Thursday, April 19th, 2007
One of my biggest challenges ‘du jour’ is finding time to exercise. Although I don’t overdo it - I like to try and keep up a level of strength and flexibility while I’m pregnant, as well as getting a few of those exercise feel good hormones pumping!
With the logistics of 2 kids and facing inevitable exhaustion at the end of every day I have, for the first time in my life, resorted to an exercise DVD - Prenatal Yoga, or as Big Sis calls it, “Mummy’s Yoghurt DVD”!
The idea is that when Little Bro is napping Big Sis and I will do our class in front of the TV. I must say Big Sis is an enthusiastic exercise buddy and positively nags me to put the Yoghurt DVD on! She loves to arrange the chairs in the right position and has, I must say, a mean downward facing dog!
By way of review of the DVD I’d like to say it’s excellent, they have 3 woman demonstrating, each representing a trimester so you follow the one at your stage. The details are below.
It is produced in Hawaii and as the friend who put me onto it commented - it’s hard not to spend the time thinking, “Why aren’t I pregnant in Hawaii?”. I take it a step further and have location envy about the room they have filmed in, a warm, yet clutter free open space. No sweeping the drift tide of plastic toys out of the way to begin and definitely no tracksuit covered in dog hair at the end!
The instructor has that weird yoga evangelist wide eyed look and voice, anyone whose done any yoga will know what I mean. Big Sis has taken a while to adjust to that - asking repeatedly “Why is the lady sad?”
Ms Second Trimester and Ms Third Trimester do look a little bit smug. All elegant bump in fashionable unitards with pregnant glow and glossy hair! I wonder how they went when their day of reckoning arrived? In my experience, on that day, Mother Nature cares very little about your pranayama or kegal exercise proficiency - but maybe that’s just the cynical and uncharitable voice of an almost mother of 3!
Prenatal Yoga With Shiva Rea![]()
exercise dvd, pre natal exercise, pregnancy, yoga
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Thursday, March 8th, 2007
This isn’t a funny or folksy post for a change, but a review of a book that I think is brilliant, and incredibly important for parents! The book is The Optimistic Child by Martin Seligman.
Years ago there were many dangerous childhood diseases like Polio that haunted childhood leaving many kids dead and many more with the legacy of a lifetime of disability. I feel really lucky to live in a time and place where, thanks to modern medicine, almost all of these diseases have been eradicated!
However, in the affluent west we are in the middle of an epidemic, one which will cripple and kill many off our children! The name of this epidemic is depression. There has been an explosion in depression since the 1960s. Studies of women born in the 1950s, have shown that by the time they were 30 years old 60% of them had been severely depressed. By contrast only 3% of women born in 1910 had severe depression by the time they were 30. The statistics for males shows the same ratio of a twenty-fold difference! I should note that severe depression means marked symptoms of low mood, cognitive impairment, passivity, and bodily changes.
Alarmingly the studies also showed that not only is severe depression more common now, but it is attacking victims much younger. A study in southeastern United States showed 9% of 12- 14 year olds had full blown depressive disorders!
Ha you say - perhaps people are more aware of depression so “reporting” has gone up, not the actual problem! This is not the case, the studies didn’t ask about depression as such but symptoms over a lifetime. It also wasn’t a case of elderly people forgetting their symptoms, as they remembered to report their alcoholic and other symptoms at a high rate!
Enter Martin Seligman, a man who has made it his lifes work to find a way to psychologically immunise people against depression! If you are interested in his work in the areas of depression, optimism and happiness check out his website.
The Optimistic Child takes all of this and applies it to raising kids. We need to look at how our kids analyse the world and teach them to view things with optimism and engender them with a feeling of mastery over their lives and events. The buzzword is of course resilience, which is what we all want our kids to have - and I believe this book can actually help us do it!
One really interesting aspect of the book is that Martin Seligan actually blames (in part) the self esteem movement for the rate of depression as it stands! Meaningless praise and reward regardless of action or outcome is actually damaging, so is overprotecting your child so they avoid the difficult and painful aspects of life.
I found this really liberating as a parent, I realised that I didn’t have to produce a perfect world for my kids, I actually had to let real stuff happen to them! The challenge then is to support and guide them to deal with events, seeing them in a positive framework and accepting themselves unconditionally!
Let’s ask the government to hand out a copy at every babies immunisations!
depression, happiness, Martin Seligman, optimism, parenting, psychology, resiliance
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Friday, September 22nd, 2006
My pick for Best Book About Raising Kids is Dog Man by Martin McKenna. And before you ask, yes, it was written for dog owners.
Before Kids (”BK”) we got Dog. We still have Dog - he is a beautiful big black labrador, my friend, confidant and witness to life downwiththekids! Anyway, BK we had lots of time and we read Dog Man cover to cover - and implemented it carefully!
Dog Man is written by a man who was bought up by a pack of dogs on the streets of Limerick (true story…apparently). The basic premise is that your dog must be part of your pack (family) but must be in no doubt that you are the Alpha or Top Dog. It appears that dogs have not read the new management books, there is no “buy in”, “conciliation” or “Friday morning team meetings”. As far as the dog is concerned, there is a strict heirachy from Alpha down, your job as dog owner is to make sure you are at the top and that all bipeds are above all quadrapeds in this doggie caste system.
Anyway, I was reminded of this very early on with the kids. I still pull myself up - “Hang on, I’m the adult - I decide what’s for dinner/ how many cakes we eat/ when we go to bed!” Just one false move and they are straight into the power vacuum.
Big Sis’ negotiation skills astound me everyday. We have a concept in our house termed “Spmartie (Smartie) inflation”. It started out as 1 “spmartie” for a wee on the toilet, we are now up to 6 spmarties for the same trick.
On the upside she is learning to count accurately and effectively - but i’m not sure how it ends. Will she be 21, weeing on the toliet and then presenting in the kitchen for a kilo of mixed lollies?
It’s time to make a stand - I’ll keep a visual of a young Dogman tussling for a bone on the streets of Limerick and assert myself as Alpha! “No, Big Sis”, I’ll say firmly while mantaining eye contact - “I’m your mummy and I say 6 spmarties is enough”! One tip really rings true - Never let a puppy do what you don’t want a fully grown dog to do - wise words!
Dog
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