Let's get into the five habits.
Habit number one,
The Wi-Fi reset.
So this one is super handy.
When your child is in the thick of a meltdown,
They're kicking,
They're screaming,
And our typical response is to jump in and correct the behavior right away.
But I'm here to say.
.
.
Don't do that if you want to raise a resilient,
Successful child.
What you do want to do is stay safe.
Calm.
Think of yourself as a thermostat,
Not a thermometer.
You want to set the temperature and not react to your child's.
Here's the science behind that.
A child's prefrontal cortex the part of their brain that is responsible for self-control is not fully developed yet.
So they literally cannot control their behavior by themselves.
Think of your calm nervous system like a wifi signal.
When you stay regulated,
Your child's chaotic brain can log into your nervous system and download your calm.
This is called co-regulation.
And if you yell,
You just add to the chaos and the static of the signal.
So stay calm and allow them to download your calm energy.
Habit number two,
Name it detainment.
Next is a phrase that you need to remember and use every day.
Again,
When your child is in the middle of a meltdown,
They're having a hard time,
They may not even understand why they're having a hard time.
The phrase that you need to use is,
I can see that you're feeling angry.
Or frustrated.
Or sad,
Whatever emotion that you see your child struggling with in the moment,
Reflect that emotion back to them.
You are not fixing it in this moment.
The only important job here.
Is to name the emotion.
What you're doing is helping them understand what's happening,
Helping them organize what's going on and giving words to what's happening inside of them that they might not have in that moment.
Habit number three,
The safety loop.
This one is all about predictability.
I'm not talking about being rigid here.
What I am talking about is a general predictability within their day-to-day structure.
So that might be a predictable morning routine,
A predictable bedtime routine.
Yes,
Different things happen day-to-day that you cannot predict.
But if your child can understand the general routine within the day,
That decreases the amount of stress that they're experiencing.
Habit number four is all about how you react to mistakes.
So when your child spills the milk,
Breaks your favorite glass,
Puts their shoes on the wrong foot.
Don't jump in and correct it right away.
Don't jump in and try and discipline the behavior right away.
Use the oops method instead.
Pause.
Take a breath and then ask,
How can we fix this?
We want to wire their brain for resilience,
Not perfection.
The brain relies on experiential learning.
And if you save them from every small mistake,
You're denying their brain of developing the neural pathway for problem solving.
So even if they're older and they forget their lunch at school,
Instead of rescuing them from that situation,
You can nurture them through the frustration of the situation by reflecting their emotions,
But don't rescue them.
Ask them,
What can we do differently?
Next time so that we don't forget your lunch?
What can we do differently next time so that the milk doesn't spill or the glass doesn't break?
Let them struggle a little.
The tears,
The frustration,
If it helps you to remember,
Just tell yourself that.
Their emotional response is the sound of their brain growing.
Habit number five is the 10-minute fill-up,
And this one is all about connection.
This one is so important.
The more time that you can spend with your child,
The less behaviors you're going to see.
And I would say a minimum of 10 minutes to fill up their love cups.
10 minutes of phone-free,
Child-led time.
Where they get to decide what they play,
As long as it's not TV or video games.
So they will listen to your instruction way better if they're feeling close to you,
If they're feeling connected to you.
When you find that you feel their love banks,
There will be fewer behaviours overall.
Wiring your child's brain for resilience and success is not about being perfect.
Far from it.
Because if you're perfect,
They don't get the chance to build the neural pathways of problem solving and learning what to do different.
But it's about these small daily habits that you do over and over and over to build on their resilience,
On their connection,
And on their ability to problem solve.
