Awake Parent - with Shelly Birger Phillips

March 24, 2011April 28, 2011

Hypnosis, one of my new favorite tools

Have you ever found yourself ruminating about things, going over and over the experiences of your day, beating yourself up about the way you talked to your child, and not able to relax to sleep at night? Well, I occasionally find that relaxing to sleep is difficult for me, but I have found a wonderful solution! Self-hypnosis helps me turn off my mind and relax my body enough to go to sleep. It has also been helping me handle the pain I experience during nursing.

I first learned self-hypnosis during my pregnancy through my Hypnobabies birthing class. Through the use of guided CDs we created a “switch” that I can now use to turn off the muscles of my body and completely relax. It’s one of the best skills I’ve learned in the past year. read more

March 10, 2011April 28, 2011

Embracing special needs

I recently got an email from a mom who enjoys my newsletter but who sometimes feels left out because her child has special needs. While I do tend to offer guidelines about ages and stages of development I hope that every parent can adjust those guidelines to their particular child.

Children learn and develop differently and it’s not a competition, instead, each child is learning and growing at his own rate. Part of our job as parents, caregivers, and educators is to identify where a specific child is capable and comfortable, where he is challenged, and what’s next. You can do this with anyone, not just children, and it certainly applies to children who have special needs and different ways of learning. read more

March 2, 2011April 28, 2011

Guest blog: Eating Together- Make it a Priority for Your Family

This guest blog is by Kitty Holman:

Well hello, 21st century. In this day and age, we are lucky if our kids can look up from their iPhones to tell us how their day went. With a constant flux of new inventions and technologies to make our lives “easier,” we are spending more and more time away from our families. But there is at least one time of the day that can be set aside from the hustles, bustles, and stresses that encompass our lives. Meal time is a natural choice. We all have to eat, and as a naturally social species, we like to do so with other people. However, traditional family dinners are dwindling and quickly becoming unconventional. Taking forty five minutes to an hour out of your day to eat as a family has great nutritional and social benefits. Most importantly, it will create a more permanent bond with your children. read more

February 23, 2011April 28, 2011

Understanding willful toddlers

I’m generally a happy and optimistic person. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had dark moments, but for the most part I enjoy my life and am grateful for it. However, when I’m with a toddler who seems intent on pushing my buttons, I am hating life. It seems like no matter what I do to please the little tyrant, I’m still fending off testing behavior hour after hour.

Here are a few empowering thoughts, assumptions, questions, and some dialogue that have helped me change gears and reconnect with a young person after I’ve felt frustrated or hurt: read more

February 16, 2011April 28, 2011

The art of receiving

As a parent, we give and give and give to our kids. And then we turn around and notice our friends, partners or other family members and we give some more. Then after giving all we can, we collapse into a heap at the end of the day whining about how we never have enough time to ourselves. I get it. I’ve been there. But I think we each create our reality and we’re actually responsible for creating the lives we want. So then I reach out, ask for help, and create support systems.

The problem is that when someone is willing to help me, I actually have to be able to accept that help. I’m better at it now, but receiving hasn’t always been easy for me. Sure, I was good at receiving physical gifts, but I wasn’t so great at receiving compliments or acts of service from my friends and family. I used to energetically push those gifts away by minimizing, deflecting, or reassuring people that I had everything handled. read more