“The most precious gift we can offer anyone is our attention. When mindfulness embraces those we love they will bloom like flowers”
-Thich Nhat Hanh
The BC Children’s Hospital Centre for Mindfulness is developing initiatives to support parents and caregivers. We are pleased to partner with the team at Kelty Mental Health Resource Centre in the creation of content on Mindfulness and Parents and Caregivers.
Mindfulness is a practice of compassion and understanding and can be a powerful remedy to parenting stress. The foundation of mindfulness honors the understanding:
We are enough just as we are and we are doing the best we can.
Each moment can be an opportunity for growing more awareness, more compassion and more resilience. Children learn from what we do as well as what we say and mindfulness can be a way to enhance a calm presence, which a child can experience and be comforted by. When we bring understanding to our natural inclination towards reacting to situations out of habit or automatic pilot, we can learn how to anchor our response through more mindful awareness. We can choose to nurture our capacity to attend to the present moment and all aspects of experience with kind awareness. Cultivating compassion and kindness for ourselves and our children is a vital quality that can be nurtured to mitigate stress.
Acknowledging our own personal strengths can guide us through difficult times.
Mindful communication can enhance our capacity to listen and to speak with an open heart and mind.
Recognizing and savoring positive moments can help us foster more joy and energy in our lives.
An additional initiative we are excited about is the ongoing development of MARS-PC (Mindful Awareness and Resilience Skills for Parents and Caregivers) pilot program. We are offering parents and caregivers of youth who are currently involved in the MARS-A outpatient program an opportunity to attend a series of three virtual mindfulness sessions. The intention is for both youth and their caregivers to have the opportunity to learn and practice mindfulness skills concurrently, ideally strengthening the functioning of the family unit.