It’s so hard to believe that it is this time again, back to school!  With some children returning as early as this week, I thought it would be helpful to do a quick blog talking about some tips I have picked up as a child psychologist to help children and families with the transition back to school.
 
1. Prepare them ahead of time: (for anxious children, please see the side note below)
Most people in our society function at their best when they have a routine and some structure to their days and weeks. Even so, the transition from summer to school time can be difficult after the freedom and fun of summer!  As such, make sure your child knows when school is starting and how much longer they have of summer. This will help them know what to expect.

2. Start implementing your new schedule a few weeks early, particularly with sleep
At times, parents want to allow their child the freedom to enjoy every last bit of summer and kind of soak in the freedom they have…. This may lead them to make a very common mistake, which is not starting the school schedule until the week school starts. Unfortunately, for many kids, this makes the transition more difficult. So, as much as it may be a challenge, start a few weeks early particularly with your child’s sleep schedule. Adjust it back 15 minutes every few days until you are on a schedule more similar to the school schedule. This will help everyone be less frantic and more prepared on that first day of school!

3. Set up a place to do homework before school starts
Encourage your child to work with you on setting up a spot either in their room or in a common area in your home where they will do their school work. Make sure this is ready, this will help them mentally recognize that they are transitioning back to “Student mode” and away from “summer mode.”

4. Set up a daily schedule
Make sure you spend some time determining what your schedule and your child’s schedule is going to be like once they are back in school. For older kids, simply discussing it with them might be enough but for younger kids, it really helps to create a visual guide for them to know what to expect after school. (We will be posting more tips on schedules next week if you are interested in checking our blog out then!)

5. Visit the school, classroom, teacher if possible
Particularly if your child is changing schools, it is so important to take advantage of anything your school offers in terms of meeting the teacher ahead of time, seeing the classroom, or just going and visiting the school. This will help them visualize returning and hopefully you can then facilitate a conversation around how they are feeling about returning to school.

6. Allow your child a lot of autonomy in choosing their school supplies and clothes
I always like to see kids choosing their school supplies and clothes (as much as it is age appropriate to do so). This will help them be excited and proud to show off their fun new things and help ease the transition back!

7. Set up a family calendar
This could be a visual calendar that is used at home but it could also be an app on your phone you all use and share information on. Either way is fine!  The most important part is just to have information being shared about schedules, particularly if you are anticipating that the year is going to start of busy with lots of activities!

8. Review your “house rules” as a family in advance so that everyone knows what to expect when school starts again
For many, summer is a time of fun, play, and less rules. If rules have shifted for your family during the summer, make sure to go over them again as a family before school starts so your child knows what to expect. That will help them make good choices as the year starts!

9. Be positive! 
Lastly and likely most importantly, please talk about school in a positive way with your kids… for example, ask them what they are excited about or looking forward to this year?  The more you are positive and supportive about their return to school, the more they will approach the year with curiosity, interest, and enthusiasm.
 
Special note about anxious children:
If your child experiences anxiety, they will need one of two things: MORE or LESS time to prepare. Some children with anxiety need a lot of time to prepare to feel ready. However, other children with anxiety need significantly less time to prepare because the more they know ahead of time, the more they worry and develop increased anticipatory anxiety. If your child tends to be anxious, make sure to tailor any recommendations with this in mind! 
 
You can also contact our office to talk and consult about what might suit your particular child best in your preparation for back to school time. If you would like to talk with a Thrive Therapist about yourself, your child, or teen attending therapy with one of us, please reach out to us either via email at ewollerman.psyd@gmail.com or phone at 858-342-1304.
 
If you would like to receive updated information about Thrive Therapy, please feel free to sign up for our newsletter through the following link: http://eepurl.com/cvGx5n.

As always, thanks for reading  and comments are always welcome regarding any issues around child, teen psychotherapy and adult psychotherapy services at Thrive Therapy Studio.  Contact us Teen therapist San Diego services.  

I recently was reading an article written by a woman who has been diagnosed with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and she was reflecting on the #soOCD trend on Twitter and how reading about how others view their slight compulsions or desire for things to be a certain way as being “#soOCD.” It was a great article and summed up so eloquently something that I see quite often in my office. People often comment that they are depressed when they are actually just sad or having a bad day; say they are anorexic after skipping a meal or bulimic because they ate too much once; say they “are so ADD” because they weren’t focused for a brief moment at work; and the list goes on.
 
Sadly, we all use such dramatic language to describe things in our lives and since one of my main beliefs about being a person is that the language we use MATTERS, this matters too. When we describe our slight hunger as being just starving or our slight nervousness as a panic attack, we are trivializing the experience of people who really are starving or experiencing panic attacks. We are also hyping up our own experience and magnifying our emotions needlessly. We are using very serious words to describe situations that don’t match up in severity. What this leads me to think about then is, what happens when we are actually depressed?  How will we describe that in a way that is genuine, authentic, and matches the experience when we have already used our arsenal of big, serious words? 
 
You might be wondering why this matters to me so much and it has a lot to do with my experience working with people in managing their emotions. With kids, we talk about needing to “name it to tame it.” What this means is that we need to find a word to describe accurately our feeling or experience so we can then understand, process, and move on with learning from the experience. Without being able to do that accurately, I believe that we might be more at risk for difficulties managing our emotions.
 
I would encourage all of us to strive to follow one of the tenets of the Four Agreements and to be “impeccable with our word.” By seeking to describe our experience as accurately as possible, we are going to not only understand our own emotions better but we also will avoid being insensitive and minimizing of others’ experiences.
 
If you would like to talk with a Thrive Therapist about yourself, your child, or teen attending therapy with one of us, please reach out to us either via email at ewollerman.psyd@gmail.com or phone at 858-342-1304.
 
If you would like to receive updated information about Thrive Therapy, please feel free to sign up for our newsletter through the following link: http://eepurl.com/cvGx5n.

As always, thanks for reading  and comments are always welcome regarding any issues around child, teen psychotherapy and adult psychotherapy services at Thrive Therapy Studio. Contact us for San Diego psychologist services.  

At our office, we frequently work with children and teens whose families are going through a divorce. While we do not engage in any sort of custody recommendations and tend to stay out of court at our office, there are many other ways that therapy and services at Thrive could be helpful.
 
1.  Providing your child/teen with a neutral place to talk:
During a divorce, kids go through so many different emotions and experiences that can be really hard for them to talk to their parents about. As close as they might be to their parents, some feelings they are having will lead them to feel as though they are betraying one parent or the other. With a therapist, we can help them talk about and sort through those feelings in a  safe space where they know no one else will hear about. This is actually a big part of the reason why we do not engage in custody recommendations… if parents and kids know that we are going to be sharing our opinions with anyone outside of the child’s sessions, it prevents the kids from sharing openly and feeling safe.
 
2.  Giving your child/teen time to talk things through:
Often, during a divorce or separation, parents can become overwhelmed with their own experience and emotions. While this is totally understandable, at times the kids will feel lost and alone. Coming to therapy and having a therapist that they trust who spends about an hour a week just focusing on them and their experience and listening to what they want to talk about, can be enormously helpful in helping the child or teen process their experience and emotions around the divorce.  
 
3.  Providing the possibility of co-parenting sessions:
At Thrive, we are big believers in involving the whole family in treatment when we believe it will be helpful to the child or teen. In situations of divorce or separation, your child or teen’s therapist can be enormously helpful in supporting parents through the process with co-parenting sessions. Sometimes these sessions will need to be with a separate therapist than your child or teen’s, but co-parenting sessions are always helpful. Research has shown that it is not divorce itself that is harmful to children and teens’ emotionally, but the conflict that at times persists for quite some time after the separation or divorce. Co-parenting sessions can help parents learn how to work together as separate parents to benefit their child/teen and ideally, reduce overall conflict following a separation or divorce.
 
These are just three of the ways that therapy can be helpful when going through a divorce or separation. At Thrive, we know that parents are all doing their best to get through tough situations that arise in their families. We are here to support the whole family and love working with children, teens, and adults particularly during times of crisis like a separation or divorce.
 
If you would like to talk with a Thrive Therapist about yourself, your child, or teen attending therapy with one of us, please reach out to us either via email at ewollerman.psyd@gmail.com or phone at 858-342-1304.
 
If you would like to receive updated information about Thrive Therapy, please feel free to sign up for our newsletter through the following link: http://eepurl.com/cvGx5n. 

As always, thanks for reading  and comments are always welcome regarding any issues around finding a therapist for teens and Family Therapy San Diego at Thrive Therapy Studio.  

As many of you know, I have been writing for several weeks now about my thoughts on becoming a parent, from my experience as a child psychologist and parenting consultant. For this last blog in the series, I thought it might be helpful to compile a list of the things that I am hoping to remember once I am a mom in a few short weeks.
 
1.    “It’s not about me.”
This is a big one still in my mind as it essentially boils down to the fact that my child’s behavior is not always a reaction to me or something I should take personally. The biggest reason this is on my list is that I see parents often personalizing their child or teen’s behavior when often, the behavior is developmental in nature, a result of them trying to figure out how to manage their emotions, or other triggers (lack of sleep, hunger, over-stimulation). I hope to remember this in my parenting ahead!

2.  Making sure I am aware of my mom shame and when it is triggered.
I think it is going to be crucial for me to learn how to manage my sensitivity around wanting to do this big, new job really well and well, how others’ opinions and judgments might not always be in line with my own parenting philosophy.

3.  Let my kid(s) fail.
This is also a huge one for me as it is something that I believe in so whole-heartedly that I want to embrace failure and mistakes and help my kids not only experience their own mistakes/failures but to grow and learn from them. The flip side to this is that I do recognize how difficult it will be to do this!  That’s a big part of why it’s on my list!

4.  What is happening in one moment, stage is not necessarily going to be forever.
I want to hold tight to the fact that we are all evolving and to allow my kid(s) to evolve and change over time. Plus, I also want to make sure I slow down and appreciate the beautiful moments and experiences even when things are super chaotic, frustrating, and upsetting!
 
Thank you all again for reading!  As always, I appreciate any feedback all of you have for me! Oh and a fun little trick, you can click on the number and title for each section above to return to the original blog post and read more about my thoughts on each section!
 
If you would like to talk with a Thrive Therapist about your child or teen attending therapy with one of us, please reach out to us either via email at ewollerman.psyd@gmail.com or phone at 858-342-1304.
 
If you would like to receive updated information about Thrive Therapy, please feel free to sign up for our newsletter through the following link: http://eepurl.com/cvGx5n.
 
As always, thanks for reading  and comments are always welcome regarding any issues around child, teen therapy, adult psychotherapy, individual therapy San Diego  or Family Therapy San Diego at Thrive Therapy Studio.