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Realistic Resolutions and Kicking the New Year Off Right By Kate Gibson, PsyD, ABPP

12/29/2019

With the new year upon us many people will feel inspired and others pressured to go into 2020 with ambitious new year’s resolutions and goals. The new year can be a great reason to summon the motivation to follow through on goals that have been on the back burner, or to create new goals on which to focus your energy.

Only you know what is realistic. Renovating a home might be a realistic project for one person while dragging yourself out of bed on time might be a challenging goal to set for another person. Before selecting a resolution check in with yourself and what you are capable of right now. Be okay with whatever that is, even if it skipping the resolution this go around.

A resolution does not need to be a big project or a big change. Sometimes just recommitting to things you already have going on in your life is just as good a resolution as adding something new. Any size goal is truly okay. It does not have to be a big undertaking. If you do choose a big goal be sure to break it down into smaller manageable and attainable parts. Feel good about each step you accomplish and consider rewarding yourself along the way.

If you are going to create a resolution that involves adding something new into your routine consider the amount of time you have to give. Ask yourself how much time you can consistently devote to this new activity- how many days per week, how many minutes or hours per day. If you make your goals too large or time consuming it will be harder to sustain your effort and keep going over time.

Parents may want to consider a family resolution or something that you can do with your children. This may be quality time, a project, or any number of things. Committing to doing something together can help you make sure that you get dedicated family time.

It is also completely fine to make a resolution focused on yourself and not time with or doing things for others. Particularly for parents if you are taking good care of yourself you will be able to more calm and present when you are with your family. Making a resolution to devote time to self-care can be immensely helpful for yourself and your family as a whole. Your resolution can be something personal just for you that you do not share with others.

If you are a parent and you choose to work toward a resolution and share what it is with others this can be a great learning experience for your children. It can be a great way for your children to see how a role model goes about setting a goal, and then how they go about working toward it and attaining it. If you need to make adjustments you can share those with your children and they will learn about the process of adjusting their own goals in life… and that it is not only okay but often necessary to make changes along the way.

Whether you make a resolution or not make sure to make time for yourself and the things that are important to you in the year to come!

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Parents as Emotion Coaches By Tara Motzenbecker, MS, NCSP

12/21/2019

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According to John Gottman, a leader in the field of relationships and parenting, emotion-coaching is the key to raising happy, resilient, and well-adjusted kids. His research shows that it is not enough to be a warm, engaged, and loving parent. We also need to emotion coach our children. Children struggle to differentiate and to label their feelings. Parents can help them learn what their feelings are, that their feelings are okay and how to recover from their feelings.

Emotion-coached children tend to experience fewer negative feelings and many more positive feelings. When you look back on memories of your own childhood, you may recognize that some of the strategies below were used by your parents when you felt the closest to them – when you felt that they could really relate to you, when you were truly understood.

The five essential steps of Emotion Coaching:

Be aware of your child’s emotion
Recognize your child’s expression of emotion as a perfect moment for intimacy and teaching
Listen with empathy and validate your child’s feelings
Help your child learn to label their emotions with words
Set limits when you are helping your child to solve problems or deal with upsetting situations appropriately

Once a child understands and can regulate their own emotions, they will have higher self-confidence, perform better in social and academic situations and may even become physically healthier.

The next time your child expresses negative emotions about something, or misbehaves in some manner, try to figure out the underlying cause of their feelings.

Show your child respect and understanding in moments when they feel misunderstood, upset, or frustrated. Talk through their feelings with them and try to understand their source.
Be aware of your child’s responses to your method of working through the moment with them.
In difficult interactions, make sure your child feels your empathy, by patiently validating their feelings and getting to the root of their expression.
Instead of focusing on your parental agenda in these situations, show your child that you respect their attempts to solve problems, and guide them with trust and affection. Work through these experiences together.

Some phrases parents can use are:
“It’s okay to be upset. It’s good to let it out.”
“I hear you. I am here for you. I’ll stay with you.”
“It’s okay to feel how you feel. It is not okay to _________.”
“How you feel right now won’t last forever. It’s okay to feel how you are feeling. It will pass and you will feel better.”
“Let’s take a breath, take a break, sit down, pause for a minute…..”
“You are good and kind.”
“I’ll be there when you need me.”
“Let’s have a do-over.”
“What can we learn from this? What is the lesson in this? What is the emotion trying to tell us?”
“You’ll remember next time.”

References
Gottman, John, and Joan DeClaire. Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1998.

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Communicating Effectively with Teens By Rachel Funnell, LMFT

12/12/2019

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When asked about communication between a teen and a parent, often times you’ll hear that the teen never wants to talk to the parent. In reality, teens do want to talk with their parents but not about everything. Teens are learning and have an increasing desire to be more independent and would like more privacy. Privacy is an important part of becoming an adult. However, it’s important to note that just because your teens wants privacy, doesn’t mean they are hiding anything. It’s just that they don’t want to tell you everything that’s going on in their life. As the parent, it’s important for you to learn how to adapt to their new desire for privacy and develop effective ways to communicate to them about meaningful topics. Below are a few ways to do that.

Active and Empathetic Listening:

You will often hear teens complain that their parents don’t listen to them. This can be frustrating to a teen since when they do try to communicate with their parents but they are feeling like they are not being heard. This in turn will often make them not want to communicate with their parents.

To help your teen feel that you are hearing them, make sure you are actively listening. Actively listening involves making sure you are giving them your full attention and then repeating back to them their major points. If you are doing something else while talking to them, you may not hear everything they say and they won’t feel like you are listening to them. By repeating back to them the major points that they made, they will know that you really heard what they said and it will allow them to clarify if needed.

It helps to also focus on what you perceive your child’s emotions are at the time of the conversation. You can say, “I gather you’re really angry about this.” This allows you to avoid misunderstanding how they feel but also help them identify how they may be feeling.

The key to empathy is to listen without judgement and connect with them on an emotional level. If your child is complaining about a teacher or peer, try not to lecture them but rather validate their feelings and offer empathy, support and guidance.

Talking with your Teens:

Spend time talking with your teens about different thoughts, ideas, observations and topics. This opens the door for having meaningful conversations that allows your teen to open themselves up to giving you some insight into their lives, experiences, beliefs and opinions. These types of conversations will reassure you that you are doing a good job as a parent, or will tip you off that you may need to watch for something. When talking to your teen, consider the following:

Avoid lecturing
Don’t act as if you know all the answers
Keep any judgemental thoughts to yourself
Allow your child to talk without interruption so that he can get to his/her point.
Show respect for your teen’s point of view, even if you don’t agree with it.

Developing Opportunities for Communication:

Often times, parents and children have very busy schedules due to work, school, sports and afterschool activities. It’s important to make time to communicate and have face-to-face time. Below are a few ways in which to do this:

Build structure -- consider making a few dinners a week with the family mandatory
Seize the moment -- talk with you child whenever you have the opportunity. i.e.: in the car or over breakfast
Eliminate distractions -- cut down on phone and TV time in order to promote conversations

By beginning to engage in the above, you will be able to improve your communication and ultimately your relationship with your teen. It won’t always be easy and there will be times that you do lecture or don’t actively listen. But take those opportunities to apologize and then correct your behavior. By doing this, you will also be modeling how to accept responsibility and be accountable for your actions. Your teens will appreciate this.

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Helping LIttle Ones Learn the Value of Money By Kate Gibson, PsyD, ABPP

12/7/2019

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Ever wonder how you can teach your young children to understand the value of money? Kids are learning about money every day when they see you shopping or see ads on TV or electronics. Helping children develop an understanding of the value of money goes beyond knowing how much something costs. It is never too early to star teaching the value of money, how it is acquired, how it is used, as well as different concepts such as responsibility, delaying gratification, and charity.

A good place to start is by talking aloud about the choices you make regarding where to shop and what to buy. Talk about how you choose which place to shop and the steps you go through to find the best value of items.
Talk about the difference between things you need and things you want, and how to decide when it is the right time to buy something you want.
Talk about how you earn your income- that it requires doing work and waiting to get paid.
Tell your kids the budget you have for a small grocery store trip and have them help figure what can fit within that budget
Play is always a great way for kids to experiment and figure things out- make some play money for your child to use, play store with a cash register, or for kids a little older play old school board games like Monopoly or Life.
Even kids as young as preschool can start to have jobs around the house where they contribute and can earn things, whether it be monetary or privileges.
Point out fun things that can be done without money, and create free adventures for your family.

Sesame Street has a great toolkit for parents that discusses teaching the value of money through spending, saving and sharing. It is called “For Me, For You, For Later: First Steps to Spending, Sharing and Saving” and has video clips and printable resources that can be found at: https://www.sesamestreet.org/toolkits/save.

The Sesame Street website has great tool kits for parents on a wide variety of topics that are worth checking out at https://www.sesamestreet.org/toolkits.

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Realistic Resolutions and Kicking the New Year Off Right By Kate Gibson, PsyD, ABPP

Parents as Emotion Coaches By Tara Motzenbecker, MS, NCSP

Communicating Effectively with Teens By Rachel Funnell, LMFT

Helping LIttle Ones Learn the Value of Money By Kate Gibson, PsyD, ABPP

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