Somatic Practices for Screen Wars
I am honored to have been interviewed by Titania Jordan for her new book Parental Control: A Guide to Raising Balanced Kids in the Digital Era. I was happy to offer my thoughts about how technology affects the body. As the originator of Chi for Two, I know a lot about how our chi (life force) moves our arms and hands to reach for connection with our parents when we are babies.
It is this hunger for connection that can cause us to get lost in screens. Knowing that children’s hunger for connection with parents can lead to disappearing into screens points to how parents can help children use screens and stop using screens without screen wars.
One of the three co-developers of Chi for Two, Caroline Gebhardt was also one of the experts interviewed for Parental Control. Caroline and her husband Nick Gebhardt, a certified Chi for Two Embodiment Coach, have three boys. Their boys have learned how to bring their big feelings to Caroline and Nick with child/parent practices like Flinging Goo, Push, Star and Cocoon. Flinging Goo lets the boys get out the big feelings they often have when they approach the end of screen time, shifting the hunger for connection that can be stirred by screens to their connection with their parents.
Push into parents helps the boys sense themselves as unique Star beings. Cocoon creates the space for the 360 degree Push with arms, legs and head that work the “fighting” rhythms through the body so they are not mobilized with adrenaline, but with Play/Dance.
On our website is a link to an article I wrote, “Technology’s Potential to Disembody: How Polyvagal Theory Helps Me Picture It,” published in 2016 in the mindfulness magazine Elephant Journal:
https://www.chifortwo.com/polyvagal-theory-articles/v07812f37opflsn9cnx1l0mlc5yknr
You can find Parental Control…