Dr. Rick Hanson and Summer Camp: Who knew?

18 Jul Dr. Rick Hanson and Summer Camp: Who knew?

Posted at 18:07h in Blog by

This is a guest post from Michelle Lilyanna at Happinessandjoylessons.com

Last week, a friend came to me and asked me to make a nighttime audio for her daughter who is going away to summer camp. Her daughter has enjoyed my other calming audios but wanted one specifically to help her when she was away from the family. I wanted to incorporate some techniques and practices I know for “Taking in The Good” and “Getting Through Difficult Times.” This one is for you Miss MacKenzie.

SummerCamp

* I offer all parents and children this free audio download on my site: Happinessandjoylessons.com

I have been teaching children for over 25 years and Rick’s work has added enormously to helping my students center, become more mindful and take in the good. The neuroscience he shares has become common language in our classroom. We talk of the amygdala, hippocampus, neurons and the brain almost daily in some form or another. We talk about letting the good really sink in and changing our emotional memories. We have children drink in good feelings for 15 seconds or more to really anchor these memories in the body. Children are empowered by this knowledge and know they can change their brains for the better.

Please read below at my offerings of how to help prepare a child for summer camp. This work is infused with Rick’s rich teachings.

— Michele

Helping Prepare Your Child For Summer Camp And For Being Away From Home

1. Remember all children are different. What works for one of your children may not work for another. Let them know anxiety is normal and natural and there are ways to train the mind and body to simply acknowledge the anxiety and move into the calm. Remember children are all individuals. They react in so many ways, just as you do, to different experiences. Dr. Hanson reminds us: “Similarly, children in the anxious/rigid range of temperament also benefit from consciously soaking in good feelings, since they tend to ignore or downplay the evidence for those positive experiences.”

2. Baby steps: prepare your child. You can start now before summer even shines her warm rays upon us.

3. Allow them to have autonomy and to help pick the camp as much as you possibly can. Having choice will make the experience more powerful and create a sense of autonomy.

4. Create support and community: Look online or talk with other children who have been there. Give them something to look forward to. Dr. Hanson says, “In sum, your brain is like Velcro for negative experiences and Teflon for positive ones.” So why not get them focussed on the positive?

5. Practice: Do a mini sleepover of a day or two. Talk about the experiences they had and how they worked through the emotions.

6. Empathize with fears but stand back and name them rather than get caught up in them.

7. Let your confidence infuse them. Let your child know you are confident they will handle what comes up. Let them know they have the resources to handle difficult emotions as well as happy ones.

8. Teach your child some simple facts about the brain to help them understand that neurons that fire together wire together. We want our brain in the groove of happiness. Many times I tell children: “If you are stuck in your head and cannot create something positive, go out and do something for someone else or a positive thing for animals.” Doing these acts takes our focus outside ourselves and brings in a sense of contentment, peacefulness and joy.

9. Just thinking of those who love you makes you feel better.

10. Relax: Teach your child full body relaxation tips to get their nervous system to relax. If they practice many times before they go to camp they will easily relax into the calm and have an anchor to relieve nighttime anxiety. Dr. Hanson tells us, “If the circuits of the soothing parasympathetic nervous system become more sensitized with practice, they help dampen stress reactions and support equanimity.”

11. Take in the Good: Because we know the brain, evolutionally is Velcro for the negative and Teflon for the positive we have to seek out the positive. You might have your child take a journal and write, draw or chat to themselves about the top great things that happened in the day. Tell them to let those great feeling sink into the body for 10 or 15 seconds so the brain has a chance to wire in the feeling and build the deep emotional memories.

12. It is okay to come up against challenges and feel uncomfortable: We so often want to protect our children from any source of difficulty. What we must remember is that doable challenges and tough emotions are part of life and actually build resilience and competence. Of course your child will have some discomfort being away from the family. (Some might not, so don’t beat yourself up over this one either. Ha Ha.) But small steps that are supported can build a huge well of resilience to draw upon when needed. Children can be reminded how they got through the camp experience and maybe even look back and see how they grew and blossomed from being away. So be gentle with yourselves, Mom and Dad, even if the kids are uncomfortable, this is positive growth.

 

Supportive books for children

•  The Berenstain Bears Go to Camp (First Time Books), by Stan Berenstain and Jan

•  The Safety Pin (Summer Camp Stories), by Elliot Sloyer and Vic Guiza

•  The Night Before Summer Camp, by Natasha Wing and Mindy Pierce

•  Rebekah – Girl Detective #9: Mystery at Summer Camp (a fun short story mystery for children ages 9-12), by P.J. Ryan

•  Froggy Goes to Camp by Jonathan London (Author), Frank Remkiewicz

For parents: We all need a little help too!

Awakening Joy for Kids
By: James Baraz (Author), Michele Lilyanna (Author)

You can preorder here. Due out August 9, 2016

*Spirit Rock founder, author, and teacher James Baraz’s Awakening Joy offers his large and devoted readership a program to gain contentment and happiness by cultivating the seeds of joy within. Here he joins with Michele Lilyanna, a classroom teacher for 25 years, to offer caregivers and children ways to find joy in each day together.

This unique offering nourishes both adults and kids. James shares the practices for the adults—parents, caregivers, and teachers. Michele offers her own experiences as a parent and as a teacher, showing how the themes work with kids, followed by the tried and true lessons that she’s used herself in the classroom and Packed with practices and activities that James and Michele have gathered over their many years of working with thousands of adults and children in retreats, workshops, and the classroom, Awakening Joy for Kids is imbued with compassion and delight. Part of Parallax Press' growing curriculum for parents and educators designed to cultivate joy and mindfulness in children.

Meditations for Happiness: Rewire Your Brain for Lasting Contentment and Peace – Audiobook, CD, by Rick Hanson



Dr. Ramani Durvasula is a licensed clinical psychologist, author, and expert on the impact of toxic narcissism. She is a Professor of Psychology at California State University, Los Angeles, and also a Visiting Professor at the University of Johannesburg.

The focus of Dr. Ramani’s clinical, academic, and consultative work is the etiology and impact of narcissism and high-conflict, entitled, antagonistic personality styles on human relationships, mental health, and societal expectations. She has spoken on these issues to clinicians, educators, and researchers around the world.

She is the author of Should I Stay or Should I Go: Surviving a Relationship With a Narcissist, and Don't You Know Who I Am? How to Stay Sane in an Era of Narcissism, Entitlement, and Incivility. Her work has been featured at SxSW, TEDx, and on a wide range of media platforms including Red Table Talk, the Today Show, Oxygen, Investigation Discovery, and Bravo, and she is a featured expert on the digital media mental health platform MedCircle. Dr. Durvasula’s research on personality disorders has been funded by the National Institutes of Health and she is a Consulting Editor of the scientific journal Behavioral Medicine.

Dr. Stephen Porges is a Distinguished University Scientist at Indiana University, Professor of Psychiatry at the University of North Carolina, and Professor Emeritus at both the University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of Maryland. He is a former president of the Society for Psychophysiological Research and has been president of the Federation of Behavioral, Psychological, and Cognitive Sciences, which represents approximately twenty-thousand biobehavioral scientists. He’s led a number of other organizations and received a wide variety of professional awards.

In 1994 he proposed the Polyvagal Theory, a theory that links the evolution of the mammalian autonomic nervous system to social behavior and emphasizes the importance of physiological states in the expression of behavioral problems and psychiatric disorders. The theory is leading to innovative treatments based on insights into the mechanisms mediating symptoms observed in several behavioral, psychiatric, and physical disorders, and has had a major impact on the field of psychology.

Dr. Porges has published more than 300 peer-reviewed papers across a wide array of disciplines. He’s also the author of several books including The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-regulation.

Dr. Bruce Perry is the Principal of the Neurosequential Network, Senior Fellow of The ChildTrauma Academy, and a Professor (Adjunct) in the Departments of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University in Chicago and the School of Allied Health at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia. From 1993 to 2001 he was the Thomas S. Trammell Research Professor of Psychiatry at Baylor College of Medicine and chief of psychiatry at Texas Children's Hospital.

He’s one of the world’s leading experts on the impact of trauma in childhood, and his work on the impact of abuse, neglect, and trauma on the developing brain has impacted clinical practice, programs, and policy across the world. His work has been instrumental in describing how traumatic events in childhood change the biology of the brain.

Dr. Perry's most recent book, What Happened to You? Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing, co-authored with Oprah Winfrey, was released earlier this year. Dr. Perry is also the author, with Maia Szalavitz, of The Boy Who Was Raised As A Dog, a bestselling book based on his work with maltreated children, and Born For Love: Why Empathy is Essential and Endangered. Additionally, he’s authored more than 300 journal articles and book chapters and has been the recipient of a variety of professional awards.

Dr. Allison Briscoe-Smith is a child clinical psychologist who specializes in trauma and issues of race. She earned her undergraduate degree from Harvard and then received her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of California, Berkeley. She performed postdoctoral work at the University of California San Francisco/San Francisco General Hospital. She has combined her love of teaching and advocacy by serving as a professor and by directing mental health programs for children experiencing trauma, homelessness, or foster care.

Dr. Briscoe-Smith is also a senior fellow of Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center and is both a professor and the Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at the Wright Institute. She provides consultation and training to nonprofits and schools on how to support trauma-informed practices and cultural accountability.

Sharon Salzberg is a world-renowned teacher and New York Times bestselling author. She is widely considered one of the most influential individuals in bringing mindfulness practices to the West, and co-founded the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts alongside Jack Kornfield and Joseph Goldstein. Sharon has been a student of Dipa Ma, Anagarika Munindra, and Sayadaw U Pandita alongside other masters.

Sharon has authored 10 books, and is the host of the fantastic Metta Hour podcast. She was a contributing editor of Oprah’s O Magazine, had her work featured in Time and on NPR, and contributed to panels alongside the Dalai Lama.

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