Sparkler Parents

Sparkler Parents

By Christine RobenaltParentingKids & Family
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Sparkler Parents episodes

  • Meditation #7 - Heart Center

    This meditation to to help open your heart to allow loving energy to come in and flow back out to your child(ren), family members, neighbors, neighbors' kids and on and on.

    Check out Parents Thrive! This is a valuable resource of parents' stories around birth, anxiety and depression and realize that reaching out for help is a sign of strength.  If you are a parent who is struggling, connecting to other parents, friends, family is a good thing.  You do not have to have all of the answers, but be open to possibilities.

    https://parentsthrive.org/

    10 min
  • Episode 24: Brain-Based Parenting Chapter 1

    This was a long chapter, but it lays the foundation for everything else that we will be discussing and learning about in this book.  Some key take-a-ways included: We as parents are really striving to help our children be parents themselves one day.  So all of the experiences of our child's early childhood will help shape the way the world in viewed in the future and how well our child develops the ability to self-regulate emotions, but also attune to others in their lives.

    This process is happening very much behind the scene and for a young child, 0-2, years, old, nearly always driven from a bottom-up approach, or in other words, through the sensory systems.

    Our brains need to work in a fluid, efficient way, uniting the information coming in with the previous information experienced and then hopefully responding to situations, especially as adults, using our higher levels of executive functional and parental capabilities.


    Jump on over to the FB group, Sparkler Parents Podcast to join the conversation.

    https://www.facebook.com/groups/441951513098677/



    17 min
  • Episode 23 - Book Club Edition: Brain-Based Parenting #1

    Welcome back Sparkler Parents.  After about a 2 week hiatus, I am back. Over the next 8-9 episodes we are going to explore together a book that was required reading for my infant massage certification that I hold.  I will admit, I did not read the book! But over the past 3 years since I received the infant massage instructor certificate, I have picked up a lot of this information info from other places.  In fact, this podcast is based a lot in information from this book and I had not even read it yet! So, now we can read it together.

    The book is Brain-Based Parenting, by Daniel A. Hughes and Jonathan Baylin, https://www.amazon.com/Brain-Based-Parenting-Neuroscience-Interpersonal-Neurobiology/dp/0393707288 

    I am not an Amazon affiliate, but here is one way to get it.  It should also be available at your local library.  Check into the availability of an app to listen to it on Audio through your local library as well.

    If you are interested, jump on over to FB and search for Sparkler Parents Podcast group. This will be where we can discuss the book together. It is a private group, but you should still be able to request to join.  If you need assistance, reach out at [email protected]

    9 min
  • 22 - Vision Quest
    We often think our children’s vision is based off of how about they can see the letters and the page or at a certain distance we don’t often think about how well our children’s eyes are working together as a team. But in fact this is as important as how well the eyes are working individually since it is teamed vision that allows for depth perception, understanding contours of faces and different expressions. We naturally try to compensate when the information coming in from the environment does not make sense and it is possible that miss-matched information from your child’s vision and difficulties coordinating this information between the two eyes may lead to challenges to their balance, difficulties reading or even paying attention to people as they talk. As parents, it is helpful to be aware of these potential challenges, because the pediatricians and school clinic nurses are assessing for visual acuity , but it is not often thought about to pay attention to how the eyes work together. Just knowing about this as a possible source of a problem can help us ask better questions and be curious about potential contributing factors to our children’s behavior or learning challenges. https://www.carlapister.com/faq.html
    10 min
  • Sing, sing a song

    Are you sick of Baby Shark, Daddy Finger or Wheels on The Bus? Check in with your child when they sing a song or listen to music, because even if you aren't "feeling" the song in the moment, it might just be the ticket to strengthening your connection. Some ideas to create connections with music include: 1) just humming the tune. Humming can help you activate your vagus nerve and can actually help your slow your breathing and heart rate. 2) Make up your own lyrics. 3) Leave off the endings word in the song and see if your child can fill in the blank, "Twinkle, twinkle little ____." 4) Play one of your favorite songs and have a spontaneous dance party. 5) Set up folded blankets or throw pillows on the floor in a large circle, put on some tunes and walk from "stage" to "stage".  Shout out "Rock Star" to invite you and your child to stand in the stage to dance, or shout of "Freeze" and pause the music for you and your child to freeze in place. Here are some links to songs that I love: https://youtu.be/3XEUasrdV8I https://youtu.be/gFEtY46onwI https://youtu.be/4fkPYwr-FVs https://youtu.be/0qicF6D6d94

    9 min
  • Episode 20 - Love and Laughter

    Love and logic is usually what we are going for as parents, but I often feel that love and laughter creates more connection.  The logic part comes naturally the more connected we are to our kids.  When our children sense our love and are relaxed, there no longer is resistance...or at least less resistance.


    Leave a comment or a message about how you use laughter to build connections with your kids and in the meantime, check out this curated list of jokes to get the laughter (or at least a couple of smiles) going.


    https://drive.google.com/file/d/14sqqeuHk8MlrwU109w-eulUMlNQPhfKT/view?usp=sharing

    7 min
  • Self-compassion is more than just for your benefit

    As Sparkler Parents we are working toward cultivating present moment awareness with our children.  But there are other parts of our day when we may not be directly interacting with our kids, but they are listening, watching, observing us and our responses to situations.  They feel our stress as much as they feel our joy and excitement.


    If we can grow our own ability to recognize and name our own suffering, we can then learn to extend our own selves a hand, just like we would do with a friend.


    You are worth that.  I am serious! You are worth it.  Jump on over to Season 3 to find a companion meditation on Self-compassion.



    7 min
  • Episode 17 - Can you please repeat?

    This episode cover s a couple of tools that we as parents can use, but so can our children to help create some space for our emotions without reacting out of anger or fear.

    I also wanted to share with you the idea of a Share Journal. Check out this little video tutorial and download the PDF's to print.

    https://youtu.be/yGkE_P5Fd0M


    PDF only:

    https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZRA_SUEhrHiCdzW-m0dLDvejvW0KwXyS/view?usp=sharing

    6 min

About Sparkler Parents

From the publisher's feed

Cultivating a present moment awareness can be challenging in our busy, tech-savvy, productivity driven world, but it is not impossible. In fact, it is one key to understanding out children more and creating more connections with them.