All Feelings Welcome: Parenting Practices for Raising Caring, Confident, and Resilient Kids

All Feelings Welcome

PARENTING PRACTICES FOR RAISING CARING, CONFIDENT, AND RESILIENT KIDS

Kelly Oriard

Callie Christensen

Copyright © 2024 by Slumberkins, Inc. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.

Published simultaneously in Canada.

ISBNs: 9781394220588 (cloth), 9781394220601 (ePDF), 9781394220595 (epub)

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We dedicate this book to each and every member in our SlumberFam community who has come to us for support and found the community, inspiration, and confidence to change the way we support the emotional wellness of the next generation—because it takes a village. You are the beating heart of Slumberkins.

And to the SlumberKids out there … we can't wait to watch as you continue becoming the caring, confident, resilient human beings you already are.

PREFACE

Hello to all of you parents, caregivers, and educators! We are thrilled to welcome you into our first‐ever Slumberkins parenting book. Whether you are already a part of the SlumberFam or you've never heard of Slumberkins before reading this, we're so happy you're here.

When we set out to build Slumberkins, we wanted to boil down complicated therapeutic, educational, and philosophical theories into bite‐sized chunks that are as easy to use as reading a book, hugging a plush, or watching a show. We created these done‐for‐you shortcuts so that you can focus on what really matters: being the best parent you can be.

The Slumberkins Connect‐to‐Grow approach can be taught from the moment a child is born. It's designed to be both comforting for children and a resource for adults to take the lead in a child's social‐emotional development. We designed it in this way because a child's emotional wellness is interconnected with important adults in their lives, and we wanted to support children and families in their emotional wellness.

Even though you might be familiar with the Slumberkins books, toys, plush, music–and even an Emmy‐nominated show on AppleTV+‐‐you may not be aware that below the surface is a rich therapeutic and educational foundation. And that's exactly how we planned it to be.

But if you know the Slumberkins world, you may want to know why we suggest using affirmations. You may want to know how we arrived at our methods. Being informed of the theory and the why behind our approach may help you feel more knowledgeable when using it with your children.

We were inspired to write this book to demonstrate all of the therapeutic benefits that were built into the foundation of the brand, each character, and piece of content that we put out there. All of that comes back to the ideas in this book. Each character in our Slumberkins universe is a part of a bigger picture, a concrete way to approach the emotional development of our children.

Previously these theories and methods were mostly available in family therapy sessions. We want to embed the same concepts that experts use into tools that are available to everyone to use at home.

Don't panic if you aren't familiar with Slumberkins–we will be sharing tips and strategies you can use and practice in your daily life as a parent or caregiver even without our books and plush characters.

We will show you a roadmap for proactively forming a positive foundation for your child's emotional health as well as effective strategies for navigating any bumps along the way.

HOW SLUMBERKINS WAS BORN

We are a former family therapist and special education teacher … and we had planned to retire that way. Never did we imagine that we would partner to form the educational brand and content company of our dreams.

Our story starts way back to high school when two awkward tall girls on the first day of volleyball tryouts just happened to become best friends. Since that day, our lives have generally run in a parallel direction: we both played Division 1 college sports on athletic scholarships, we both started our Master's programs in the world of education, and we both have kids around the same ages.

Kelly became a marriage and family therapist and school counselor. She spent her career working as a school counselor at a Title 1 School, mainly focusing on pre-k to middle school age children. In that environment, she focused on connecting the school with families, while supporting the mental and emotional health of everyone involved.

Callie became a special education and elementary school teacher, spending most of her career working in the world of special education at a K to 12 therapeutic day treatment school. (It's a very small setting that some school districts have that focuses on the mental and emotional health of students who are struggling with being safe and successful in a typical school environment.)

Then, serendipitously, we landed on maternity leave at the same time. Kelly had just had her first baby and Callie had just had her second. We would meet up and go on daily walks with the new babies, and oftentimes we would share stories and strategies that we were seeing in the schools.

There was one walk in particular when we had an ah-ha lightbulb moment. While our babies slept in their strollers, we realized that there were two simple things that made students in our programs more successful:

That the parents or primary caregiver were not only involved in the support, but that they also took an active role in the process of supporting the mental and emotional needs of the child. But most parents didn't know how to do this, they were afraid of messing up, and they were too overwhelmed to take initiative and research how to do it for themselves.

A student's perception of Self and their inner voice and world—their self-concept—was the key component of their ability to be successful. We knew developmentally that the inner voice is formed between the ages of 0 and 7, which means that these are the years you can make the biggest impact.

As we talked, we realized that there weren't many turn-key resources available to help families address these two things. Most of what we saw was curriculum-based—designed for educators, not parents.

At the same time, we knew that almost every family we worked with in the schools looked to us as the experts to fix, or support, their child. Unknowingly, they were giving their power away, simply because they didn't know how to meet the emotional needs underlying the behaviors or situations we saw their child exhibit in a school setting. Kelly, in her capacity as a family therapist, knew that anything we did, while beneficial, could be even more impactful. The key was empowering a parent or family member to say and do the therapeutic intervention with the child. The parent would have a much bigger impact than the counselor because of the connection they already have with the child. This is why we often say, Parents are the best teachers of their child's emotional health and wellness.

While discussing this, and looking at our infant sons snuggling some of their favorite loveys, we had the idea to try and imbue some of the therapeutic tools and strategies into storylines with unique plush creatures and see what we could come up with that would empower parents to take the lead.

To start, we infused a progressive muscle relaxation routine into a storyline with a sweet Sloth to help parents support their children in creating a mind-body connection at bedtime.

We also made a Bigfoot (we are from the Pacific Northwest, after all!) who needed some help with self-esteem. We created an interactive narrative therapy story that brought affirmations to life and supported coping with hurt feelings…of Bigfoot, and inevitably the child being read to.

Once we had the stories, we taught ourselves how to sew and started selling the books and stories at local craft fairs—mainly to other moms and educators. The how Slumberkins came to be is a whole different story for another time, but what we found in these early days was that the stories worked.

We would get message after message online from parents asking for more—more stories, more characters, and more resources—that after a couple years, it was time for us to pursue Slumberkins full-time. We built a brand that didn't exist in the world yet—one that approached children's mental and emotional health in a way that had never been done before. We took a step back, zoomed out, and asked ourselves as a therapist, educator, and mothers, what library of resources and content we would want to proactively build a child's emotional wellness, while supporting the parents in taking the lead in teaching these important skills.

What exists today is that foundation, roadmap, and approach for how to easily implement this into your everyday parenting life.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thank you to our children who have inspired this whole dream and multiple Slumberkins stories and creatures—Aidan, Oliver, Logan, Henry, Owen, and Cora. You push us and inspire us every day to walk the walk and be better mothers and people in the world. This whole journey would not be possible had we not had the serendipitous maternity leaves with Aidan and Owen—you two boys were the catalysts who gave us the gift of time together and inspiration to turn this idea into a reality.

To our parents—we are forever grateful to each of you for giving us the opportunities that have led us toward our own paths of emotional growth and healing.

As Slumberkins has grown and evolved, we have brought in additional educational and therapeutic experts and thought leaders to help build the roadmap. Thank you to our therapeutic leadership teammates and contributors Sarah Block, Kimberly Allen, Krista Olson, Claire LaPoma, and Cicely Rodgers, who have been our partners and peers (even before Slumberkins); they've been working behind the scenes in building the content and curriculum that exists today. Your contributions have helped create the continually expanding tools and resources that have an incredible impact on the lives of parents, educators, and children.

Alissa Kramer, thank you for contributing your deeply personal and vulnerable story and experience to this book and being on this journey with us. Vanesa Holfert, thank you for your support in the early process of determining how to organize the Connect-to-Grow Approach. To Suzanne Kolb, Tracy Brown Hamilton, Rosie Colosi, and Leigh Anne Gardner for helping us figure out how to wrangle everything we are so passionate about that has informed Slumberkins into this book at different parts of the process. Finally, to Amy Fandrei at Wiley Publishing, thank you for seeing that it was time for us to bring all of this information, content, and context together for parents and for giving us this opportunity.

INTRODUCTION

Children who are encouraged to identify, understand, and regulate emotions experience wide‐ranging, lifelong benefits including improved mental health and relationships. Our Connect‐to‐Grow approach—the foundation of Slumberkins—gives parents like you a way to apply proven therapeutic concepts in everyday moments to guide you in cultivating emotional wellness for your child, and ultimately yourself.

Just like you, we are tired parents who want to show up for our kids; we are always looking for ways to supercharge our existing routines so that there isn't necessarily more to do, but we're being more intentional when we do it. In this book, we'll help you find ways to meaningfully connect with your child that are easy for you and deeply impactful for them. We will give insights, tips, tools, and strategies that we've successfully used in schools and we try our best to also implement at home.

In many ways, our approach is less about doing and more about being. It focuses on guiding children—and in many cases parents—in understanding emotions and in caring for and expressing those emotions in a healthy way that leads to self‐awareness and personal growth.

Because you are here reading this, we assume you are a parent or caregiver and you're interested in understanding the mental and emotional well‐being of your child. You want them to be well adjusted and ready to handle whatever life may bring. This book may not be like other parenting books you've read before, however. We dive into the underlying beliefs that shape our self‐concept and understanding of the world around us. We know that our early childhood experiences shape how we see the world, and we want to support you in being able to parent through all of the foundational years for your child. The effort you put in now will last a lifetime.

WHAT YOU WILL GET OUT OF THIS BOOK

This book will give you the tools and information you need to feel empowered to parent in a conscious way that supports your child's developing sense of self. It will help cultivate the skills, attitudes, and beliefs that will be with them through their entire life. It will also illuminate the process by which this happens and describe how you can support the healthy development of these vital capacities.

You will find strategies to help guide you through everyday moments to meet your child's emotional needs and support their emotional development. We hope that after applying some of these principles, you'll find that you'll be experiencing moments of connection that bring meaning and depth to your parenting that you didn't realize were so important.

The book is full of tips to help your child build these skills proactively, as well as strategies to help your child grow in a positive direction when times feel tough. We've blended and boiled down theories to make these practices accessible and family‐friendly so that you can acknowledge and support your child's emotional needs on a deep level, from the infant stage through the tween years.

But we're not just here for your kids. We're here for you, too. This work may feel natural to some but overwhelming to others. Whichever side of the fence you land on, we want you to feel supported and informed on your journey as a parent.

HOW TO USE THIS BOOK

Anyone can implement this approach, whether you have experience with Slumberkins or Connect‐to‐Grow or not. We'll give you tangible, easy‐to‐implement tools that can take effect in just five minutes a day.

Part 1 of the book will give you the lay of the land. You'll learn more about how past parenting practices have led us to where we are now and the elements today's parents want to improve upon. You'll also discover the central tenets of the Connect‐to‐Grow approach and why and how you should use this approach with your family. You'll find ways to exercise this emotional muscle in your daily life and learn how maintaining this awareness will proactively help your kids to improve their emotional wellness. We are here to help you stay connected and feel confident in your ability to be the best parent you can be.

Part 2 is all about putting this approach into practice. You can work through the chapters in order, or you can prioritize the sections that encompass some of your child's more pressing struggles. Here, you'll find everyday situations that will benefit from more intentionality, as well as examinations of the tough stuff—situations we wish kids didn't have to experience. Each chapter explains the skill or theme we're focused on and gives you activities to implement to proactively build or show up when you need to support certain situations.

Because we completely understand the plight of a busy parent, we've designed this book so that you can choose your own adventure. You can start at the beginning and read straight through for the most in‐depth overview of our approach, or you can cherry‐pick your content based on your current family needs. There is a Use Case Guide at the end of the book for you to reference based on your needs.

Therapists are trained to meet you where you're at, and we want this book to function in the same way. We want to give you the tools to help with whatever is problematic in the moment in order to make the biggest impact, hoping that a first success will leave you open and available to keep trying to do this work.

—Kelly

ADDITIONAL FEATURES IN THE BOOK

Throughout the book, especially in Part 2, we include personal stories from us and a few of our collaborators that provide more context, specificity, and nuance in our approach. We hope these personal stories will better help you envision how Connect‐to‐Grow has worked in real‐life situations, as well as illustrate that even educators or experts make mistakes and aren't always able to be what we know we should be when it comes to parenting. At the end of the day, we are two mothers trying our best, just like you. We make a conscious choice to show up and do this work, and we trust in the process and know the investment of time and emotional energy will pay off for our children and for future generations who will be that much more emotionally attuned.

You'll also notice that in Part 2 we introduce you to the mascots of the Slumberkins universe. They will be familiar to some readers and new to others. We do so to add a memorable (and adorable) face to each emotional skill and to point you in the right direction if you want to add these characters into your parenting routines.

PARENTS ARE THE EXPERTS ON THEIR CHILD'S EMOTIONAL HEALTH

Your child is part of your heart. They're part of your soul. There is no connection that's going to be stronger than their connection to you in this early childhood moment. And that can feel scary…but it's also beautiful.

Who better to teach them to tap into their emotions than you?

Kids are incredibly attuned to you and need to feel trust in you as their leader. You're the captain of your family ship; kids want to feel confident in the fact that you'll steer them in the right direction. However, no captain can run a ship alone. It's essential to surround yourself with a supportive crew to shoulder the mental load.

We're here to join your crew.

As much as I have learned and know the best way to handle these parenting moments, I am making mistakes every day, reflecting, repairing, and trying again. That's the whole point. There is no way to parent perfectly. It's better to be present than perfect.

—Kelly

PART ONE

THE THEORY BEHIND THE CONNECT-TO-GROW APPROACH

CHAPTER 1

Early Emotional Learning Is Foundational

Early on in our educational careers, we were new moms working in education—and working on ourselves. We realized that our parents, and generations prior, didn't do much for our emotional wellness; instead they tried to manage our behavior.

When we were kids, there was a lot of Go to your room if you're crying. There just wasn't support for emotional learning. It wasn't that our parents didn't want to support our emotional lives; they just didn't know they needed to.

Similarly, when we were in college learning to be educators, focus and importance were placed on being a good classroom manager and maintaining order among our students. The whole point of getting an education was to go to college to get a good job, which were the same jobs that had existed for decades: doctor, lawyer, teacher. The learning process was all focused on achievement and rewards (and on shame if we didn't achieve those rewards). We learned techniques like using red/yellow/green behavior charts or sending a student to the principal's office as standard practice. Although these techniques are effective in the short term, we now understand that they can disrupt and harm the emotional development of a child. It can lead to children developing negative beliefs about themselves that stay with them long after they have left their school years behind them. What works in the short term is not best for our children in the long term.

Today, in the educational world, there has been a shift. The role of educators isn't necessarily to just get kids ready with the skills and knowledge they need to achieve but to help kids learn to be well-rounded, stable people who can go out into the world and find professional, emotional, and social success. Innovation is changing career options at a rapid pace—many of the jobs our kids may end up doing don't even exist yet. The skills they need are less about writing in cursive and doing math in a certain way—it's becoming more about navigating problem-solving, having a growth mindset, and being resilient.

Similarly, there