Jennifer is looking forward to discussing how to deal with sensitive or anxious children. Other experts include Dr. Kathlyn Hendricks, who along with her husband has written best-selling books on conscious relationships, teen parenting expert Vanessa Van Petten who shares her perspective on how to connect and protect teens, and blended and step family author Shirley Crees Dudley who will discuss how to get a great start to your new family and how to deal with common issues.

Visit The Parenting Summit for free registration and for more information. Jennifer’s portion will air on Friday, March 26 at 12:00 p.m. EST.  Hope you can listen in.

“Uniquely human, laughter is, first and foremost, a social signal–it disappears when there is no audience, which may be as small as one other person–and it binds people together. It synchronizes the brains of speaker and listener so that they are emotionally attuned…

Laughter establishes–or restores–a positive emotional climate and a sense of connection between two people, who literally take pleasure in the company of each other.”

In other words, laughing together is the quintessential connected play (or attunement play). My kids are partial to funny voices. What do you do for a laugh at your house?

* Other posts about connected play:

Play Is the Thing – Don’t Forget to Have Some Fun
Reconnecting After You’ve Been Away – Baby Play

This week’s Mirroring Moment is from Cindy Smolkin. Enjoy!

I was in Los Angeles visiting my brother, sister-in-law and niece and nephew. We decided to go to Target to buy everyone one new pair of pajamas. My son quickly declared that he wanted Spider Man pjs, my daughter Buzz Light Year, my nephew Batman, and my niece – the eldest of the crew – wanted Hanna Montana. It seemed a sure-thing…what department store would not have this reliable and popular assortment?

We arrived at Target and made our way to the pajama section and who would believe our luck: rack upon rack of pjs of all description. A myriad of choices; Batman, Spiderman, Buzz Light Year galore. Uh oh…where’s the Hanna Montana?? As my son, daughter and nephew had already dove into their new pajamas, each of them pulling the pj tops over their t-shirts, there was my niece…looking MAD.

You see, my niece is very bright, very strong-willed, very tenacious, and very dramatic. This pajama disappointment was fertile ground for a BIG reaction. So I turned to her and said:

“That’s so annoying. We found every pair of pajamas we wanted except the Hanna Montana. We came here especially for them and they are not here; that really is disappointing.”

My niece looked at me (a little like I was an alien) and said, “How do you know?” To which I replied:

“Because I know what it’s like for me when I go to a store with something in my mind that I want to buy and they don’t have it. I feel disappointed.”

And she said, “Yeah, it is disappointing.” And then we made our way to the cash. My niece was quiet, with a bit of a trance – like look on her face – almost as if she was saying to herself, “Wow, that was weird. I was kind of pretty mad and then all of a sudden I wasn’t.”

Share your own favorite mirroring moment in the comments below. Or are you stumped? Feel free to leave a comment describing a situation you encountered where you couldn’t figure out how to mirror. We’ll try to incorporate it into a future Mirroring Monday post.

For those of you who aren’t on Twitter (or just didn’t have the time this week), here are

RT @MarjieKnudsen: “It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.”~Epictetus #quote

RT @alysonschafer: Parent Tip: Which child is likely to de-rail your outting today? Be proactive: start lovin them up, be engaged with them.

RT @sallywits: RT @Jenniferkolari: New Post: The Difference Between “Helicopter Parenting” & Attachment Parenting http://ow.ly/16N8bA

Thanks for the mention @HappyMothering!

Thanks so much for the RT @RelevantMom!

RT @DeborahMersino: Complete Transcript from 03.12 #gtchat on Perfectionism: http://bit.ly/bOkkkX #gifted

The #Parenting Telesummit starts next Friday and runs from March 19-26. I’ll be on at 12EST on March 26. Sign up here! http://bit.ly/b8O1Zg

RT @DeborahMersino: Partial Transcript from 03.12 #gtchat on Perfectionism http://bit.ly/bOkkkX {feed crashed at end/simply perfect!}

RT @DeborahMersino: Transcript from 03.12 #gtchat “Instilling Hope & Confidence in #Gifted Kids Today” http://bit.ly/9QQ7MR {starts at 5:00}

Thanks for the mention @iClippy!

RT @iClippy Did you know that parents, yes PARENTS, can cause their own kids to get stressed out too? Unbelievable, right?! http://ow.ly/1cDlK

Gr8 overview of Connected Parenting CALM method in this interview by Jennifer Kolari: Minimizing Tantrums by Mirroring http://bit.ly/cmyBkS

Thx! RT @happyhealthyhip: Connected Parenting offers support for your challenging child -http://tinyurl.com/ydnxv9m/via @Hip_M0M

Congrats! RT @OhBabymagazine: Our new site is live!!!! http://bit.ly/awd54M

“I’ve decided to pass the award on to a blog that I feel every parent should visit at least once… I am giving Connected Parenting – The Blog the honor of Beautiful Blogger for the beautiful things it can do to your family.

I recently came across the blog and was intrigued by the subject matter.  During a two-hour lunch break, I found myself wandering through a local bookstore in search of the book of the same name, Connected Parenting, by Jennifer Kolari. After reading just a few chapters and applying the techniques described within those pages, I have seen the bond between my little man and I blossom even more.”

Thanks so much Single Soccer Mom!

As far as we can tell, the rules of the Beautiful Blogger Award are as follows:

1.  Display the Beautiful Blogger Badge in the post.
2.  Write 7 things about yourself that people don’t know.
3.  Give the Beautiful Blogger Award to 7 other blogs.

So here we go:

And here are 7 things you may not know about Connected Parenting:

1.  Between us, the Connected Parenting Team has 19 children, ranging in age from not born yet to 29.

2.  The Connected Parenting Team has a total of 2 cats and 4 dogs – not much to brag about but we have the 4 best dogs and 2 best cats on the planet – we think : )

3.  Connected Parenting has therapists in both Canada and the U.S. and we’re expanding.

4.  The Connected Parenting book is coming out in soft cover this Spring.

5.  A Connected Parenting book for teenagers is in the works.

6.  Connected Parenting founder Jennifer Kolari starred as Annie in Annie Get Your Gun when she was in High School and was awesome!

7.  All of us at Connected Parenting are LOVING meeting all of you on our blog, Facebook page and Twitter! Thanks to all of you for joining our conversation!!!

Best of all, here are 7 Beautiful Bloggers!

1.  Sondra Santos LaBrie at Happy Healthy Hip Parenting who just got nominated as San Diego’s Blogger of the Year! Go check out her blog and please vote for her. Sondra’s focus is on co-parenting and single parenting.

2.  Jacqueline Green of Great Parenting Practices, who interviews parenting experts on every subject imaginable and who is currently hard at work organizing the fantastic Parenting Summit – Middle School Edition taking place from March 19-26. Click here to find out more and to register for free for this amazing teleconference. (FYI, Connected Parenting founder, Jennifer Kolari will do an interview on Parenting Super-Sensitive and Anxious Children at 12 p.m. EST on March 26.)

3.  Annie Fox, whose blog focusses on parenting those miraculous creatures known as tweens and teens. Annie tackles tricky issues from friendship problems, to dating, to bullies.

4.  Marsha Jacobson, who blogs at My Child Feels as well as on her personal blog. Marsha writes about parenting, emotional intelligence, and her own journey.

5.  Alyson Schafer, my fellow Torontonian, and an Adlerian parenting expert extraordinaire, who has a great blog that covers just about every parenting question you could come up with.

6.  Deborah Mersino of the Ingeniosus Blog. Deborah writes about giftedness and she is also the tireless force behind the Friday #gtchats on Twitter. Deborah is an incredible treasure to the gifted community!

7.  Jean Winegardner at Stimeyland, who blogs about her life as a mom of three boys, one of whom is on the autistic spectrum. Jean also writes a column called Autism Unexpected for the Washington Times and is the creator of AutMont, providing autism information, events and community in Montgomery County, Md.  Thanks for sharing your story with us Stimey!

[Originally posted at Just the Facts, Baby]

There has been much media coverage lately about helicopter parenting and its effect on the development of our children. The CBC aired a great documentary a few weeks ago called “Hyper Parents and Coddled Kids.” It revealed how a generation of kids parented this way are faring—and it’s not well.

One might think kids who have been protected, chauffeured, tutored and celebrated more than any generation before would be confident, secure and happy. What research shows, however, is that they are anxious, stressed out, and more emotionally fragile than any generation before them. I would go so far as to call it “tip toe parenting” with many parents worried about upsetting their kids and going to great lengths to work around their children’s moods and going out of their way to accommodate their children needs and wishes. This has left many parents afraid of their child’s next meltdown and utterly exhausted.

So what do we do? How can we tell the difference between helicopter parenting and strong healthy attachment? We don’t want to go backwards to a time when kids were seen and not heard, but what’s happening now isn’t really working for parents, or for kids. We have to find a way, as parents, to balance attachment and nurturing with limit setting and exposure to natural consequences. In our well-meaning attempts to give our children positive experiences and in our striving for fairness, we have missed out on the value of a little adversity. Life is so good for many children in our part of the world that they are losing the gift of perspective.

The brain organizes our experiences often in terms of good and bad. If all experiences are positive, then the less positive ones begin to feel negative–it’s all relative. We want our children to be happy and successful, but being overly protective can give children a false sense of reality and may hinder their achievements later in life. They begin to lack the emotional hardware to handle adversity and may become anxious, overwhelmed and struggle to cope with their emotions.

We don’t need to go the other way and create negative situations for our children so they can toughen up, nor do we want to remove our empathy and support, but we do want to give them messages of competence and let them know they can, and will, get through negative experiences. Negative experiences are inevitable and no matter how hard we try to shield our children from them, we can’t. It’s much better to teach them how to handle these experiences and how to learn from them.

Constantly advocating for our children every time there is trouble, running to school with forgotten gym clothes or lunches, staying up late at night helping kids finish assignments in the long run is not helpful at all. We must let children try, fail, and then cope with the natural consequences of their failures. Listening, being empathic and helping children understand and learn from these experiences is vital, so is giving them the message that you believe they will be okay. When we enable children to fully experience the winning and the losing sides of life, we give them the gift of balance that will last a lifetime.

Here are some tips to help you with this balancing act.

1. Love them well

Strong family connections, with tons of unconditional love and consistent nurturing, will create positive attitudes and resilience. Listen to their feelings and empathize and problem-solve with them, then let them know that you believe they can get through any negative experiences.

2. Show yourself and encourage emotional ownership

Let your child see that you also make mistakes and that you feel sad or frustrated sometimes. He will connect with you and recognize his own power to overcome adversity.

3. Praise effort, not results

Compliment your child on her efforts and encourage her to measure herself against her own achievements.

4. Don’t be a fixer: allow mistakes

If your child is upset or angry, do not rush to fix the situation. Listen as he expresses his feelings and then calmly demonstrate that it’s okay to feel that way sometimes. Then you can work on problem-solving. If your child procrastinates and leaves an assignment to the last minute and loses marks for lateness, do not interfere. The negative result is a natural consequence of his choices, and will help him concretely understand cause and effect.

5. Stay neutral and avoid punishment

When your child does something wrong, make sure you listen to her point of view before you discipline–then choose natural consequences. Yelling and punishing will lead the child to focus more on your behavior than her own.

* Other posts about Helicopter Parenting:
Helicopter Parents – Are You Stressing Out Your Child
CBC Explores “Helicopter” Parenting

* You may also want to check out our Mirroring Monday series for lots of great examples of mirroring.

This week’s Mirroring Moment is from Kelly Parisa. Enjoy!

I am the mother of two teenage daughters. They love each other dearly, but they also love their clothes.

One afternoon, Aubrey (our oldest), came storming in: “She keeps stealing my clothes! Look! She took these pants and now they are all dirty when I want to wear them tonight! She does this all the time!”

So (torn between thinking… ”How many times do we have to have THIS fight?!” and “Oh my gosh, like I have time to battle this out again, in the midst of cooking dinner, paying bills, feeding the dog and doing laundry!”) I took a breath, and mirrored instead…

“Again? She went in your room and took those pants and you want to wear them to dance class tonight! She does this all the time! What should we do?”

Aubrey already had a more relaxed body and the hint of a smile on her lips. “Go kick her butt!”

“Okay! Let’s go! We’ll go kick her butt!” “Storming” off together I could already feel humor in the air and a change in attitude from furious to feisty.

We made our way to Sydney’s room and I gently put my foot on Sydney’s bottom… “We are here to kick your butt” I declared! Sydney laughed.

As Aubrey began to reiterate her claim to her own clothes, Sydney chimed in with the old familiar, “She does it to me all the time! She comes in my room and takes stuff and doesn’t ask me either!”

“So it happens to you too! You have things you want to wear and she’s taking them from you! It’s happening up and down the hall!”

“Yeah, so she does it to me, and I do it to her!”

“You both do it…and you both get so mad and can‘t find the things you want to wear, when you want to wear them! She does it to you and you do it to her and she does it to you…”

At this point, they began laughing (probably realizing the on-going futility of this fight) and I was able to leave them to their own devices (wrestling and giggling). Smiling down the hall I was thinking, “This isn’t the first time they’ve battled this out and it won’t be the last…”

The next week, while running errands with Sydney, I said, “Hey, isn’t that Aubrey’s jacket?”

“Yeah.”

“Does she know you’re wearing it?”

“Oh we worked all that out. We decided we can borrow each other’s clothes (except for a few things) and it’s okay.”

“How’d you guys arrive at that?”

“Oh, we just decided we fight too much about it and it’s not good. So we worked it out.”

A little mirroring and a little humor, mixed with some time and trust to resolve their own issues…a recipe for self-reliance, with a dash of sisterly-bonding thrown in.

Share your own favorite mirroring moment in the comments below. Or are you stumped? Feel free to leave a comment describing a situation you encountered where you couldn’t figure out how to mirror. We’ll try to incorporate it into a future Mirroring Monday post.