Extraordinary at Ordinary

What's in a Baby's Facial Expression

Tue, 18 Jul 2017 04:00:00 GMT

Alexander Stone Carr was born on Dec. 16, 2016 and I met this newest – my fifth! – grandchild moments after his birth in the middle of a long night. He stared intently, wide-awake and alert, into his mother’s eyes and actually grabbed for a necklace Maggie was wearing. Both wore falling-in-love-at-first-sight facial expressions that were absolutely priceless. And since then, Alex has only grown even more expansive in the way he can speak volumes with his little face using every muscle available, even his eyebrows going up and down in what looks like real wisdom. I mean, honestly, how did he know how to smile and make eye contact at the perfect moments? He’s also talking baby gibberish, chatting seriously about what’s on his mind…though we don’t understand a word he is saying as yet. His pure joy at being here is apparent to all, even complete strangers who engage with him.

Last week (July 12, 2017), the journal Nature published a study suggesting that this social side of our personalities might be genetically linked. A New York Times story, “Study Sees Autism Clues in How We Look at Faces,” by Pam Belluck, about this ground-breaking research, reports that the work “adds new pieces to the nature versus nurture puzzle, suggesting that genetics underlies how children seek out formative social experiences like making eye contact or observing facial expressions.” In the case of autism, the question is now: what is being disrupted in the brain and where? It was clear to all of us that Alex’s social nature existed from his first breaths of life. When Maggie smiled, and she does all the time, he smiled right back and sometimes the reverse was true. Previous research has shown that babies as young as 2 months who aren't looking into people's eyes are more likely to be diagnosed with autism by age 3.

Warren Jones, the study’s senior author and an assistant professor of pediatrics at Emory University School of Medicine, was so surprised by the strength of the data underscoring a real genetic link to social behavior that he thought it was an error. Jones now suspects that babies are “seeking out” social information found in the eyes and not just merely “responding to” facial features.

Thanks Mom...Understanding Attachment Theory

Mon, 09 Jan 2017 05:00:00 GMT

Maggie had a baby boy, Alexander Stone Carr. Here they are on day 1...learning to love and totally attached to one another.

Lately, I’ve been appreciating my mother and father who have both been dead for years, especially my mom who was calm, loving, fair and very smart. Not many of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren know that she skipped ahead two grades in school and then ended up working for the Federal Reserve Bank in Philadelphia without benefit of a college degree and during the depression when so many were out of work.

All families have their own distinctive styles of conversation, love, interaction, and attachment behavior. The New York Times ran a story recently, titled “Yes It’s Your Parents’ Fault,” by Kate Murphy, describing a 50-year-old concept known as attachment theory, which is having a “breakout moment.” Psychoanalyst John Bowlby first explained that the quality of our early attachments “profoundly influences how we behave as adults,” Murphy writes. Caregivers, (not just mothers), who are “distracted, overbearing, dismissive, unreliable, absent or perhaps threatening,” according to Murphy, can create flawed individuals who subconsciously act in ways that set themselves up for difficulty later in life. “By the end of the first year, we have stamped on our baby brains a pretty indelible template of how we think relationships work, based on how our parents or other caregivers treat us,” Murphy says.

For months now, when I see individuals behaving badly, my mantra has been is: They are doing the best they possibly can with the tools they learned in childhood. Dr. Amir Levine, a Columbia University psychiatrist and author of the book, Attached, links our behavior right into the neurochemistry of the brain, learned from our earliest experiences. Self-destructive or sabotaging impulses can be changed, of course, and there are attachment-oriented psychotherapies and training available. You can even find out your dominant attachment style by taking a self-administered quiz. In the meantime, I’m thanking my parents for being so normal.

Don't Knock Nesting Instinct

Thu, 20 Oct 2016 04:00:00 GMT

My daughter Maggie is going to have a little boy on or about December 22 of this year. She is absolutely thrilled and absolutely caught up in nesting instinct imperatives. Please don’t knock them. “Maternal nest-building is regulated by the hormonal actions of estradiol, progesterone and prolactin,” according to Wikipedia which references a study in the Journal of Neuroendocrinology .

Evie, Maggie and Chris...getting ready for a new baby boy!

Maggie’s brain is being flooded by her to-do and get-done list. And as a full time working mother of a toddler, she just doesn’t have enough minutes in her day or night. To add to her angst, four months into renovations to a third floor bedroom and bath, construction is delayed by her town’s malfunctioning permit planning department. Errrr. Painting and rearranging bedrooms on the second floor is ongoing but the fact remains: her nest is in a bit of turmoil as she heads into what is ordinarily a busy holiday season but in this case one that is even more complicated by a Christmas baby on the way.

Unfortunately, as she takes a deep breath and resolves to handle whatever comes her way, what irks her are the comments of well-meaning people who belittle her compulsion to get this nest in order.

“Relax.”

“What’s your hurry?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Why do you need to do this now?”

In a research paper published in Science Daily titled “Driven to clean: Nesting instinct among pregnant women has an evolutionary backstory,” lead author Marla Anderson, a graduate student in the Department of Psychology, Neuroscience and Behavior at McMaster University, reports, “Nesting is not frivolous activity. It ties us to our ancestral past. Providing a safe environment helps to promote bonding and attachment between both the mother and infants.”

The tough part is that this urge to nest usually comes at the very same time a pregnant woman is really, honestly, physically tired: third trimester. Mel Rutherford, a professor in Anderson’s department at McMaster, adds, “So the urge to nest is a very powerful motivating force.”

Word of warning: don’t try to talk a woman out of her normal, biological nesting instincts. It’s not about the decorating. She’s protecting the human race.

Sibling Rivalry Never Grows Old

Thu, 15 Sep 2016 04:00:00 GMT

This morning one of my siblings sent an exasperating “dig” my way. I’m one of six children and right in the middle of the pack. I should be used to family dynamics by now – after all, I’m 67 – but of course, I’m not. What is absolutely extraordinary in this ordinary world of family life, is that sibling rivalry never grows old.

A Wall Street Journal article by Elizabeth Bernstein points out, “Much of what is written about sibling rivalry focuses on its effects during childhood. But our sibling relationships are often the longest of our lives, lasting 80 years or more. Several research studies indicate that up to 45 percent of adults have a rivalrous or distant relationship with a sibling.”

So I tried to step back from the emailed comment and examine it from different perspectives. It’s always important to shift your paradigm when trying to get a handle on emotions and to understand what is really happening. In fact, Jean Safer, a psychologist who has written books about sibling rivalry insists, “It’s a lifelong walk on eggshells.”

My grandchildren, Finn, 5, and Charlotte, 4, are right in the thick of their early sibling battles. They will fight over a stick in the back yard and there is almost no logical way to talk them out of their battles on occasion. Believe me, I have tried. But they also love each other so dearly that when you try to separate them to cool down, they can hardly wait to start playing together again. She loves Finnie. He loves Charlotte. As my son, their father, says, “They are like a married couple.”

Finn's first day of kindergarten! Willa, Erin, Charlotte, Finn and Zach all there to cheer him on.

Signe Whitson, a school counselor, writing in The Huffington Post , says that what siblings are learning, and what I learned growing up, is problem-solving. Of course, this is all about conflict resolution! I probably developed skills back in our Morrisville bedrooms trying to negotiate my way through childhood. Whitson says that sibling rivalry is also good because it teaches us self-control, forcing us to control our angry urges. And we learn so much about empathy and listening. Just listen to them talking after lights are out in a bedroom. There is absolutely nothing like having a sibling to make you put yourself in someone else’s place and try to understand what they may have been feeling before they shot off that dig.

As my daughter Maggie heads towards baby number two due in December, I am thrilled for Evie, the big sister who is about to embark on one of the most precious relationships of her life.

Her little brother will arrive in December!

Extraordinary Liars

Thu, 11 Aug 2016 04:00:00 GMT

My grandchildren are incapable of lying. Even if I have broken unwritten rules while babysitting and allowed them to pick anything they want to eat at the Red Store, Finn and Charlotte will share the news of their secret treats immediately with their mother. “Guess what Grammy let us have?!”

Charlotte and Finn having fun at Hershey Park in front of a Hershey Bear! It was a chocolate lovers' weekend.

This is good news according Howard Forman, MD, of Montefiore Medical Center. In fact, when children are caught in lies, parents must discipline them or risk telling the child’s brain that lying works. In his Medical Daily article published online last year, “A Pathological Liar is Made, Not Born: When Telling the Truth is Nearly Impossible,” author Chris Weller explains that the kind of pathological lying that comes so easily to Donald Trump “doesn’t drop up out of nowhere like a tumor. Somewhere along the line, and then for multiple years thereafter, it gets learned.”

In the psychiatric community, pathological lying (PL) is a “controversial topic,” says Charles C. Dike, MD, MPH, MRCPsych, writing in Psychiatric Times , “Pathological Lying: Symptom or Disease?” The latest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSL) doesn’t even list PL as it’s own pathology, Dike says, but instead calls pathological lying an antisocial personality disorder. It’s a symptom of a larger diagnosis. “PL is characterized by a long history (maybe lifelong) of frequent and repeated lying for which no apparent psychological motive or external benefit can be discerned…In some cases, they might be self-incriminating or damaging, which makes the behavior even more incomprehensible.” Yesterday, Trump announced that President Obama is a founder of the terrorist group ISIS. Wow. I can only say wow. This is the kind of distortion that pushes Trump’s mental state way over the edge of normal. Are we looking at a patient, a presidential candidate, suffering from “pseudologia phantastica?” That’s the name given to PL by German physician Anton Delbruck to describe these kinds of liars.

I grew up with a budding pathological liar. My younger sister was so skillful and convincing at times that I would question my own memory of what she was so obviously lying about. I ’ll bet Donald Trump’s siblings know exactly what I’m talking about. Did they shake their heads in wonder at his audacity, as I did, about his lying?

Don't Pick on Picky Eaters

Wed, 13 Jul 2016 04:00:00 GMT

I’ve had generations of experience with what society likes to call “picky eaters.” My father had very touchy taste buds, for instance, and would carefully separate the miniscule pieces of minced onion my mother had chopped so finely into her beef stroganoff. That little pile on the side of his plate after he had finished his meal was a dead giveaway. We six children grew up knowing that dad would only eat certain foods. So when my son Zach – even as an infant – showed picky-eater tendencies, I was alarmed at first. Advice-givers, medical professionals, well-meaning relatives as well as total strangers, were everywhere. It took some research to be able to withstand the onslaught from all sides. Zach is healthy, happy and brilliant. He didn’t eat his peas. So what.

Now, as I watch my grandchildren, from ages 5 down to 6 months, I can see that t he big picky eater debate has not disappeared at all , but may have in fact, become louder in the last 38 years. I think families and societies need to stop picking on picky eaters, especially during their toddler years. I went looking for expertise on my hunch and found an October 2012 article in Paediatric Child Health , a Canadian medical journal. In “The ‘picky eater’: The toddler or preschooler who does not eat” by Alexander KC Leung, Valerie Marchand and Reginald S. Sauve, these researchers report that up to 35% of toddlers are described by their parents as poor or ‘picky’ eaters but upon closer study, these children have an appetite that is appropriate for their age and rate of growth. The authors point out several key facts to “avoid making mealtimes a daily battleground or reinforcing problematic feeding behaviors.”

Starting with the second year of life, children all experience a decrease in appetite and their appetites are erratic from ages 1 to 5. “Young children tend to be neophobic – they do not like new foods,” Leung, Marchand and Sauve report. Toddlers are also struggling with autonomy, prefer self-feeding (to someone putting food directly into their mouths) and “become very selective in their choice of foods.” One of the more surprising bits in this article is that I think we may have child-sized portions all blown out of proportion. “A general rule of thumb is to offer one tablespoon of each food per year of the child’s age.” That translates into two tablespoons of chicken, veggies or pasta for a 2-year-old. Ahem, I know for a fact that I put more than that onto 2-year-old Evie’s plate.

Evie enjoying her little lunch!

Forcing little children to eat is a recipe for disaster. A 2002 survey of 100 college students who had experienced forced feeding as kids was so sad. These young adults remember feeling anger, fear, disgust, confusion and humiliation at the dinner table. Some had even vomited or been made to sit at the table for up to 50 minutes in stand-offs. Did being forced to eat something (vegetables, red meat or seafood) make them choose these foods freely later on in life? Hardly. In those early battles, the parent had won and the child lost. So when these children grow up and freely choose, they will be choosing to “win.” And it won't be the veggies, red meat or seafood that was forced upon them way back when.

Why Crying Is Good for You

Wed, 29 Jun 2016 04:00:00 GMT

I cry easily at happy, sad or any kind of emotional occasion. Last Monday, all three of my grandchildren cried at different points during what was actually a wonderful day. From a sibling squabble between Finn, 5, and Charlotte, almost 4, to the emotional frustration experienced by their cousin Evie at 2, the tears fell. I often beat myself up about how easily my tears show up. My older sister reminds me that when I cry I lose all my power. Damn those tears! Or maybe not?

To deal with my brilliant, beautiful pre-schoolers’ tears, I tried various approaches. Logic, comfort, hugs, kisses, empathy, ignoring the behavior and maybe worst of all, trying to talk them out of legitimate feelings. Everyone, no matter what age, has a right to his or her own emotions. The worst thing you can do is tell someone that what he or she is feeling is wrong or unimportant.

So I went looking for research on crying and stumbled upon a wonderful Swiss-American developmental psychologist, Aletha Solter, PhD , who studied with Jean Piaget in Switzerland before earning her PhD in psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Author of five books on parenting, Dr. Solter runs The Aware Parenting Institute, www.awareparenting.com .

“Much of the advice in parenting books is based on the assumption that crying and temper tantrums are behaviors that should be discouraged,” Solter says. In fact, there is so much contradictory advice out there about crying that parents and grandmothers like myself wonder: Should we “comfort, ignore, distract, punish, ‘give in’ or listen empathetically?” As a crier myself, I was glad to read that Solter believes “crying is an important and beneficial physiological process that helps people of all ages cope with stress.”

In fact, a biochemist in Minnesota, Dr. William Frey, has found the stress hormone, ACTH, in tears and suggests that emotional crying may actually be a way to remove this waste product from the body. Frey believes, “We may increase our susceptibility to physical and psychological problems when we suppress tears….Crying not only removes toxins but also reduces tension.” When patients cry in therapy sessions, lower blood pressure, pulse rate, and body temperature immediately follow.

So why do we think tears are so bad? Solter says our well-meaning parents, caregivers, teachers and everyone told us so, sometimes with kind words, “There, there, don’t cry.” But sometimes not so kindly, “If you don’t stop crying, I’ll give you something to cry about.” All the early conditioning to suppress our tears and outright praise for not crying were actually terrible ideas. Go ahead and cry.

Positive Emotions = Smarter & Healthier

Tue, 03 May 2016 04:00:00 GMT

Watching my grandchildren at play on Saturday sent me on a quest to research just how powerful happy playfulness can be. Finn, 5, Charlotte, 3 and Evie, 2, were having so much fun that I overheard Ev say, “I love playing.” I expected to find research that supported the importance of play for growing children but stumbled upon the brilliant work of social psychologist Barbara L. Fredrickson, PhD, now at the University of North Carolina. Play and the positive emotions accompanying it, are critical for adults’ physical health and intellectual well-being.

Charlotte in the pig tails and Evie running wildly in play at Anderson Park, Montclair.

Her paper, “What Good Are Positive Emotions?” was published in the Review of General Psychology in 1998 but at least for me, is still breaking apart old notions about positive emotions. Her argument starts small but builds to powerful conclusions. As Fredrickson explains, “Joy and related high-energy positive emotions create the urge to play and be playful, which when acted on, can build personal resources.” Even rough and tumble play, at which Finn excels, is broadening your ability to think clearly and out of the box. Fredrickson says that simply being lured into a happy state of mind – after watching something funny, eating candy, listening to positive words, or smiling at a cartoon – can increase your success later on a mental task or test, boost your creativity and make you see problems in a broader or wider context. She points to a classic series of studies by Alice Isen in the 1980s to support her notion that positive emotions “give rise to an enlarged cognitive context.” As Fredrickson says, positive emotions, which have not been studied as much as negative ones by experts, “broaden an individual’s momentary thought-action repertoire, which in turn has the effect of building that individual’s physical, intellectual and social resources.”

Perhaps even more amazing is the way positive thinking can “undo” negative emotions. Stress can increase heart rate and blood sugar, suppress your immune system and lead to coronary disease and other life-threatening illnesses. In Fredrickson’s “undoing effect,” positive emotions are uniquely gifted at down-regulating the psychological and physical effects of those negative emotions. Remember Peter Pan who had forgotten how to play and who just needed his “happy thought” to fly? Fredrickson's 2013 book, Love 2.0 is now on my to-read list.

Mother-Baby Bond: Priceless!

Mon, 11 Jan 2016 05:00:00 GMT

According to Jeannette Crenshaw, RN, MSN, writing in The Journal of Perinatal Education (“Care Practice #6: No Separation of Mother and Baby, With Unlimited Opportunities for Breastfeeding”), “Oxytocin, the hormone that causes your uterus to contract, will stimulate ‘mothering’ feelings after birth as you touch, gaze at and breastfeed your baby.” The brain also releases endorphins, “narcotic-like hormones that enhance these mothering feelings.” What’s more, a normal birth gives babies an “adrenaline rush” right afterward so they are bright, alert and ready to nurse.” Research has shown that babies like Willa who have been placed skin-to-skin on their moms adjust easier to life outside the womb, crying less, breastfeeding longer and all with lower levels of stress hormones. They gain weight faster, sleep better and are even less likely to develop jaundice. If you don't believe me, check out the research for yourself.

What a difference a generation makes. In 1978, when Willa's dad Zach was born, I had to fight for every inch as a new mother. I was a writer who had been interviewing the early researchers but hospitals didn’t want to acknowledge that bonding might be good. I remember disagreeing with my New York City obstetrician and changing doctors in my seventh month of pregnancy. (She was rightly shocked by my actions then.) But I had seen the research and wanted to make sure that if all went well during labor and delivery, my baby wouldn’t be taken immediately to the hospital nursery for up to 12 hours of separation. I knew then that our lives would be better for the time we spent together in the very beginning. Zach, of course, is my proof positive: secure, happy, emotionally grounded, he’s the best dad he could possibly be. Willa is his third beautiful baby!

The Grandmother Effect

Thu, 01 Oct 2015 04:00:00 GMT

I’ve been doing a lot of babysitting the last few months and there is nothing more rewarding and exhausting. There is certainly a biological reason for motherhood being reserved for the younger generation. Don’t even try to talk to me after a 12-hour day with a toddler. I am so tired that I can hardly think straight. But I wouldn’t want it any other way. Not only am I growing closer and more in love with all three of my grandchildren but it turns out that my natural instinct as a grandmother to want to help my children raise their children has evolutionary rewards for all.

Evie is Miss Independent on a beach walk. Keeps me racing after her!

Google the “grandmother hypothesis” and the term pops up in various scientific places. Even Wikipedia covers the topic questioning whether this theory could explain the existence of menopause. Hah. Why do women live long after our roles as fertile females able to give birth have ended?

Researcher James G. Herndon at Emory University in Atlanta, GA, surmises, “Women who remain vigorous beyond their fertile years may have enhanced their reproductive success by providing care for their grandchildren. This care would have enabled their daughters to resume reproduction sooner.” In other words, grandmothers make it possible for daughters to have more children and thereby ensure that the next generation lives and prospers. This certainly makes sense. In “The Grandmother Effect: Implications for Studies on Aging and Cognition,” published in Gerontology (January 2010), Herndon also suggests that grandmothering is good for the older woman’s brain too. “The ancestral human grandmothers necessarily included resistance to cognitive decline” … and gained advantages in “social cognition.” In fact, Herndon suggests that having to stay sharp cognitively by sharing our wisdom, vitality and “social brain” with grandchildren actually helps us compensate for age-related physical decline.

Finn and Charlotte loved swimming this past summer season!

There are experts who dispute the logic behind this grandmother hypothesis, but I’m certainly not in their camp. This theory makes me understand the critical nature of this role in my life, not only for the kids but for me.

Gut Wisdom

Tue, 14 Jul 2015 04:00:00 GMT

Buy this book! Gut: The Inside Story of Our Body’s Most Underrated Organ by Giula Enders, a 25-year-old doctoral student at the Institute for Medical Microbiology in Frankfurt, Germany, is absolutely wonderful. I know. I know. Who really wants to read about Charming Bowels (or Darm mit Charme the title of her book before it was translated and marketed for U.S. readers)? We all should.

Interviewed for the New York Times by Jesse Coburn, Enders sounds delightful and even credits her grandmother who helped raise her, for helping to make her so creatively curious about life. ( Go Grammies of the world! ) “Intellectuality doesn’t have to be so serious,” she says. Coburn’s profile, “A German Writer Translates a Puzzling Illness Into a Best-Selling Book,” published on June 19 ^th , is beautifully written.

As a teenager, Enders got sick and ended up with sores covering her body. Nothing doctors recommended cleared up her dermatological nightmare and it got so bad that the lesions weeped “through her pants.” She tried everything, “pretty crazy experiments on myself.” Meanwhile, official diagnoses were vague, calling it “some kind of nervous eczema.” A C-section baby, she began to suspect that her skin was the sign of someone with “an intestinal condition.” Eventually she was able to get it under control on her own, realizing that “knowledge was power.” Thus began her fascinating journey into gastroenterology.

“The intestines are totally charming,” Enders says, pointing out the “sophisticated communication between our inner and outer sphincter muscles and the some hundred trillion bacteria in our guts that facilitate digestion” to Coburn. Did you know that our digestive tract produces more than 20 kinds of hormones and accounts for two-thirds of our immune system? Studying medicine led Enders to question whether her C-section birth and bottle, not breast-feeding had left her gut ill prepared for life. “The influence of the gut on our health and well-being is one of the new lines of research is modern medicine,” she writes. Look at all the research now into the body’s microbiome! Enders says, “I know there are many patients suffering from unpleasant conditions, frustrated by the medical world…What I can do is show why the gut is so fascinating” and share “exciting new research currently underway…to improve our daily lives.”

The Sinus - Toe Connection

Tue, 19 May 2015 04:00:00 GMT

I ’ ve had several sinus infections off and on all winter and was still post-nasal dripping when the spring pollen count in New Jersey reached its highest. Even a visit to the doctor and a regimen of Mucinex and Sudafed didn’t clear my head completely. Antibiotics were not on my healthcare provider’s to-do list and for that, I was happy. Way too many antibiotics in our lives…unless we really really need them!

Then, a strange symptom arrived. The big and middle toes on my left foot were tender. Yoga positions -- upward dog, cat-cow stretches -- were impossible without pain. An internal spring had sprung and was being pulled from the toes, across the top of the arch. How weird is that? Thinking about the anatomy of the foot sent me to a reflexology site and the map showed me that toes are linked to my sinuses. Amazing. Who would have thought? Even someone like me -- I firmly believe in the preventive power of yoga, massage therapy, acupuncture, Jin Shin Jyutsu, (a wonderful, gentile therapeutic touch technique similar to Reiki) -- was surprised by this apparent physical connection. Forget traditional medical-scientific logic here for a second. I feel it. I know it is there. I’ve also had two reflexology sessions in conjunction with massage therapy and my sinuses have almost cleared completely.

The only clinical trial I could find about reflexology and sinusitis (Healey et al. 2002) pitted nasal irrigation (the neti pot I know so well and did at least two times a day all winter) against reflexology. It was a randomized, controlled study of 150 subjects hoping to alleviate chronic sinusitis. Both approaches helped congestion equally. The neti pot wasn’t the answer to my misery, however. Reflexology worked much better. The well-known alternative medicine guru Andrew Weil, MD, commented, “The unexpected results for this technique (reflexology massage) may prompt further research.” I hope so.

The Happy Dance

Mon, 11 May 2015 04:00:00 GMT

Here I am as we arrive in El Fumo in Italy!

I don’t remember when I started doing the “happy dance,” arms up and outstretched wide, joyful expression on face, and hurly-gurly, silly dancing. Yes, I probably look like an idiot but who cares? Honestly, I’m not crazy and I often use my “happy dance” these days with grandbabies at low points in their days. On those occasions, it makes all of us smile and laugh. In the past, however, and in more personal expressions of joy, I recall bursting into my little number on the top of an Alaskan glacier on a gorgeous day or walking the extraordinarily stunning Italian coastal towns along the Cinque Terre. I couldn’t stop myself.

Little did I know that this “happy dance” incorporates body language that can actually stimulate happiness and a sense of power. If you haven’t watched Amy Cuddy, the social psychologist, deliver her TED talk yet on power posing, please Google it and go there immediately. Her research, “Power Posing; brief nonverbal displays affect neuroendocrine levels and risk tolerance,” conducted with Dana Carney and AJ Yap, was published in Psychology Science in October 2010 and states that “Humans and other animals express power through open, expansive postures.” Even brief high power poses (two minutes! -- aha, my very own happy dance!) can bring on elevations in testosterone (feelings of power) and decreases in cortisol, the stress hormone. As Amy, a Harvard professor, says, we are all influenced by our very own nonverbal behavior. So even if you don’t feel like it, fake it til you make it. Your mind can change your body but your body can also change your mind.

Below here...some hotel made me happy! I can't even remember where this was. Hah!

Intuitive Genius

Tue, 21 Apr 2015 04:00:00 GMT

Finn turned 4 in February and his language skills continue to amaze us. He talks non-stop to anyone and everyone he meets, linking complex, compound thoughts with ease, and speaking in long paragraphs with assurance. And because he hasn’t yet acquired the ability to write anything down for memory’s sake, he keeps it all right there in his own memory bank. Wish I could still do that! The other day he had concerns about “gravitational pull.” Where did that idea come from? Ask him about termites or sharks or a creature he may have met courtesy of the Wild Krats, a popular nature show, and he can reel off everything you may not really want to know about it. Another favorite TV escape last winter for Finn was “How Things Are Made,” which is not designed for preschoolers at all.

The National Association for Gifted Children and the American Association of Gifted Children at Duke University say Finn’s language skills and interests are common traits seen in gifted children . This is all very nice, of course, but as a grandmother what excites me even more than his powerful word acquisition and passion for learning are his social skills and what psycholinguists refer to as “performance,” or how people use the language they acquire. In case you were wondering, a psycholinguist is a cross between a psychologist and a linguist. This is a field of study that has “grown enormously,” according to Jamal Azmi Salim and Momammad Mehawesh at Zarqa University in Jordan writing in the Canadian publication English Language and Literature Studies in November 2014.

Though I’m not a psycholinguist, I have seen Finn give command “performances” navigating social situations. From reassuring me about a perceived slight he overheard, to talking his little sister Charlotte to sleep, he demonstrates jaw-dropping abilities to negotiate all sorts of adult-size conversations. And this kind of intuitive and compassionate ability to use words goes far beyond simply counting the number of words in his vocabulary or testing his IQ.

Magic in Mundane

Mon, 13 Apr 2015 04:00:00 GMT

I’ve been spending a lot of time lately with toddlers and preschoolers who are masters at making adults slow their inner, tyrannical clock-ticking and focus on the present moment. Being forced into this time-out zone is a gift. In fact, it’s the kind of gift I always promise to give myself but almost never do because I usually chase a to-do list and rush through my days aiming for productivity.

( Charlotte blending joyfully into a bed of white snow drop flowers on the "elephant" walk.)

In Brain Pickings Weekly’s recent edition (April 12, 2015), Maria Popova explores this modern nightmare “in which we’re mining every last frontier of sanity and stillness for the tiniest nugget of precious efficiency.” Popova writes that “even if we know that we habitually miss most of what is going on around us, we rarely break our busy gait on the hamster wheel of goal-chasing.” Spend a couple of days with a 4-year-old, a 2 ½-year-old and a 16-month-old and just see how inefficient but magical your day becomes.

( Finn discovering the exhilaration of swinging.)

On Saturday, I caught the “magic in the mundane” shadowing the youngest, Evie, in Anderson Park, Upper Montclair, NJ. With sun shining, grass growing and people galore picnicking, playing soccer and walking the paths, she was giddy with glee, running from stranger to stranger she greeted as new friends. Her big word right now is “Hi.” On my own, I would have been on a mission to hike around the park and head right back to finish up something or other. No fun. As it turned out, the ordinarily quick walk home took hours because Evie needed to explore every inch of the way. And in order to enjoy the journey myself, I had to suspend time. Popova says that “even something as simple as a walk can be, as Thoreau believed, ‘a sort of crusade,’ – but we get to choose whether to crusade for productivity or presence.”

( Evie is in love with being outside after the long winter inside.)

Check out Brain Pickings . You will love it. And read “Hurry Up and Wait: Daniel Handler and Maira Kalman’s Whimsical Children’s Book for Grown Ups about Presence in the Age of Productivity.”

Overly Critical People

Thu, 05 Mar 2015 16:33:35 GMT

My new mission is to steer clear of critical people.

After a couple of recent encounters requiring days-long exposure to individuals gifted in the art of being super-critical, I found myself “hopelessly lost in negative energy…beaten down, emotionally bankrupt and numb,” as Jeffrey Bernstein, PhD, might put it. Author of Why Can’t You Read My Mind: Overcoming the 9 Toxic Thoughts that Get in the Way of a Loving Relationship, Bernstein believes there are a lot of the “walking wounded out there!” Heh, I felt like I had been pummeled.

I went searching for why some people feel compelled to criticize constantly as well as where this personality dysfunction might come from. Aha…it turns out that “critical people were often criticized in early childhood by caretakers, siblings or peers,” explains Steven Stosny, PhD, in a post on Dec 14, 2012 titled “Anger in the Age of Enlightenment.” To children under age 7, “anything more than occasional criticism means they’re bad and unworthy.” In an effort to adapt, they become self-critical at first and by young adulthood, “entirely critical of others.” Stosny says that most criticizers are equally hard on themselves, however.

The funny thing about criticism is that it’s “an utter failure at getting positive behavior change.” So why do people keep on criticizing when they know the harsh words aren’t working? They are defending their own egos. “We don’t criticize because we disagree with a behavior or attitude but because we somehow feel devalued by that behavior or attitude.” These are people who can’t live and let live or even agree to disagree, as I discovered. So why did I feel so beaten down? Because, as Stosny explains: Criticism calls for submission. Criticism devalues. Criticism focuses on what’s wrong. Criticism is coercive. And heh, criticism is not legitimate feedback so don’t let anyone ever try to convince you of that.

KLOTHO: A Gene That Spins the Thread of Life

Tue, 03 Feb 2015 05:00:00 GMT

My grandfather, Joe Bucknum, Sr., died just approaching his 90 ^th birthday after a life lived just the way he wanted. He was smart, opinionated, argued politics daily, kept busy, ate chunks of butter regularly, preferred fatty pot roasts to fish any day, drank brandy and would bring my mother day-old pies and pastries he picked up at the Acme Market in Morrisville, PA, where I grew up. The pineapple pie was really awful, by the way. He was hardly ever sick and what caused his death was a burst brain aneurysm that had probably been sitting there from birth. (Here he is photographed on his wedding day more than a century ago.)

Dena Dubal, MD, PhD, at the University of California San Francisco, lead author of a study published last year in Cell Reports, never met my Pop Pop but might take a guess that he possessed one copy of a variant of the gene KLOTHO or KL-VS. People with one copy of this newly discovered gene tend to live longer and perform better cognitively than those with two copies. Unfortunately, I have no idea where I stand in this genetic game.

The name KLOTHO was derived from the Greek mythological goddess of fate, “who spins the thread of life” – a nice naming touch for the kind of genetic gift we would all love to possess. This gene “provides a blueprint for a protein made by cells in the kidney, placenta, small intestine, and prostate.” In human subjects, klotho protein could be found circulating in the blood. The good news for all of us who may not have the right combination of KLOTHO: When the research team bred mice to overproduce klotho protein, the animals lived longer and smarter. The next step? Senior author Lennart Mucke, MD, director of the Gladstone Institute of Neurological Disease in San Francisco, says, “Our results suggest that klotho may increase cognitive reserve or the brain’s capacity to perform everyday intellectual tasks.” A very nice thought indeed.

The Magic of Music for Babies

Wed, 07 Jan 2015 05:00:00 GMT

Yesterday, I started to sing “The Itsy, Bitsy Spider” to my 13-month-old granddaughter Evie and she sat up from nearly falling asleep and sang along with me in her own baby way. The musical cues from this song were so powerful that the start of the afternoon nap was delayed for another hour. Since birth, she’s been listening to lullabies, playing with musical instruments and she also takes a Saturday morning music class for babies and toddlers. Our reward: now she sings and dances along. But it’s much more than this.

Music, it turns out, is not just a simple background sound track to the first years of life. It is key to language acquisition . Three researchers – psychologists Anthony Brandt, Molly Gebrian and L. Robert Slevc – challenge the prevailing belief that “music’s role in human development is … ancillary and slower to mature.” In their paper, “Music and early language acquisition” published in Frontiers of Psychology (September 2012), they explain, “Language is a compromise between what adults need to say and children’s ability to process what they hear. Crucially, what infants hear is…a form of music.” Back in the womb, those sounds a fetus hears are quite musical with low frequency vowels, pitches and rhythms. Even motherese , that universal language of mothers interacting verbally with babies, feels like music with “high pitched, slow, rhythmic… and more exaggerated melodic contours than adult-directed speech.”

Researchers have wondered how infants connect sounds to meaning and this research helps explain a link. “Infants use the musical aspects of language as scaffolding… They are “listening for how their language is composed.” From “a developmental perspective, the progression is clear: first we play with sounds; then we play with meanings and syntax. It is our innate musical intelligence that makes us capable of mastering speech .”

Meanwhile, my quirky (I am not very good but she doesn’t know this yet!) rendition of the “ABC” song comes so naturally with each diaper change that Evie pays attention long enough for me to get the job done. It can also calm her down from a crying jag on a car ride. Now, there’s power for you.

Babies' Fascination with Faces

Fri, 21 Nov 2014 05:00:00 GMT

Last weekend, I took 11-month-old Evie to my book club, ordinarily an affair for adults only. She had a wonderful time but not because of the pizza or discussion. She became an intense, enthusiastic student of all the faces. At first, she was quiet and seriously alert, staring and memorizing but later, smiling shyly. By the end, she rounded the coffee table repeatedly, tapping new friends on the knees, sing-songing loudly with happiness.

(Evie reaching out to her mommy, Maggie.)

What makes a baby so interested and able to recognize faces? A new study by Stephen Spiegelbaum, PhD, at Columbia University Medical Center, and released to the press by the National Institutes of Health last March, pinpoints two obscure regions of the brain’s hippocampus called CA2s as important for social memory and our ability to recognize others. The hippocampus is where we store “the knowledge of who, what, where, and when.” Siegelbaum says, “Although the CA2 region of the hippocampus was discovered over 75 years ago, it has received very little attention.”

This neuroscience professor studied mice and showed that without active CA2 areas located on the outer edges of each side of the brain, a mouse was unable to recognize familiar animals and had profound loss of social memory . Interestingly, the CA2- deficient mice could recognize inanimate objects, just not the other mice. In humans, research has also demonstrated that individuals with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder have inhibited CA2 regions. By targeting these areas, Siegelbaum’s group hopes to be able to treat behavioral disorders in the future.

As children grow, especially during these early years of wondrous development, it’s always reassuring to watch their little brains light up so magically . Obviously, Evie has quite the hippocampus to fill with love and experience.

How Toys Encourage Walking

Wed, 12 Nov 2014 05:00:00 GMT

Evie is 11 months old and just starting to walk – a perfectly ordinary but quite extraordinary feat. She’s been traveling the distance across her parents’ living room holding onto the back handle of a toy car that is at perfect height for her to grab and go. Delighted with herself, she claps her hands together when she bumps into the wall or couch that will stop her baby stride.

(Half way up and ready to go towards a favorite book!)

I was applauding the kinds of toys that encourage walking when I noticed a study in the July/August 2011 issue of Child Development that made me appreciate a room strewn with eye-catching toys and objects. Ordinarily, I’d be wondering when I might get a chance to pick them all up. Yes, babysitting grandmothers do that sort of thing.

In “Transition from Crawling to Walking and Infants’ Actions With Objects and People,” a New York University team found that being able to spot a coveted object across the room actually encouraged novice walkers to move towards it. Not only could they spy the distal object better from a standing position but they were able to carry it to share with an adult because hands were freed from crawling. Sharing objects, explain Lana B. Karasik, Catherine S. Tamis-LaMonda and Karen E. Adolph, is another milestone behavior associated with this 11- to 13-month age group. Fifty infants and their mothers participated in their study and even learning a locomotor skill didn’t slow down the new walkers. One baby with only 2 days of walking experience at 13 months carried objects 35 times and tried sharing them with mom 8 times in just an hour.

The researchers conclude, “Walking offers infants new opportunities for learning about the environment through object and social interactions. These changes may also have implications for the ways that caregivers respond to infants’ social environments.” Reading carefully between the lines, I have concluded that leaving desirable toys out and about is not such a bad idea after all. The implication for me is: forget the mess . A room full of toys is a learning paradise.

BDNF: The Secret to Stress?

Mon, 06 Oct 2014 04:00:00 GMT

Maggie works in a high stress New York City hospital environment with very sick patients. She balances 12-hour night shifts with a 10-month-old baby girl, a house and a husband, who is also enduring long days at work and hands-on fatherhood. Yes, their life can be stressful. So I am always interested when I see studies exploring the biochemistry of stress .

Chris, Maggie and Evangeline at the christening in August!

Researchers at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Harvard and Cornell published their research in the online journal Cell in 2007 identifying a protein in the brain, BDNF, which makes mice more or less vulnerable in stressful situations. With too much BDNF, the mouse had excessive rates of impulse firing. Mice with less BDNF could stay calm in tough times. The cooler-headed mice maintained normal rates of brain activity because of “a protective mechanism – a boost in the channels that allows the mineral potassium to flow into the cells, dampening their firing rates.” By blocking the excessive BDNF in the over-stressed mice, the scientists could also make them more resistant to stress. Interestingly, they found that some mice were simply born with less BDNF. Going a step further, the team looked at the brains of deceased people who had been depressed in life and saw signs of higher-than-average BDNF.

Thomas Insel, MD, Director of the National Institutes of Mental Health, found the research really heartening and so do I. “We now know that the mammalian brain can launch molecular machinery that promotes resilience to stress. This is an excellent indicator that there are similar mechanisms in the human brain.” Alas, yes it is all in your head when you are feeling out of control or crazy with stress…but having a biochemical explanation should make you feel vindicated the next time someone downplays your reactions or tries to talk you out of your emotions with lines like, “Just don’t worry about it.” With too much naturally-occurring BDNF, you can’t simply stop worrying.

The Uncle Joe Gene

Mon, 29 Sep 2014 04:00:00 GMT

When I was growing up, my family would joke about my Uncle Joe who was so different from my father, his older brother. Not nearly as warm, loving, intelligent or friendly as my dad, Joe could be judgmental and distant. He also married a woman, Betty, who was controlling and even when she smiled, one could sense her mean streak beneath the surface. I remember being happy that my parents belonged to me, even though our family had fewer toys and more kids. There were six of us. Uncle Joe and Aunt Betty would holler at their son Doug, who couldn’t seem to do enough to please them. They placed lots of conditions on their love for him. We lived across the street from them for a time and would feel sorry for Doug and his sister, Joanne. Later in life, Joe decided that our family was not welcome in their home and years passed when the two brothers weren’t on speaking terms. Before he died, Joe called my dad and admitted that he might have made a big mistake.

Whenever we come across a family member — and we see them in this next generation now too — who prefers to stay out there in left field, morosely judgmental or downright mentally ill, my siblings and I laugh and say, “It’s the Uncle Joe gene.” Little did we realize that researchers would actually pinpoint the genetic root of major mental disorders in the synapses…those connections between neurons in the brain. Hongjun Song, PhD, of Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, recently published his results in the journal Nature (August 18, 2014). “Our results illustrate how genetic risk, abnormal brain development and synapse dysfunction can corrupt brain circuitry at the cellular level in complex psychiatric disorders." His NIH-funded study found that family members with a certain mutation in the gene DISC1 had 80 percent less of a protein they needed to make the cellular machinery for synapses to communicate effectively with other neurons. This resulted in everything from schizophrenia to bipolar disorder, depression and other major mental disorders.

I'm happy I didn't inherit the Uncle Joe gene. Here I am in Paris last week where I exercised my brain circuitry working with a French documentary film company on a project. Fun time!

How extraordinary is it that research science is now helping to explain ordinary behavior and mental illness at this basic level. These researchers are also hopeful that their “overall approach may hold promise for testing potential treatments to correct the synaptic deficits.”

What's in a Hug?

Fri, 15 Aug 2014 04:00:00 GMT

When Evangeline, 9 months, Charlotte, 2, or Finn, 3, wake up , they often need to hug for a few minutes before they are able to rejoin the world of play. Within these magical moments of grandmothering, there is pretty powerful brain activity going on.

Maggie and Evangeline, who loves and craves her mommy's hugs.

In “The Neuroscience of Atttachment,” by Linda Graham, MFT, “Relating to one another, one on one, couples, families, or in larger social groups, is the most complex thing human beings do, more complex than writing a symphony, or running a government or solving global warming, and the need to relate, to be emotionally and socially intelligent, has driven the evolution of the human brain to be the most complex of anything in all of existence.” Graham goes on to describe the brain as 100 trillion cells in 3 pounds of firm tofu “of which 100 billion neurons are gray matter that are on the working clipboard of the brain.”

Hugging, as it turns out, releases the bonding hormone oxytocin, spurring our pre-frontal cortex to grow. This, she explains is why “hugs make us feel safe and bonded to the person helping to release the oxytocin in our brains." Even looking at photos of our loved ones or thinking about people who give us unconditional love can do this same trick and calm down fear and anxiety. Graham's paper was first presented as a clinical conversation to professionals at the Community Institute for Psychotherapy in 2008 but it is still online at her site, Resources for Recovering Resiliency. I loved the quote from Alan Schore who says, "The security of the attachment bond is the primary defense against psychopathology." Think of those neurons in little growing brains. They are constantly firing. And if they don't fire, if they are not stimulated by hugs, for example, they die off, by the millions, Graham says. "If neurons are not connected to other neurons, they are pruned, just as human beings shrivel and die when isolated and disconnected." Un-hugged early in life, people don't know how or why to do it as adults.

Got Any Empathy?

Fri, 18 Jul 2014 04:00:00 GMT

I’ve been looking for signs of empathy everywhere…from my three grandchildren, Evangeline, 7 months, Charlotte, 1½, and Finn, 3, who are already showing such wonderful sensitivity and love …to the adults all around who manage to make others feel miserable because they are missing this “human capacity to experience the emotional feelings of another,” as Jaak and Jules Panksepp explain in their study published last year in Trends in Neuroscience (“Toward a cross-species understanding of empathy” August 2013). Even Charles Darwin says, “We are impelled to relieve the suffering of another, in order that our own painful feelings may at the same time be relieved.”

We learn the ability to love and give love early in life. Here is Chris, my son-in-law, showing Evangeline what it means to be a daddy.

Yet, not every adult is even as empathetic as Charlotte, who is loving and caring for her baby dolls with the natural expertise of a socialized toddler whose mother and father love her a lot. The second year of life, in fact, is a good time to watch for these signs of prosocial and empathetic behavior, according to Carolyn Zahn-Waxler, PhD, who has spent her career studying this fascinating human emotion.

Meanwhile, the Pankseep team in the Department of Behavioral Neuroscience at Oregon Health and Science University, explain, “Investigators of human empathy have revealed that our empathy for the pain of others is mediated by brain regions aroused by our own experiences of pain.” So perhaps awful people have experienced awful circumstances. And while this doesn’t make it any easier to live or work with their meanness, it does offer some measure of explanation for really bad behavior.

What Every Brain Needs: Omega 3s

Wed, 04 Jun 2014 04:00:00 GMT

When I interview scientists about their work, I almost always ask: “Can you share an aha moment, a point at which you wanted to shout: Eureka!!?”

Charlotte, not yet two, is fascinated with her toy medical kit and what doctors do!

Frances Calderon, PhD, at Rutgers-New Jersey Medical School, had one that has now changed my life as well as hers. She’s focused her research on how to grow neurons in the brain and when she feeds her lab animals a diet rich in Omega-3 fatty acids, traumatically-injured brains become more hospitable to the neural stem cells she is trying to grow. “ Omega-3 fatty acids (docosahexaenoic acid, DHA, and eicosapentaenoic acid, EPA) are natural neuro-protectants,” she explains. “I learned that a deficiency impairs memory and brain function .” Our western diets are so deficient in these oils that Calderon wonders how many brain disorders might be treated or prevented by adding fish oil capsules, fatty fish like salmon or more oils like soybean, rapeseed (canola), flaxseed and walnuts. “I changed my diet,” she admits.

And so did I, adding up to three 1200 mg capsules of fish oil capsules a day. Barry Sears, PhD, creator of the Zone Diet, believes this Omega-3 fatty acid deficiency can be linked to anxiety, panic disorder, phobias, obsessive-compulsive behavior, and even post-traumatic stress . “The brain is incredibly sensitive to inflammation,” he wrote in Psychology Today in January 2012. My brain, by the way, is pretty calm these days even in the midst of ordinary, everyday chaos.

How to Grow a Brain

Tue, 13 May 2014 04:00:00 GMT

I walk most mornings for at least 30 minutes because I’ve been thinking that the aerobic exercise is good for my body. Not until I interviewed James Sumowski, PhD, a researcher at the Kessler Foundation, about his work with multiple sclerosis and traumatic brain injury patients, did I realize that this ordinary act of walking could physically grow my brain’s hippocampus in extraordinary ways.

Sumowski is a wonderful interviewee, excited about his work and enthusiastically trying to stress a very simple but far-reaching message about exercise. Just do it. “There had never been an aerobic exercise trial in traumatic brain injury (TBI) patients looking at hippocampal volume and memory,” he explains. By the way, every human being has two hippocampi, located on either side of the brain, and they play a crucial part in our ability to form new memories and recall the old ones.

The good news from Sumowski: “You can grow your hippocampus." After 12 weeks of 30 minutes of aerobic exercise three times a week (stationary bicycling in this clinical trial), multiple sclerosis patients experienced a 16 percent increase in their hippocampal volume, a number that astounded the research team. Meanwhile, a control group had been doing stretching exercises on a similar schedule but showed no brain growth. Sumowski, who is now conducting a similar study working with TBI patients, is also looking at “functional connectivity” or how remote regions of the brain talk to each other. As a result of aerobic exercise on a regular basis, “Greater connectivity is observed across brain regions in this short period of time.”

Imagine that something as simple as a morning walk could keep my brain growing and those connections working like magic!

(Don't you love this photo of my grandson Finn and husband Bob taking a morning walk on the beach?!!)

Deep Sleep = Clean Brain

Mon, 28 Apr 2014 04:00:00 GMT

Twice last week, sleep and stress created havoc for my children. Maggie, who is a new mother and nurse on a stressful transplant hospital unit, and Zach, who is a hands-on father of two toddlers and president of our family’s exponentially-exploding rum company ( www.brinleygoldshipwreck.com ), both had days from hell. Or at least that’s how it felt from their sleepless windows on the world. (Above: That's Evangeline in the deep sleep of infancy.)

The article, “Sleep: The Brain’s Housekeeper,” and the research study it cites, “Sleep Drives Metabolite Clearance from the Adult Brain” were both published in Science on October 18, 2013 and brought me an entirely new perspective on what Maggie and Zach’s poor brains were experiencing from lack of a good night’s sleep.

“Despite decades of effort, one of the greatest mysteries in biology is why sleep is restorative, and conversely, why lack of sleep impairs brain function,” the researchers write. What they learned in the lab at the University of Rochester working with mice is that during sleep, cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) recirculates through the brain interchanging with interstitial fluid (ISF) to remove the buildup of dangerous proteins including the neuro-toxic, metabolic waste products of cellular activity and the stuff related to neuro-degenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. There is a “network of microscopic, fluid-filled channels,” writes article author Emily Underwood, that was first described by Rochester researcher Maiken Nedergaard. Called the glymphatic system, it’s a lot like the lymphatic system in the rest of the body and something the brain sorely needs with its high metabolic rate and fragile neurons. During sleep, to make the housekeeping even more efficient as potentially toxic central nervous system junk is washed out, the channels in the brain even grow larger by more than 60 percent.

(Charlotte has always been the best stroller or car napper!)

This all makes such lovely sense for why we spend one-third of our lives sleeping and why we feel so crazed when we can’t get our daily rest.

Making Eye Contact

Mon, 21 Apr 2014 04:00:00 GMT

Last week, I walked past a socially-awkward neighbor and tried to make eye contact to wish him a good spring morning. No success. His averted gaze was so striking that the residue of it stuck with me all day. I’ve been hiking past his house for more than a decade and I’m certain he knows me by sight. But making eye contact is never within his demeanor.Later, I locked eyes in an animated conversation with 5-month-old Evangeline whose smile lights up her face whenever she sees me.

“Making eye contact is the most powerful mode of establishing a communicative link between humans,” according to four researchers who conducted a clinical trial at the University of Padua in Italy. This team discovered that infants as young as 2 to 5 days old “can discriminate between direct and averted gaze” and prefer to look at faces that engage them in mutual gaze. This truth is so pronounced for all my grandchildren – Finn, 3, Charlotte 1 ½ and baby Evan. “The exceptionally early sensitivity to mutual gaze… is arguably the major foundation for the later development of social skills,” write Teresa Farroni, Gergely Csibra, Francesca Simion and Mark H. Johnson. Their study results, titled “Eye Contact detection in humans from birth,” were published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

So what’s up with my neighbor? First of all, I shouldn’t take it personally. Research suggests that eye gaze perception may be symptomatic of autism or Asperger’s syndrome. According to this Italian study, there is “considerable controversy about whether making eye contact is a perceptual skill acquired through experience or caused by innate mechanisms.” Meanwhile, on the off chance that regular practice can make for better social skills, I am planning even more face time with grandchildren. Being able to interpret eye-gaze signals is “essential for developing a rich understanding of others’ mental states, often called a ‘theory of mind.’” My unlucky neighbor was constitutionally unable to read my happy spring signals.

Deconstructing Dreams

Mon, 07 Apr 2014 04:00:00 GMT

Last week, I dreamed that my daughter, Maggie, was riding a whale in an ocean of anxiety. She had just gone back to work at New York University’s Langone Medical Center after her maternity leave so there were good reasons for waves of anxiety. Leaving her baby for long 12-hour shifts with a loving dad, a capable sitter, or a willing grandmother provoked those waves of worry even though we three felt up to the task. But a whale? What in the world could the presence of this enormous sea animal mean? So I looked it up in The Dreamer’s Dictionary (Treasure Press) by Stearn Robinson and Tom Corbett and was shocked to find: “This big creature is a splendid dream omen signifying protective influences around you.”

You might laugh about that whale but after reading “Experimental research on dreaming: state of the art and neuropsychoanalytic perspectives” by Perrine M. Ruby in Frontiers in Psychology (published on November 18, 2011), I could see that the news was good. This had been an effective dream, one that presented “some solution to the individuals’ problems.” Author Ruby, who is on the Brain Dynamics and Cognition Team at the Lyon Neuroscience Research Center at the University of Lyon in France, writes, “Dream content is influenced by one’s personal life, especially personal concerns.” Well, of course, you know that. But this review article brought me several new insights. “Dreaming may actively moderate mood overnight in normal subjects.” ( Cartwright et al. 1998 a,b) And with a little nocturnal training, a dreamer can become “more efficient at resolving threatening situations during wakefulness.” Meanwhile, people with “thinner boundaries” – those who are “open, trustworthy, vulnerable, sensitive, more anxious” are more likely to remember dreams.

Ruby refers to researcher Michel Jouvet who gets the credit for the popular belief that “dreaming serves a vital function” ensuring the neuronal circuitry that might have been modified during the day. (Yes, let’s call that the impact of everyday stress.) Dreaming, according to Jouvet, preserves the genetic program that codes for our psychological makeup, a “process that ensures the stability of personality across time.” Wonderful news for a new mother heading back into the stressful world of work in a big city whale of a hospital!

To read this wonderful review article, go to: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3220269/pdf/fpsyg-02-00286.pdf

Baby Talk? Hardly!

Sun, 09 Mar 2014 05:00:00 GMT

I am surrounded by the miracle of early language. The other day, I had a wondrous conversation with 3-year-old Finn about the qualities of imaginary stickiness. He was wearing a new super-hero cape and un-sticking himself so he could fly off to a rescue. Earlier, Charlotte, who is 18 months old, had spoken very seriously about her ba-bee, flexing her vowel and consonant muscles. The next day, 3-month-old Evangeline discovered the dangling mobile and responded with 20 minutes of sweet interaction …going way beyond the simple coo.

Baby talk is not just for babies. In “Early Language Learning and Literacy: Neuroscience Implications for Education” published in Mind Brain Education , Patricia Kuhl (University of Washington’s Institute for Learning and Brain Science) explains, “The data indicate that the opportunity to learn from complex stimuli and events are vital early in life, and that success in school begins in infancy.” Yes, infancy!

From this wonderful review article published in 2012, I was astonished to discover that phonetic, lexical and syntactic language skills are being cemented before the first birthday. This is stunning when you consider the fact that babies must figure out 40-some phonemic categories using neural architecture and circuitry far superior to what you find in an adult brain. Did you know that there are 600 consonants and 200 vowels in all the world’s languages? At my grandmotherly age, I would certainly require years of tutoring but babies start hearing the differences by 4 months.

“Motherese” – that linguistically simplified and acoustically exaggerated speech adults use when speaking to infants – is brilliantly better than any machine in the world when it comes to teaching language. The presence of a real human being, not a face on an iPad or TV, is key, Kuhl reports. A 9 month old needs only five hours of listening time to learn a new language…but only when it happens in a social context. Kuhl says that this social interaction “opens plasticity for language learning.” A baby’s “ability to track eye movement, to achieve joint visual attention and understand others’ communicative intentions”…opens the language “gate.”

Happy Parents Set Time Aside

Mon, 24 Feb 2014 20:10:00 GMT

Until children are at least 4 , they live in the “now” with little understanding of the concept of time. Even long after that age, telling a child, “Tomorrow we will talk.” …or, “Later, I can sit down” …or “Next summer, we will all be together” often makes no sense to them. For babies and little ones, the concepts of past, present and future are all disjointed. So watch out, children may hear your words without really understand your good intentions.

Happy parents know that they must set “time” aside on so many different levels, not just talking about time but actually taking time in the now to interact with their children.

* Be a passive presence. Sit on the side of a sandbox or a bed or on the floor. Simply be there.

* Take a walk together with no destination in particular and no need to hurry.

(Finn, my daughter-in-law Erin, and even Charlotte love to walk, especially during this snowy winter when fresh air can change the whole demeanor of a long day.)

* Establish a time in your busy life when your child knows you will be likely to hear. Working moms and dads may want to consider a telephone appointment, in fact. One parent I remember would call the kids every day at 3 pm.

* Be patient. Don’t try to pull words out of the mouths of babes.

* Keep your own comments short.

* Don’t finish sentences. Don’t correct mispronunciations or grammatical errors. Under age 6, kids meander through thoughts or stories.

* Let children own their own feelings. Don’t try to talk them out of an emotion even if you disagree or don’t understand what the big deal is all about.

* Put that cell phone down. You may learn or see something quite extraordinary about your child if your brain isn’t too busy being somewhere else.

Eau de Mommy

Sat, 08 Feb 2014 05:00:00 GMT

Searching for extraordinary science and understanding in the everyday ordinary of life...

My daughter Maggie, who is now the mother of absolutely beautiful, two-month-old Evangeline, can not believe what her sense of smell is up to these days. “No one told me that I would be obsessed with my baby and that her breath in my face when she sighs would smell sooooo good.” And while Evan can’t speak English yet, she is just as likely to be saying the very same thing.

It’s all about those pheromones! A study published in Communicative & Integrative Biology , titled “Chemical communication and mother-infant recognition” and written by Stefano Vaglio at the University of Florence, Italy, looked at the research behind these human chemical signals and then searched for “individual odor” signatures in a sample of mothers. Even though we may all think we’ve heard everything we need to know about this term pheromones, not a single one had been identified at the time of Vaglio’s work in 2009. The closest contender, he says, is some elusive chemical in the armpits of women. “Apparently this unidentified pheromone causes menstrual synchrony in females living in close quarters.”

As it turns out, every mother has her own special unique odor signature, especially in her armpits and breasts. And a newborn recognizes this scent from the very first moments of life and breath, having grown to love it back in the womb right there in the amniotic fluid zone. But it’s not just about recognizing each other. It’s also critical to their attraction and ability to fall in love with each other. “Breast odors from the mother exert a pheromone-like effect for the newborn’s first attempt to locate the nipple,” Vaglio writes. Those pheromone signals also improve with individual odors and a mother’s proteins release small molecules slowly, making them last longer, this researcher explains. Breast-fed babies, in fact, were able to pick up the maternal odor cues quicker than bottle-fed infants, which makes sense with all the skin to skin contact.

The researcher actually identified the particular chemical odor compounds from the moms’ sweat patch samples collected from both their underarms (para-axillary area) and breasts during pregnancy and in the weeks after childbirth. Vaglio suspects that those distinctive olfactory patterns captured in the armpit might be helpful to a newborn baby. And I am intuiting that he means a crying baby might go looking for the comfort of his or her mother’s special scent. So, the next time I am babysitting Evangeline, I am going to ask Maggie to leave behind an unwashed T-shirt. Her “Eau de Maggie” scent might prove just as useful as a bottle of her breast milk or a pacifier.

Happy Parents Can See the Extraordinary in the Ordinary

Wed, 05 Feb 2014 15:34:00 GMT

Babysitting the other day for Evie, my six-week-old grand-daughter, brought me a moment of pure wondrous delight. As I held her in my arms and we were talking closely, intimately, she looked back at me with eyes wide open in one of her quiet-alert states and responded very directly with soft “coos” and “ooos” to my voice. Her little head even moved in sync with my face. Honestly, her words felt very real. She knew I was telling her how much I loved her. And I was simply knocked down emotionally by how direct she could be in this little dialogue. A conversation had begun which I intend to continue throughout our lives.

Evangeline was only three weeks old when our conversation began. Isn't she amazing in this photo?

I saw a quote in Oprah Magazine’s January 2014 issue that I’d like to pass along so you can use it every day of your life as a parent. “There is an extraordinary in the ordinary. Every day and every breath is magic – if we can only see it for what it is.” – Oprah Winfrey.

While it’s not always easy or even possible to see that extraordinary in your ordinary parenting grind, especially while you are down there in the trenches with sleepless nights and endless rounds of dirty diapers and laundry, this is such a nice thought to keep in focus. Seriously, looking for even little hints of extraordinary might help you see all the presents in your present life.

Happy Parents Know That Attitude Is So Important

Mon, 20 Jan 2014 21:22:00 GMT

Almost everyone pays lip service to the importance of mothers. I know you believe that mothers are important but do you act on your beliefs? Probably not. Most of us try to tackle mothering along with a never-ending to do list.

I like to think of a marathon runner when I’m searching for an example of someone with a great attitude, who is focused on just one thing: finishing the race!

Look at the similarities between a runner and a mother : Both often begin working in the predawn hours, exerting their bodies to a degree that is beyond normal capacity. Both get sweaty and fatigued and are sometimes in pain. Yet both runner and mother persevere to finish what they set out to do.

The big difference is that during a race, marathon runners draw crowds of supporters as they run along. Thousands of people watch and cheer them on. Marathon runners believe in what they are doing. Moms rarely get such positive attention for their hard work.

All mothers run a constant marathon. So, give yourself the credit and respect you deserve. This is your race. Are you in shape? Are you psyched? Do you believe you can do it?

Maggie and Evangeline are getting to know each other during their first months of marathon mothering!

Years ago, newspaper columnist Joan Beck created this job description for mothers:

Wanted: Athlete in top condition to safeguard tireless toddler. Needs quick reflexes, boundless energy, infinite patience. ESP helpful. Knowledge of first aid helpful. Must be able to drive, cook, phone, work despite distractions. Workday: 15 hours. Will consider pediatric nurse with Olympic background. Training in psychology desirable. Should be able to referee and must be unflappable. Tolerance is chief requirement.

Give yourself a standing ovation! And remember: time off from a demanding routine becomes the equivalent of money in your emotional bank account. These are funds you will certainly borrow on a day when life gets you down and you feel overwhelmed.

Happy Parents Hear Their Children

Sun, 05 Jan 2014 14:43:00 GMT

To be a good listener, all of you – your mind as well as your body – has to be there. To listen, you need to put aside other thoughts. Concentrate on the speaker. Don’t worry about your to-do list. It won’t ever go away. Only then can you listen and really hear what children may be saying.

As writer Pepper Schwartz said, “Conversation at home has stiff competition.”

Keep this in mind: You have two ears and one mouth so listen twice as much as you talk. Children who know that their parents hear them are less likely to feel alone when faced with pressures.

To hear better than ever:

* Hang around your kids.

* Start early (even with your newborn baby as I’ve been watching Maggie do!) and don’t ever stop.

At three weeks, Evangeline is already listening to her mother Maggie!

* Tone of voice is critical. “What” can easily turn into a four-letter word when your volume is turned up to a strident point.

* Angry? Wait before you open your mouth to speak. Being in good shape is important. Think: Am I preoccupied, hungry, furious, frustrated or too tired to think?

* Ask the right questions. And don’t use that word “why” to start off. “Why” will always put someone, especially a child, on the defensive.

Happy Parents Know That Resentment Poisons a Family

Tue, 17 Dec 2013 13:33:00 GMT

Resentment is a mother’s greatest occupational hazard. You know what resentment is. It starts when you begin talking through clenched teeth. I call it the “Wouldn’t you think somebody in this house would…” syndrome.

Wouldn’t you think that…

* someone else could hang up a towel?

* he would call if he wasn’t coming home for dinner?

* they would appreciate all my efforts?

* someone would notice that I am exhausted and overwhelmed?

Motherhood can be such a shock. Before your first child is born, you may dream about being a mother but no one is prepared for labor, delivery and those first weeks and months of sleeplessness and anxiety. My daughter Maggie, who delivered her baby girl, Evangeline Pearl, last week is right in the middle of this shock to the system. In order to survive, you need to go out and refuel, even if it is just for a walk around the block without your baby.

Meet Evangeline! The sweetest baby girl and just a day old here.

Sometimes we mothers persevere, working diligently to reach the end of that long to-do list, not realizing it will never be completed and not recognizing how uptight, how resentful, we are.

If you serve your family resentment for meals, it will poison them .

Resentment is in the tone of your voice when you respond to a toddler who will not let go of your leg and who has been whining, “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy”.

Resentment is a spoiler. No matter how hard you are working, if you are filled with resentment, you negate your efforts. Your negative mood permeates the atmosphere in which you are supposed to be nurturing your family.

Resentment is a romance killer. Anger and love can’t survive easily side by side.

You can’t raise happy children if you are resentful. They sense your resentment , not your love .

Happy Parents...Make Happy Memories

Mon, 02 Dec 2013 23:21:00 GMT

“Joy is not in things, it is in us.” – Benjamin Franklin

What comes to mind when you recall your happiest childhood memory?

Without a doubt, the memories you are hanging on to are not the fancy gift-wrapped boxes or elaborately planned experiences. In fact, the memories we all treasure are the sincere, yet special, gifts of care, love, attention and time.

When I consider all the energy and money we parents and grandparents spend on “wow” presents, “quality” occasions, or pre-programmed activities (especially at this holiday time of year!) trying to create one-of-a-kind moments for kids, I never cease to be amazed by how insignificant these financial sacrifices become in our memory banks. Those holidays spent with family aren’t memorable because of the toy you got or the pile of presents, they remain special forever because of the happy atmosphere.

(Charlotte found the perfect little Christmas tree for herself this past weekend!)

You have the ability to create the happy memories your children will draw on forever. This is critical. To have happy memories from childhood is to have an emotional bank account filled with joy and strength.

Gifts? Presents? Please don't stress about them. You don’t need to give your children everything. You simply need to include them.

I picked up this wonderful quote from one of my favorite websites, http://www.brainpickings.org: “Who we are, if not measured by our impact on others? That’s who we are. We’re not who we say we are, we’re not who we want to be – we are the sum of the influence and impact that we have in our lives, on others” – especially when those others are our children.

Happy Parents Don't Let Fear Get In The Way

Thu, 21 Nov 2013 21:56:00 GMT

“We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt

I can still remember that feeling on the very first night of my son Zach’s life at home in my care. I awoke to the sound of nothing and my stomach lurched in fear as I leaned over his bassinet next to the bed. Still exhausted from labor, delivery, and the shocking realization that I was responsible for another human being, I was checking him for signs of life, of course. Was he still breathing?

Fear is an emotion all normal parents know so well. It comes with the territory of parenthood from the very beginning. It’s healthy. It can certainly save lives. Yet it can also color everything you do as a parent and ruin your chances for happiness if you let it overwhelm you.

Stress can also magnify your fears and make it impossible for you to say, “Yes” to your child’s natural urges to explore. Yes, there are dangers. Yes, your fears could be legitimate. But worrying will not get you anywhere. Deal with reality, not your imaginary disasters.

“Worry is like a rocking chair: It gives you something to do but doesn’t get you anywhere.” – Evan Esar

Understand what your child comprehends, and is capable of … then you can say, “Yes” with more confidence. Err on the side of being cautiously permissive, removing dangers and obstacles along the way. But remember that touching a warm stove, balancing on, or falling off, a jungle gym, crossing a street alone, failing a test in school, suffering the consequences for making a mistake…are experiences that teach judgment. Honestly, a child’s good judgment does not come from restraint but from experience. And real life experience is a better teacher than you could ever be on your own.

Finn learning how to handle scissors for the first time, on his own:

Happy Mothers Trust Their Instincts

Wed, 06 Nov 2013 05:00:00 GMT

How to “mother” your own children is not a skill you pick up from a manual, from other mothers or even from professionals, including pediatricians. As my daughter Maggie gets closer to her due date of December 4 ^th , I’ve been thinking a lot about this transition into motherhood . Look at it like learning how to ride a bike. When you first get up on a bicycle seat, you feel shaky. Maybe you even fall off the bike but you keep climbing back on because the sensation is pretty exhilarating. Finally, you start speeding along. It is a unique talent you had all along. You might not have tried it before or known how wonderful it would feel but you had the capacity to ride that bike all along.

Following a manual’s instructions for riding a bike is ridiculous. “Don’t lean too far to either side,” or, “Keep your left foot up while your right foot pedals downward.” Imagine trying to balance while following such detailed directions. It would be impossible. The book would only make riding more complicated than it should be when your own coordination and instinct will ultimately send you sailing along. The same is true for motherhood.

All the parenting books, the professionals as well as that army of well-meaning family and friends should become nothing more to you than a box of tissues. Take the tissue (or advice), use it if you want but toss it aside with no guilt. Following someone else’s parenting advice won’t necessarily make you a better parent, it will just make you a follower.

Happy Parents...Listen, Listen, Listen

Fri, 25 Oct 2013 04:00:00 GMT

To be a good listener, all of you – your mind as well as your body – has to be there. Mothers suffer terribly from what I like to call “crowded brain syndrome.” When your brain is crowded, there isn’t room for anything else in there.

To listen, put aside other thoughts. Concentrate on the speaker. Don’t worry about your to-do list. It won’t ever go away. Only then can you listen to what your kids are saying, understand what you are hearing, and acknowledge their feelings.

Have you ever tried to hold a conversation with someone who really wasn’t interested in what you had to say? How did that make you feel? Have you ever found yourself just waiting for your turn to speak without really paying attention to what is being said to you? I think we all do this a lot to our children. They may be speaking but we are waiting to tell them something. And yet we ask, “Will you listen to me?”

* We discipline them.

* We instruct them.

* We correct and direct them – even criticize them.

* We do all or most of the talking so much of the time.

Here’s an exercise for parents who want to become better listeners:

Put your mind in the same place as your body.

Dave Isay, founder of StoryCorps which is heard on NPR, said it so well in this week's Sunday New York Times: The act of listening "reminds people that they matter." So very important for children growing up! And I want to pass along a wonderful thought from Mark Nepo's new book, Seven Thousand Ways To Listen (Simon and Schuster): "Intuition is the very personal way we listen to the universe in order to discover and rediscover the learnings we were born with. As such, intuition is a deep form of listening that, when trusted, can return us to the common, irrepressible element at the center of all life..." So next time you are with your child or children, listen, listen, listen.

Happy Parents Know that Guilt is a Waste of Time

Tue, 15 Oct 2013 04:00:00 GMT

My very first book was written with a pediatrician named Sandy Matthews who had decided that in his medical practice, the mothers were just as important as the children. If he paid attention to their state of mind and understood their anxieties and issues, then children would be healthier and happier all around. And he relied upon a list “maxims” according to Matthews to set them straight. One bit of Sandy’s wisdom came up repeatedly not only in my own life as a mother and grandmother now but also in my writing.

If you are feeling guilty, then someone is profiting from your sense of failure. Look around and think about this. Who is making you feel guilty? And heh, if you have really done something wrong, then apologize, promise you won’t do it again and move on. But also take a minute to focus on who might be profiting from making you feel guilty.

This topic of guilt was in The Secrets of Happy Parenting: “Happy Parents Know that Guilt is a Waste of Time.”

Guilt can come from anywhere and anyone…husbands, mothers, fathers, in-laws, parents, grandparents, friends, even strangers…they lay a guilt trip on you!

You let your children do that?

Why can’t you be more like…

When I was a mother, I would never…

How could you use that type of diaper?

And when children are older, you may hear...

“We never go anywhere good on vacation.”

“I hate you.”

“All of my friends are…” (Fill in the blanks.)

(Not a bit of guilt in this brotherly hug. It's all natural!)

Guilt is a universal emotion for parents. As Cornelia Otis Skinner once wrote, “Women have a special corner in their hearts for sins they have never committed.”

So, when was the last time you felt guilty? What was said? Identify, identify…so you can acknowledge this emotion. This is a first step in freeing yourself of the burden of guilt.

And, recognize that guilt can come from not trusting yourself. All parents are second-guessing themselves, thinking for two (or three or four), wondering if what they are doing is the right thing. Novelist Anne Tyler wrote, “I remember leaving the hospital thinking, ‘Wait, are they going to let me just walk off with him? I don’t know beans about babies. I don’t have a license to do this. We’re just amateurs.”

So move on. Stop the guilt. You just make yourself and others feel worse when you feel guilty. Let it go. Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote, “Give yourself no unnecessary pain.”

Happy Parents Aren't Perfect

Mon, 23 Sep 2013 04:00:00 GMT

Perfection is an unrealistic destination neither you nor your children can ever reach. Life is really, honestly, no kidding, a work in progress…always! Think about it this way: There is no state of perfection on the map and if you continually go looking for it, you may miss the really good stuff – and spoil your trip. Relax and enjoy the ride. At the end of the day, are you really going to say, “Oh goodie. I got through my to-do list,” especially if you haven’t found the time to laugh with or tickle your toddler?

In fact, “perfect” parents and yes, grandparents, (and we all know a few) pay a high price in their quest for perfectionism. Families, however, pay an even higher price because living with someone who wants to achieve perfection is exhausting for everyone.

Perfect parents are never quite satisfied and are the kind of people who hold strong opinions about how they and everyone else ought to be living or doing things. They seem to have an endless list of opinions, suggestions and ideas for everyone on everything from diapers to the care and feeding of families at every turn. You can’t help but disappoint someone who is aimed at perfection.

Are you a “Yes, but” kind of parent? Here’s what I mean by this:

* Your child gets dressed on his own and heading out the door. You say, “ Yes , that looks nice but why don’t you wear the pink sweater with those pants?”

* A report card comes home with three As and two Bs and you can’t stop yourself from thinking or saying outloud, “What happened with those Bs?”

If you are never quite satisfied with your own or your children’s efforts, your kids are less likely to put forth any effort at all soon enough. It’s easier not to try than to be criticized. Get rid of that “Yes, but” approach.

* Give unqualified compliments.

* Always remember: Criticism deflates and diminishes self-esteem.

* To inspire and motivate kids to reach their highest potential, celebrate their efforts.

All families go through periods of dysfunction. But I really believe that children growing up in less-than-perfect households learn to cope better with the pressures of adult life. You don’t need to protect or correct children from every crisis or every mistake.

Remember: Perfection = Stress

Parents sometimes torture themselves in a quest to be consistent. I don’t think it’s really possible to be consistent all the time. Aim for consistently normal. Your child’s world is not going to fall apart because of your mistakes, your moods, your imperfections or your human frailties if you enjoy being a parent more often than not.

Happy Parents Create a Cozy Atmosphere

Mon, 16 Sep 2013 04:00:00 GMT

* Atmosphere in your home has absolutely nothing to do with interior decorating.

* Atmosphere has nothing to do with good housekeeping.

* Atmosphere is all about what it feels like in your home.

You create the atmosphere in which your children grow – physically and emotionally. It doesn’t matter whether you work outside your home full-time, part-time or not at all. Mothers are usually the principal crafters of this home atmosphere. Fathers certainly contribute and nowadays there are more and more fathers who are manning this home front which I love. But more often than not, it is the mother who creates the emotional climate of a home. And this atmosphere is probably the most important single contribution to your child’s ultimate happiness and/or success.

So, what’s it like in your house? Is your home emotionally comfortable? Do you breathe a sigh of relief or desperation when you are there? Envision a time of day to answer this question. Is it a madhouse early morning or at breakfast? What about dinner, bath or going-to-bed time? If you hate being there in your home, chances are your children do too. And a good climate is essential to growing kids.

Whether Conditions (I haven’t misspelled weather. I really mean whether here.)

Check your atmospheric conditions. A pleasant atmosphere depends upon…

Secrets of Happy Parenting

Tue, 10 Sep 2013 04:00:00 GMT

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Having Fun Is An Important Parenting Skill!

Fri, 06 Sep 2013 04:00:00 GMT

You don't teach kids how to be happy. You show them. You are their role model for living happily ever after.

Enjoyment is a key element in anything you do. When you enjoy what you are doing, no matter what it is – even something you’ve decided you simply “must do” or “have to do”—the task becomes easier and more rewarding. Enjoying your children or your grandchildren is essential. It also makes life a lot easier.

Each stage of parenting brings with it new joys as well as new problems. But if you are constantly anticipating a rosier future, a time when life will be better than ever, you run the risk of missing the joys of today.

Consider this: You can’t count your blessings if you can’t see them. And enjoying your children’s development, not enduring it, should become second nature to you.

If you are overtired, overworked, in overload, however, you won’t be able to discover the best parts of each and every age. To experience the joy and thrill of this present moment in your life, you need to be in good shape emotionally as well as physically.

Slow down so you can see better.

Save time to do nothing.

Create a fun reserve and draw on it regularly. If parenting experts suddenly pronounced that the way to raise brighter, happier, healthier, more successful children was to have unstructured, silly, lighthearted fun daily, then you would find a way to fit it into your life.