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Ever watched the intimate interactions between a baby and their parent?  All the cooing and copying of the babies facial expressions and sounds? In doing this, we let our babies know that we understand them and we reflect that understanding back by copying and imitating them. This is instinctive for most of us; we don't need to be taught how to speak to a baby. Babies love this, all this mirroring calms and soothes them and helps them to feel safe with what is happening around them. These interactions are critical to development and have a profound impact on the how the brain functions. In fact most of the human brain's circuitry is developed after birth. As parents interact with their children, providing not only food and safety but predictable emotional nurturing the resulting attachment helps the brain to organise and begin to regulate and make sense of the complex world around it.

The human brain continues to grow, develop, and adapt to the environment throughout our lives -- not just when we are babies. Most of us mirror quite naturally with our babies but drop these efforts as our children develop language.  We begin to tell our older kids what we think they are feeling and drop all this wonderful mirroring from our repertoire. They tell us we're hungry, we tell them they can't be hungry because they just ate. They tell us they don't need a sweater, we tell them they do, it's cold outside. We no longer send messages back through our verbal or body language that mirrors or matches what we think the child is experiencing.

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I was on a family bike ride the other day and a neighbor stopped me to tell me she was enjoying my book. As we chatted she said she was surprised that I had talked about my own children and my own parenting experiences in the book. She said teased me and said she would have thought that a parenting expert would have perfect kids. I have wonderful kids but they are not perfect and I am certainly not perfect. I thought about this as I rode, there are moments when I think it is hilarious that I have written a parenting book. When I am impatient with my kids and losing my cool, when I ignore the voice in my head telling me to mirror, empathize, and stay neutral. I have great kids, but sometimes that everyday stuff like my son taking forever to get out of bed, my teenage daughter having a fit because she has "nothing to wear" or the bickering in the back seat of the car that can get to me like nails on a chalk board. I can hear that voice in the back of my head telling me to use all the strategies I coach clients to use and even thought they work incredibly well, there are still moments that I just can't do what I know I should do.

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Jennifer Kolari, MSW, RSW is our guest blogger during the week of May 25th. If you have any questions for Jennifer Kolari, add a comment to any of her posts.

Here is more information on Connected Parenting:

Read an excerpt

A groundbreaking, counterintuitive parenting approach to create deep, empathic bonds with problem children.

A child and family therapist for more than twenty years, Jennifer Kolari began her career working with children suffering from severe behavioral problems. That experience taught her an invaluable lesson-it wasn't "tough" discipline that helped these kids change their behavior and build self-esteem. It was unending compassion and empathy. Now, Kolari applies these lessons in her work with all families-even those who are exhausted, overwhelmed, and struggling with the challenges of difficult or extremely defiant children. Empathy lies at the heart of Kolari's Connected Parenting philosophy.