Meet the Team!

This month, rather than nominating a Mom of the Month, I thought it would be nice for everyone to get to know our instructors a little better. Each one of the instructors in our franchise first joined Stroller Strides as a member. They were then so inspired by the amazing women they met in class, and moved by the changes that Stroller Strides created in their lives that they decided to train as instructors. I know that all our instructors are as passionate about Stroller Strides as I am, and that they are all committed to being a positive force in all of your lives. Each one brings her unique personality to the park for class and leaves us all with a piece of her spirit when she is done. I feel incredibly fortunate to know and work with these women!

Please take a look at the Meet the Team link above to learn more about all our Stroller Strides instructors!

The Sisterhood of Motherhood

“No woman is an island … even when she desperately wants to be. Like it or not, when you become a mom, you are automatically inducted into a global sisterhood that spans time as well as space. “Mom” is a universal and eternal entity; so when you join this group, you are truly becoming part of something larger than yourself.

On a more intimate level, motherhood gives us a second chance at creating special friendships with other women. I have always regretted losing touch with many of my high school and college girlfriends. Life seemed to move so fast, and we were all going in different directions … it was too easy to let the lines of communication go dead. But, when I had my son, I was suddenly plunged into a whole new community. Overnight, I found myself meeting other new moms with new babies. Because we were all in a constant state of dull panic (mostly brought on by inexperience and sleep deprivation), we bonded immediately. It was indescribably comforting to know that other moms were facing the same challenges – head on, with that deer-in-headlights expression on their haggard faces.” - http://fansofbeingamom.com

My non-mommy friends are wonderful, they remember my birthday and invite me to lunch, even email me on a regular basis, but my mommy friends they understand the power of small gestures that bring me back to me on a crazy day. Emergency babysitting, remaining unfazed by the loud screeching my child lets out at random intervals, meals when my babies first came home from the hospital, advice about potty training, and so many other acts of kindness help me be a better me and therefore a better mom.

Stroller Strides helps us all continue on our journeys through motherhood by providing a network of support and friendship based on mutual understanding and care. Each day presents new challenges and new joys as a mom. I find it encouraging to know that my Stroller Strides sisters are beside me every step of the way. This spring we have several Stroller Strides members bringing home new babies and starting that process of infant to toddler mothering that can be so taxing. I’d like to show them the power of our Stroller Strides Sisterhood in Motherhood by arranging meal delivery and providing support in all the small ways that carry us through. I will be sending out sign-up sheets for meal delivery and special birth announcement emails periodically. I hope we can all share our experience, love, and support.

Two Simple Ways to Be a Happier Parent

By Nancy Shute , USNews.com

When Christine Carter became a parent, she realized that her work as a sociologist who studies happiness gave her a head start on being a good and happy parent. Rather than trying to solve problems in her family, she wanted to prevent them. That got her wondering what makes for happy families and children. The result of that questioning is Raising Happiness (Ballantine Books).

The book is chock-full of words—gratitude, forgiveness, optimism, and inner peace—I associate more with meditation than parenting manuals. But it's not at all woo-woo. Carter grounds her path to happiness in solid science, including behavioral psychology, which explains why praise is much more powerful in getting children to behave than punishment or nagging. Many of the findings are surprisingly simple. For instance, would you like to know the one thing that will make children do better in school, help them have fewer emotional problems, and make them less likely to become obese or have drug or alcohol problems? Eat dinner together as a family.

Science and simplicity in the service of happier families: That sounds like a winner. So I called up Carter, executive director of the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California-Berkeley, and asked her how I could start making my own family happier.

She said to start off by asking two questions about your life as a parent:

1. When are you happiest with your kids?

2. What part of the normal day with your family routinely causes suffering?

Then make sure your day is structured so that you get routine, habitual happiness and so that you're eliminating habitual pain.

Carter says that when she asked herself the second question, she realized that she hated getting her two daughters out the door for school. "Every single morning I was yelling at my kids [at] approximately the same time and for the same reason," she says.

So she decided to restructure those mornings so they'd be a shared joy, or at least neutral. The science of changing habits says you have to start off supersmall and build over weeks to a bigger result. So she had the kids put their shoes by the door the night before. In the morning, "I ended up setting a timer," Carter says. "It goes off twice. The first time it goes off, it means clear your dishes and go brush your teeth. The second is walk out the door to the bus." By the next morning, she says, "we didn't have such a bad morning. We had taken the first step."

Just as she changed the family's daily routine to make that one stressful period less miserable, Carter also focused on amplifying the moment that gives her the most joy in parenting. "For me, the most joy always comes at the end of the day when I'm putting the kids to bed" and they're telling me about their three good things [that happened in the day]. That's my most luscious thing, the thing I enjoy the most." To make sure that she didn't miss out on that moment when she had to work in the evenings, "we just moved [that bedtime routine] to after school. They sit on the couch with me and cuddle, and we read a book and they tell me about their three good things."

Carter says that despite her deep knowledge of the science of happiness, she doesn't always do the right thing as a parent. "It's part of the journey, an incremental improvement process. But it's amazing to me how much this stuff works when you have the intention to have a happier morning," she says.

That's my challenge for the week: Make a happy moment with my child part of our routine, and engineer out one annoying bit of parenting. And I challenge you do to the same, too. What will be your happiness moment? What suffering will you avoid?