Build the Village

17/04/2022

New comic! Question! www.lunarbaboon.com

03/04/2022

Offering presence, and witnessing without necessarily fixing, is is good for emotional development. Brain-Body Parenting goes deep into the topics I share on social media. https://bit.ly/3KJFVso

02/04/2022

"We nurture resilience when we move from behavior management to emotional co-regulation."
—Mona Delahooke, Ph.D

✨ If you would like to be kept in the loop on everything Neurochild please submit your details here http://bit.ly/neurochild-connect

02/04/2022

16/11/2021

Source: Uplifting Early Childhood ❣️

28/05/2021

Maybe I’ve spent one too many hours recently dealing with schools and therapists who want to continue implementing inappropriate and ineffective “behavior plans” for kids…and I’m feeling a little feisty about it.⁣
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If you aren’t focusing first and foremost on building safe trusting relationships with children who are struggling (or any child for that matter)-you’re doing it wrong. Full stop. You’re missing the necessary ingredient to help kids develop the skills needed for better behavior.⁣
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Adult-Child relationships are literally the foundation of all cognitive, communication, social, emotional, and behavioral development. Children form the neural connections they need for skill development in all of these areas through their relationships with others. ⁣
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We can thank psychologists and educators like Dr. Alan Fogel (Developing Through Relationships), Dr. Alan Sroufe (Emotional Development), Dr. Dan Seigel (The Developing Mind), Dr. Barbara Rogoff (Apprenticeship in Thinking), Dr. Peter Hobson (The Cradle of Thought), and many others for showing how the development of thinking, communication, emotional and behavioral regulation happens via relationship with caregivers. ⁣
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And we can thank people in the realm of behavioral neuroscience, like Dr. Stephen Porges (Polyvagal Theory), for helping us understand the physiological components of emotional/behavioral regulation.⁣
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There’s no question that relationship is at the heart of everything with kids. But when a child is having challenges (especially in the realm of emotions/behavior), relationships are often not what people look to as the primary “intervention”. Instead, they focus on tallying, giving stickers, time-outs, detention, calling parents, restraint, and many more strategies that are misguided at best-and damaging at worst.⁣
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When a child exhibits concerning behaviors, start with developing or strengthening caring, trusting, safe relationships with at least one adult in that environment. That’s not just the “nice” thing to do-it’s the right and only thing to do if you really want to improve a child’s development and behavior.⁣
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Leave a ❤️ if you agree, and feel free to share your thoughts.⁣

20/04/2021

Many parents, upon receiving their child's Autism diagnosis, feel an immense pressure.

Part of the pressure that parents feel is that they must make up for "lost time": time that they didn’t know their child was Autistic, time that they could have been doing things differently to set their child up for success.

Another part of that pressure is in the perpetuation of the “developmental window” fallacy. We’re told that there is a crucial developmental window during which early interventions will have greatest chance of helping an Autistic child – interventions which are often aimed at "normalising" the child, at helping them to learn to suppress and bury their authentic selves.

It is worth knowing, however, that there is no developmental window. There is no age at which we stop growing, maturing, developing, learning, having reached our "full potential". And if there is no developmental window, there is time to sit with your child's identity – time to accept, time to embrace.

Read more at Reframing Autism founder and CEO Dr Melanie Heyworth's piece "Introduction to Autism, Part 2: Next steps after a childhood diagnosis":

https://www.reframingautism.org.au/introduction-to-autism-part-2-next-steps-after-a-childhood-diagnosis/

Image description: Illustrations of botanicals create a frame. On an apricot background text reads: "There is no 'developmental window' after which we no longer learn and grow and develop. Sit with your child's Autistic identity and embrace it with the unconditional acceptance that it – and your child – deserves. You have time. Actually, you have a lifetime." Reframing Autism's logo

05/10/2020

We are not our thoughts. We are the collection of our experience that has shaped our values. Adding two words, ‘for now’, reminds us that our thoughts and feelings are transient and we can distance ourselves from our thoughts rather than define ourselves by them.

16/09/2020

Am I Worthy of Imitation?
There are two ways to use personal power with other people. The one we are most familiar with is the one that underpins all of our culture, and almost every one of our cultural institutions including parenting and education. It is known as The Dynamic of Domination, or Power Over. We all do it because that’s the culture, so there’s no blame and no guilt (let’s get that out of the way first).

The Dynamic of Domination - Us and Them
We see it in our family lives and our work lives when we boss people around telling them what to do and how to do it. We find ourselves offering incentives and rewards to make ‘them’ do what 'we' want them to do. If the soft options fail, then we resort to various forms punishment which might include excluding, shaming, taking privileges away, force, and even violence - all in order to force ‘them’ do what 'we' want. Our common language use and language patterns not only support this dynamic, they work to keep it in existence.

The Dynamic of Partnership - We
As Mr Rogers says in his quote, there is a world of difference in establishing an environment where someone grows into WANTING to do the task and carry out the behaviours of The Dynamic of Partnership. Our mindfulness around the way we speak to and about our children is one sure way to bring about change. When you and I gain the skills for creating and maintaining successful partnering skills with those we love, we create heaven on earth. You only need to think of a teacher, a boss, a colleague who treated you as an equal human being and you can feel the difference. That’s what we are aiming for. That is spirituality in practice.