|
7. Amplify the Good Feelings
We are evolutionarily primed toward worry. Our ancestors were anxious and
worried enough to look out vigilantly for predators or other attackers. They
passed that genetic proclivity for anxiety on to us. We are a worried species,
because worry helped us to survive.
But we need to help our children and ourselves balance the stressful moments,
interactions, and even adverse experiences with a sense of wonder and goodness.
We need to help our kids look for and take in what’s good.
For instance, once you’ve soothed your toddler after she tells you that
someone called her a derogatory name on the playground, you might go on to
say, “Wow, you really dealt with that well. That had to be scary and you did just
the right thing by coming to tell me.”
Or, if you pick up your son from preschool and he is crying because he missed
you, you might say, after soothing him, “We are together now, and isn’t it nice?”
Look for general moments in the day to highlight as positive experiences, paying
attention to the good things.
According to neuropsychologist Rick Hanson, PhD, “Since our brain is so
primed to take in the negative, it’s also important to recognize beneficial
experiences in everyday life, and then help turn them into inner strengths such as
gratitude, compassion, resilience, and self-worth. When we sustain attention to
positive experiences, we help them to be encoded in the brain.”
Through using the neural machinery of memory in clever ways, Hanson says,
you can defeat the negativity bias of the brain and gain “greater self-confidence,
better mood, and a gradual healing of upsetting, even traumatic, experiences.”
Researcher John Gottman, MD, PhD, has shown that in any relationship, it
typically takes five good interactions to make up for a single bad one. And that’s
because our painful experiences are a great deal more memorable than
pleasurable ones.
As Hanson has put it, “The brain is like Velcro for negative experiences, but
Teflon for positive ones.” So we need to deliberately “take in the good. When
you help your kids do this, over time, the emotional residues of good
experiences brighten their worldview.” You start to level the playing field,
helping them to fire and wire up new, positive neural structures, so that they can
develop a brain that is better able to put challenges in perspective. And that, says
Hanson, helps children to become more resilient, confident, and happy.
He suggests that we “look for good facts, and turn them into good
experiences.” You might see a goldfinch or a woodpecker in the garden, or a fish
in a pond, a rabbit hopping by, a pretty sunset—just stop and take a moment to
stand with your child and talk about the beauty of the moment, the colors you
see, the sounds you hear, how pleasant the moment is. Or, says Hanson, you
might discuss “how much the two of you are enjoying the taste of a piece of
chocolate or a song you love on the radio.
“Savor that moment for ten, twenty, or thirty seconds, to increase its encoding
in the brain,” says Hanson. “The longer that something is held in awareness and
the more emotionally stimulating it is, the more that neurons fire and wire
together and the stronger the trace in memory.”
You can also do this just before your child is falling asleep—review all the
happy or joyful small moments in the day. You might even ask your child to
sense the good experience sinking into her—like a warm glow spreading through
her chest, or, suggests Hanson, “to imagine a jewel going into the treasure chest
of her heart.”
Experts recommend that you amplify the good in your child as well. If your
son is making a noted effort to complete a tough homework assignment, you
might comment, “You sure are persistent.” If he holds the door for a person in a
wheelchair, “You are so thoughtful!” If your daughter completes a dreaded
chore, “You are really responsible.” Rather than evaluate her (“You are so
smart!” “You’re super at that!”), emphasize and name the positive character
traits your child exhibits (ingenuity, caring, effort, follow-through, courage,
love) out loud, to let her know that you see the good in her.
Meanwhile, as a parent, take in the good
you
notice—people being nice to you
in the grocery store, the smell of your child’s hair, getting something done at
work, finishing the dishes, holding your temper when you’re tired, feeling your
natural good-heartedness.
Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: |
