We hope you are enjoying these weekly Brain Smart Starts at home with your young child. The days continue to march on and we are all beginning to settle in to this new normal during our quarantine.
As I shared last week, we are on a roller coaster of emotions over here at our house. Most days we do really well, but it surprises me how quickly we can move toward anxiety or irritation and feeling the weight of the stress of the unknown. My friends over at Conscious Discipline released a brand new webinar from Dr. Becky Bailey about “How Uncertainty Affects our Brain.” You can find the whole video here. This webinar helped me have such a sense of relief. It normalized some of what I have been feeling and reinforced what I can do to help myself function at my best. The video is about 30 minutes long and you will find that it is time well spent!
Dr. Bailey shares several helpful steps in her video that we can take as parents and care givers so we can take care of ourselves first and be ready to help our children.
- Smile and be aware of your own inner state. Find something that helps you laugh.
- Make a schedule to help everyone create a “new normal”.
- Create a wish well board.
- Be honest with your children. Move from, “I’m ok no worries” to “It is a little scary or sad right now, but I’ve got this and we will get through it together.”
- Look for ways to be helpful.
As you will see in this week’s Brain Smart Start video, we cover several of those topics in the activities we provide. Please take the time to participate in these activities with your child so you can benefit in many ways right along with them. You can find the printable for this week’s activities by following this link. Hope you find it helpful! We wish you well!