Jennifer Kolari is a colleague of Dr. Neufeld and Dr. Gabor Mate`. My last two posts have been about their book, Hold On to Your Children.

Jennifer Kolari is a Child and Family Therapist. She said she sees many parents who are seeing their peer-attached children acting out and behaving badly. She says she is seeing it so much, she now just works with the parents, to help them find their way back to their children.

Jennifer Kolari says parents have lost their natural power that past generations didn’t even have to think about. She teaches parents about emotional resilience, social skills and containment, putting boundaries around bad behavior.

Her C. A. L. M. method helps.

C–Connection. Put stuff down, put your phone away and focus. Before things escalate, get down to the child’s level, look then in the eye and stay neutral.

A-Affect matching–match your face to theirs. The limbic system is a set of structures in the brain that deal with emotions and memory, and if your face looks like theirs then it plugs them back into being connected to you,

L-Listen–to whatever is stressing them out. It’s not so much what you say back, but how you say it, and how you make them feel.

M-Mirroring–you can paraphrase, summarize, clarify, wonder out loud, or say exactly what they say, and they will feel validated and connected.

Linda Kolari said, ” What if I told you that there is this medication you can give your kids? It is free. It has no negative side effects, it a cortisol–stress hormone– blocker. It reduces the body’s reaction to pain and speeds up healing. This method speeds up neuron plasticity in the brain, which helps your child learn faster. It improves the immune system and helps emotionally regulate the child. And…when you relate to someone this way the same wonderful things happen back to you at the same time. That is what the CALM method is. Deep listening, nurturing and compassion is designed to do all of these wonderful things to the body. When we listen to someone that way, we can feel it. “

She said spend 10 minutes a day loving, hugging, rubbing their backs and connecting with your child because it strengthens that attachment bond. She said put up baby pictures and talk about how much you wanted them and tell stories about them.

Below is a 5 minute shorter version of the longer version further below.

This video below has so many good suggestions but it is long. I would skip the first 30 minutes. At minute 30 she is saying that parents talk to their children 7 minutes a week. A week!

I loved learning how to better connect to my children and being a better listener.