August 2016 – Listening for Good

Early Communication With Babies in Infant Massage

Attachment theory holds that every child forms an attachment with a caregiver, and through this relationship, the child forms her ideas about her self, the world and her place in it. The goal of infant massage and touch communication is to support strong attachment with reciprocal communication.

I had the opportunity to work with the Foundation for Healthy Family Living (FHFL) in Sonoma, California to become a certified instructor of Infant Massage. Elaine Fogel Schneider, PhD, a colleague at FHFL, writes

“By using infant massage, a parent grasps the art of listening, asking permission, communicating, interpreting and responding to cues. The infant displays engagement/disengagement cues, furthers body awareness, self-esteem, listening and communication. Both infant and parent benefit from eye contact, relaxation, bonding, synchrony, love and trust.”

Infant massage classes are a supportive place where parents learn and meet other parents.

A new series starts in June, please sign up here:

Read more about Touch Communication in this excellent article, here.

Listening To Babies

A tiny story about the healing power of listening.

When I met sweet B., she had a lot of fears about being picked up. During her short life, she had already endured being jabbed with needles and confined while procedures or medication were administered. Her cries of protest were so loud and she struggled so much that I almost felt that I could not keep holding her. She is an incredibly strong little person, both emotionally and physically, all 15 pounds of her!

I was able to make eye contact with B. and release the tension that I could feel in my shoulders, the result of her cries. I took a breath. I was ready to listen to her strong feelings. I did not shhh her or say ‘you are ok’ or hug her tightly. It was tempting to do all of those things; this little one is so precious and vulnerable. Instead, I held her gaze and listened. My face stayed calm. I nodded a few times as the minutes passed. I said ‘I am sorry that it was so hard for you.’

This was the start of many listening times with baby B.. Each tine, she would begin to release some of the fears and discomfort she had with me picking her up. She would always begin to relax after our eyes were able to make a good contact. I also noticed that she went to sleep very easily with my help after these sessions. I truly believe that listening to babies is one of the most important things we can do as parents and teachers.

Contact me for support in being a calm listening for your little one.

Five Emotionally Intelligent Parenting Tips

Hand in Hand Parenting‘s amazingly incredible founder Patty Wipfler and her wonderful co-author Tosha Schore were recently part of a piece in Real Simple magazine. These are wise, incredible people, I am trying to tell you!. And these five tips, especially I’ll be with you while you wait for problems with sharing will make a difference for parents everywhere. Although each idea is brief, all five will help you turn a situation around and put connection first. Go check it out.

What To Do When Your Baby Cries

Aletha Solter, PhD is the author of The Aware Baby and Tears and Tantrums

Infants are extremely vulnerable, and have a considerable amount of emotional pain resulting from an accumulation of stressful experiences. Distress can be caused by a traumatic birth or difficulties after birth. Babies experience confusion as they attempt to understand the world and they are easily frightened and over-stimulated. In addition, they feel frustrated as they attempt to learn new skills and communicate. All of these result in emotional pain that is stored in the body.

Fortunately, babies come equipped with a repair kit, and can overcome the effects of stress through the natural healing mechanism of crying. Research has shown that people of all ages benefit from a good cry, and tears help to restore the body’s chemical balance following stress. An infant who has been isolated in an incubator without much human contact for several days may need to cry and rage for many hours, over a period of months, in order to release the emotional pain caused by such a terrifying and confusing experience. …..

Crying in these examples is not the hurt; it is the process of becoming unhurt.

What can parents do? First of all, it is important to check for immediate needs and discomforts, such as hunger and coldness. But if your baby is still fussy after you have filled her basic needs, it is quite appropriate simply to hold her lovingly and allow her to continue crying. Babies need closeness and attention when they are crying. No baby should ever be left to cry along. Even though you may feel ineffective when holding your crying baby, in reality you are providing her with much needed emotional support while she is releasing stress in this manner. Your baby is not rejecting you when she is crying. She Is simply feeling safe enough to show you her feelings.

Please note that this is not a cry it out approach. There is a huge difference between leaving a baby to cry alone and holding a crying baby lovingly in your arms while providing comfort and reassurance.

The other part of this: get support!! I think it is really important for parents to get support as they use this approach. Many strong feelings come up as you listen to your crying baby, and it is important to take these feelings to another adult who can be present for you to process them.

The Power of a Listener

I had a really stressful professional presentation to give. I managed to get ideas together and to write down a few very important thoughts, but I was not really thinking very clearly. Fear and stuck feelings were getting in the way. This is the story of one messy project and how a listening partnership helped clean it up.

I had only a few minutes that day with my listening partner. I sat huddled in my car, waiting outside my daughter’s high school before I would take her to another activity. It seemed every other parent in the known universe was also in the car during this time, evidenced by the line of cars piling up all around mine. I was in a peaceful bubble with a listening partner on the line with me. As I talked and she listened, across many state lines, I could feel her presence. I started to talk about my worries about the worst thing that could happen with this talk the next morning. Safely floating above this sea of cars gave me a powerful sense. It whispering to me You are not alone. It felt huge and earth shifting.

As I reflected more on this, I realized that I was carrying some really painful memories from older times when I needed someone to be there. The listening partnership time where I got to talk about my fear with someone who was really there and really listening helped me to wipe the cobwebs from that time. I could feel it still, mucking up the works. Clearing it out helped me in the short term, and was also the beginning of some larger healing.

In the small piece of listening time I spent that afternoon, I was able to receive a big gift: support to think clearly. Please join me for a free Listening Partnership training to get started using this powerful tool.