Resilience

The Science of Resilience

Why some children can thrive despite adversity

By Bari Walsh, on March 23, 2015 2:57 PM

When confronted with the fallout of childhood trauma, why do some children adapt and overcome, while others bear lifelong scars that flatten their potential? A growing body of evidence points to one common answer: Every child who winds up doing well has had at least one stable and committed rela­tionship with a supportive adult.
The power of that one strong adult relationship is a key ingredient in resilience — a positive, adaptive response in the face of significant adversity — according to a new report from the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child, a multidisciplinary collaboration chaired by Harvard’s Jack Shonkoff. Understanding the centrality of that relationship, as well as other emerging findings about the science of resilience, gives policymakers a key lever to assess whether current programs designed to help disadvantaged kids are working.
“Resilience depends on supportive, responsive relationships and mastering a set of capabilities that can help us respond and adapt to adversity in healthy ways,” says Shonkoff, director of the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard. “It’s those capacities and relationships that can turn toxic stress into tolerable stress.”
As a growing body of research is showing, the developing brain relies upon the consistent “serve and return” interactions that happen between a young child and a primary caregiver, the report says. When these interactions occur regularly, they provide the scaffolding that helps build “key capacities — such as the ability to plan, monitor, and regulate be­havior, and adapt to changing circumstances — that enable children to respond to adversity and to thrive,” the report continues. The developing brain is buffered by this feedback loop between biology and environment.
But in the absence of these responsive relationships, the brain’s architecture doesn’t develop optimally. The body perceives the absence as a threat and activates a stress response that — when prolonged — leads to physiological changes that affect the brain and overall systems of physical and mental health. The stress becomes toxic, making it more difficult for children to adapt or rebound.
The experiences of the subset of children who overcome adversity and end up with unexpectedly positive life outcomes are helping to fuel a new understanding of the nature of resilience — and what can be done to build it.
Here’s what the science of resilience is telling us, according to the council’s report:

• Resilience is born from the interplay between internal disposition and external experience. It derives from supportive relationships, adaptive capacities, and positive experiences.
• We can see and measure resilience in terms of how kids’ brains, immune systems, and genes all respond to stressful experiences.
• There is a common set of characteristics that predispose children to positive outcomes in the face of ad­versity:
  • The availability of at least one stable, caring, and supportive relationship between a child and an adult caregiver.
  • A sense of mastery over life circumstances.
  • Strong executive func­tion and self-regulation skills.
  • The supportive context of affirming faith or cultural traditions.

• Learning to cope with manageable threats to our physical and social well-being is critical for the development of resilience.
• Some children demonstrate greater sensitivity to both negative and positive experiences.
• Resilience can be situation-specific.
• Positive and negative experiences over time continue to influence a child’s mental and physical development. Resilience can be built; it’s not an innate trait or a resource that can be used up.
• People’s response to stressful experi­ences varies dramatically, but extreme adversity nearly always generates serious problems that require treatment.

Additional Resources:

• Read Part II of our exploration of resilience, about the public policy implications of our new understanding of the science of resilience.

Topics in this article

AT-RISK STUDENTS, Counseling, Education Policy, Family Engagement, Mind and Brain, Wellness

Faculty in this article

Jack P. Shonkoff, M.D.

As director of the Center on the Developing Child, Jack P. Shonkoff, M.D., is using the science of early childhood development to drive innovation in policy and practice, with the goal of transforming life outcomes for disadvantaged children and reducing the consequences of early adversity.

11 Questions That Will Make Your Child Happier

Posted: 01/05/2015 9:45 am EST Updated: 01/05/2015 4:59 pm EST

Are you naturally carefree and happy? If so, it's likely a mix of your genetics (identical twins reared apart are usually the same level of happy) and your personal choices about how to live your life. The field of positive psychology centers on the idea that people can make themselves happy just by changing how they think and act. Happiness is conceptualized as more of a habit than a God-given blessing.  And while some of your happiness is biologically determined, there are many things you can do to be happier.
These 11 questions focus your children on how to make themselves happy. Eventually, your children will internalize these questions and ask them in their own heads. Then you'll have given them the gift of happiness, which will make you so (you guessed it) happy.

1. What was your favorite part of today?
This is a good question to ask at bedtime, to help your child feel content and happy before sleep. It also instills a habit of focusing on the best thing that happened in any given day rather than the worst. If you make this part of your bedtime routine, it will become second nature.
2. What are you grateful for?
This is a good question for the dinner table. Every family member can take a turn saying what he or she is grateful for that day. There is a strong correlation between happiness and gratitude, so this one is very powerful.
3. What are you going to do about that?
When a child comes to you with a problem, ask this question in a warm and curious tone. Don't just jump in and solve their problem; how does that help them in the long run? At least give them a chance to work it out on their own, and give them the gift of your confidence in them, which is evident by this question that implies that they can think of solutions to their own issues. If your child says "I don't know," you can say, "I am not sure either, let's try to figure it out together." Happy people are people who think of problems as surmountable, and think of themselves as effective problem solvers.
4. How did that make you feel?
At the risk of sounding shrink-y, an essential part of happiness is being able to notice and express your own emotions. If you can verbalize what you're feeling, you can make sense of it, you can process it, and you can obtain support from others. This is a great question to ask when your child comes to you with something "bad" that happened, instead of either dismissing it ("that wasn't that bad") or fixing it ("let mommy get you some ice!"). It trains your child to be aware of his feelings, and to use that information effectively.
5. What do you think he/she feels?
In any situation, you can cultivate empathy by asking your child to wonder about what someone else feels. Empathy will make your child a happier person; he or she will have stronger interpersonal relationships, feel better about himself for thinking of (and then, often, helping) others, and derive more meaning from life.
6.  How can we look on the bright side?
In any situation, you can teach your child that there are positives. With preteens or teenagers, this question may be way too corny, but little kids will like it. You can also teach them the expression "making lemonade out of a lemon" and ask them how you can make lemonade out of a bad situation, like, "You fell and hurt yourself, so that's a lemon, but you got a Tinkerbell bandaid, and that's lemonade! Now you tell Mommy one."
7. What part of that can we learn more about?
In any TV show, book, trip outside the house, basically any situation at all, there is something to learn more about. And look at you, Super Parent, you already have your smartphone at the ready!  So this time use it for teaching your child that life is full of learning opportunities.  Happy people are people who are curious and always learning.  So when you watch TV and someone says "Bonjour," you can look up pictures of France or a YouTube song sung in French. When your child realizes that this question means that you're going to whip out your phone and show them something new and special, they will ask it to you all the time. And that's how you end up looking at pictures of real estate in Nebraska with your 4-year-old. Don't ask.
8. What do you want to do on the weekend?
Research shows that anticipation of positive experiences brings more happiness than the experiences themselves. Once your child is old enough to realize that tomorrow is not today, start instilling a habit of positive anticipation of small pleasures. A child who is excited all week to get frozen yogurt on the weekend is a happy child, just as an adult who plans a vacation six months in advance is happier during those six months.
9. What can we do to help/to make someone happy?
Bringing your child along to visit a sick relative, or someone recovering from surgery, or to volunteer at a soup kitchen is a wonderful gift that you can give to your child. Your child will feel even more proud of his behavior if he is the one to think up the nice thing that can be done (e.g., baking cookies to deliver, drawing a card). Research shows that giving even releases oxytocin and endorphins, so it's like a high that your child can become addicted to. Also, involve your child in your charitable activities, as giving charity is a form of altruism that is also linked directly to happiness (and just to being a good person, which you also want for your child).
Incorporate a spirit of generosity into your child's daily life. Whenever you're out, buy something little for someone else.  When you color, make a picture for someone else. Giving things to others makes people happier than buying things for themselves, and enriches interpersonal relationships.
10. What do you want to do outside today?
Getting outside and engaging in physical activities alongside your child is a wonderful way to get him or her in the habit of not just sitting around. Exercise releases endorphins and is as effective at treating depression as SSRI's. And the most powerful way that you can teach your child about exercise is to do it yourself. Children whose mothers exercise are more likely to exercise themselves. And sunlight can also help boost mood and regulate circadian rhythms, which means better sleep for your kids, which makes everyone happier.
11. When do you feel happiest?
If you direct your children's attention to the experiences that they most enjoy, they will start to realize that they can choose to proactively increase their time spent in activities that make them feel best about themselves.  According to researcher Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, "flow" is the state where people find an activity so enjoyable and rewarding that they become completely immersed in it, losing all sense of time and feeling completely in the moment. If your child is lucky enough to have found an activity that makes him feel a sense of "flow," it is helpful for you to point this out and allow your child enough time to attain this state. Note: for many kids this is video gaming, which is actually fine, since a great deal of research points to many psychological benefits of gaming (and anecdotally, I know many people who met their spouses while gaming, and gaming actually brings spouses closer if both participate!). The best case scenario is for your child to find a career that puts him into "flow," since then, as the saying goes, he will never "work" a day in his life.
Till we meet again, I remain, The Blogapist Who Actually Does A Lot of These, So If I Can Do Them With Three Kids And Limited Patience, So Can You!
Visit Dr. Rodman at Dr. Psych Mom, on Facebook, and on Twitter @DrPsychMom.

10 habits to strengthen your relationship with your child

10 Habits to Strengthen Your Relationship with Your Child

"We need 4 hugs a day for survival.  We need 8 hugs a day for maintenance. We need 12 hugs a day for growth." -- Virginia Satir

We all crave those close moments with our children that make our hearts melt. Connection is as essential to us parents as it is to our children. When our relationship is strong, it's also sweet -- so we receive as much as we give. That's what makes parenting worth all the blood, sweat and tears.

That connection is also the only reason children willingly follow our rules. Kids who feel strongly connected to their parents WANT to cooperate. They trust us to know what's best for them, to be on their side. I hear regularly from parents that everything changes once they focus on connecting, not just correcting.
But we're only human.  There are days when all we can do is meet our children's most basic needs:  Feed them, bathe them, keep an encouraging tone, hug them, and get them to sleep at a reasonable hour so we can do it all over again tomorrow. Given that parenting is the toughest job on earth -- and we often do it in our spare time, after we work at another job all day -- the only way to keep a strong bond with our children is to build in daily habits of connection. What kinds of habits?
1. Aim for 12 hugs (or physical connections) every day. Hug your child first thing in the morning, when you say goodbye, when you're re-united, at bedtime, and often in between.  If your tween or teen rebuffs your advances when she first walks in the door, realize that with older kids you have to ease into the connection.  Get her settled with a cool drink, and chat as you give a foot rub. (Seem like going above and beyond?  It's a foolproof way to hear what happened in her life today. You'll find yourself glad, many times, if you have that high on your priority list.)
2. Connect before transitions. Kids have a hard time transitioning from one thing to another.  If you look her in the eye, use her name, and play a bit to get her giggling, you'll fill her cup and make sure she has the inner resources to manage herself through a transition.  Mornings go much easier when you start with a five minute snuggle upon awakening to help your child transition from sleep into the executive functions of dressing and teeth brushing.
3. Play.  Laughter and rough-housing keep you connected with your child by stimulating endorphins and oxytocin in both of you.  Making playfulness a daily habit also gives your child a chance to work through the anxieties and upsets that otherwise make him feel disconnected -- and more likely to act out. And play helps kids want to cooperate.  Which is likely to work better,  "Little Gorilla, it's time for breakfast, come eat your  bugs and bananas!" and "Don't you think your steam shovel wants to get in the car now so he can see the construction site on the way to the store?" or "Eat your breakfast now!" and "Get in the car!"
4. Turn off technology when you interact with your child.  Really. Your child will remember for the rest of his life that he was important enough to his parents that they turned off phones and music to listen to him.  This is particularly important in the car, because the lack of eye contact in a car takes the pressure off, so kids (and adults) are more likely to open up and share.

5. Special time. Every day, 15 minutes with each child, separately.  Alternate doing what your child wants and doing what you want.  On her days, just pour your love into her and let her direct.  On your days resist the urge to structure the time with activities.  Instead, play  therapeutic "games" to help your child with whatever issues are "up" for her. (For game ideas, click here.) 
6. Welcome emotion. Sure, it's inconvenient.  But your child needs to express his emotions or they'll drive his behavior.  So accept the meltdowns, don't let the anger trigger you, and welcome the tears and fears that always hide behind the anger. Remember that you're the one he trusts enough to cry with, and breathe your way through it.  Afterwards, he'll feel more relaxed, cooperative, and closer to you. (Yes, this is really, really hard. Regulating our own emotions is the hardest part of parenting. But that doesn't mean we're excused from trying.)
7. Listen, and Empathize. Connection starts with listening.  Bite your tongue if you need to, except to say "Wow!....I see....Really?...How was that for you?"  The habit of seeing things from your child's perspective will ensure that you treat her with respect and look for win/win solutions.  It will help you see the reasons for behavior that would otherwise drive you crazy. And it will help you regulate your own emotions so when your buttons get pushed and you find yourself in "fight or flight," your child doesn't look so much like the enemy.
8. Slow down and savor the moment. Share the moment with your child: let him smell the strawberrries before you put them in the smoothie.  Put your hands in the running water together and share the cool rush of the water. Smell his hair. Listen to his laughter. Look him in the eyes. Connect in the magnificence of the present moment. Which is really the only way we can connect.
9. Bedtime snuggle and chat. Set your child's bedtime a wee bit earlier with the assumption that you'll spend some time visiting and snuggling in the dark. Those companionable, safe moments of connection invite whatever your child is currently grappling with to the surface, whether it's something that happened at school, the way you snapped at her this morning, or her worries about tomorrow's field trip. Do you have to resolve her problem right then? No. Just listen. Acknowledge feelings. Reassure your child that you hear her concern, and that together you'll solve it, tomorrow. The next day, be sure to follow up. You'll be amazed how your relationship with your child deepens. And don't give this habit up as your child gets older. Late at night is often the only time teens will open up.
10. Show up.  Most of us go through life half-present. But your child has only about 900 weeks of childhood with you before he leaves your home.  He'll be gone before you know it.  Try this as a practice:  When you're engaged with your child, just be right here, right now.  You won't be able to do it all the time.  But if you do it every day for a bit, you'll find yourself doing it more and more. Because you'll find it creates those moments with your child that make your heart melt.

Parents' Last Call for Senior Year

The Parent's 'Last Call' List for Senior Year

Posted: 09/23/2014 3:26 pm EDT Updated: 4 hours ago

•   It is the beginning of senior year. 365 days out from the empty nest. The temptation is to spend the year more than a little sad about all of those "lasts." The last first day of school, the last birthday at home (trust me, this one is the real killer) or the last varsity game. But I am going to try and resist the pull to be maudlin and instead create a Parent's Bucket List for senior year in high school, perhaps better thought of as the Last Call List.

1. Pay a professional photographer.
Try for that one perfect set of family pictures that no amateur can capture. It seems like the kids are grown, that the need to document their gorgeous faces has lost its urgency as the transitions slow. Wrong. That just-finished-childhood-not-quite-adult look is fleeting. Get someone who knows what they are doing to capture it.
2. Talk about failure and tell them of your failings.
Tell them why you failed and how you recovered and how, for some period of time, you thought you might not.  We loom so large in our children's lives as the people who once held superpowers. Let them know how those powers have often failed you as both an adult and a parent.
3. Buy them one beautiful thing.
This moment, these last days, are worthy of commemorating and do not let them slip by unmarked. Jewelry and watches are traditional choices for senior year, but beauty and meaning, not expense, are the salient factors in this purchase.
4. Tell them secrets.
Disclose what they just might not know, things about your life that you, perhaps, glossed over, but now realize that they are old enough to understand. You will be letting them know that things are not always as they seem, and that they are a trusted near-adult confident, worthy of sharing family secrets. Talk to them like the adult that they will soon be; it will fill them with the confidence to get there.
5. Let them go before they are gone.
I kept my kids on an insanely tight leash senior year. I monitored their every movement and made them check in constantly. In short, I drove them crazy. And then I didn't. Once they were on the downslope of senior year, once everything they could do for college admission had been done, I let them take some victory laps, the well-deserved privilege of senior year. They broke curfews, went out on a few school nights and had a taste of freedom to come.
6. Have those painful talks.
Sit down and have the discussion, the one you will wish you had had if, God forbid, anything ever goes wrong. Sure, you can tell them where the wills are and how you hope to see your possessions disbursed. But this is not that talk. This is the talk where you recognize that you are speaking to a near-adult and you tell them why you love their other parent, what makes a good marriage, how shocking it was to find yourself a parent and yet how marvelous, what kind of wife/mother husband/father you hope they will one day be. It will feel sad, and poignant, but while you are still in that day-to-day high school routine, take a step back and talk about the really big things in life.
7. And just for a minute, grab them tight and hold them close.
Give them the morning hug that had slipped out of your routine and the kiss on the forehead that was, for years, a nightly ritual. Sit by their bed with a hand on theirs because this is the time to try and capture that feeling forever. This is the moment for that final squeeze, the brief moment when we clench them even tighter, hold them close enough to take our breath away and then let them go.
This post originally appeared on Grown and Flown. Find us on Facebook or subscribe here.

Protecting sibling relationships

A Relationship Worth Protecting

August 19, 2014

“Can you see your love for me shining through? Cuz what you see in me, I can see in you. And soon enough, you and me we’ll be out of time. And kindness will be all we can leave behind.”

- Nimo Patel My younger daughter rushed upstairs, her face wet with tears. She said she was having trouble putting together a Lego structure and couldn’t figure out what to do. When she asked her big sister for help, she cut her down—her words sharp and pointed and straight into the heart.
Yes, it had been a long summer. When you move to a new state, your sibling becomes your full-time playmate. My children had been in the company of one another for two solid months, no reprieves. But I’ve noticed that as my older daughter becomes more tween and less child, her patience is thinner … her sass stronger … her tone edgier. And there’s something about her little sister’s laid-back, leisurely nature that pushes her buttons. But something needed to be said before irreparable damage was done.
I went downstairs to talk privately with my older child. She was aptly securing the final pieces to an impressive Lego tree house. Pushing stray pieces aside, I sat down next to her. “I have something to tell you,” I said my voice low and serious. My daughter knew to stop fiddling and look into my eyes. “Whether you like it or not, you are shaping your little sister’s self-esteem. The way she feels about herself will largely come from how you treat her. In fact, your opinion of her may be even more important than mine.”
I paused to let my daughter absorb this information. When I continued talking, I surprised myself by divulging something I hadn’t fully appreciated until that moment. “Do you know why I know the impact your opinion has on your sister’s life?” My daughter shook her head. “Because I was the little sister. Yes, my sister and I fought over clothes, music, whose turn it was to feed the cat, the bathroom, and other silly things, but never once did my sister shame me or put me down. Not once. Just imagine what that gift did for me.”
By now I was crying. Surprisingly my daughter wasn’t looking at me strangely or searching for the nearest exit. With a mixture of interest and sadness, my daughter looked like maybe what I had to say was something worth listening to. I swallowed hard, attempting to regain control over my unexpected emotional breakdown. “We all need someone in our corner, to have our back, to believe in us when we don’t believe in ourselves. If you haven’t noticed, your little sister looks at you like a hero. And when you criticize or belittle, it hurts. But when you compliment or encourage her, she soars.”
Later, as I later replayed the conversation back in my head, I was reminded of the most important “rule” I had in my classroom when I was a teacher. I informed my students that our classroom was a safe haven. While I fully expected there to be squabbles and disagreements between children, there would be no hurtful attacks on physical appearance, intelligence, or abilities. I realize now that this is how I feel about my home. I expect my children to treat each other respectfully and kindly, no exceptions. To some this might sound like a ridiculous aspiration, head-in-the-clouds kind of thinking. “Siblings are supposed to knock each other down and toughen each other up,” I can just hear the naysayers say. I might have agreed with that statement had it not been for my sister showing me what happens when a family member believes in you despite knowing your every weakness and fault.
You see, in grade school I was a mess. I had a bad bowl cut. Too many freckles covered my nose. I wore the same awful navy blue sweater every single day until it practically disintegrated. My hair held the unbecoming shine of ultra quick showers minus the shampoo. I had the worst smelling feet. I gained a lot of weight the summer before middle school and got stretch marks. I was ashamed. While my parents worked, my sister took me to the neighborhood pool. She never said a word about my body. She only said, “I love your bathing suit.” I remember. It meant everything that she chose to look beyond the unsightly marks.
In high school my sister would wave me over as I walked down the halls. She would introduce her awkward freshman sister to her senior high friends. She was proud of who I was. She believed in me. My sister never told me I was not capable even if she thought there was no way I could make the volleyball team or move up a chair in orchestra. As an adult, my sister showed me the same support. Knowing how much I loved to write, she was adamant that I should start a blog. I said I didn’t know how. She sent me a book telling me how. She said she would help. My sister kept saying I should and I could until I finally tried. I would not be a published author today had it not been for the unconditional love and encouragement I received from my sister. My life would have turned out very differently if my sister had routinely tore me down rather than continually build me up.
My greatest hope is that my children encourage each other this way. I cannot force it to happen, but I can model it. Because honestly, talking to my older daughter about how I expect her to treat her sister has shined a slightly uncomfortable spotlight onto my own words and actions. The truth is, the way I treat my older daughter will reflect how she treats her younger sister. Just as she is shaping her little sister’s self-esteem through words and actions, I am shaping hers.
Just as I told her to think about the voice she is using with her sister—is it kind? Is it impatient? Is it encouraging? I must consider my tone too.
Just as I told her to think about the messages she is giving—You matter. You’re smart. I believe in you. I must think about my words too.
Just as I told her if you don’t like her wearing grubby t-shirts every day, compliment her when she wears something you do like. I am trying to practice that too.
Just as I told her to notice when her sister is stressed out or struggling and to say, “how can I help?” instead of “just deal with it.” I must remember this too.
Those are things my big sister did for me. Not perfectly. But consistently. And it made a life-changing difference.
Last week my daughters began riding the bus at our new school. It was the first time they’ve ever been “bus riders” since our old neighborhood didn’t have school buses. On the second night of school I heard the girls talking in the basement.
“When the teacher says walk to the bus, you need to go as fast as you can, okay? I was worried you were going to miss it. I kept praying you were coming. Walk real fast tomorrow. I know you can do it,” said the big one.
“Okay, I will,” promised the little one. “Thanks for letting nothing bad happen to me.”
“I won’t,” said her protector.

We all need someone in our corner … to have our back … to believe in us when we don’t believe in ourselves. We can do that, my friends. We can do that for our sisters … our brothers … our children … and for each other. We can do that for the people who are learning how to treat others by watching us live.
I leave you with my own personal pledge so I can build up, not tear down … so I can be a role model, not a bad example … so I can leave a legacy, not a scar. These are my hopes for anyone who spends time in my presence.

The Presence Pledge

I hope you feel like a welcomed spark to my life, not an inconvenience, annoyance, or bother to my day.

I hope you feel comfortable in your skin, not constantly wondering how many things you need to change before you’re loved and celebrated.

I hope you feel heard, valued, and understood, not dismissed for being too young or too inexperienced have an opinion or know what you need to thrive.

I hope you feel capable and confident, not incapable of doing something without constant supervision and correction.

I hope you feel brave to bare the colors of your soul, not pressured to hide your light or play small to gain acceptance.

I hope after spending an hour … a day … a lifetime in my presence,
I leave your heart fuller,
your smile wider,
your spirit stronger
your future brighter
than you could have ever imagined by yourself.

• "At our last doctor's appointment, my pediatrician asked me about gun storage. And I haven't stopped thinking about it since."
• "I feel really weird asking this, and maybe you'll think I'm totally neurotic, but..."
• "I want you to know that I've spoken to my kids about not playing with guns. Is this an issue that you've thought about?"
• "All of us in the PTA (or in our church group or some such) have committed to making sure our children are safe. So I've gotten in the habit of asking everyone..."
• "My child is so curious and gets into everything. I worry what would happen if he came across a gun."
• "Did you see that newspaper article about the boy who found his father's hidden gun?"
• "I had no idea until recently that about 35 percent of households with children have a gun. So I've started asking other parents before Henry plays at their home."

'It's not a judgment on you, but I have a very active little boy who's really curious and into everything. I just don't feel comfortable with him playing in a place where there are guns. Let's set up a playdate at my place.'"

‘I’m very worried about mentioning this, because I don’t want to be divisive, but as a mother, my instincts run deeper. And so I really do need to ask if you have any firearms in your home.’”

And my fear of offending someone? “You could say, ‘I really look forward to a friendship with you, and my child is looking forward to a friendship with you that’s ongoing — it’s just this is something very important to me, and something I want to address early on.’”

Love letters

Leaving Little Love Letters

Posted on May 8, 2014 by Laura Grace Weldon

Image: Ebineyland

My mother regularly wrote little love letters to her children.  They started appearing on our pillows when we could first read, at least one every month or so. Sometimes her notes would reference something we did or said but mostly they simply gushed with affirmation. Her standard ran along the lines of, “You are the nicest, most wonderful seven-year-old in the whole world.”
Her one or two sentence notes were usually written on a scrap of paper. My mother made “scratch” paper out of junk mail and school fliers. She tore paper on the fold lines, getting three pieces out of a standard letter-sized sheet. This made the flip side of her little love letters unintentionally quirky, with references to bank policy or reminders about choir practice. My brother and sister got their own notes but we never mentioned them to each other. They were a private and cherished connection between mother and child.
By the time I was nine or ten years old I wrote little love letters to her too, hiding my notes in her shoe or tucked into her jewelry box. It was easy to tell when she’d found one. She’d dole out a big hug and whisper a line I’d written back to me.  It seems these notes meant as much to her as they did to me. After she died I ran across some of them stuffed into her favorite cookbook, effusive words penciled in my best handwriting.
I know all too well that family life sometimes scrapes us like sandpaper against those closest to us. We don’t talk enough about what amuses or delights us because we’re busy saying that the towels aren’t hung up, shoes are blocking the door, and food is left out on the counter. We may also be dealing with doubts kindled by worry and annoyances that can spark into anger.
Sure, we linger over tender moments that we wish could last forever. We praise the effort (as all those relationship experts tell us to do). But there’s something special when we take the time to write down our very best feelings for one another.  A note is a tangible expression unlike any other.
I won’t kid myself that I’ll ever write as many tiny love letters as my mother wrote in her life. But today I’ll be writing a few sentences to my loved ones and hiding those notes where they’ll find them. I know there’s a sense of completion when we say what’s in our hearts.