An attitude of gratitude every day is key to successful parenting
Parenting an Orchid child can feel like an emotional Roulette wheel—what will we land on today? It can feel utterly overwhelming when your child’s precariously balanced nervous system tips over into the meltdown abyss in what seems like a nanosecond.
We know. We’ve been there and lived it, and we’re here to help you find the ways to latch onto the things that ARE going well. The things that your Orchid CAN do well. The times your Orchid feels GOOD in the world. At Raising Orchid Kids, we call this “Spin It to Win It” – our way to take what seems challenging and overwhelming, or just plain not great, and find the places that show growth, the solid places we can land on and find the win, buried underneath what to the naked eye might seem not all that great, that we can celebrate.
Given that we are entering this Thanksgiving week in the U.S., along with a culturally mandated attention to gratitude, finding your win daily (or weekly at the very least!) is a critical way we, as parents of Orchid kiddos who may be extra challenging to raise, can start a meaningful practice of gratitude and train our brains to see the things that are going well. For those of you who have come through any of our classes or support groups, this is not new. We start all of our classes and support groups by sharing a win, so we can train our brains to shift out of their imprinted patterns of focusing on what’s going wrong to see what is also going right.
To counteract our brains’ natural tendency to steer toward the bad (this is part of the human condition), we need to consciously guide our brains to see the good. More easily said than done, so here are some ways to see the wins in your Orchid parenting life:
1. Shift into parenting “detective mode”
Notice and recognize your Orchid’s strengths and then notice what you notice!
Start by actively setting some time in your day or week to just observe your Orchid. This is hard when you’re barely making it though just taking care of your kids’ basic needs, but this can be just 3 minutes of your day to stop and just observe your Orchid for a few moments. Notice what they like doing; notice what fills their cup; notice what they seem to be particularly good at; notice what drives their curiosity; notice when they connect with you or with another family member or peer; notice when they smile or express joy.
Then, notice how that makes YOU feel to notice those things. You may feel a little warm fuzziness wash over you for a moment. You may sense a smile creep across your face. You may notice that your body relaxes just a bit. Consciously noticing positive things in our lives actually creates a positive physiological response in the body and actively reduces stress. It does the same for your kids, Orchid and non-Orchid alike.
Once you get in the habit of pausing occasionally to notice the things your Orchid is doing well, your brain will start to notice those positive things more often. This, in turn, will help your brain feel better about your Orchid and likely about other things in your world as well.
2. Focus on what works in parenting, not what doesn’t
When challenges arise, it’s tempting to focus on what isn’t going well, and try to fix things quickly. However, sometimes the best way forward is to identify what IS working well and build on that.
For example, Jen’s 12-year old Orchid son, Max, has struggled to maintain friendships outside of school. When he alienated one friend because his nervous system was fried and he said unkind things to him, Jen stepped back and tried to find what WAS going well when he spent time with friends outside of school. She realized his play dates needed to be short – like 1 hour maximum, because often after that things start to unravel. She realized that a successful hang with a friend involved them doing an activity that they both actively enjoy. Once she started putting those parameters into place when he spent time with friends outside of school, he did well and was able to maintain those friendships much more effectively. After his friend left, she noticed aloud how well he played with his friend and they talked about how that made his brain feel good. Experiences perceived as positive beget positive experiences.
Notice (aloud, whenever relevant) what works well for your Orchid and use it to help them feel more confident in their abilities. This is a way to model seeing what’s going well for them so they can learn to see the positive spin as well.
3. Shift the narrative around parenting challenges
Instead of perceiving your child’s challenges as something to “fix,” try reframing the challenges they face as opportunities for growth and insights into how their brain and body react to stimuli in the world around them. Shifting your parenting mindset takes work–it involves a lot of self-talk to reroute the pathways in your brain that perceive your Orchid’s challenges as Bad Behavior; those thoughts have created pathways in your brain over time, and like any habit we form that we want to shift away from, it takes work and patience. So, do your best to remind yourself that your child is having a hard time, not giving you or anyone else a hard time.
If we can shift our mindset to see our kids’ challenges and difficult behaviors as information about the state of our kids’ nervous systems, we can approach our kids’ challenges with compassion. Working to reframe your thoughts about your Orchid’s difficulties can help reduce feelings of frustration for both of you and allow you to work together to find solutions. Challenges like sensory sensitivities, impulsivity, or social struggles may seem like obstacles, but we can also choose to reframe them as signs of a kiddo who is deeply perceptive, innovative and/or attuned to details many of us miss.
4. Shift your time frame and celebrate small wins
Small wins lead to big ones! Progress in any area varies from kid to kid, but Orchid kids often have distinctly different timelines in reaching developmental milestones than their neurotypical peers. Patience is key. Getting there slowly is okay. Letting go of age-expected norms is helpful. Orchids develop and move through the world with scattered skills–they may be advanced in some areas, and behind in others. And that’s okay. Meet your Orchid where they are and help them move forward from there. In Raising Orchid Kid terminology, we call that finding the “Just Right Challenge.”
Celebrate as many small victories as you can, even if they seem insignificant. When Max nonchalantly asked Jen at age 12 for the first time ever if his friend from school could come over to play, Jen celebrated both the win in Max’s newfound active interest in peers and in her patience in not forcing him to socialize against his will! Small comments like Max’s can turn into big wins. There is real relief in letting go of some of the time frames we create that may not be realistic for our Orchids, and over time, those small wins accumulate into bigger ones.
To be clear, finding the positive spin is not an effort to trick our brains into perceiving our Orchids’ challenges as trivial, but rather it’s a tool for managing our own nervous systems as caretakers of kids who need more support than the average bear. When our nervous systems are calm and regulated, we are best equipped to help our Orchids regulate theirs.
Real life successes with a “Spin It to Win It”
Here’s some real life “Spin It to Win It” scenarios shared by Orchid Kid members and Core Course past participants that will hopefully provide some inspiration for parenting:
- A’s 6 year old daughter had a big meltdown in Target, but her win was that she stayed really calm despite the onlookers, rubbing her hands to keep her nervous system regulated, and her daughter’s meltdown lasted a shorter amount of time than usual.
- B snapped at her 9 year old son when he did something she didn’t like, and immediately recognized it and worked to repair, telling him that her brain was having a hard time and she didn’t like how she acted and what she said, and that she was really sorry she did that. She said he heard her and they were able then to have a lovely rest of their evening together.
- J’s 4 year old daughter had a tough time at her swim class and refused to participate when it was time for the next class, despite the fact that she loved the pool. He saw that she was having big feelings about it and asked her if she wanted to just sit on the edge of the pool and watch instead of swimming. She agreed and happily sat on the edge with her feet in the water for most of the class, and with about 10 minutes to spare she got in to splash around. While she didn’t participate in the class that week, the following week she went back and participated in the class.
We wish you all a wonderful (or solidly okay!) Thanksgiving and we are deeply grateful for all of you who show up every day for your beautiful and complicated Orchid kiddo and thank you for those who have shared some of their stories with us. We’re doing this parenting thing together!
Want to learn more? Check out workshop on navigating the challenges of the holidays with Orchids in our replay page.