Building Blocks to Parenting with Gratitude™
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Since the focus is so heavily on gratitude during the month of November, we are going to shift a bit to talk about skills that we can use year-round for parenting with gratitude™. It’s not just during November that you can layer support upon a daily gratitude practice and add some real punch to your self-growth journey.
If you have read my Gratitude Cheatsheet, you know I have a list of habits I try to practice that build upon my intention for a grateful life. That list was made with the blood, sweat, and tears (well, not really blood) of my own trial and error as I figured out just what worked when supporting this new life filled with gratitude. What new skills could I learn during this process that would set me up for success?
Well, there are many! Let’s read the list again:
Wake up a bit earlier, nothing crazy, just like 5 minutes earlier. Write down 10 things you are grateful for - this trains your brain away from the negativity bias. (Gratitude)
Remind yourself your children don’t know your past traumas or the emotional burdens you may carry. (Equanimity)
Then remind yourself that they are new to this planet. (Empathy)
Go through your day and observe your children with the same awe and wonder they observe the world. (Joy and Delight)
Start saying out loud the nice things that are already in your head. (Affirmations)
Begin noticing when you’re upset and what your expectations are at that moment. (Mindfulness)
Before you go to bed, go into your children’s rooms and look at their sleeping faces. Wish them well, and feel your love for them intensely throughout your whole body. (Compassion)
Mentally list 3 things you're grateful for as you get into bed. (Courage)
Remind yourself of one thing that went well during the day. (Self-Reflection)
These steps are some of the ACTION components to our well-being equation - which is:
Intention + Attention + Action + Repetition = Results
And they are also rooted in positive emotions that take advantage of Barbara Fredrickson's Broaden and Build cycle. And if you want to know more about the magic of the broaden and build cycle listen to Episode 13 of the podcast.
Today I’m excited to dig into three of the ideas that center around our children, and they are:
Remind yourself that your kids don’t the emotional burdens you carry.
Remind yourself that they are new to this planet.
And
Before you go to bed, go into your children’s rooms and look at their sleeping faces. Wish them well, and feel your love for them intensely throughout your whole body.
To do this, we need to talk about Professor Robert Emmons's ARC Model of Gratitude. He says that gratitude does three things as we become more accustomed to its role in our lives. It Amplifies, Rescues, and Connects or ARC. Gratitude amplifies the good in our world. It helps us to see MORE of it all around us and then expect more of it as we live our everyday lives. And over time, that mindset builds and grows.
Gratitude rescues us from the negative-leaning aspects of our minds. Have you ever felt stuck in a cycle of forgetfulness or laziness? Yep, that’s your mind at work - keeping you safe but also keeping you pretty cramped and grumpy, always looking for the next thing to go wrong. In addition to our mind’s natural tendency towards the negative, we are influenced by our environments where negative news gets more attention and the louder you yell on social or, the more salacious you act, the more ‘likes’ you get.
It’s exhausting! As Professor Emmons says it, gratitude rescues us from the negativity trap, “rescues us from the thieves that derail our opportunity for happiness, and gets us back on track to contentment and inner peace.”
And finally, gratitude connects! Once you are out of that ‘funk’ and you notice all the good around you, even the most challenging relationships may feel like less of a threat to you. In fact without gratitude, our society would crumble. We would not be connected in the ways we are to people that are outside our family unit. But when you look up from your phone and say “Thank You” to your barista an automatic link is formed between you both, and the world is better for it.
Using the ARC model, we can take a closer look at our relationship with our children. The first system I use is to amplify my gratitude. And I do this with a series of reminders. You can write these down on a post-it and put them in your car or make a reminder that pops up once a week on your phone or you can simply reflect on them from time to time, but again they are:
Remind yourself that your kids don’t the emotional burdens you carry.
Remind yourself that they are new to this planet.
Why do these amplify my gratitude? Well, first off, thank goodness that when I snap at my son, the only thing he sees on his end is me snapping - not my Mom Guilt or my Inner Critic telling me to hurry up or do a better job - he doesn’t need that crap it’s bad enough his mom is mad. And when we cut through the drama and simply see it as “snapping” it’s much easier to notice. Noticing when we act out of alignment with our goals is the first step towards what I call the “Juicy Pause,” or allowing for a longer and longer pause BEFORE the actual mistake. Maybe we breathe instead or use a gentle parenting phrase. But there is no pause without first noticing the unwise action – and there is noticing the unwise action when it’s covered up with a story filled with suffering, “You have to be better” - “You need to hurry up, or you will be late” - “You have to finish this report in total silence or it won’t be tight enough for presentation tomorrow.” You know the scary voices. So reminder #1 - Your kids do not know your emotional burdens.
Reminder #2 - Your kids are new to this planet. Maybe you have a 2-year-old. That means they have been here for 24 months. That’s it. Total. Of course, they are gonna be a mess they literally just learned how to use their limbs. And sometimes they can talk like you but a lot of the time they can’t! My son, who is 10 - he’s new here! Sure he’s been around the block a few times, but he has not experienced nearly as much as I have or his brother, who is 14. He still hasn’t learned to regulate his emotions or sit still for more than a half hour - and that’s fine! I am grateful for the chance to guide him along the way - the empathy from this type of mindset shift helps us to see just how much effort they are putting in each day to grow and just to learn the lingo and the neighborhood. Would you consider someone who moved into your neighborhood three years ago a local? Or maybe they still have a few things to learn that, if asked you would be happy to teach them.
Empathy also rescues you from the ruminations of parenthood, the 100 times you need to tell them to bring their backpacks in from the car or stay away from the dog’s water dish. Remembering their new here can rescue your mind from the negative places it wants to go like impatience and frustration and bring you back to the present where it’s all one big adventure, and you just happen to be the loving tour guide.
So there are the reminders that amplify and rescue, and then there is the nighttime routine which helps to Connect. But here’s the best part especially for those of you in the throws of toddlerhood moodiness…You do it when they are asleep.
Try this for a week: Before you head off to bed for the night, sneak into your children’s rooms and look at their sleeping faces. Wish them well, and feel your love for them intensely throughout your whole body. Savor it. They aren’t awake, so they can’t talk back. You want to think about the most positive aspects of your relationship. If you want, you can list three things that you love about them in your head or write them down and leave them as a morning note.
If you do this for a week, you will feel a deeper connection grow with your child, and sometimes we need this so that we can access the empathy and mindfulness needed to notice.
As James Clear, the author of Atomic Habits, famously says, “You do not rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems.” And just like our GoodAF Mom Intention these ideas are not just a “try it once and let it go” activity. I offer them up as routines that you can incorporate into your parenting - they are the building blocks of what I call Parenting with Gratitude™. Just little tweaks you can make to your normal life that over time will have a big impact. We don’t need to wipe the slate clean, only amplify what is already here and true, rescue our minds from habitual thoughts and reactions and connect with the humans around us. So give it a try and I hope you know – You’re a GoodAF Mom. - Stef
