfulness into your daily routine, and how lowering your stress benefits your parent-child relationship! Stick around till the end to hear about what to do when you realize in retrospect that you could have behaved more mindfully with your child.

A common tool I use in my practice is an intensity scale where I ask my parent clients to rate their experience of emotions like anger, anxiety, sadness, or stress on a scale of 1 to 10. 1 being the least intense and 10 being extremely intense. For example, I’ve often suggested that setting limits and holding boundaries is ideally done calmly and without intense emotionality, so as soon as a parent notices that they’re annoyed at a 1 or 2—set whatever boundaries or limits at that point. When you’re in the 1s and 2s, it’s much easier to use your respectful parenting tools to set a limit or hold space for big feelings and stay connected to your child at the same time. Once you’re in the 7s and up, your nervous system is in a fight/flight/freeze state and you’re going to need to take deliberate actions to regain control of your prefrontal cortex—the part of your brain that can use knowledge, logic, and reason to solve problems.

If you find yourself at a 7, it may be easy or hard for you to calm yourself down—but in order to do so, you need to have a tool to use for doing that, and you have to be able to detect if that tool working or not. So you have to know what it feels like to be at a 1 or a 2 so that you know what you’re aiming for and when you arrive.

But what if you have all of the tools, but you’re only noticing emotional intensity when you’re in fight/flight/freeze—when engaging in interpersonal connection is almost impossible?

If this is your situation, you probably have underdeveloped “noticing” skills—which makes a lot of sense! In America—and in most Western cultures—we’re not simply not encouraged to notice our inner experience and growing up we’re actively pressured to NOT listen to our inner experience, but to listen to whatever adult is “in charge” of us. Your body says you’re not hungry anymore? Unimportant—finish the food on your plate because I said so. Don’t want to hug Aunt Mary? Unimportant—your body will become your own at 18 years old, until then it belongs to the adults who feed and clothe you—go over there and give her a hug and a kiss. Feeling disappointed, hurt, angry, or unheard? Unimportant—go to your room until you can come out and “be nice” with a smile on your face.

I mean—a whole lot of us learned that listening to your authentic inner experience was pretty much a waste of time. If your important adults were modeling that your inner experience was inconsequential, then it makes sense that you’d come to believe that same thing and mostly stop attending to your inner experience unless it was particularly loud.

To cultivate more open awareness of your thoughts, emotions, and body sensations, along with more compassion and acceptance toward yourself and others, you can develop a regular mindfulness practice.

In 1982, John Cabat-Zinn introduced the Western world to the concept of mindfulness, which had already existed for thousands of years as a part of Eastern religious and secular practices such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and yoga. Mindfulness can be described as the kind of awareness that arises by deliberately and non-critically paying full attention to where you are, what you’re doing, and what’s going on in and around you in the present moment with curiosity and without becoming overly reactive or overwhelmed.

Mindfulness is simultaneously a kind of meditation practice (of which there are many), and also a kind of paying attention that can be cultivated through meditation—but you don’t have to be meditating to access your ability to mindfully attend to what’s happening in the here-and-now.

You can cultivate the ability to live with more awareness of what’s happening around you and in your mind, so that you can begin to pick and choose which thoughts that you’ll continue attending to and which you’ll put aside for the moment. In order to respond intentionally rather than react automatically, you need to remember to bring your inner open, non-judgmental, curious witnessing part of yourself online. This is really challenging to do when you’re in a stressful situation. When you practice mindfulness in everyday life during non-stressful situations, it gets much easier to access mindfulness during difficult times.

It’s challenging, time-consuming, and a huge responsibility being a parent. Using mindfulness as a part of your parenting practice can help you see your child—and yourself—through a less biased and prejudgmental lens, allowing you to respond with sensitivity rather than react from a reflexive fight/flight/freeze state in the face of your child’s heightened needs, emotions, and behaviors. Even when you need to be firm with your child, you can do that from a place of generosity, openness, and clarity rather than out of a desire for control, fear or self-righteousness.

There is part of your awareness that can witness and observe your experience from outside of yourself. Like when you notice butterflies in your stomach and you put your hand on your belly and think, “I’m nervous!”—that’s the witness. And you can invite it to come online intentionally. Here are 3 ways to practice intentional mindfulness.

Eating mindfully

When you’ve gotten into the habit of living in an autopilot state you might find yourself eating when you’re not hungry, not eating when you are hungry, or distracting yourself with screens or reading material so that any food you are eating—even if it’s a food you love—you’re taking in outside of your awareness. The food’s getting in, but you’re not paying any attention to how that’s happening. This exercise can help you really slow down and practice paying attention more fully.

Choose a bite-sized piece of food that you enjoy, and hold it in the palm of your hand. Just look at it. Notice what it looks like in terms of color, texture. Maybe it’s opaque or translucent. What else do you see?

Notice how it feels in your hand—is it heavy or light? Does it roll around or is it stationary? Is it cold, warm, room temperature? What does it feel like?

Does it have an aroma? What does it smell like?

What does it sound like when you move it around? Does it make a noise?

Pause and take a breath. Turn your awareness inward toward yourself. What do you notice going on in your mind as you’re attending to this piece of food? What does your body feel like? Are you tense, restless, bored, or embarrassed? Are you excited, curious, or interested in trying this mindfulness thing out? Are you skeptical that this could really be helpful to your parenting or your life? It’s all okay—no judgments. Just notice. Pause and take another deep breath and turn your awareness back to your piece of food.

When you’re ready, put the bite of food in your teeth and pause again. Then slowly put the food in your mouth and pause, noting how it feels in your mouth. Chew just once and notice any other sensory experiences. Is there a burst of flavor or aroma? Do your eyes or mouth water? Did that chewing make a noise—what did it sound like? Then notice what’s happening in your mind and body—do any thoughts, feelings, images, memories, or physical sensations come into your awareness with this one chew? Continue chewing slowly while also keeping in your awareness your sensory experiences, your physical sensations, and your mental maneuvers.

Before you swallow, pause and intentionally decide: I’m going to swallow now. Notice the sensation of swallowing and the sensations that occur after swallowing—can you feel the food moving down into your stomach? Continue this practice for each bite until you feel you’re ready to stop. 

Remember that you can practice this at any time. You can put down your utensil after every bite and just experience eating. Or if that feels like too much, try doing it for the first 1-3 bites of every meal. You can also practice while preparing food (or while doing any activity) using all of your senses to be present with what you are cooking right here and right now. What do you smell, what does the utensil feel like in your hand, what kind of pressure do you need to use to manipulate the ingredients you’re working with? What sounds does it all make? And how do all of those things impact how your body feels or the thoughts that go through your mind as you work? The mindful “muscles” that you use to answer these questions get stronger each time you practice.

Mindfully take your child’s perspective

In this exercise, you’re invited to experience your child as that bite of food you ate so intentionally. What do you discover when you experience your child fully, mindfully, and presently? How do you experience them when you notice them in their entirety—not solely their difficulties but their many facets, struggles, and strengths?

For a few moments each day, purposefully let go of your own point of view and imagine, with acceptance and compassion, what the world is like from your child’s perspective. Who are they? What do they face in the world? What is it like to have you for a parent right here and right now? From your child’s point of view—what do you sound like? What are they seeing your body do? How are they interpreting your facial expressions? And when you take your child’s view of you—how does that change how you show up in your body or your tone or the words you choose? How would you like to interact with and relate to your child at this moment? Do you want to continue with what you’re doing or do you want to shift in some way?

Mindfully observe your strong emotions

When you notice that you’re having a strong feeling—positive or negative—just be still and observe it. Pay attention to your own experience of yourself having this emotion right here, right now, in this moment. Let this neutral, friendly, and non-judging witness pay attention to you and this emotion with curiosity and without deciding anything. Just let this emotion exist without acting on it, trying to suppress it, hold on to it or push it away or make it smaller or bigger. Just notice its presence. Can you name the emotion? Does this emotion have a physical sensation that goes with it. Where in your body is it? Compassionately accept that this emotion is present without telling yourself you shouldn’t be feeling it.

Practice makes progress

Pick a mindfulness practice that I’ve mentioned in this episode and stick to it for one whole day. What do you notice about your child, yourself, or your relationship with your child?

Let’s face it. Even the most zenned-out person who meditates an hour a day still isn’t going to stay mindful and present 100% of the time—and neither will you! Inevitably and often, your automatic behavior is just going to take over.

So this week, if you realize after the fact that you could’ve slowed down and approached a situation in a more intentional rather than reactive way with your child, circle back and apologize to them. Check out a previous episode I did called The First Step to Solve Child Behavior Problems where I talk about how you can engage in parent-initiated repair after conflicts with your kiddo.

Now, if you’re able to notice in the moment that you’re behaving from a knee-jerk automatic place—simply reset. You can say something like: “Let’s start again.” And then just take a deep breath and do it over differently!

Let me know what you learn!

Instead of striving toward an idea of how things could or should be with your child, practicing mindfulness can help you be with what is, and parent from the place you and your child are actually in moment by moment.

Learning to “drop into experience” likely isn’t something you’re used to doing—so it’ll take purposeful effort and regular practice for you to become more skilled at observing and befriending your own mind and behavior in the present moment. So start from wherever you are—any and every moment is a good starting place!

I hope that’s helpful! You can learn more about my work with parents at www.brooklynparenttherapy.com and on Instagram at BKPARENTS.

If you have more questions about using mindfulness in your parenting or any other parenting questions or stories, leave me a message at (646) 926-3243 and be sure to let me know if it's okay to use your voice on the show. Or, send an email to parenthood@quickanddirtytips.com. And don’t forget to subscribe to Project Parenthood on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Catch you next week!

Sources:

Bertin, M. (2015). Mindful Parenting for ADHD: A guide to cultivating calm, reducing stress, and helping children thrive. New Harbinger Publications.

Eng, K. M. (2003). Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 12(2), 247.

Godbout, N., Paradis, A., Rassart, C. A., Sadikaj, G., Herba, C., & Drapeau-Lamothe, M. (2023). Parents' history of childhood interpersonal trauma and postpartum depressive symptoms: The moderating role of mindfulness. Journal of Affective Disorders.

Meppelink, R., de Bruin, E. I., Wanders-Mulder, F. H., Vennik, C. J., & Bögels, S. M. (2016). Mindful parenting training in child psychiatric settings: heightened parental mindfulness reduces parents’ and children’s psychopathology. Mindfulness, 7(3), 680-689.