Raising Them by Hand

This quarterly video program gives you an inside view of the thinking and personal insights of Hand in Hand professionals, including Executive Director, Patty Wipfler. Topics chosen address current events and issues affecting parents and families. Raising Them by Hand will help you to build your skill using Listening Tools with children and is produced for members at all experience levels. 

Members Q & A Events

A biannual Members Q & A Event provides an opportunity for you to participate in a live conference with Executive Director, Patty Wipfler, and other Hand in Hand professionals to discuss your specific questions about your individual families or work with children.   Upcoming topics include Helping Children with Aggression, Setting Limits that Build Better Relationships. and Beyond Emotional Intelligence. 

Institutional Membership, $300 - Institutional Membership includes all Supporting Member benefits and a 15% discount on classes for up to five individuals.

1. Visit a Farmer's Market. It's the Harvest Season and the market is full of long-maturing fruits and vegetables like squashes, potatoes, beets, apples, and pears. Talk to the farmers to get an idea of when they planted and how long it has taken to get these items to market. Notice the shapes and colors of the produce you see. Play "eye spy" around the market.

Children are naturally drawn to the colors and textures that are found at the local farmer's market. Regular visits to the market are an excellent way to draw the attention of a child to the seasonal changes.

2. Go on a collection walk. Wander through your neighborhood, a local park, or a nearby natural area, look for treasures (leaves, acorns and other tree nuts, flower petals) along the way. Encourage classification and communication skills by asking children to choose a most special leaf and describe their reason for choosing it. Take home your collection and fill a basket with the bounty to decorate a table.

Children love to collect. As parents, our first impulse is often to deny them this impulse. Now is a great time of the year to indulge them.

3. Do a rain dance. The fields of native grasses are brown and thirsty and, shortly, the first rains will arrive. Notice how dry and parched the land has become. Seek out a dry pond or creek bed to visit before it comes alive with water and life.

Cycles are one of the many ways to look at changes in the natural world. Watching a vernal pool or runoff supplied creek over time is a fun and interesting way to observe changes in a local ecosystem. Children will learn to recognize these changes and to appreciate the rhythms of the natural world.

4. Observe seasonal changes in animal behaviors. Squirrels are gathering and storing nuts, many animals have begun their annual migrations (Hummingbirds and Monarch Butterflies have already left for warmer weather to the south), many dogs and cats have begun to grow thicker coats for the coming winter.

All creatures, including us, are adapted to change our behaviors during the darker, cooler months of the year. Children are sensitive to these changes. They will notice there are fewer hours of sunlight. Now is a great time of year to snuggle together with your child in the early evening to share a book, game, or puzzle and a cup of cocoa before bed.

On the surface, a Listening Partnership is a very simple thing.  Two people take turns listening to one another as they talk about their experience and express their feelings.  The steps you take to be an effective listener can be taken by anyone:

·         Respect your listening partner and the power of your attention.

·         Pay attention to your partner's issues, not your own, during her turn.

·         Identify the upset that your partner has chosen to work on.

·         Assist your partner to release the emotional tension she talks about.

·         Keep it confidential.  What is said is not referred to again.

Yet parents often tell us this is the tool that makes the greatest difference in their lives and in their relationships with their children. If anyone can do it, what makes this process such a powerful agent of change?

We don't learn to nurture our children overnight or in a vacuum. We need to think. We need to reflect. We need to connect the dots between our child's behavior and feelings and our responses. We need to offload the tension of trying so hard to do well by our children. The research shows that essential factors for responsive parenting are the parents' ability to talk, reflect on their own experience, and eventually make sense of the impact of their early lives on their daily experience.

Dr. Daniel Siegel, MD, has dedicated significant study to the impact of parents' personal histories on their child rearing.  Many of his findings are presented in his book, co-authored by Mary Hartzell, M.Ed, Parenting from the Inside Out: How a Deeper Self-Understanding Can Help You Raise Children Who Thrive.  A striking scientific finding in Dr. Siegel's recent research is that the most powerful predictor of a child's ability to thrive is the parent's ability to make sense of the events of his own life. In other words, it is not how stable, healthy, or loving a parent's childhood was, but whether the parent can organize his life events into a coherent story that predicts whether parents will be able to provide secure relationships for their children. "Having a history of trauma or loss does not by itself predispose you to having a child with disorganization.  It is the lack of resolution that is the essential risk factor.  It is never too late to move toward making sense of our experiences and healing our past" (2004, p. 107). 

Not having had an opportunity to talk about one's life history can be the very thing that triggers negative reactions that spring from a parent's early experiences of stress, isolation, and hurt. No parent is at fault for having those negative responses: like ice on a pond of sweet water, they have formed because conditions weren't emotionally warm enough to support flexibility at some point in the past.  "When you are feeling stressed or find yourself in situations with your child that trigger past unresolved issues, your mind may shut off and become inflexible." (Siegel 2004; p. 154)  We are not at fault for these parenting difficulties, but we are responsible for reclaiming our ability to connect with our children in challenging situations. Dr. Siegel suggests that parents find some time at the end of the day to reflect with a friend and talk about those things with emotional content that happened in relation to your child. 

How do parents sift through their early lives and come to understand what happened, why, and how their parenting has been affected?  By talking with a good listener. Most people can find a way to do this with a little help from organizations like Hand in Hand.  We help parents learn and practice the essential skill of using Listening Partnerships to review their experience, celebrate successes, set goals, shed feelings of hurt, and assist other parents in return. These listening times unleash love and renewed energy for meeting challenges in a way that is both dependable and remarkable.

This kind of listening is part of every Hand in Hand class and support group, and it's often in these environments that people are best able to connect with others interested in setting up Listening Partnerships.  Our online discussion group, handinhanddiscuss, is another good way to find other parents near you who can share listening time.  And it doesn't have to be someone who already knows all about Hand in Hand.  Anyone in your life who is warm, supportive, and interested can learn to be a Listening Partner.  Just pass along a copy of our Listening Partnerships for Parents booklet and ask them to take a look.  You might just change both of your lives. 

It is always a struggle to try to get her to go to bed at a decent time so that she gets enough rest. So normally, I would start asking why was it that she didn't do whatever she needed to do earlier. Usually, there is this urgency to blame her for being "disorganized."

But on this day, because I had a clearer mind from having been listened to, I decided to try something else. I could see she was stressed out. I could tell she was tired and frustrated.

All I did, with a calm tone of voice, was to ask how was she doing.

"I don't understand this stupid homework! This teacher doesn't explain things well and then expects us to figure it out. She shouldn't be teaching! She even says she can't believe she is trying to teach teenagers. Why doesn't she find another job?" By the time she had said that last phrase, my daughter was crying out of frustration. I stayed with her.

When she stopped, I asked her if there was anything I could do to help. "No Dad, I will go to bed soon. But thanks." 

The next evening, she said to me: "Oh by the way, Dad, I figured out that stuff I was having a hard time with."

I still have a long way to go in understanding how to best help and connect with teenagers. But what I tried that night obviously worked a lot better than allocating blame. And I was able to do it because I had just gotten my mind a little uncluttered through some good listening. It's what I call the "domino effect." This listening stuff works every time. If I could just remember to use it more often!

--a father in Menlo Park, CA

In an age where parents are urged to consider their children's emotional well-being, nutrition, education, and exposure to popular culture, it might sting a bit to learn that there is yet another factor to consider: children's exposure to nature.  Richard Louv in his book "Last Child in the Woods" makes an excellent case, however, against what he calls "Nature Deficit Disorder."

Next Monday, join us at the Santa Clara City Library for a workshop on Building Support for Your Parenting with Hand in Hand instructor Usha Sangam.

In November, we'll be offering a free teleseminar event, "Beyond Emotional Intelligence," which will give you a wonderful opportunity to introduce family and friends to the Hand in Hand approach.

And Hand in Hand supporters in the Los Angeles area will have the opportunity to spend some time with Executive Director, Patty Wipfler, November 3^rd, November 4^th or November 5^th.

Click here for our Full Schedule.