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Making Summer Plans for the Child who Struggles in School by Tara Motzenbecker, M.S., NCSP

5/23/2019

Does your child struggle academically or behaviorally in school? If the answer is yes, many parents like you are left wondering what to do over the summer to make sure their child catches up academically or at least stays on track. You may be looking into academic programs or tutors for the summer. The school may suggest ideas for you. Well I am here to help you advocate for your child’s mental health needs. Summer is the perfect opportunity to allow children to engage in the activities that feel good, that they are good at and that leave them with higher self-esteem. Children that feel better about themselves will be better in other aspects of their lives.

Let’s think about a child that struggles to focus at school. He feels bad about himself because his grades are poor and he spends his afternoons doing hours of homework because he couldn’t get it done at school. This poor guy doesn’t get to grow his strengths because he is spending all of his time and energy on his vulnerabilities. Summer is his chance to focus on his strengths and to equip him with the self-esteem he will need to return to school in the fall. Maybe he loves fishing. Attending a fishing camp would make him feel excitement and motivation. He would have to pay close attention to learn how to tie a certain knot and then engage in trial and error until he succeeds in tying the knot. He has to be aware of his surroundings for safety. He has to stay quiet in order not to scare the fish away. These are all skills that will help him in school (and in life) and he will feel good about working on them because he is engaging in an activity that makes him happy.

So when you are deciding on your summer plan, pause if you start thinking, “what will catch him/her up academically?” and change that thought to, “what will make him/her happy?”. You’ll be pleased to find out that the latter thought will have a much more dramatic impact on your child’s academic future.

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Talking to Teens/Tweens about Alcohol By Sara Hofmann, Ph.D.

5/16/2019

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April 2019 was National Alcohol Awareness Month. While alcohol use is most often a topic for adults over 21, it’s also an important topic to review with tweens and teens, and it may need to happen earlier than you think. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) estimates that nearly one-third of teens have had at least one alcoholic drink by age 15, and nearly 60% of teens have tried alcohol by age 18. Early use of alcohol, especially binge drinking, has been linked to later diagnosis of alcohol use and drug disorders, legal issues, and low academic achievement.

The outcomes for youth who drink alcohol are often grim, but teens often have difficulty connecting potential negative outcomes with the allure of the present moment- which is entirely developmentally appropriate! The glorification of alcohol and drug use in popular media also makes it harder for parents to convey the seriousness of these actions to kids and teens. Given these challenges, what can parents do to help their children understand the gravity of early alcohol use and support the child in waiting until 21?

Talk to your child early and often about alcohol use. Explain that alcohol affects a person’s ability to make good decisions, think clearly, and assess risk. For people under 21, these effects are greater, and this is why the minimum drinking age of 21 exists.
Ask your child about his or her anticipated and/or past experiences of peer pressure related to alcohol. Help your child to brainstorm ways to respond to these situations.
Talk to your child about the dangers of getting into a car with a driver who has been drinking. Give your child explicit permission to call you any time for a safe ride, no questions asked.
Draw a clear line between legal, responsible alcohol use and underage and/or irresponsible use of alcohol. Having a beer or glass of wine with dinner shows tweens and teens that alcohol is not a taboo substance, but can be enjoyed responsibly by those adults over the age of 21.
Alcohol should not be provided to minors in your home, regardless of the amount. Even “just a sip” blurs the line between underage and adult use of alcohol.
Supervise all parties at your home, and require that other parties your child attends be supervised at all times by a responsible adult.
Get to know your child’s friends. Positive peers can serve as a buffer for alcohol-related peer pressure, and friendships with other peers who do not use alcohol will ensure that your child has a wide range of fun and sober activities to engage in with friends.
Encourage your child to participate in positive extracurricular activities like sports and hobbies that do not include alcohol.

When Should I Be Concerned?

Many signs of alcohol use overlap with other mental health issues such as depression or anxiety. However, if you see one or more of the following uncharacteristic signs, typically in conjunction with alcohol-specific symptoms, please talk with your child’s provider and pediatrician.

General Symptoms

The onset of problems at school in grades or behavior
Increasing rebelliousness
A change in your child’s peer group
Periodic issues with attention and memory
Lethargy or low energy
Mood changes (depression, irritability, anger)

Alcohol-Specific Symptoms

Signs of intoxication including problems with motor coordination, slurred speech, giddiness
Finding empty alcohol containers at home or in the child’s car or bag
Smelling alcohol on the child’s breath
Missing containers of alcohol
Lower levels of alcohol or diluted alcohol in containers

Parents are the biggest influence on a child. Talking to kids about safe and responsible alcohol consumption early on can make a huge difference in current and future drinking patterns! Talk to your kids about alcohol use as part of the transition to middle school, and check in regularly as they navigate middle and high school and the transition to college. Your job as a parent is to talk openly about alcohol, help your child to make safe choices, and help them to anticipate and plan for challenges to those safe choices. An open and non-judgmental space to talk with parents about alcohol can go a long way toward delaying youth drinking and alcohol-related problems.

Sources: SAMHSA, www.alcohol.org,

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Sleep Blog Part 1: How much sleep do children need? By Kirsten Ellingsen, Ph.D.

5/11/2019

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Sleep is essential for health and well-being, but many children and adults have trouble falling asleep, staying asleep, and getting enough sleep. Not getting adequate sleep can negatively affect learning and mood for children and teens. In fact, the consequences of too little and poor quality sleep are vast, with short term and long term negative effects on physical health, mental health, and daily functioning.

This is the first of a three part blog series over the next few months about sleep. This blog will provide information about how much sleep is recommended for different ages. The second blog (next month) will describe negative consequences of not getting enough sleep for children and teens. The third blog (the month after) will offer recommendations to help improve the amount and quality of sleep for children and teens.

So how much sleep is needed for optimal health in children? The National Sleep Foundation provided the following updated recommendations on the ideal average sleep ranges by age:

Newborns (0-3 months): 14-17 hours each day (previously it was 12-18)
Infants (4-11 months): 12-15 hours (previously it was 14-15)
Toddlers (1-2 years): 11-14 hours (previously it was 12-14)
Preschoolers (3-5): 10-13 hours (previously it was 11-13)
School age children (6-13): 9-11 hours (previously it was 10-11)
Teenagers (14-17): 8-10 hours (previously it was 8.5-9.5)
Younger adults (18-25): Sleep range is 7-9 hours (new age category)
Adults (26-64): Sleep range did not change and remains 7-9 hours
Older adults (65+): Sleep range is 7-8 hours (new age category)

Similarly, in 2016, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) endorsed the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) guidelines that outlined recommended sleep duration for children from infants to teens. The consensus group recommended the following sleep hours (for a 24 hour period, including naps) on a regular basis to promote optimal health:

Infants 4 months to 12 months should sleep 12 to 16 hours
Children 1 to 2 years of age should sleep 11 to 14 hours
Children 3 to 5 years of age should sleep 10 to 13 hours
Children 6 to 12 years of age should sleep 9 to 12 hours
Teenagers 13 to 18 years of age should sleep 8 to 10 hours

Timing, regularity and quality of sleep are also important – and there are many reasons for not getting enough sleep. Medical conditions, medication side effects, stress or anxiety can all influence sleep duration and quality, as well as sleep environment, bedtime routines, and parent behaviors. If you have concerns about your child’s sleep please talk with your child’s pediatrician or a therapist with experience helping address pediatric sleep issues.

REFERENCES AND RESOURCES

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Ways to Help Your Child with School Stress By Tara Motzenbecker, M.S., NCSP

5/2/2019

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Does your child stress about school leaving you wondering how to help? You can use the ideas below to help your child and yourself develop some healthy ways to understand and deal with school related stress and to know when it’s more than a passing phase.

1. Take Care of the Feelings
It’s important to help kids know that all feelings are okay to feel- especially the hard ones like fear, anger, sadness, and frustration. Connecting and validating your child’s feelings allows for a more open pathway to helping the child learn emotional regulation from you, their parent who loves them unconditionally. Dan Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson’s book, The Whole Brain Child gives parents easy to understand brain science based strategies for developing healthy emotionally balanced brains which leads to healthy better balanced daily lives. Sometimes, just sitting with your child during their struggle is what the child needs the most. Especially, if the child is in full blow meltdown mode, then refrain from using “talk” problem solving strategies until the storm has passed because their ability to logically process is not available to them until the brain resets from the emotional stressor. Siegel refers to this as connecting right brain to right brain to provide support and understanding of the child’s feelings.

Once there is a state of calm, move on to simple connection sentences that fit the situation. An example could be, “It makes you mad when math doesn’t make sense,” or, “Subtraction can be confusing.” Now, it can be hard at times to validate feelings when the stressor makes no sense to us as the parent. For example, the child who is crying and upset because they can’t draw a tree for each season showing what it would look like in that season. Yes, this is a real homework dilemma. So what’s a parent to do? Identify and validate the feelings, make the connection to the right side of the brain that deals with emotions/creativity/experiences because once the right side calms down then it’s ready to play with the left side brain of logic. “This assignment is really hard for you. It’s frustrating that the trees don’t look like you want them to look. Tell me how you would like it to be.” And wait for the child to lead on what to do next.

2. Create Positive Problem Solving Pathways
Once, the emotional flood of the stress inducing crisis subsides it’s important to teach your child different ways of viewing difficulties in school. Set aside a few minutes each day to practice one of these activities to build up confidence and understanding.

Rose, Bud, Thorn is a game to review the day in short sentences using a rose as a metaphor for feelings and events of the day. The Rose is something good that happened today, the Thorn is something yucky, and the Bud is something to look forward to tomorrow. Notice the Thorn is sandwiched between the Rose and the Bud because that ends the activity on a positive note. Use a visual of a real or silk rose, bud and thorn for kids to hold so they can feel and see how petals look, thorns feel and buds are getting ready to bloom. Or go outside to look at real roses, thorns and buds.
Rate the Day is for ages 6 and up. This game builds an understanding that each day is different and some parts of a day may be better than other parts which instills hope that things can get better. Use a hand drawn number line 0-10 on a piece of paper. Explain the scale that a 0 day is an awful, no good very bad day while a 5 day is okay nothing terrible is happening but there’s also nothing wonderfully wonderful and if a day is a 10 then it is pretty awesome spectacular kind of day. Have the kids draw feeling faces to go with the numbers. This activity can be adapted to a shorter scale or just feeling faces.
Positive Talk, Leads to Positive Thought is a sentence replacement strategy that helps kids turn negative self-talk into more positive self-affirming statements. Kids needs to learn how to not let a passing feeling become a permanent self-identifier. So, if the words, “I am so dumb” come out of your child’s mouth then it is time to stop and help them find new positive words. “I am stupid” can become, “I feel stupid when I can’t spell the words right but I am working hard in spelling,” Or, “I just can’t do this. It is too hard,” can become, “I can learn to do this. It just takes time to learn. I am learning how to ____. It will get better,” Write replacements statements down to reference- colorful index cards work great. Make it fun. Keep it positive, keep it short.

3. Develop Emotional Understanding Through Books
Children’s literature is a natural place to find characters who children relate to in familiar situations like school, home and friendships. Now, some of the characters might not be human, but kids really do not care if it’s a happy pig or sad bunny or even a silly dinosaur. Kids are looking for shared common experiences in stories. Listed below are four books that can be helpful for stressed out kids:

Wilma Jean Worry Machine by Julia Cook
Wilma Jean does worry and stress about everything at school. Julia Cook writes awesome stories for kids, parents and educators to help children develop self-awareness and coping skills. Parent and educator note and tips in the back.

Leo the Late Bloomer by Robert Kraus
Leo is doing what Leo needs to do, but it’s different than the other animals in his class. This is a classic story of how we all develop at our own speed with support, love and understanding.

The Pout-Pout Fish Goes to School by Deborah Diesen
Pout-Pout struggles through his first day of school until he finds that help is available. This story is great for practice in turning those negative self-talk statements into positive declarations.

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Parent and Child Psychological Services PLLC
info@childtherapysrq.com
941.357.4090 (Office)
727.304.3619 (Fax)
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Sarasota, FL 34233

Making Summer Plans for the Child who Struggles in School by Tara Motzenbecker, M.S., NCSP

Talking to Teens/Tweens about Alcohol By Sara Hofmann, Ph.D.

Sleep Blog Part 1: How much sleep do children need? By Kirsten Ellingsen, Ph.D.

Ways to Help Your Child with School Stress By Tara Motzenbecker, M.S., NCSP

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