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How Do You Build Body Confidence And Self-Esteem In Your Children?

How do you help your children feel good about their body image, their weight and their overall attractiveness? How do you build body confidence and self-esteem?


I am a body language expert and have done research in body language, body image and self-esteem.

One of my favorite tips to model good self-esteem is by the way you interact with a mirror. Every time you look in the mirror smile and say something positive out loud. Do this in front of your children and encourage them to do so as well. We typically tense up and make ugly faces and say negative things in the mirror or spend time looking in the mirror making ourselves look better on the surface through grooming.

So look into the mirror and say, “you are great” or “you have tremendous energy” or “you are brave.” This a new and healthy way of reflecting your beauty.

Patti Wood, MA, Certified Speaking Professional - The Body Language Expert. For more body language insights go to her website at www.PattiWood.net. Check out Patti's website for her new book "SNAP, Making the Most of First Impressions, Body Language and Charisma" at www.snapfirstimpressions.com. Also check out Patti's YouTube channel at http://youtube.com/user/bodylanguageexpert.

Bullying Body Language 11 Bullying Body Language Cues That Red Flag Someone As A Bully Before They Even Open Their Mouth

Bullying Body Language
11 Bullying Body Language Cues That Red Flag Someone As A Bully
Before They Even Open Their Mouth

We talk about bulling statements, but what are the nonverbal cues that they may be “bullying.” Overall you see tightening of muscles, forward movement, and expansive movement or sounds.

Here are specific cues of bulling and aggression:

Let’s start with the top of the body and move down to the feet.

1. The Head Jut -The head juts forward. It is one of the “I can take you, I dare you to go against me moves.”  The chin moves first and may go upward in defiance and then the head goes forward. There may be one jut or a repeated boxing ring head dance motions.

2. The Head Butt- The chin goes down, the top of the head moves forward like a football player head butt move. It may be a single motion but it may be repeated in a taunting way.

3. Teeth Barring- Barring the teeth lifting the upper lip and pushing the teeth forward so that the upper and lower teeth show. This is attack body language. It’s a signal that the person could bite you and that he has the big bad wolf teeth to do so.

Tension in the mouth and jaw and overall tightening of the lips clenching of the teeth typically signal tension. That tension can be motivated by fear or anger.

4. Mouth Fist- Holding the mouth tightly shut and pulling the lips tightly back and downwards and the head going forward and a glare in the eyes, make the mouth fist fearful to others. I call this a mouth fist because when somebody uses it, they typically want to bring their hand into a fist and propel it forward and they may use it in combination with fisted hands. If the person is feeling fear rather than intending to be fearsome you will see quivering or downward gazing or tearful eyes afraid. The lips are actually protecting the teeth in this mouth cue.

5. Chest Bump or Chest Pump- In this bump, there is a springing your chest out, up and forward to pretend or fully ram another person’s chest.  In the Chest pump the person’s chest seems to pump up with air like a Rooster and is held up and out and forward.   

Moving the arms and hands away from the body may be a signal of the desire to fight or threaten.

6. Weapon Gestures- Clinched fists are obvious weapons, but there are also symbolic weapon gestures such as Pointing, Jabbing, and Stabbing, Slicing the hand through the air in sword like motions, striking out and or forward in stop or pushing motions.

7. Object Aggression- Holding and motioning with an object, throwing an object, or hitting or kicking an object. If you see these cues, I recommend you leave the area as soon as you safely can.

8. Cowboy Stance- Bringing the legs apart further than 14 to 16 inches apart combined with hands on the hips gives a “John Wayne cowboy stance” showing ready to fight pose. This human Silhouette is read by the brain as danger and this expanded feet and sharp angled elbows out motion is threatening.

Enlarging the stance or taking up more space are also signs of aggression.

9. Space Invasion - Stepping or walking forward or even sideways pacing movements are all ways of taking up and invading space.

10. Prey Circling – Circling the person you are speaking to or coming up in their space. Real threat of attack occurs when inside their intimate zone of space which is getting closer than 12 inches from them.
11. Vocal Intimidation – Raising the volume of the voice, lowering the voice, speeding up or slowing down, punching certain words or growling, yelling and making your voice significantly louder than the other person or people that you are with.  Some people do this simply to command attention or get a turn to talk but to do it over and over again is a bullying paralanguage behavior.


Patti Wood, MA, Certified Speaking Professional - The Body Language Expert. For more body language insights go to her website at www.PattiWood.net. Check out Patti's website for her new book "SNAP, Making the Most of First Impressions, Body Language and Charisma" at www.snapfirstimpressions.com. Also check out Patti's YouTube channel at http://youtube.com/user/bodylanguageexpert.

Are the Presidential Candidates Bullies?

Are the Presidential Candidates Bullies?
Patti Wood MA, CSP
Body Language Expert

Are the Presidential Candidates Bullies? Do you see verbal and body language bulling in the presidential debates and the race? Bullying is defined as making threats, rumors or attacking someone physically or verbally.  If we laugh, clap and repeat with humor when someone is making bulling remarks I think we are condoning bullying.

The candidates have bullied each other and in this article I will list specific things that they do.  Listen to and watch the candidates and imagine a child on the playground saying those things to your five year old. How would you feel? How would you feel if someone said those things about you? Watch the debates with your children and have them count and point out the attacks and jabs.  Stop the recording and talk about what you have seen and ask them their feeling and state yours!

Donald Trump - We see him punctuating almost every sentence with a strong gesture. His attacking, bulling gestures include, finger points that look like stabbing, chops that look like axing and arm sweeps that look like sword moves. In debates he slices, dices and chops the other candidates to pieces.  His weapon like gestures, combined with his growls, scowls and grimaces and loud yelling make him a fearsome bully. This combined with big head and jaw and height and dare I say it, big hands unfortunately make him look like the biggest bully on the playground and unfortunately make him look like the most powerful candidate. He looks like, at least to our primate limbic brains, the aggressive alpha male candidate. A little extra bulling power comes from his normally low, growly voice.  In the analysis of the Debates from the past hundred years the candidate with the lowest voice won. Lower tones in the voice are formed by a larger larynx. Trump is the lion roaring and that sound is scarier and wins over a “nice” candidate. If he’s on the screen, and we’re looking at several other people too, his bulling, his loudness, his gestures, and his expressions all draw our attention straight to him. We can’t take our eyes off a fight, and we look at the person we perceive as winning the fight with more frequency. We don’t look as long at the victim. Our brains make us look to where we see the most threat to us!

Verbally, Trump has called Cruz, a “loser” and “liar.” He has made cruel remarks about the physical appearance of Carly Fiona such as, “Look at that face! Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?!”  He has called a female news correspondent a “bimbo.” He has made ugly attacking remarks about Hillary Clinton, Mexicans and Muslims. In one debate after Hillary was late coming back from a bathroom break he bullied her saying "I thought she gave up," Trump said at the rally. "Where did she go? Where did Hillary go? They had to start the debate without her. Phase II. “I know where she went. It's disgusting. I don't want to talk about it."

Ted Cruz - Though he is a bully he is not the biggest bully on the playground.  Overall his gestures are slightly lower and are more darting and short lived making him appear less forceful and confident than he could be. For example, notice the breadth and length of Trump’s gestures. I am not endorsing Trump, rather you need to know that our primitive limbic brains see the candidate with the most powerful, larger, bigger and long lasting body language cues. So even when Cruz bullies with a statement like, “Let’s say I am a maniac and everyone else on this stage is stupid fat and ugly.” He looks like the sly mean bully not the “in your face” bully how Trump can appear.

Bernie Sanders. He has not always been a bully, He previously has had a warm, genuine smile that is the most likable, believable smile of all the candidates. He also, in the past, shows great integrity in his messaging, that his word message tracks and agrees with his body language and vocal cues. In his Super Tuesday speech he was much more negative in his verbal and nonverbal messaging than I have seen him in his other speeches. He made several sour pursed lip expressions and a few downward turned and tight lipped angry looks and looks of disgust. This was a profound contrast for his iconic warm, smiling and likeable image.  He also yelled a lot. Bullying is contagious and he caught it. When Hillary Clinton rudely interrupted and talked over Sanders in the Democratic debate Sanders yelled, “Excuse me I am talking” while swinging his arm up then striking down and out as if he wanted to bring his hand down on her shoulder to throttle her. His gestures are now often large, forceful and attacking. They often go forward to the screen so he is bulling not just the other candidate, but anyone who is for that candidate.

Hillary Clinton - In one debate she said, “Enough is enough if you have something to say to me say it to me directly, I think it is time to end the artful smear you and your campaign have been carrying out in recent weeks and talk about the issues.” Her request to stop being bullied was seen as bulling and got booed by the audience.
Her gestures are smaller though she does chop and strike out at Bernie and as she talks about Trump. I have talked about how her voice is often weak and raspy and shows great vocal strain. I think the effort to keep her voice in a lower more powerful register and speak loudly is straining it. Unfortunately, that strain sounds to a potential voter like a lack of strength, and perhaps a lack of character. I rather like the anger she is showing in current speeches and television appearances. She needs to be angry to fight and look powerful against Trump’s overriding anger. Look at my blogs on anger to note how we read anger as power. Yep, I am saying that she ramp up her anger, but she should not be a bully.

Gender Differences in Anger - Unfortunately, we perceive women’s anger differently than we do a man’s. Research shows that if a man is perceived as emotional he is considered more credible for getting angry. But when the woman was perceived as emotional, participants became surer of their own opinion, even if they considered the woman credible. As the researchers in one study put it: “When a woman expresses anger, this does not just make her seem less credible, but seems to make assessing her credibility irrelevant.” (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/people-reward-angry-men-but-punish-angry-women-study-suggests_us_561fb57be4b050c6c4a47743)

In research on emotions men show less emotions except for anger. Research across 37 cultures shows that men and women more accurately display gender-stereotypic expressions– men more accurately express anger, contempt and happiness, while women more accurately express fear and happiness.
How do men and women feel when they get angry, researchers have found that men felt less effective and less instrumental when forced to hold their anger in, whereas women didn't feel nearly as constricted when they didn't express their anger directly. They also found a correlation between expressing one's anger outwardly and being assertive in men, but not in women



Patti Wood, MA, Certified Speaking Professional - The Body Language Expert. For more body language insights go to her website at www.PattiWood.net. Check out Patti's website for her new book "SNAP, Making the Most of First Impressions, Body Language and Charisma" at www.snapfirstimpressions.com. Also check out Patti's YouTube channel at http://youtube.com/user/bodylanguageexpert.

Do Angry Politicians Get More Attention?

Do Angry Politicians Get More Attention?
                                                   
Are you wondering why there is so much anger, bulling and ugly behavior in this presidential race? Research explains why Trump’s anger is working.

Angry Men Get Noticed.
Do Angry Men Get Noticed?
Science Daily (June 7, 2006) — By comparing how quickly human facial expressions of different types are detected in a crowd of neutral faces, researchers have demonstrated that male angry faces are a priority for visual processing -- particularly for male observers. The findings are reported by Mark Williams of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Jason Mattingley of the University of Melbourne, Australia, and appear in the June 6th issue of Current Biology.

In evolutionary terms, it makes sense that our attention is attracted by threat in the environment. It has long been hypothesized that facial expressions that signal potential threat, such as anger, may capture attention and therefore "stand out" in a crowd. In fact, there are specific brain regions that are dedicated to processing threatening facial expressions. Given the many differences between males and females, with males being larger and more physically aggressive than females, one might also suspect differences in the way in which a threat is detected from individuals of different genders.

In the new work, Williams and Mattingley show that angry male faces are found more rapidly than angry female faces by both men and women. In addition, men find angry faces of both genders faster than women, whereas women find socially relevant expressions (for example, happy or sad) more rapidly. The work suggests that although males are biased toward detecting threatening faces, and females are more attuned to socially relevant expressions, both sexes prioritize the detection of angry male faces; in short, angry men get noticed. The advantage for detecting angry male faces is consistent with the notion that human perceptual processes have been shaped by evolutionary pressures arising from the social environment.

Reference: Mark A. Williams of Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts and University of Melbourne in Parkville, Victoria, Australia; Jason B. Mattingley of Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Williams et al.: "Correspondence: Do angry men get noticed?" Publishing in Current Biology 16, R402-404, June 6, 2006. www.current-biology.com


 Patti Wood, MA, Certified Speaking Professional - The Body Language Expert. For more body language insights go to her website at www.PattiWood.net. Check out Patti's website for her new book "SNAP, Making the Most of First Impressions, Body Language and Charisma" at www.snapfirstimpressions.com. Also check out Patti's YouTube channel at http://youtube.com/user/bodylanguageexpert.

A Body Language Expert Explains Why Donald Trump's Facial Expressions Resonate With Audiences


Thursday
Mar. 24, 2016 at 1:52 pm
By Katherine Noel/Business Insider

  
Close your eyes and conjure up an image of Donald Trump. What’s the first mental picture you get?

Is he grinning from ear to ear? Or maybe shouting, his brows furrowed in anger, both arms raised in the air?

The many faces of Donald Trump have been on constant display over the last several months, plastered on newspaper covers and television screens across the world as he shouts, laughs, and fist pumps his way toward the GOP nomination.

Trump’s unbridled emotion is a key factor in his popularity among voters, according to body language expert and author Patti Wood. Wood says that Trump is better at expressing emotion — and specifically, a broad range of emotion — than any other candidate in the race.

“Trump has what we call emotional contagion,” Wood says, “meaning he has very strong, very clearly communicated emotions, and because of his charisma, those emotions transfer to the voter. So, we can’t stop watching him. If he’s on the screen, and we’re looking at several other people too, his loudness, his gestures, and his expressions all draw our attention straight to him.”
According to Wood, it’s a leader’s ability to show and communicate a broad range of emotions that translates into perceived power and charisma. Whether he’s on the national debate stage or at a small-town campaign appearance, Trump doesn’t shy away from big reactions.
“When we think of him, in our mind we have an image of him smiling, and then we have an image of him sneering,” Woods says. “It’s that vast scope of emotion, that broad band between those two extremes and his hold on it that makes him look powerful.”
Emotional expression is key to public speaking, Wood says, because it makes a speaker appear more human, relatable, and trustworthy. And the more expressive the better. She says Trump’s “electric smile” — corners of the mouth upturned, raised eyebrows, and wide eyes — provides “instant charisma.”












Because many people think effective leadership means being cool and collected, they try to repress their feelings. But experts say it’s usually better to let your passion shine through.
“We hide emotions in an attempt to stay in control, look strong, and keep things at arm’s length, but in reality, doing so diminishes our control and weakens our capacity to lead,” leadership consultant Doug Sundheim writes in the Harvard Business Review. “Genuine emotion stands in stark contrast. It’s a real person sharing a real feeling.”
“When we hear it, we’re riveted — for one because it’s rare, but also because it’s real,” he adds. “Sometimes it’s uncomfortable and a little messy. But that’s what makes it powerful.”



Patti Wood, MA, Certified Speaking Professional - The Body Language Expert. For more body language insights go to her website at www.PattiWood.net. Check out Patti's website for her new book "SNAP, Making the Most of First Impressions, Body Language and Charisma" at www.snapfirstimpressions.com. Also check out Patti's YouTube channel at http://youtube.com/user/bodylanguageexpert.