Practice Make Progress
Visual reminders are what I need to help me remember. One thing I've started doing is writing mini quotes on my wrist of what I think I need to be reminded of and work on. Even just seeing it out of my peripheral is enough for a quick mindset change. So you'll see many more of these from me.
Practice Makes Progress
Recently on this journey to being a more gentle parent I've realized that I've forgotten to do one very important thing and that is practice! Practice with my kids these new skills they are picking up. There are all of these new skills my kids are learning and many times they (especially my 4-year-old) will resort back to the older more harmful ways of getting their needs met. In moments of panic, kids may do the first thing that comes to mind. In our case currently, that means hitting. While I'm doing the best I can when I see these moments building, during, and then immediately after them, there isn't much in-between that I'm doing to help with skill-building.
Behavior communicates a need. In these cases for our family, one of those needs is skill-building. Practice and repetition can help these new skills become more accessible when problems arise. This isn't something that happens over time and exactly how long depends on the person. As an adult, I'm still trying to master the skills I learned when I was a kid. It's important to meet our kids and adults where they are at not where we expect them to be.
The Science
Everything we do affects our brains. Our actions either cause our neural pathways to strengthen or weaken. The more we do something the stronger our neural pathways become. This allows the task to become easier over time. The less we do something the weaker these pathways become over time. Though in many cases we may not lose that skill.
Tests have shown when we try something for the first time many different regions of our brains are activated specifically the frontal regions that are responsible for control and planning. Over time as we continue to do these tasks the activity in our brain becomes more centralized. It will also take less effort for these neurons to fire. This will result in your brain will start to become more automated.
As time goes on I will share specific skills we're working on and different ways to practice them. Right now I'm going to work on identifying the skills/needs that need to be met within our family and find ways to meet those needs/teach those skills in ways that work for each person. What are some skills that you need to practice?
