Putting Out The Fire–How To Calm The Alarm System in Your Brain and Overcome Anxiety

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Anxiety is a common experience, we all feel stressed, worried and anxious. But The Theology of The Body (TOB) reminds us that it was never God’s intention that we would be anxious. 

In fact, the first anxiety attack occurred immediately after the Fall, when Adam and Eve felt separated from God and each other…and hid. Interestingly, brain scientists tell us that anxiety isn’t caused so much by problems as it is rooted in a sense of disconnection.

That’s right! Even when we’re going through hard times, if we feel securely attached to the people around us, our brains produce chemicals that help us stay calm. By contrast, even when we aren’t facing problems, if we struggle to feel connected to others, or if our connection to others is being threatened in some way our brain produces chemicals that make us feel anxious. Anxiety is meant to be a message that says, “Go find safe, healthy people to support and help you!” TOB and brain science remind us that the key to peace is seeking union with God and cultivating the community of love God has placed around us.

When we are feeling anxious it can be difficult to make the choice to connect with God and others. Here are a few practical ways to cultivate connection and conquer anxiety:

1.  Know That Feelings are a Choice–We often feel as if feelings are something that happen to us.  And they are, but we don’t have to stay stuck in the emotions that overtake us.  We can chose to take actions that will help us feel better, stronger, calmer, and more hopeful. No, your emotions can’t turn on a dime. You can’t make yourself super-happy if you’re feeling sad, or perfectly peaceful if you’re feeling anxious. But by challenging the false messages that run through our minds, we can turn sadness into hope, anxiety into resolve and powerlessness into purposefulness. Instead of giving into the thought that, “there is nothing I can do,” we can remind ourselves that, “Even a small change can make a big difference.” Instead of saying, “No one cares about me,” we can remind ourselves to reach out to the people in our lives honestly and give them a chance to be there for us. Instead of saying, “This situation is hopeless,” we can remind ourselves that with God, all things are possible, and begin to ask him what changes we can make that will give him glory.

The psychologist, Viktor Frankl, lived in the Concentration Camps during WWII. He fought against hopeless and anxiety himself and also studies those fellow inmates who persevered despite their circumstances. Here is what he had to say:

 Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way. Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

 No matter how powerless or anxious you feel, don’t give up your freedom to choose to respond to your circumstances in a meaningful, intimate, and virtuous manner that leads to strength, power, grace and freedom.

2.  Reach Out–When you are feeling anxious, powerless, or overwhelmed, that can be a sign that you are trying to handle too much on your own. Challenge yourself to reach out to God and the other people in your life–especially if you feel they won’t understand. Make it your job to make them understand or find other people who will. Remember God’s words in Genesis, “It is not good for man to be alone.” We were created for community. If you’re feeling low–even if you don’t want to be around others–do everything you can to make yourself connect with the people in your life and leave yourself open to other’s efforts to connect with you. Our minds are literally wired to feel better and more positive when we feel connected. Making the effort to reach out to others for help, for support, or even just a distraction, will trigger your social brain to start producing feel-good chemicals that will help boost your mood overall. Work with the design of your body to increase your sense of peace, strength and confidence. Reach out to God and others and let the love that is there for you fill all those dark corners of your heart.

3. Recall God’s Mercy–We often get anxious because we allow the stress of this moment to obliterate our memories of all the other things we’ve been through, all the other times God saved us, supported us, and carried us even though we thought we were overwhelmed, doomed, or done for. Before throwing yourself into this next pile or problems, take a moment to remind yourself of all the past times in your life when you felt overwhelmed, stressed, defeated, and not up to the task and remember how God helped you make it through all those past times, even when you weren’t sure how you were going to do it. Chances are, at least some of those situations turned out really well. At the very least, you made it through. In both cases, God was present and he provided for you. Remind yourself that this time isn’t any different. God loves you. He has demonstrated his love to you by delivering you from your troubles and overwhelming responsibilities time and time again. Bring that love with you into the latest challenges. When you start feeling anxious, take a moment to close your eyes, thank God for all the times he has carried you through your past worries and ask him for the grace to face the challenges in front you with courage and peace.  The more you remember to intentionally recenter yourself in God’s mercy, providence, and grace–especially in the middle of all the craziness–the more your peace will increase.

If you would like support in overcoming anxiety, reach out to us at CatholicCounselors.com

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Three Steps to Peaceful Parenting

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Parenting can be beautiful and stressful, fun and difficult. We often wish that our kids came with an instruction manual so that we could take out some of the guesswork. The good news is that God actually has given us a guidebook, we just need to know where to look.

Theology of the Body (TOB) reminds us that families are schools of love and virtue where we all learn to live life as a gift, and that parents are the most important teachers in this school of love.  Catholic parents are empowered through God’s grace in the sacrament of marriage to do more than just “get through the day” with our kids. The world needs loving, responsible, godly people and God asks his faithful couples to give the word what it needs. The more we can approach parenting in a thoughtful, intentional, graceful manner, the more we are able to fulfill our mission as Catholics–to let God change the world through our families by raising the next generation of faithful, courageous, loving, responsible, and godly men and women.  It’s a tough job, but God gives us the grace to do it.

Here are three ways that God calls us to live as teachers in the school of love:

1. Remember To Lead–When you’re correcting your kids, only 5% of your energy should be focused on what they did wrong.  The other 95% should be focused on leading your children to a better place. Before you correct your kids, ask yourself, “What does my child need to handle this situation better next time?”  Put your energy into teaching those skills.  Punishments don’t work.  Teaching does.  Using techniques like do-overs, role-playing, time-in, cool-downs, and other loving guidance approaches to discipline focus on giving your kids the skills they need to succeed next time–instead of shaming them for failing this time.  Lead your children to virtue by showing them a better way to express their emotions,  communicate their needs, accomplish their goals, get along with others, and manage their stress.  The more energy you put into teaching instead of punishing, the quicker your kids’ behavior will improve overall and the less stressed you’ll be!

2.  Celebrate Success–Tell your kids when they handle a situation well by acknowledging the virtue they displayed.  You don’t have to throw a parade–in fact, it’s much better if you don’t–but simple comments like, “That was really responsible.”, “You handled that really respectfully.”,  “That was very generous.” “That was a very loving choice.”  and similar comments help kids understand that virtues aren’t just a list of words to memorize, but a practical guide for handling life’s ups and downs with grace.  Believe it or not, kids want to be good, and they desperately crave your approval.  By remarking on all the ways that exhibiting virtues help them manage their emotions, express their needs, negotiate stressful situations, and get along with others, you are showing your kids that they already have what it takes to do the right thing AND you’re making them want to get even better at it. Celebrate your kids’ successful efforts to display virtue by letting them know you saw what they did and that you are proud of them for doing it.

3. Fill the Tank–There is a fuel that drives good behavior.  Don’t forget to fill the tank. Both research and generations of wise parents will tell you that extravagant affection is the fuel that makes kids want to behave and try harder to please you.  Research shows that affection is actually communication.  Taking time to hold your kids close all throughout the day actually helps them reset  their heart rate, respiration, body temperature, and other bodily rhythms when they are feeling stressed, frustrated, angry, anxious, or overwhelmed.  Affectionate parents literally incline their children’s hearts to them, and make their kids naturally turn to their parents for guidance and comfort. Yes, you will still need to teach your kids what to do but affection is the fuel that makes correction work.

For more resources on becoming a more peaceful parent, check out Parenting With Grace—The Catholic Guide to Raising (Almost) Perfect Kids, and visit us online at CatholicCounselors.com!

Preparing for Lent In A Catholic HOM (Household On Mission)

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As we prepare for Lent, we often rely on old habits or patterns. We give up the same thing for Lent or we engage in the same practices each year. Our rituals can become a little too habitual. Sometimes, it’s good to shake things up a bit, especially with regard to how we celebrate lent as a CatholicHOM (Household On Mission).

Specifically, the Liturgy of Domestic Church Life can help connect with the grace of lent to help each family member become a fully formed person—a whole and healthy child of God.

In Pastores Dabo Vobis, (I Will Give You Shepherds) St John Paul described four essential areas requiring special attention in the formation of priests (human, spiritual, intellectual, and pastoral) but his recommendations don’t just apply to seminaries.  They apply to our homes too! Christian households are meant to help each of us live out the common priesthood we inherit through baptism. Lent gives all of us “common priests” a special opportunity to use the Liturgy of Domestic Church Life, to discover new ways to consecrate the world to Christ by living out Christ’s sacrificial love in all we do.

So how do we use John Paul II’s guidance for priestly formation in our family?

Human Formation – Human formation refers to the lessons we need to learn to be the kind of healthy, holy people whose lives lead others to Christ. Christian families encourage good human formation by mindfully and intentionally practicing specific virtues, working to be more empathic with each other, being good listeners and respectful communicators, being generously affection and affirming, and cultivating the kind of relationships that lead them into deeper communion with each other and  God.  This Lent how will you and your family focus on human formation?

One simple way your family can practice living Christ’s sacrificial love at home is by using the Family Team Exercise – Each morning ask, “What do we need to do to make each other feel taken care of between now and lunch?” At lunch, ask, “What do we need to do to make each other feel taken care of between now and dinner?” Then, at dinner, ask, “What do we need to do to make each other feel taken care of between now and bedtime?” This exercise is a simple way to live out the third practice in the Liturgy of Domestic Church Life’s Rite of Christian Relationship: Offering prompt, generous, consistent and cheerful attention to each other’s needs. It challenges you all to be more thoughtful and generous than you otherwise might be, and shows how generous service leads to a happier, healthier home.

Spiritual Formation – Spiritual formation is all about learning to have a close relationship with God and be a faithful disciple. One of the practices we recommend in the Rite of Family Rituals is a strong family prayer life. By having strong family prayer rituals, families invite  God to be the most important member of their household.

As a family, keep God close all day long through both formal and informal family prayer times. For instance, in addition to regular morning, meal-time, and bedtime prayers, you could pray over our child before a test, game, or important event. You could thank God out loud for the little blessings you experience.  You could ask God’s help before cooking a meal, or helping a child with homework, or having an important conversation with your spouse or child. Likewise, assuming your child is used to receiving blessing from you, don’t forget to ask your child to pray over you when you’re having a tough day. Give your kids the chance to exercise their muscles as budding spiritual warriors!

Using this lent to cultivate stronger family prayer rituals will help you do more to encourage the spiritual formation of the common priests in your household.

Intellectual Formation – Intellectual formation refers to the habits we develop that enable us to  know God better so that we can love him better. In the Rite of Family Rituals, we recommend regular family talk time as one important ritual that can help us achieve this goal at home. By carving out a little time during the day to have meaningful conversations about how our faith and life connect, how God is showing up for us, or how we think he is asking us to respond to the challenges we face, we can foster our family’s ability to grow in our knowledge of God and both the understanding and application of our faith.

Other good Talk Rituals include family reading time, where we can read stories from the bible, or the lives of the saints, or just good books that give us a chance to discuss our values and share how we can live them. Lent is a great time to make time to talk about why we have Stations of the Cross, or what the parts of our celebration of Holy Week mean and how all of our Lenten practices can help us draw closer to God and each other.

Pastoral/Apostolic Formation – Pastoral formation refers to our ability to cultivate compassionate hearts of service to others. The third rite in Liturgy of Domestic Church Life, the Rite of Reaching Out, helps us do this by encouraging us to look for more ways families can serve each other—both at home and in the world. The Rite of Reaching Out is all about reminding us of the importance of leaving people better off than we found them.

This Lent, think about ways your family can do more to serve each other and your community. How can you be more generous to each other at home?  How can you and your family reach out to others in your life and be a witness of God’s love? Perhaps your family could work together to create small care packages for with cards, baked goods, or little gifts and share them with your neighbors/friends. Maybe make one care package each week in Lent for a different friend, relative, or neighbor.

However you choose to develop your relationship with God this Lent, it may be helpful to reflect on these four pillars and how they apply to your family. What areas are your strengths? What areas could use growth? What is one tangible practice you and your family could partake in this Lent to strengthen your Catholic HOM?

Join the discussion on Facebook at Catholic HOM—Family Discipleship

Set Your Child Up For Success: The Relationship Between Attachment Style and Financial Well-Being

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We all want the best for our children: for them to succeed, be happy, and be their best selves. But did you know that you can even have an influence on your child’s financial security later in life simply through the way that you parent? 

A study out of the University of Arizona found that “people with high attachment anxiety and people with high attachment avoidance both reported low life satisfaction and low relationship satisfaction. Those with attachment anxiety also reported low financial satisfaction.” 

Likewise, the study revealed that those with high anxious or avoidant attachment—both types of insecure attachment—“engage in more irresponsible financial behaviors.”

Often as parents we feel that there are only certain areas of our children’s lives that we can truly influence. But in reality, focusing on fostering healthy attachment with our children can set them up for long term success in all areas of their lives—even down to their financial security and success as adults. 

Here are a few ways to cultivate healthy, secure attachment with your children:

Respond Promptly and Consistently—starting as early as birth, we can begin to set our children up for a lifetime of success by responding to their cries, needs, and concerns promptly and consistently. Research shows that babies who are responded to by their parents in a way that is loving, generous, prompt, and consistent develop a stronger and healthier sense of self, greater independence, as well as more positive relationships and coping strategies than those whose  needs were not met in such ways. 

Date Your Kids—Spending one on one time with our kids in both big and small ways helps our children develop a greater sense of identity and self worth. Sometimes it feels difficult or even impossible to get time with each of our kids to go out to dinner one on one, go to a movie together, or attend an event with them. But while these larger ways of spending time with our kids are important and wonderful when possible, we don’t have to wait for an entirely free day or evening to spend one on one time with our kids. Spending 15 minutes to take a walk with one of our children, running to grab coffee, or joining with them and doing chores together instead of separately are just a few ways we can spend quality time with our kids on a daily basis. 

Physical Affection—When we hug our kids (or anyone for that matter) our physical bodies—such as heart rate, respiratory rate, etc.—sync up. When we do this often with our kids through hugs, cuddling, gentle/loving touches, we are helping them learn how to emotionally regulate and we are creating the bond of healthy, secure attachment.

For more information on how to cultivate secure attachment in your children and set your kids up for success, check out Parenting With Grace: The Catholic Parents’ Guide to Raising (Almost) Perfect Kids!

Parenting in the Age of Weinstein

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Almost every day, new allegations of sexual harassment are in the headlines. The #metoo campaign has exposed the abusive behavior of power-brokers in Hollywood and DC helped victims, who have been silenced for too long, find their voices again.

One parent, despairing at the onslaught of depressing headlines and salacious stories recently asked me, “What can we do to raise boys not to act like this?  How can we protect our girls from a culture like this?”  While we can never control every variable, the truth is that parents can do a lot to raise young men who can be respectful of women and young women who know how they deserve to be treated.  Interestingly, the answer to both questions involves the same two things.

Attend to Attachment

Research consistently shows that a child’s attachment style predicts both how likely a child is to victimize others as he or she grows up as well as how likely it is that a child will be able to set appropriate boundaries with those who try to hurt them.

There are three basic attachment styles (secure, anxious, and avoidant) that determine a child’s basic sense of how they should both treat others and expect to be treated by others. Which attachment style a particular child develops is determined by how promptly, generously, and consistently his or her parents respond to the child’s emotional needs.

Securely–attached children are raised by parents who are generous with affection, employ gentle discipline that teaches good behavior instead of merely punishing bad behavior, encourage healthy emotional expression, and model the healthy give-and-take involved in loving relationships.  Securely attached children are naturally empathic, and are naturally repulsed by the idea of using or hurting another person.  They also have a gut-level sense of when they are not being treated properly and so are much more likely to sense and avoid dangerous situations, set boundaries early when someone tries to take advantage of them, and be confident about seeking help when they feel like they are in over their heads.

Anxiously-attached children are raised by parents who tend to be conditional about giving affection and praise, tend to use harsh, emotionally-driven discipline that blames rather than teaches, and tend to be too distracted by their own problems to consistently respond to the child’s emotional needs.  This child grows up feeling like it is their job to make other people meet their needs and it is their fault when other people don’t treat them well.  As adults, anxiously attached children often have a hard time recognizing unhealthy relationships. They tend not to notice that others are treating them badly until its gone too far.  And then, when they do notice, they tend to blame themselves, thinking they somehow caused the problem or even deserve the poor treatment.  This makes it difficult for them to set limits, or seek help.

Avoidantly-attached children are raised by parents who are unaffectionate and emotionally shut-off, tend to use heavy-handed approaches to discipline, and tend to leave children to themselves.  Avoidantly attached children grow up to become adults who, because they have never been taught to connect emotionally or spiritually with others, over-emphasize the importance of sex.  The more seriously avoidant a child’s attachment style is, the more likely that child will be a bully, a sex-addict, or, in the extreme, a sociopath who takes joy in hurting others.

If you want to raise a child who knows how to treat others well and knows how he or she deserves to be treated, the most important thing you can do is teach your child what a healthy relationship looks like by engaging in those practices that promote secure attachment.

LOVE VS. USE

The second most important thing a parent can do to raise children who know how to treat others well and know how they deserve to be treated is to teach kids, from an early age, that everything we do to another person is either ordered toward loving them or using them. When we are affectionate and respectful, when we do things to build them up, or look for ways to make their lives easier or more pleasant, we love others and help them become the persons they are meant to be.  By contrast, when we disregard others, when we are critical, mean, or derogatory, when we use people as a means to some end, or act in ways that say we don’t care about what they are going through, we treat people as things to be used, abused, or neglected.

A Catholics, we believe that the only appropriate response to another person is love, never use.  Children as young as 4 or 5 can understand the difference between love and use in relationships.

Parents who foster healthy attachment and teach their child the difference between loving and using another person from the earliest days not only are prone to raise healthy kids.  They strike a blow against a culture that sees people as objects and relationships as exchanges where the powerful use the less powerful as a means to their selfish ends.

Dr. Greg Popcak is the author of many books including Beyond the Bids and the Bees: The Catholic Guide to Raising Sexually Whole and Holy Kids.  Visit him at www.CatholicCounselors.com

Why So Down? Studies Show Humans Are Wired to Emphasize The Negative, UNLESS….

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Why is it that we can do 100 things right but obsess about the 1 thing that went wrong?  Or, why do we ignore the dozens of things the people around us do to be kind but then fuss about the 1 thing they miss?  It turns out that, except for one condition (which I’ll share below) human beings are actually wired to be negative.

In his book The Neurobiology of Human Relationships, Pepperdine psychologist, Louis Cozolino, reveals how research shows that the human brain is naturally wired to emphasize the negative more than the positive. Here’s a NYTimes article describing some of this research...

“The brain handles positive and negative information in different hemispheres,” said Professor Nass, who co-authored “The Man Who Lied to His Laptop: What Machines Teach Us About Human Relationships” (Penguin 2010). Negative emotions generally involve more thinking, and the information is processed more thoroughly than positive ones, he said. Thus, we tend to ruminate more about unpleasant events — and use stronger words to describe them — than happy ones.

Roy F. Baumeister, a professor of social psychology at Florida State University, captured the idea in the title of a journal article he co-authored in 2001, “Bad Is Stronger Than Good,” which appeared in The Review of General Psychology. “Research over and over again shows this is a basic and wide-ranging principle of psychology,” he said. “It’s in human nature, and there are even signs of it in animals,” in experiments with rats.

BUT, HERE’S THE CATCH

Cozolino notes, however, that there is one critical factor that mediates the brain’s tendency toward negative thinking; connection to other people.  Research shows that the degree to which we feel connected to others actually impact brain function.  Left alone, our brains are wired to emphasize the negative as a survival mechanism.  If I am on my own, I have to be prepared to face every threat.  I can’t relax.  My survival depends upon it.  But if I feel connected to the people around me, that sense of connection to others helps to balance out the brain’s natural tendency to go negative.  Connection actually stimulates the brain in a manner that allows me to feel safe. Because I am not alone and I am confident that others are here to help look out for me, I don’t have to pay as close attention to every negative thing.  In fact, I can even let some of the negativity go. I can be…(brace yourself) positive, happy, and even content, because I have people who are watching my back.  Attachment to others actually provides the nourishment our brains need to–as the old song puts it–accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative.

CONNECTION.  NOT A CROWD

The thing is, it isn’t enough to just have people around me.  If my family is little more than a collection of individuals sharing a roof and a data plan, I will not be able to enjoy the benefits that relationship can give to my brain.  In fact, I might be more likely to feel negative since I am prone to see all the ways these people could take advantage of me or act in uncaring ways toward me.  In order to balance out our brain’s natural tendency to emphasize negative input, I have to actually feel connected to and cared for by the people around me.

CREATED FOR COMMUNION

Pope St John Paul the Great’s asserts that God’s design of the body teaches us important lessons about God’s plan for human happiness and fulfillment.  This research is a powerful example.  We were created to crave communion in order to have a more balanced, healthy, and positive outlook that enables us to experience life as the gift its meant to be.

It is tempting to think, some days, that we’d be better off if we could get away from everyone and go live on a mountain somewhere, free to do our own thing and think our own thoughts.  But, in fact, we are wired to need others to be healthy and fulfilled.  The more connected and attached we are to the people who share our lives, the more we feel whole and healthy.  It turns out that isn’t the benefits we gain by being connected to the people we love isn’t just a psychological or spiritual reality.  It is a neurological one as well.

Major New Research Finds 40% of US Kids Are Poorly Attached–Middle Class Families Included.

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–New study reveals why parenting is THE social justice issue of our time.–

Image: Shutterstock

Image: Shutterstock

In a study of 14,000 U.S. children, 40 percent lack strong emotional bonds — what psychologists call “secure attachment”  

Written by researchers from  Columbia University and the London School of Economics and Political Science, the report uses data collected by the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, a nationally representative U.S. study of 14,000 children born in 2001. The researchers also reviewed more than 100 academic studies.

Their analysis shows that about 60 percent of children develop strong attachments to their parents, which are formed through simple actions, such as holding a baby lovingly and responding to the baby’s needs. Such actions support children’s social and emotional development, which, in turn, strengthens their cognitive development, the researchers write. These children are more likely to be resilient to poverty, family instability, parental stress and depression. Additionally, if boys growing up in poverty have strong parental attachments, they are two and a half times less likely to display behavior problems at school.

The approximately 40 percent who lack secure attachments, on the other hand, are more likely to have poorer language and behavior before entering school. This effect continues throughout the children’s lives, and such children are more likely to leave school without further education, employment or training, the researchers write. Among children growing up in poverty, poor parental care and insecure attachment before age four strongly predicted a failure to complete school. Of the 40 percent who lack secure attachments, 25 percent avoid their parents when they are upset (because their parents are ignoring their needs), and 15 percent resist their parents because their parents cause them distress.

Susan Campbell, a professor of psychology at the University of Pittsburgh, said insecure attachments emerge when primary caregivers are not “tuned in” to their infant’s social signals, especially their cries of distress during infancy. “When helpless infants learn early that their cries will be responded to, they also learn that their needs will be met, and they are likely to form a secure attachment to their parents,” Campbell said. “However, when caregivers are overwhelmed because of their own difficulties, infants are more likely to learn that the world is not a safe place — leading them to become needy, frustrated, withdrawn or disorganized.  The researchers argue that many parents — including middle-class parents — need more support to provide proper parenting….  READ THE REST HERE.

Detachment is the atomic level of the Culture of Death.  We cluck about the immorality of our culture, about poverty, crime, violence, and porn.  And these are all horrible things.  But we fail to see the foundation for all these social evils that Satan is building right under our feet and in our own homes. It’s easy to fuss about “the media” and “the culture” etc.  But it is hard, genuinely, really, really hard, to go pick up that crying baby when we already feel drained. And yet this the great spiritually transformative work that lies at the heart of The Corporal Works of Mommy and Daddy.

Am I saying that exhausted mothers should torture themselves to meet everybody’s needs all by themselves?  Absolutely not.   Every person needs help and has a right to get whatever help they need to be their best selves.  That should go without saying.

Attachment: The Root of Social Transformation

But every time Satan convinces a mother or father to remain consistently deaf to the cries of their children because it is somehow “bad” or even “unnecessary” or “ridiculous”  to respond to those cries, he is laying the foundation for all these other social evils. As Catholics, if we want to evangelize the culture, if we want to beat poverty, make children resilient against the evils of our fallen world, decrease  the crime rate, drug usage rates,  incidence of promiscuity, and pornography rates,  the single most important things we can do are 1) respond to our babies cries promptly, generously, and consistently, 2) shower our children with extravagant affection, and 3) use gentle guidance approaches to discipline that teach our children how to behavior virtuously instead of simply punishing bad behavior and crossing our fingers that they’ll figure out how to do what’s right on their own through the process of elimination.

Oversimplification?  Survey says…

I realize that this strikes some people as a ridiculous oversimplification.  I remember the editor of the new edition of Beyond the Birds and the Bees saying to me, incredulously, “It’s like you’re saying that the way to make our kids more moral is to hug them more.”  And, although that is a bit of an exaggeration, yes.  That is more or less exactly what I am saying.  Or rather, that is, more or less, what hundreds of studies of tens of thousands of children over the last 60 years are saying.  Over and over and over again.

And why should this come as such a surprise to us?  Our Church tells us over and over–and especially in Pope St John Paul’s theology of the body–that we were created for communion.  The family is the “icon of the Trinity” the most intimate communion that ever existed!  And we are made in the image of that intimate communion. Relationship IS the very essence of our being.  When we try to escape that reality, or ignore it,  limit it,  or tamp it down, bad things happen–to our kids, our families, and our world.  We think that having children need us is somehow crippling.  The exact opposite is true. Creating communion with our children is the most liberating thing we can do both for ourselves and for them.

Want To Change The World?

Are there lots of social ills?  There sure are.  But the cure really is pretty simple.  As St. Teresa of Calcutta put it, “What can you do to promote world peace? Go home and love your families.”   It turns out,  there’s a lot of research to support that pithy, but powerfully world-changing, sentiment.

If you want to discover more ways parents can change the world through love, check out Parenting with Grace: The Catholic Parents’ Guide to Raising (almost) Perfect Kids and Then Comes Baby: The Catholic Guide to Surviving and Thriving in the First 3 Years of Parenthood.

 

 

Hate Attachment Parenting? So Did This Mom. Here’s The Surprising Thing She Discovered.

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God gives us the children we need.  He speaks to us through our children.  We can listen for his voice, or let the noise in our heads tune it out. The choice is ours.  Here’s one mother’s heartfelt struggle to learn to listen–and experience the healing that comes in hearing.

When my daughter Azalea was born, I was flooded with feelings of love. But it wasn’t long before I returned to a more familiar sense of myself, and that love was mixed with ambivalence, internal conflict, impatience, and sometimes anger. Yes, I adored my baby, the way she nose-breathed on me as she nursed, her milky smell, her beautiful face, her charming smiles, her bright energy. Her. I loved her. But I was exhausted and overwhelmed, and what might be expressed as irritability in some parents felt more like rage to me. I knew better than to express anger at a baby, but my control dials felt out of reach. I never hit or shook my daughter, but I did yell at her, in real and frightening fury. One time, when she was 6 months old, she was supposed to be taking a nap, but instead she was pulling herself up in her crib, over and over again, nonstop crying. I was over it, done, nothing left. I sat on the floor in her darkened room, and made my ugliest, angriest, face at her, seething, yelling at her to just…go…to…SLEEP.

If this had been a one-off, I could have rationalized that every parent loses it at some point. But this kind of heat was all too available to me. I would occasionally confess my behavior to my husband, a psychotherapist, but he rarely saw it up close. So as much as he, my own therapist, and my friends tried to support us both, I was largely alone in my shame. And my daughter was alone with a warm and loving and sometimes scary mom.

I had read Dr. Sears and his attachment-parenting ideas before Azalea was born, but I was deeply suspicious that a checklist of behaviors could teach anyone how to raise a human being. I would read things like “Respond to your baby’s cues,” and think, Right. As if. Her cues were often inscrutable and always exhausting. Sears’s cavalier oversimplification annoyed me to no end and added to the weight of expectations and disappointment.

As Azalea grew, some things got easier. Language helped. Her ever-increasing cuteness and sweetness helped. Our connection developed, and I loved doing things together — reading books, going to Target, cooking, cuddling, walking, hanging out with friends. Things were good. Except when they weren’t. Like the time in the grocery store as I was checking out with Thanksgiving groceries while struggling to manage Azalea’s unwieldy 10-month-old body in front of a line of blankly staring, silently huffing adults. I remember the jaw-setting, skin-tingling, adrenaline-pumping feeling of anger overtake me. While I don’t remember exactly what I said to my squirming baby, I will never forget the disgusted look on the checkout lady’s face, confirming that whatever outburst I settled on was definitely not okay.

In my dark moments, I felt like something inside me was missing, that thing that functions deep down that keeps us from hurting the people we love. But I also tried to remind myself that the cult of perfect parenthood is a myth, that there is no way to avoid making a mess of our kids one way or another. That gave me some peace. Then, when Azalea was 4, I interviewed Jon Kabat-Zinn, the [therapist and] mindfulness expert who has written many books, including Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of the Mindful Parent. I think I was hoping he might encourage me to set down my burden of guilt and shame, maybe even offer a God-like let it go. But that wasn’t what happened.

Kabat-Zinn: The meaning of being a parent is that you take responsibility for your child’s life until they can take responsibility for their own life. That’s it! 

Me: That’s a lot.

Kabat-Zinn: True, and it doesn’t mean you can’t get help. Turns out how you are as a parent makes a huge difference in the neural development of your child for the first four or five years.

Me: That is so frightening.

Kabat-Zinn: All that’s required, though, is connection. That’s all. 

Me: But I want to be separate from my child; I don’t want to be connected all the time.

Kabat-Zinn: I see. Well, everything has consequences. How old is your child?

Me: Four and a half. 

Kabat-Zinn: Well, I gotta say, I have very strong feelings about that kind of thing. She didn’t ask to be born.  

I knew then that I needed to figure out why I am the kind of mother I am, and what effect it was having on my daughter.  READ THE REST HERE

And to learn more about how to listen to God speaking through your children, check out Parenting with Grace: A Catholic Parent Guide to Raising (almost) Perfect Kids and The Corporal Works of Mommy (and Daddy Too):  Living the Little Way of Family Life.

Millennials Less Promiscuous Than Any Generation for 60 Years. Here’s Why That’s TERRIBLE.

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Image: Shutterstock.

Some Christian news outlets are rejoicing at the recent study finding that Millennials are less sexually active than any other generation for the last 60 years. The perception by some is that this generation is experiencing a spontaneous outbreak of unusual moral fortitude.

Confronting the Nightmare

Would that it were so.  If you read the reports, the reasons Millennials give for not being interested in sex is that they are not interested in relationship at all.  Millennials appear to be so relationally broken that they would prefer to play video games, obsess over work, and dabble in porn rather than engage in any form of intimate relationship (not just sex) hardly counts as a win for our side. Rampant divorce, parental serial monogamy, an epidemic of absentee fathers, and households led by dual-parent workaholics. have killed this generation’s most basic, God-given desire for communion. It’s a nightmare.

Is It Porn?

Some commenters have suggested that this is the result of the porn epidemic.  That certainly doesn’t help, but that misses the larger point.  Under normal circumstances, even people who have a seriously compulsive relationship with porn historically indicated that a real relationship with a flesh and blood person would be preferable.  That isn’t the case with man Millennials.  The problem is much deeper.

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RIP Mary White, One of the Seven Original Catholic Founders of La Leche League, Dies at 93.

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From WSJ.

When Mary White and six other moms from the Chicago suburbs started an organization to encourage breastfeeding in 1956, they had to be careful about naming it.

“They couldn’t say ‘breast,’” said Clare Daly, one of Mrs. White’s daughters. Newspapers, they were sure, wouldn’t publish notices about meetings involving such a crude term. Looking for something more discreet, they settled on La Leche League, derived from the name of a Roman Catholic shrine in Florida (Popcak Note:  see commentary below).

To their surprise, the league spread around the world. Now called La Leche League International, it has about 2,000 local groups in more than 70 countries. The league helped create today’s consensus that breastfeeding is far better for babies and mothers than infant formula.

Mrs. White died June 2 at age 93 of complications from a stroke she suffered last September. Her death leaves only two surviving founders of the league—Marian Tompson and Mary Ann Kerwin, Mrs. White’s sister-in-law.

In the 1950s, breastfeeding was widely considered backward and unsanitary. Around 80% of U.S. mothers chose formula instead, according to the league. Views gradually changed as researchers piled up evidence of the health benefits of natural feeding. As of 2012, about 80% of mothers in the U.S. were at least attempting to breastfeed, according to the latest government survey results.

A January report in the medical journal Lancet cited evidence that breastfeeding deters infections and enhances intelligence, while reducing breast cancer risks for mothers, among other benefits. Nestlé SA, once subject to boycotts because it promoted infant formula in poor countries, now says it favors “exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of life.”

Mrs. White was born Mary Elizabeth Kerwin on April 3, 1923, and grew up in the Chicago suburbs of Elmhurst and Oak Park as the oldest of eight children. Her father was a financial vice president for the Brach’s candy company; her mother was a homemaker with a philosophy degree from DePaul University.

After earning a drama and speech degree from Rosary College in River Forest, Ill., she married Gregory White, a family-practice physician. Dr. White favored breastfeeding but believed women could be more persuasive than he could in promoting it.

The league traces its roots to a church picnic. Mrs. White and Mrs. Tompson were both breastfeeding. Other mothers said they were using formula but would prefer breastfeeding if they could get more information and help. Mrs. Tompson and Mrs. White decided to start a support group and invited five other moms to Mrs. White’s home to set it up.

“Mary was the first woman I ever saw breastfeed in public,” Mrs. Tompson said. Mrs. White, known for wearing spotless white sweaters and coats despite the exertions of raising 11 children, was self-assured and had the prestige of being a doctor’s wife. “If Mary did it, we figured it was safe,” Mrs. Tompson said.

Though these suburban housewives were defying medical authority, they didn’t flaunt their rebellion. Infants were swaddled in blankets during public feedings. “We would practically smother our babies trying to be discreet,” Mrs. Kerwin recalled.

Ignorance was their biggest obstacle. Most women didn’t know their milk was better for the baby than formula, and many feared they wouldn’t be able to supply enough to sustain the baby.

Doctors could be dismissive. Mrs. Tompson recalled that one told an expectant mother he would let her breastfeed if she “behaved” during childbirth.

Still, times were changing, Mrs. Tompson said: “Women were ready to make the decisions about their life instead of going to an expert.”

At first, the league grew slowly. After Reader’s Digest wrote about it, though, “we got phone calls from all over,” said Mrs. Kerwin, one of the founders.

Mrs. White helped write “The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding,” a popular book, and edited other league publications. She often took phone calls at home from women who wanted her advice.

Her family has multiplied prodigiously. Mrs. White is survived by 10 of her 11 children, 61 grandchildren and 109 great grandchildren, said Mrs. Daly, one of her daughters. She kept track of all those birthdays on a calendar. “She was very organized,” Mrs. Daly said.

Mrs. Tompson, 86 years old and still active in the league, said she was pleased to see that some airports now have pods for nursing mothers. “We’re still running into mothers who are getting really bad advice,” she said, “but it’s so much better than it was.”

Has the pendulum swung too far? Mrs. Tompson said she would never shame a woman who chose not to breastfeed. If such women feel guilty, however, there is nothing the league can do about it, she said.

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Many people–Catholics in particular–are unaware that La Leche League was founded by 7 devoutly Catholic women and the internationally recognized Catholic physician, Dr. Herbert Ratner.  The article mentions that the organization was named for “a Roman Catholic shrine in Florida.”  What it doesn’t say is that that shrine is dedication to the Nursing Madonna, La Sonora de La Leche (Our Lady of the Milk).  Their love of natural parenting grew as a result of their dedication to both natural family planning and understanding of the importance of the Catholic natural law perspective.  Although today’s La Leche League tends to distance itself from its deeply Catholic roots, the original founders saw nursing as a powerful means of communicating the love of God to their children and to the world.

Proponents of attachment parenting, in particular owe a huge debt of gratitude to Mary White and her friends. They have made a huge impact on the world, transforming the face of parenting and infant healthcare.   I pray that her soul, along with all the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, would rest in peace.