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March 28, 2011 in City
Face Time: Rose says stress-free adults nurture healthy kids
Robin Rose of Salem, Ore., is the keynote speaker at the Our Kids:Our Business kick-off breakfast April 1, 2011.
(Full-size photo)
Stress kills adults. And it can destroy their children, too.
For more than 20 years, Robin Rose, of Salem, has researched how the stress of adults affects the brain development of the children among them.
On Friday, Rose, 58, a national consultant on stress management, will be the keynote speaker at the kickoff breakfast for Our Kids: Our Business, the annual Inland Northwest effort to support children.
Q. You’ve written that how you first greet your children in the morning shifts their brains for the next few hours. Can you elaborate?
A. Our emotional brain regulates off the brains of the people in our presence. The emotional state (adults) are in changes the chemicals being manufactured and released and, therefore, the physical brain development of the children in their presence.
So when a child sees their parent, whether the parent is sending a big smile or a tense, angry kind of ignoring, that changes the child’s brain state in as little as one-twentieth of a second.
Q. How can parents regulate themselves emotionally, especially after they’ve had a bad day, and then they walk in the door and the first person they see is their child?
A. Before (parents) walk in the door, slow down and take a long deep breath. When we are hurried, we take 15 to 20 breaths a minute, and when we breathe like that, we tell the brain something is wrong. When we are in that physiology and say hello to our child, it stimulates a stress response in our child.
We can stop that stress reaction by deepening our breath. Our body relaxes. Our tone of voice changes. When we create that shift before we say hello to our child, they read us as mom or dad is happy, relaxed, in control. Everything is OK.
Q. How aware are children of actions that we aren’t even aware of?
A. We are all born with a part of the brain that can read between 250 (billion) and 400 billion bits of information per second. Even though very little of the brain is developed at birth, that part of the brain in the primitive brain stem is developed.
Which is why in infants in homes of highly stressed adults, we can already see the (stress) response in the baby. They are taking in the stimulus even though they can’t make sense of it.
Q. Your advice for children to help them learn is to drink water, breathe and eat well. Why is drinking water so important?
A. Our brain requires hydration for brain cells to talk to each other. Learning is a chemical, electrical process. Dry brains don’t make connections.
Q. What is one simple thing every adult could do to make their behavior less stressful for children?
A. Be a listener and ask open questions. Questions that can begin great conversations:
“What surprised you most about your day today?”
“What is the silliest thing you saw?”
“What is the one thing you will remember about today?”
1992 murder trial begins against sex offender 
mikeln on March 28 at 6:03 a.m.
Kinda hard to be stress free in a world that requires you to live your life in debt. It does not have to be this way, this has been done in order to keep the banksters and others super wealthy. We will never be a civilized people under their plan, just people that live paycheck to paycheck.
SugarShane on March 28 at 7:08 a.m.
@mikeln I get what your saying mike, but it’s about making the best of what you have. You may be struggling, but the face you show your kids impacts their development. As adults we are held to a higher standard of emotional regulation, when that breaks down, kids read your body language and facial expressions so you dont have to say anything to be harmful.
Insightful article and I hope the water part sinks in with people.
soccermomsusie on March 28 at 7:35 a.m.
This article makes me pine for the good old days, back before the Libertard Demoncrats and the evil socialist unions put an end to child labor in our country!
Instead of this article being addressed to simpering parents, it could have been directed to factory foremen. Kids today have it too good.
Join us as we work to get Republicans, especially Tea Party Republicans elected this year! Lets put the “child” back in child labor. Let’s bust the unions! Let’s make sure that we take care of the wealthy who God put in charge of us. In turn, their blessings will trickle upon us!
I know that back in the day, there were a few Republicans who opposed child labor, worked with unions, “protected the environment, regulated business, increased taxes - blah, blah, blah, but those days are finally over! Today, you can now safely vote Republican all the time and never worry about a socialist taint! Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh get the instructions from God and they pass it along to all of us Good Republicans!!
HEAR OUR VOICE!!!!
Diana on March 28 at 7:46 a.m.
Okay, but I don’t know any stress-free adults.
mikeln on March 28 at 8:39 a.m.
We could live in a world that does the right thing. Only problem with that is it would not create great wealth and power. I think I read somwhere that financial problems cause many families to fail, leaving very stressed out children. It’s articles like this that make me laugh every time a republican says it’s all about family values, what a sick, sick joke. Off topic, melt-down confirmed in japan, thank you GE. And so far, not a word about it in this rag. Stock up, it’s going to be a interesting year.
misjustice on March 28 at 8:42 a.m.
But, Robin Rose, (fake name? sounds too cutesy to me) everything IS NOT okay. Parents that I know are screwed and to pretend otherwise will give the kids a false idea of what life is all about; life is short, and brutish, and hard. Not a long languid walk in a park with rainbows, and kittens, and glitter. And the sooner that kids know the truth the better prepared they will be to survive in the angry, broken world which they will inherit.
Oh, and there isn’t a Santa Claus, an Easter Bunny, or a Tooth Fairy…geez. Quit lying to kids!
I’m not saying that parents should take it out on the kiddies, only that the truth is, NONE of us are in control, NONE of us are stress “free” and NONE of us should attempt to duck the reality of our lives. Modernity is fraught with stress and anxiety; better to admit that than deny it. We may be able to moderate the stress but to suggest that we can live “stress-free” is a bunch of nonsense.
And what is up with Robin Rose’s goofy photo? Weird…maybe she’s just really pleased with herself because she conned the Our Kids Our Business folks into paying her speaking fee…??????
soccermomsusie on March 28 at 8:49 a.m.
The worst thing about the paper pushing this “Our Kids” baloney are the pinwheels.
I have a friend who is trying to get started in the pinwheel manufacturing business. Every year, the Spokesman-Review floods the market with FREE made-in-China pinwheels for its Our Kids Krap. No one will want to buy my friend’s handcrafted (by children in his basement) pinwheels.
It really is the Socialist-Review!
HEAR OUR VOICE!!!
Orphan on March 28 at 8:55 a.m.
Mikein Please, the world does not require you to live in debt, that is a choice you make. You are correct that it does not have to be this way, simply get out of debt its relitively easy. I am not a Republican but it is all about family values and you are the only one that can put those values in place for your family being in debt is one of the family values that you teach your children. The world does not teach your children values if you actually have family values.
Shleyaay08 on March 28 at 9:05 a.m.
I think some of you are missing the point of this article. She is not trying to say that we don’t all have stress in our lives but that we show our children that stress is what effects them. Our children will learn on their own the trials and tribulations they will endure and learn that life is what you make it. I have my daughter in daycare and I see this all the time when parents pick up their kids, they act annoyed and are sometimes just mean to their kids. I see how the kids react striving for their parents attention, wanting to be heard but instead being ignored because the parent is too involved with what has happened with THEM. When I pick up my daughter I am happy to see her and I show her that, I ask about her day and show her that I care about her and what she has gone through during her day. Whatever is happening with me or finances or whatever is not my daughters problem it’s mine. Kids don’t need the stress of an adult and by parents sharing the stress it puts a burden on the children. We know how stress makes us feel why would you want your child to have that any sooner than they need to? The important lessons is that if we try to be positive and show our children that we are interested in what has happened with their day instead of bringing them down with our “adult ” problems, they will grow and be nurtured. Why would we want our children to grow up any faster then they have to. Let them be children and put on a happy face even when we don’t want to so that we can nurture our children.
SugarShane on March 28 at 9:18 a.m.
I think people are missing the point of the article. No one is saying stress doesn’t exist, they are saying there are ways of dealing with it that are more productive. Children mirror behavior, so you can teach them to freak the f out when in crisis, or you can teach them to be cool , collected, and rational. When you are stressed you create an atmosphere of stress that gets passed on to those around you. It produces physiological reactions that long term can adversely affect you in a multitude of ways. No one is saying NEVER be stressed out around children or else! They are saying be aware of your stress and how you are dealing with it around your kids. Are you creating a toxic environment with your stress level?
The guy that wrote the book on this stuff spoke in spokane just a year or so ago. Look up Sapolsky: Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers for a good read on the effects of stress and what you can do about it.
mikeln on March 28 at 9:27 a.m.
You are born in debt and to think you have a choice is just foolish. The banksters and others know that to create great wealth, you must create great debt. That is the cycle we are in. We must stop this and in order to do so we must each become more self-sufficiant and localize the production of the things we need. In other words, buy local. The only way to stop people like the fascist koch brothers is to deny them the means they need to make money. Too simply get out of debt is imposible as long as you are always paid less then it cost you to live.
misjustice on March 28 at 9:36 a.m.
I agree, SoccerMom; those made in China pinwheels are annoying. I’m sure that the little commie hands toiling to make those in a sweat shop, in communist China, would love to learn how to live “stress-free”.
Bruce (aka thatoneguy) on March 28 at 9:51 a.m.
Shleyaay and Shane make good points.
The headline is misleading. The lady obviously understands that everybody has stress in their lives. You don’t have to to controlled by it at all times though, and you don’t have to pretend it isn’t there. It is possible to give off a vibe of “I’m having a crappy day, but seeing you makes it better” (or even say it out loud in words). Any kid, and even many adults, can understand that. Seems like it would be better for kids (not to mention mommy & daddy’s coworkers) if mommy & daddy are not in a terrible mood all the time.
(and misjustice, cut the lady some slack. Have you seen some of the names people saddle their kids with? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ima_Hogg And. Someone I used to work with had to have his picture taken a lot for publicity purposes. His smile in those pics always looked like a sleazy used car salesman… but after knowing him for awhile, and seeing him schmooze at public functions, I learned to recognize that smile as his “oh god I wish I didn’t have to do this, but I have to put on a smile now” smile.)
Bruce (aka thatoneguy) on March 28 at 2:23 p.m.
misj, notice I wasn’t actually disagreeing with you. People can have mighty interesting ideas of what makes them look good.
misjustice on March 28 at 2:30 p.m.
thatoneguy; it’s okay if you do disagree with me…doesn’t matter to me. It sure would be a boring world if everyone thought alike and held the same opinions…
; )
eagleproducer on March 28 at 2:44 p.m.
Watch the Frontline special “Killer Stress,” especially the part about the baboon troop that witnessed an unexpected die-off of all the alpha males.
http://www.pbs.org/stress/
I am still amazed at these findings.
It’s hiarchy, especially ones characterized by agressive male dominance, that are the root of most human stress. How do we get rid of our alpha males? Wars? Jails? Shows on the Bravo Network?
Orphan on March 28 at 5:58 p.m.
Alpha males are the ones that get stuff done.
misjustice on March 28 at 6:45 p.m.
AND alpha females, too, Orphan! Lol!
; )