But how do we do that when we feel depleted, anxiously trying to keep the trains running on time, worried that our choices may backfire down the road or that a child’s behavior is a sign of trouble?

When we feel disconnected, we can unintentionally turn out a child’s light with demoralizing extrinsic motivators, control, criticism and disapproval. Even heaping well-intentioned praise, as research reveals, can dim the light, and in many cases, douse it.

When we fuel ourselves, it’s natural to recognize and preserve kids’ light and teach them how to do the same. This isn’t a mere choice but a practice and a process.”

Lu Hanessian is the author of acclaimed book “Let the Baby Drive (2004), former NBC network anchor and Discovery Health Channel host, award-winning columnist, parent educator and national speaker. She is the author of the new children’s book about connection Picnic on a Cloud http://www.picniconacloud.com/ For five years, she hosted The Science Show, syndicated in 110 countries. www.letthebabydrive.com


Lu is the founder of WYSH Wear Your Spirit for Humanity, LLC. www.wearyourspirit.com and Parent2ParentU, an online parenting series of integrative tele-classes and webinars for progressive parents. Visit www.parent2parentu.com for details.


Over the past two decades, her area of interest and study has focused on family relationships, attachment, resistance and conflict, and our own capacity for change. As a parent educator, she takes an integrative approach which focuses on relationship and connection. “When we parent and teach prescriptively and reactively,” she says, “we can lose sight of the person behind the behavior, see gifts as liabilities, suppress natural curiosity and intuition, and miss out on the empathy and connection that literally grows our children’s minds, brains and teaches them to thrive in relationship, learning and in life.”


During the past three years, her interest and studies in neuroscience as they relate to connection, engagement and motivation in education and parenting have been integrated into her workshops and writing, as she explores the effect of “inspired, engaged and connected” parenting and teaching from a interpersonal perspective.


To that end, she enrolled in the Integrative Program in Interpersonal Neurobiology (IPNB) curriculum with Dr. Daniel Siegel through his Mindsight Institute, and is excited about the profound and far-reaching applications of the neuroscience of relationships in parenting and education in the 21st century.


Lu is passionate about pioneering multi-media programs, books, and courses that help to inspire, empower and support us to “keep the light on” so we cultivate and live with deeper empathy and authentic connection--to teach and parent it forward for a better world. She is the grateful mother of two boys, 9 and 12.

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“In order to keep a child’s light on,

we have to keep our own light on.

CONVERSATIONS

ON KEEPING THE LIGHT ON


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