The Acorn Within - Catherine Khang Banson

Hello! Delighted to be offering PET in San Francisco on the following dates:

Session 1 - Tuesday, October 15 - 7-10pm
Session 2 - Friday, October 25 - 6-9pm
Session 3 - Tuesday, October 29 - 6-9pm
Session 4 - Tuesday, November 5 - 6-9pm
Session 5 - Tuesday, November 12 - 6-9pm
Session 6 - Tuesday, November 19 - 7-10pm
Session 7 - Friday, December 6 - 6-9pm
Session 8 - Tuesday, December 10 - 6-9pm

Please help to spread the word! With love, C

After a very full summer (sent a son to college and a daughter to boarding school; continued my two year course in mindfulness meditation; volunteered at a teen mindfulness retreat; organized celebrations for my husband's big birthday), I am excited to be pairing with Falguni Mather of The Body Group to teach teens EFT Tapping! This September 25 and 27, a maximum of 8 teens ages 15+ can learn and practice tapping for procrastination, test-taking, athletic performance, worries about the future, insomnia, etc. It will be time well-spent!
http://www.theacornwithin.com/eft-for-students-kids

EFT for Schools/Students — The Acorn Within

I grew my empathy many times over reading this article. I believe we all have our part to play to help everyone enjoy the gifts of self-love and self-acceptance. I am going to question my assumptions and biases more, and to change my behavior to be more inclusive. (I have started to use "they" more when I write.)

The Struggles of Rejecting the Gender Binary Not everyone identifies as male or female. This is what it’s like to be nonbinary in a world that wants to box you in.

My good friend and colleague Odette Umali, founder of Gordon Parenting, shares her insights with our major local papers. I love her reminder that we are in control of our mood and our behaviors.

Parents, be mindful of your mood in front of your children If parents express negative emotions too often, it may affect their children’s emotional and cognitive development. Research has shown that fathers’ mental health has a bigger effect on kids than that of their mothers.

I was just speaking with another PET instructor who is also a personal coach. She said many working parents feel it's taboo to discuss kids at work. This article is a well-written call for all of us (especially those at the top who can model) to let employers know our needs around parenting so they can be met.

End the Plague of Secret Parenting If mothers and fathers speak openly about child-care obligations, their colleagues will adapt.

Parents of infants feeling scared to leave their homes due to the measles scare - sending compassion to them!

Parents of Babies Too Young to Vaccinate Feel Trapped by Measles Outbreak The measles vaccine is not usually given to children until they are a year old. So some new parents are avoiding public places and anti-vaccine friends.

I couldn't put down A Mother's Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy by Sue Klebold, mother of Dylan, one of the two Columbine High School shooters. Today is the the 20th anniversary of this mass murder/suicide which cost the lives of one teacher and fourteen students (Dylan and his accomplice killed themselves as their final act).

Klebold’s memoir is a very human story of two parents who cared and actively participated in trying to raise a moral, happy child. She lays bare, however, her regrets: ”We had not done everything right. The research I have done has taught me better ways I might have interacted with Dylan. I wish I had listened more instead of lecturing. I wish I had sat in silence with him instead of filling the void with my own words and thoughts. I wish I had acknowledged his feelings instead of trying to talk him out of them, and that I’d never accepted his excuses — I’m tired, I have homework to do — when something felt off. I wish I’d sat in the dark with him, and repeated my concerns when he dismissed them. I wish I’d dropped everything else to focus on him , probed and prodded more, and that I had been present enough to see what I had not.” (pages 262-263)

My heart goes out to her and to all parents today.

A Mother's Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy The acclaimed New York Times bestseller by Sue Klebold, mother of one of the Columbine shooters, about living in the aftermath of Columbine.On April 20, 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold walked into Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. Over the course of minutes, they would kill twelve...

Love these reminders to shift myself to gratitude. Another one I've taken on in the past couple of years is to change "I have to" to "I choose to" - it helps me feel thankful for the many options life offers me.

Love this list! Such a great reminder. (Source Moments A Day: Personal Growth for Kids and Parents)

Just learned this brain info in an email from Susan Stiffelman (helpful for lowering our Line of Acceptance towards our children & others):

The frontal lobe in males tends to have less blood flow, matures later, and may contribute to more risk taking.

Girls have more serotonin in the bloodstream and the brain, which makes them biochemically less impulsive.

The limbic system, which contains structures including the amygdala and hippocampus, has fewer connections in males to verbal processing areas, giving them less speed than women in responding verbally to stress and highly emotional situations.

Male brains have less oxytocin (the “tend and befriend” hormone), resulting in males being less motivated biologically to please parents, teachers, and peers as they establish and maintain relationships.

A girl's corpus callosum (the connecting bundle of tissues between hemispheres) is, on average, larger than a boy's—up to 25 percent larger by adolescence. This enables more “cross talk” between hemispheres in the female brain.

This intuitively makes sense to me. The Yale program SPACE importantly helps parents support their children. It also gives them information about what their child needs (rather than the solution they may want in that moment, e.g. that you let them stay home from school). Ideally, parents will be collaborating to solve the problems that anxiety brings up and sharing values respectfully.

Childhood anxiety treatment may best be targeted at parents, study finds In a new program developed at the Yale, parents are being taught to help their kids manage their anxiety by reducing the accommodations they make for their children’s symptoms.

Happy New Year! I've finally come up for air after prioritizing home life (my high school senior and sophomore have had LOTS going on). And I did it - a blog post on that tiny issue called homework.
http://www.theacornwithin.com/blog/2018/10/23/ugh-homework

Ugh, homework!

So I'm writing a blogpost on homework and I come across this article today. Such helpful insights!! I wish I had known earlier . . .

Opinion | What Straight-A Students Get Wrong If you always succeed in school, you’re not setting yourself up for success in life.