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 As many schools are considering returning to in person learning, so many kids and their parents are feeling concerned about both safety in this setting but also how to manage the transition itself of returning to school in person. Here are some thoughts about how parents can support their kids in adjusting to being in person particularly because it is likely to be different from the last time they were in school due to masks and social distancing. Plus, it is extra strange because we have all been home for so long so this is truly a unique situation! 1. Manage expectations One of the most important things we can do as parents is to really manage our own expectations of this situation as well as our kids’ expectations. Talking through what your kids think things will be like and making sure to present whatever you know to be true (in terms of limits around socializing or mask wearing or partitions, etc.) so that they can have the most appropriate expectations possible will help. We want to essentially avoid them thinking it will be just like it has been before at school so that they are not surprised. I think it is helpful to also manage expectations about how it might feel to be back and not paint them in an overly glowing light as it is likely to be challenging and wonderful all at once. 2. Give ample time for discussions about it ahead of time Sometimes when parents or kids are worried about something, it can feel easier to avoid thinking or talking about it until you have to. This is a situation that I think might require more conversations ahead of time to explore expectations, emotions, thoughts, fears, etc. Giving your child some space and time to think about it as well as to talk about it together before the week of going back to school will help. Maybe just checking in once a week for the 3-4 weeks ahead of time would be a helpful tool for your child to track the time leading to going back as well as to allow some emotions to come up to process ahead of time if possible. 3. Consider the pros and cons of returning to school For so long, we have been living in a pandemic that seemed to require we forget just how much we loved our past lives. In order to cope, we have had to focus A LOT on the pros of staying home and avoid thinking about the cons. Now it is time to flip this situation and focus more on the pros of going back to school and the cons of staying home. There certainly are cons to going back but if you are committed to having your child go back to school, you want to spend just some time on exploring those so that you have validate their feelings, and then try to help them elicit their own pros of going back and cons of staying home. Try to be open about your own mixed feelings as well as acknowledge that their responses are expected after this much time at home. 4. Consider the situation Similarly, we want to make sure to help our kids understand the context of their reaction. If they are anxious or scared or angry about going back, let’s give them some context around that to help them understand their own reactions. Anxiety is totally normal and expected after being home for so long particularly as we have been told that staying home is saving our lives and those of our loved ones and community members. Of course it feels scary to stop doing that! Anger also makes a lot of sense as we have lost so much control in our lives that it might feel frustrating to feel that we are not in control of this choice either. While most schools offer a choice between virtual or hybrid learning, a lot of it is out of our control and as parents, we might be making the choice we think is better long term for our kids even if they are opposed. This makes sense so make sure to help explain the context of the situation to your children so that they do not think they are alone in their feelings. 5. Validate their feelings and change plans as needed As I have been alluding to, make sure to explore and validate your child’s feelings. They are most likely expected and normal reactions to a super abnormal situation. If your child is adamant about not going back, maybe set a timeline with them of how long they will try it out before going back to virtual learning (if that’s a possibility for you and your family). It can help to let them know this is temporary in that it could change or in that it is only for a few months before summer and can help them get ready for the fall, when school is likely to be full time in person. A gradual reintegration to school might be helpful in particular for kids who are anxious or upset about going back to school. I hope these tips are helpful in this big transition back to some semblance of normalcy. If you or you family need additional support, please do not hesitate to reach out to us at Thrive or to another mental health provider in your area! At Thrive, we take a positive, client centered approach to therapy that is focused on creating a genuine connection with our clients. If you would like to talk with a Thrive Therapist about yourself, your child, or teen attending therapy via video sessions, please reach out to us by phone at 858-342-1304. As always, thanks for reading and comments are always welcome regarding any issues around child or teen psychotherapy services in San Diego by Thrive Therapy Studio. To stay in the loop on the services offered and to receive updated information about Thrive, please feel free to sign up for the newsletter through the following link: http://eepurl.com/dsgLNL.  It is wild to me to think about how, one year ago, I had no idea what all of us were going to be dealing with for the entire next year. Like everyone else, my family and I had plans. My team and I at Thrive had plans - big plans. We had no idea that so many of them would become absolutely impossible and that our daily lives would become as difficult as they did. During each one of my client sessions, this topic has come up more recently as we reflect on just how amazing it is that we have been living in a pandemic for just about a year. The topic of reflecting on the year we have just experienced. While for some, this reflection might feel a bit morose, I think it can be helpful for us to reflect and take note both of the challenges but also of the silver linings we have experienced. Here are some questions (and my answers!) that can help guide you and your family in this reflection. As we have gone through this year as a family, I think it can be helpful to discuss this together particularly if you have older kids who are very aware of the pandemic and changes in their life. 1. What was an unexpected outcome from the pandemic that you didn’t expect or were surprised by? For me, learning to live my life more slowly has been certainly challenging but necessary and a huge improvement overall. I was definitely one of those parents who took my kiddo everywhere and had lots of plans all the time and being forced to slow down has been nice in some ways. Granted, my goal now is to find more of a middle ground between being out and about and staying home. 2. What is your happiest moment of the past year? So who wrote this question? Oh, I guess that was me but still, that is seriously a tough one! I’ve really focused on practicing gratitude for small moments daily so it is tough to think of just one happy moment when my life has been filled with enjoyable moments with my clients, snuggles with my toddler, and truly appreciating small things like delivery and coffee! I’m going to go with the day we got our kittens as that was truly joyful but I’m sure there have been many more. 3. Have any of your relationships changed as a result of the pandemic? Yes for sure. I feel closer to my husband and our son despite the fact that being home so often has led me to also be more irritated with them and feel I need time alone in a cabin to recover! When I think about it though, I do feel that we are closer and understand each other better. I am also so much more appreciative of my friendships and relationships with my family who live out of state. It has been a solid test of how we maintain communication and relationships without plans to see each other and I think it has helped us be closer in some ways. 4. Have you felt more gratitude about anyone or anything in your life as a result of the pandemic? 1000% yes. Absolutely. I am so grateful for both the people and things that remain in my life and the things that I am missing out on (travel, friends, etc.). The saving grace for me during this time has been that after fearing everything would be taken away from me in my business and fearing that our family might not survive the pandemic, I feel grateful daily for both my career and my loved ones health. I also feel more grateful to be working in a field where, while talking about covid and what we have experienced all the time is not always fun, it definitely has helped me understand myself and the world more. 5. Have you learned anything about yourself during this time that you feel you might not have learned otherwise (or perhaps that was accelerated by the situation)? Learning that it is okay not to always do more and to be grateful for maintaining my business has been a huge lesson for me. I had very big goals last year of adding on a lot to my professional plate and it was so sad for me to give that up in the first months of the pandemic. However, since that time, I feel happier, more balanced, and more able to appreciate what I have rather than always trying to do more. I also think that I have been more present and able to just play and relax with my kiddo, which has been a true joy (most of the time, he is 3 and it’s not all sunshine and rainbows over here!). 6. Bonus question - what little conveniences are you thrilled to have and hope stay even after the pandemic? Target and other places who allow pick up from your car! It’s amazing! I hope these questions help you and your family reflect on the past year and exactly what we have gone through and how we have changed, hopefully for the better. If you or your loved ones could use some support during this time, we are still accepting new clients at Thrive! At Thrive, we take a positive, client centered approach to therapy that is focused on creating a genuine connection with our clients. If you would like to talk with a Thrive Therapist about yourself, your child, or teen attending therapy via video sessions, please reach out to us by phone at 858-342-1304. As always, thanks for reading and comments are always welcome regarding any issues around child or teen psychotherapy services in San Diego by Thrive Therapy Studio. To stay in the loop on the services offered and to receive updated information about Thrive, please feel free to sign up for the newsletter through the following link: http://eepurl.com/dsgLNL.  If you are like me, you may have been hearing about the “pandemic wall” lately. A great question about this is - what the heck does that even mean? So, I thought we should chat a bit about it here and what you can do about it. Pretty much the pandemic wall is something that many people have been experiencing (from what I have observed and experienced myself) since January or intermittently since January or even just is popping up now. And it means simply what it says - that we are collectively hitting a wall with the pandemic. More and more we feel exhausted by the burden of living with the fear of a deadly virus. We feel exhausted by having to think about safety and sanitizing things all the time. We feel just so sick of all of this that we are more worn out, weary, anxious, apathetic even. We are lonely deep in our souls. So lonely. To put it bluntly, we are SO OVER IT. I have to say that after a year of doing this life, many of us expect to be adjusted or that it will get easier. I can’t emphasize enough that this is not how this works (unfortunately). We are an inherently social species and the isolation, anxiety, pressure, and just heaviness of the past year is taking a toll on all of us, even those who seem fine. All in all, it makes sense that as we reach a milestone in this journey and come up on a year, or enter a new year where we can no longer say, oh well that’s just 2020, that things are increasingly difficult. When we are trying to force ourselves to adjust to an unsustainable way of living our lives, we are not going to actually adjust. We can cope, we can survive, but actual adjustment is unlikely because it is by definition not sustainable. So, what do we do? Good question. Unfortunately, I don’t have any magic here. No wands, no magic to make this easier for all of us. Believe me, if I did, I would be using it! I think the hard truth is that we keep going as best we can. We take it one day at a time and do the next right thing for ourselves and our families. There are a few things that might help that process and that is this… we need to be compassionate with ourselves, allow ourselves our emotions and inner temper tantrums, and continue letting rules be relaxed when we need them to be. We can also focus on the small things that help us cope or are enjoyable, like a snuggle with a pet or child, a great cup of coffee, or doing something outside again. The little things will help us get from day to day but might not change just how over it we all are. That’s okay. We don’t need to change that part as much as we might want to. We just need to accept and acknowledge that this is still a hard path to walk. But we will keep going and try to find some hope when we can that this will be over someday. Hang in there world! At Thrive, we take a positive, client centered approach to therapy that is focused on creating a genuine connection with our clients. If you would like to talk with a Thrive Therapist about yourself, your child, or teen attending therapy via video sessions, please reach out to us by phone at 858-342-1304. As always, thanks for reading and comments are always welcome regarding any issues around child or teen psychotherapy services in San Diego by Thrive Therapy Studio. To stay in the loop on the services offered and to receive updated information about Thrive, please feel free to sign up for the newsletter through the following link: http://eepurl.com/dsgLNL.  The topic of our needs as moms, as well as the societal structure that keeps us from meeting those needs, comes up a lot in my sessions. So much so that I thought it would be helpful to share my perspective on this as a therapist who works both with moms and their kids. Interestingly, we get a LOT of calls from parents wanting their kids to receive support. What seems to be so much harder is for parents to find resources (time, money, energy, etc.) to have support of their own. Particularly moms. All too often, we are last on the list - even the list that we create. The worst part is that sometimes we then also carry shame around our inability to engage in the ever popular self-care. We feel that everyone else is doing all the things, all the time so we should be able to as well. We believe that everyone else is balancing it all perfectly, or at least better than we are so instead of speaking out about the issues we are facing, even in a global pandemic that has across the board disproportionately affected moms, we feel that we are letting everyone down. Even ourselves. And honestly, so many of us are just too exhausted to even think about what we need or how we can get those needs met. Plus, our tiny humans that we are responsible for are much more demanding than our internal systems saying, hey, I can’t do things like this forever. So we just seem to keep pushing on and on and on. For many, the pandemic has highlighted just how unrealistic the expectations we have of ourselves. It has shone a light on the systems of power at play in so many ways but also worn us down so much that it can be hard to make realistic changes now. What I think is important to consider is the cost. Unfortunately, like everything else in this life, there are pros and cons to everything. And there are certainly pros to trying to keep it all together and put your needs last. It might mean your family seems happier and runs smoother for the moment. It might mean that you feel productive and accomplished when your to-do list shrinks a bit. It might mean that your kids completed their homework today. It looks different for each person but there certainly are pros to these situations. However, there is also a cost. Most often, we are sacrificing our own needs, emotions, health, sleep, and even our sanity for our families. While I could go on and on about WHY we do this (which is of course important and perhaps the topic of another blog post), I think it is important to consider why we would STOP doing this. And that is because I find the cost to be too great. Why do our needs matter as much if not more than our loved ones? Here’s what I notice in my life, friends, and my office. Moms are the ones who keep things going. We are the glue that holds our families together. And my biggest concern when moms are living lives that are not sustainable for them is that - the whole family will eventually suffer. I often think of the concept from the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People called “Sharpen the Saw” which essentially says that we are the tools of our lives and we need to take care of those tools (ourselves) in order to live an effective life. I can tell you that this is 1000% true. Every time (okay, many times) that we get calls from parents about their kids, I feel that the parents most likely could use the support as much, if not more than their kids. When parents are feeling better and coping better, particularly moms, their kids tend to do better too. This does not mean that parents are the source of their kids troubles but it does mean that we are more equipped to help our kids with their troubles if we are meeting our own needs and managing our stress, anxiety, emotions, responsibilities more effectively. When we don’t do this, we are more likely to be the least effective versions of ourselves. For some that might mean we are less emotionally available for our families, we yell more, set less boundaries even when we know we should set them, we play less, we laugh less, etc. So, I invite you to consider how this might play out in your family. How are you meeting your needs? What comes up for you when you consider prioritizing yourself and your needs? What would it look like to spend 30 minutes a day (heck, I’ll take 5 min if that’s all you have right now) on something just for you. What is the cost for you when you aren’t able to prioritize yourself? Some of these questions might be uncomfortable. Setting limits and boundaries and taking time to care for yourself will likely be uncomfortable too. That is why the last question about the cost is so important, if we can remember that taking care of ourselves, having and meeting our own needs, is not SELFISH, but a gift we are giving our family, it will be an easier pill to swallow. Hang in there mamas. I know this pandemic has been a wild ride for most of us. We can do this together. At Thrive, we take a positive, client centered approach to therapy that is focused on creating a genuine connection with our clients. If you would like to talk with a Thrive Therapist about yourself, your child, or teen attending therapy via video sessions, please reach out to us by phone at 858-342-1304. As always, thanks for reading and comments are always welcome regarding any issues around child or teen psychotherapy services in San Diego by Thrive Therapy Studio. To stay in the loop on the services offered and to receive updated information about Thrive, please feel free to sign up for the newsletter through the following link: http://eepurl.com/dsgLNL. |
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