Summer Summer

How's your summer going so far?

Are you finding it busy as ever?

Have you slid into great swaths of unstructured time- maybe some of it nice and relaxing, maybe some of it nerve-wracking and frustrating? Maybe there's even more stress than usual trying to bounce kids around to all the different activities?

Does summer feels easygoing: a harmonious coexistence? Or, are tensions high with irritability and grumpiness taking hold?

Whatever it is you're experiencing, summer presents itself to you as another way to experience even more connection than before.

Yet sometimes that doesn't go exactly according to our expectations.

It may surprise you to find that, all of a sudden, with more time spent together even more arguments are happening than usual. Us humans are complex and when it seems like more time together equals more harmony, the opposite might in fact be true:

...now there's finally space.

...now there's finally time.

...now there's finally more bandwidth to process and feel.

Maybe there are little annoyances that have been building over the last few days, weeks, months. The transition and change in our summer schedule only adds to it all.

But this is the sweet spot, this moment here in front of us, just as it is. Here is our opportunity, to be how we are, to feel what we feel.

There is room for all of it.

Especially when we meet it with compassion and empathy.

We observe what's happening.

We stay curious to our child's experience.

We wonder about what our child isfeelingand wanting.

"I'm seeing you are upset right now, you have big tears and a loud angry voice. I heard you say 'I hate everything, and I hate you, you won't let me keep playing my video game.' This is so hard honey. Are you mad? Do you just want to keep playing?"

"I heard you yell just now. Is everything so overwhelming? Are you just wishing you could choose what you want to do?"

When our child feel's heard and seen she can think again. She can accept the solutions (and the limits!) She can brainstorm with you to find a creative way for everyone to get what they're needing. Together you find a new way to handle an old entrenched problem.

This is why we do what we do: we're not only helping our children in the moment but we're helping them to stop and think. To make new neural pathways in their brain. To become problem solvers. But this can only happen when that overwhelmed emotion-part of the lower brain is calm. That calm comes with the simple act of unconditional loving empathy.

With so much love,

Vanessa