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Why Kids Don’t Want to Learn Resilience Habits

by | May 15, 2024 | Parenting, Resilience | 0 comments

Recently, my colleague, Dajana Yoakely, signed herself and her kids up for my parent-child self-compassion class.

When I sent her a welcome email, she replied that she wasn’t sure how her kids were going to feel about taking the parent-child class. She said, “I told [my kids] I signed us all up for a class but they were like, ‘Hmm what’s that about?’”

I let her know that kids are rarely excited about taking a self-compassion class at the outset. That’s actually one of the things we talk about in our parent orientation session, and we also do an activity acknowledging kids’ challenging feelings during our first class. But, luckily, kids are usually big fans by the end of class!

When I shared this info, Dajana responded with surprise. She said that she would have signed her kids up a lot earlier if she had known how common it was for kids to be less than thrilled about the idea of taking the class. This really surprised me, and was my impetus for writing this blog. Dajana is an awesome mom and parenting coach, and if she didn’t know that kids don’t always get excited about learning resilience habits, I realized that other parents might not know how common it is for kids to resist learning self-compassion.

Why kids might be less than thrilled about taking a self-compassion class

There are at least three reasons why kids might not want to take a self-compassion class:

  1. It’s not a video game.
  2. It’s not as fun as playing legos, playing make-believe or riding their bike.
  3. We talk about feelings.

As you can see, there are many good reasons why kids might resist learning resilience habits in a parent-child self-compassion class. But what is the good news? Kids who take my class have fun and are big fans of the class when it is done.

What makes the parent-child self-compassion class fun?

What makes it fun?

The map. Seriously? Yes. Kids really do like the map. It helps them know where we are going on our self-compassion journey.

6-Week-Parent-Child Self-Compassion Class

The resilience habit animals. The resilience habit animals, featured in the Quest for Self-Compassion Workbooks, are also featured in the parent-child self-compassion class. The animals are cute and make learning playful. Even older learners (up to age 12) say good things about the resilience habit animals.

Resilience-Habit-Animals-In-Land

The comics. I’ll share some comics in my upcoming blogs, but let’s just say they are a fun way to learn resilience and self-compassion skills.

And most importantly: Growing more resilient side-by-side with their parents. Even though kids might resist at the outset, it feels good to sit next to their parent, connect, and playfully learn and grow together.

Quotes from Kids

Here’s some quotes of parents and kids from my last class:

Kids’ comments:

  • “Well, I really liked it. And I think it helped me out a bit. Like, nowadays, I find the buddy habit really helpful, whereas before I did this, I was like ‘I’m the only person going through this.’”
  • “I really liked doing it. I wish there were more weeks.” “I would recommend this class to other kids…especially if you are having trouble blaming yourself.”
  • “It helped me calm down. I noticed I didn’t get so mad like I used to get. ‘You’re not alone.’ I notice myself sometimes saying that in my brain.”
  • “Before, I did not know how to regulate my emotions so much, if my little sister made me angry I would just explode. Now that I’ve done that class and I’ve learned how to calm myself down, I can go to my room, do something from that class, and just calm down and come back downstairs when I’m ready.”

Parents’ Comments

  • “Overall it was really successful because [my child] was able to walk away with new skills…she really enjoyed her time. She found it very valuable.”
  • “[My child] is talking about her feelings SO much more…she will..name it..it has helped a ton…she’s made significant strides trying to allow herself to acknowledge her anger and acknowledge her frustration…talking through when things are upsetting or frustrating or hard.”
  • “[The class] has allowed me to dwell less when things don’t go right.. it’s ok, everybody has these challenges. I’m more compassionate towards myself. And it has given me ways to interact with [my child] to help her not be so hard on herself.”

But how do I get my child to agree to attend?

I could write a whole blog on this topic. But, in the interest of being succinct, I’m just going to link an FAQ for the parent-child class that is full of tips on page 2 about how to help make the class a pleasant experience for you and your child.

Take the Plunge!

The parent-child self-compassion class is for kids ages 7-11 (or a little older or a little younger). If your kids fall into that age range, you can sign yourself and your child up for the parent-child self-compassion class or attend a free Self-Compassion for Children and Caregivers info session.

If your kids are older (teens), they can take the MSC for teens class.

If there is no way in hell your child will ever take a self-compassion class (or your child is really little, or already out of the house, or you don’t have kids but really love your nieces), YOU can take a self-compassion class for grown-ups. Your level of self-compassion will profoundly influence your child’s self-compassion level. If you’ve already taken Mindful Self-Compassion training, the Compassionate Parenting course is your next step. Also, you can see this blog for tips for helping kids grow self-compassion at home.

It all comes down to this..

In the end, I just want to see kids be their happiest, most authentic selves, and suffer less. That’s why I created the parent-child class, the SCCC teacher training program(we now have over 20 self-compassion for children and caregivers teachers), the upcoming Quest for Self-Compassion workbooks, this blog, and my new We Are in It Together Podcast. Because us caregivers can band together to be our kindest, most resilient selves and support kiddos in doing the same.

Wishing you and all children light and love,

Jamie Lynn

P.S. I recently took Super Snuggles to Oshkosh and auditioned for TEDx Oshkosh. My topic? How to help kids develop a strong inner voice. Wish me luck friends!

“I’m in the Weeds”

by | Apr 24, 2024 | Mindfulness, Resilience, Self-Compassion | 0 comments

Hello Friends,

It feels good to connect with you. I’ve been teaching a lot and also slowly recovering from a case of bronchitis followed by Covid. One of my continual growth opportunities is how to balance rest with all I wish to do in the world.

And I know I’m not alone in that challenge. Ironically, knowing that I’m not alone with my struggles can be sooo helpful.

I’d like to share with you a story about a class I taught a while back. It was an eight-week parent-child resilience course, and throughout the eight weeks of the course, I taught so many resilience resources for parents and kids, including mindfulness, self-compassion, dealing with difficult thoughts and growing the good.

In the weeds

The week preceding my seventh week of teaching, I found myself in a particularly difficult mind state. I used all of my resilience tools to try to get myself mentally unstuck, but the troubled state of my mind did not budge. I was “in the weeds” when it came to helping myself feel better. So I surrendered, and instead of trying to help myself feel better, I just considered what sort of activities would be helpful to do while I waited for the crazies to pass on their own. When I taught my parent-child class the following week, I shared my “in the weeds” story with my students.

Then on the final week of class, I asked students which resilience habits or ideas had been most helpful from our eight weeks together. I expected them to share that a mindfulness habit or self-compassion habit had made the difference, and I was shocked when a number of parents said, “It was really helpful when you shared last week that you were ‘in the weeds’ and couldn’t get out. It’s so helpful to know that you (our teacher) sometimes get caught in difficult mind states just like me.”

The most helpful thing

What!?! I thought to myself. I teach an 8-week class full of resilience tools, and the most helpful thing that I offered was that I struggle just like my students?!

Yep. That was the most helpful thing.

With kids, I call it the, “Buddy habit.” The Buddy habit reminds us that we belong to humanity—that we have strengths, struggles, joys, and difficult emotions just like others do. And we can allow it all to be “okay,” because we belong to humanity.

Resilient animal - Buddy-the dog

As caregivers, we might feel the need to model being strong, but ironically, one of the primary building blocks for resilience is understanding that we belong even when we struggle. Everyone struggles sometimes.

It’s not always the same quantity of struggle, but having difficult emotions, thoughts, and experiences is universal.

How can we help kids and ourselves experience the sense of belonging that comes from knowing that we’re not alone when things go wrong?

  1. Share your struggles. Learn to be with your struggles compassionately so that you can model for children how they can be with their own.
  2. Help kids (and yourself) learn the resilience habits. The resilience habit animals are featured in my upcoming parent-child self-compassion class as well as the Quest for Self-Compassion workbook.
  3. Be a part of communities (like ours) that help to foster a sense of belonging. And expose kids to resources that help them to see their experiences reflected in others.

We’re in it together (podcast and song preview!)

Next week, I’ll be releasing my first podcast episode, and I’ll be sharing a phenomenal children’s book that normalizes struggle in a playful way. I’ll share more about that resource next week.

The name of my podcast is, “We’re in it together,” and my family made a “We’re in it Together” song that I’ll share at the end of each podcast episode. Here’s a sneak preview of the chorus:

Stay tuned for the whole song next week! And friends, we really are in it together. I know it in my heart.

Love,

Jamie Lynn

P.S. If you’d like to learn more about self-compassion for kids (how to help kids learn it or how to teach it), you can join me for a free info session on Wednesday, May 15th. Together we can help kids thrive.

 

Shame, Kids, and Grown-Ups

by | Mar 1, 2024 | Parenting, Resilience, Self-Compassion | 0 comments

When I make a mistake, oftentimes shame is in the room.

If you have taken the Feelings Habit Animal Quiz and read my article about the four feelings habit animals, you might remember that the deer is the feelings habit animal that is most correlated with shame.*

Deer

Because one of my primary feelings habits is Deer, when I make a mistake, I am apt to feel shame. And this past week when I realized that over 100 subscribers have not been receiving my emails for the past two months (my apologies if you’re one of those subscribers), I felt a wash of shame.

Here’s the good news and the bad news about shame.

First the bad news: shame is a very sticky and challenging emotion that is often paired with the fear that we are unlovable.

Now the good news: shame is an innocent emotion, and we can help ourselves unhook from it by reminding ourselves of shame’s fear and reaffirming our own lovability.

And now the very good news: if we can get good at addressing shame’s core fear and soothing ourselves when we feel it, we can help kids to do the same.

Walking my Kids (and Myself) through Shame’s Fear

So, here’s how I worked through shame in the presence of my kids.

Giraffe - Spots

Spots the Giraffe is my resilience habit animal for noticing. First I “spotted” my emotion. Because I’m a self-compassion teacher, my kids are very used to me spotting and naming my feelings. In this case, I spotted shame.

Next, I recognized shame’s fear—that I am unlovable. Because my shame-prone feelings habit animal is Deer, I allowed my little deer puppet to be my symbol for shame.

Note: My kids are already very familiar with the feelings habit animals and Deer’s tendency to feel shame because they helped me to create The Quest for Self-Compassion Workbook that features all of these delightful animals.

Luckily, it was time for dinner, and my husband was out on a run. So it was just me and the girls at the dinner table. And I brought my deer with me.

My daughters and I started eating dinner, and while we were eating, I began petting my deer puppet. My daughters raised their eyebrows at me (I’m odd, but I don’tregularly pet my deer puppet at the dinner table). I explained that I had made a mistake and that over 100 people had not been receiving my newsletters. I let them know that my deer was feeling very ashamed and that Deer was afraid that it was not lovable because it had made a mistake.

My daughters and I talked a little about the mistake, and then I modeled the Snuggles habit.

Bunny, named Snuggles, Resilience Habit Animal

Snuggles the Bunny is the resilience habit animal that helps us to be kind to ourselves. I began talking to my Deer puppet in front of my kids. I petted my deer and told Deer that even though it had made a mistake, it was still lovable. My younger daughter actually gave me a hug, and then I let my daughters know what I was doing to address the newsletter problem. After that, the dinner conversation shifted to another topic.

This might not sound like a big deal, but I did three things during this brief interaction with my kids.

  1. I taught my kids how to notice and name shame in a nonjudgmental and compassionate way.
  2. I taught them about shame’s core fear—that we are unlovable as we are.
  3. I showed them how we can soothe our shame with the Snuggles habit, reassuring our Deer (and ourselves) that we are still lovable even when we fall short.

Powerful lessons at the dinner table ;).

*Note: In my work with children, I have learned that the feelings habit animals are as important, or perhaps even more important than the resilience habit animals. This is because we need to develop nonjudgmental awareness of our feelings habits in order to practice resilience habits.

Two Ways to Boost Your Own Resilience

Watch my Resilience Habit Videos on Social Media

Would you like to see short videos of me modeling the ideas from my blogs? If so, follow me on social media and Youtube. My Facebook and Instagram handle is @jamielynntatera. You can watch me use my props to share kid-friendly strategies for dealing with tricky emotions and building resilience habits. Plus, I feel super happy when I get to connect with you in more places.

Sign up for the Path to Resilience Journaling Challenge

The Path to Resilience is my signature resilience training, and I’ve created a free Path to Resilience journaling challenge to help ensure that resilience strategies are available to everyone (including you!).  Sign up for the journaling challenge for free, and you’ll receive access to exclusive blogs, videos and guided meditations designed to help you build resilience habits. Always remember that your child’s resilience begins with you.

Thanks for caring so much about you and your child’s resilience. You are doing awesome and you are making a BIG difference!

Wishing you Light, Love, and Playfulness,

Jamie Lynn

 

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What to Do When You’re Beating Yourself Up

by | Feb 11, 2024 | Mindfulness, Resilience, Self-Compassion | 0 comments

Personal disclosure: last week I spent a lot of time beating myself up internally. The reason was pretty innocent: I have been doing a lot of teaching lately, which has left little time for other aspects of my work (like writing this newsletter). Because investing time in helping people discover my work is very important to me (I can only help parents help kids if I can expand my reach), my inner critic was saying unkind things about my time limitations.

To make matters worse, I am a SELF-COMPASSION teacher. Yes, the self-compassion teacher was beating the bananas out of herself internally. This could easily become a shame spiral, but luckily I do have a self-compassion practice that reminds me that everyone beats themselves up sometimes (even self-compassion teachers).

Now that I am somewhat on the other side, I will share with you the tools I used to respond to my intense self-criticism. And I’ll use the Resilience Habit Animals to describe my process (I use the animals when I teach kids, but they are great for grown-ups, too!). If you didn’t yet read my article on the Resilience Habit Animals, you can do so now for a little background.

Resilience Habit Animals

Spots the Mindful Giraffe

So, my first step was to “spot” that I was beating myself up. This might seem obvious, but there’s a big difference between being stuck in the drama of beating myself up, and being the observer. The Spots habit is being the observer. I had to see clearly that I was being unkind to myself. I also noticed that I was feeling sad because instead of feeling happy about all of the teaching I’m doing (a great opportunity for soaking in joy), I was feeling stressed and criticized. Ugh!

Doodles the Helpful Dolphin and Buddy the Dog

The inner critic can be a tricky inner part to contend with because it’s laced with shame. I don’t like to deal with shame on my own, so I called a friend. I told her what was happening. This is a combo of the Doodles the Dolphin habit—I took a helpful action, and the Buddy habit. Calling a friend quite literally made me not alone. I also practiced the Buddy habit when I reminded myself that everyone beats themselves up sometimes (even self-compassion teachers).

Understanding the Critic

My conversation with my friend made a lot of things clearer. Truthfully, my friend didn’t say a lot to me, but she gave me space to explore the motivations of my inner critic.

Here’s what I discovered: my inner critic was beating me up relentlessly because this part of me felt very scared. I’ll be doing a lot of teaching for the next few months, and my critic is afraid that I’m not doing the right things to let people know about the Quest for Self-Compassion Workbook that will be coming out in October. I’ll spare you the details, but there’s a lot that goes into spreading the word, and my primary job for the next few months is to teach in schools and online. My inner critic does not want to accept time limitations. You can see my post on being finite; time limitations is something my inner critic refuses to accept. 

Snuggles the Bunny

Once I really understood the critic, I actually felt a little compassion for it. Even though it was beating me up, its motivations were good. That being said, it was still beating me up! I gave myself compassion because it’s hard when the critic is active. I know I’m not the only person who suffers with this. I also know that trying to make the critic’s voice go away is unhelpful. What we resist persists.

But, I don’t have to let the inner critic’s voice be the only voice. After I got off the phone with my friend, I spent two minutes saying kind and encouraging words to myself. And I decided that I would do this each day for the next week. Truthfully, I forgot yesterday, but I did talk to myself kindly for two minutes again today. Two minutes might not sound like a lot, but go ahead and set a timer and try it. I told myself things like, “You’re doing great” (it’s true!), and “It’s okay to prioritize teaching right now and let other things wait until I have more time.” I asked myself what I might say to a friend, and I said those things to myself. And when I ran out of things to say, I repeated the same things again. The inner critic is usually a negative message on repeat, so it’s absolutely okay to repeat the same nice things over and over again.

Growing the Voice of Kindness

Moving forward I will likely continue to experience the voice of the critic because the critic has a really hard time understanding time limitations, and the critic really values aspects of my work that I don’t have much time for right now. But I don’t have to deal with the critic alone (I can talk about it with my trusted people), and I can also intentionally practice my kind, understanding voice each day.

If you’ve got a strong inner critic, please know that you are not alone. The critic is often a misguided inner voice with a positive intention to motivate us with a host of unhelpful strategies. We can name it, share about it with others, and we can grow a second, kinder voice.

Mindful Self-Compassion – 20% off online MSC in February!

I have learned to deal with my inner critic through taking and teaching Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC) training. If you haven’t yet taken MSC training, I’ll be teaching a live-online class through the Center for MSC that starts next week.

I’m also offering a special 20% discount on my self-paced online MSC class during the month of February (use the coupon code loveFeb) because you deserve to learn to treat yourself with love and kindness! Visit https://jamielynntatera.com/mindful-self-compassion-training/ to register or learn more about Mindful Self-Compassion training.

With Love,

Jamie Lynn

P.S. Here’s a photo of my 15-year-old daughter and me hiking together. It was so beautiful!

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Meet the Resilience Habit Animals

by | Jan 22, 2024 | Parenting, Resilience, Self-Compassion | 0 comments

Kids learn best through play! That’s because it’s easier to pay attention to playful things, and also because the neurotrophic factors the brain produces during play make it easier to remember what you’ve learned.

In previous articles, I have shared about the Feelings Habit Animals (take the Quiz!). The relatable feelings animals provide a playful way to get kids to talk about feelings. But not only do we want kids to be aware of feelings, we also want them to learn to how to skillfully respond. Enter the Resilience Habit Animals.

The Four Resilience Animals

The resilience habit animals are featured in the Quest for Self-Compassion Workbook Series. In my work with kids, I have found the resilience animals so effective in playfully teaching resilience habits, that I now use them in my parent-child self-compassion class, in schools, and in my private work with kids and families.

Watch a one-minute clip my daughters and I made about the four animals!

https://youtu.be/o48zevqGxUc?si=pFGDW7Btliuia-Vn

 

There are four resilience animals: Spots the Giraffe, Buddy the dog, Snuggles the Bunny, and Doodles the Dolphin. Spots helps us to spot our feelings and our five senses, and Buddy reminds us that we’re not alone in our struggles. Snuggles comforts us when things go wrong, and Doodles helps us take helpful actions. There’s also Sunny who reminds us that goodness is omnipresent.

It’s always been a challenge to get kids to practice self-compassion in daily life. But when I ask kids how Spots, Snuggles, Doodles or Buddy might respond to a challenge, I actually get kids to engage. And I am beyond delighted when kids later report that they have practiced the “Buddy habit” or the “Snuggles habit.”

Stay tuned for more details about each of the resilience animals. I plan share about how to help kids learn each of the four resilience habits. Together we can help kids playfully learn to cope with challenging feelings, and thrive!

Warmly,

Jamie Lynn (with Anjali and Maya’s video help :))