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The best way to know if you’re on the right track is to watch your child’s
response. If you are offering an optimal level of stimulation, smiling occurs.
An increase in your child’s attentiveness will usually relate to you becoming
less active and more attentive to what your child is doing. Pay attention to
what your child is seeking and needing from you. If you are too active and
directive of your child, he is likely to become less focused and attentive.
Here are the skills needed for your child to become an effective self-calmer:
 Provide a model of what it looks and feels like to be calm.
 Validate your child’s level of distress. Respond to him gently through
gestures and words.
 Show your child how to calm down in many different situations.
 Expand your child’s repertoire of self-calming strategies so that when
one fails, another one might work.
 Help your child find activities that give him pleasure so that he can shift
from a distressed feeling to a positive one.
 Once your child is calm, help him think through what caused his distress
and what he can do to make himself feel better next time it happens.
 While he is distressed, help your child to decrease that feeling. Use
calming strategies that involve his cognitive abilities.
 Help your child think of what the next step might be and remain focused
on accomplishing that goal.
© 2016 Mary-Ann Schuler – WWW.BABYSLEEPMIRACLE.COM
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