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 As I mentioned in past blogs, time has been an interesting element in my life since the pandemic began. In so many ways, time has slowed down. I should mention that prior to March, despite often encouraging families not to be overscheduled themselves, my family was pretty overscheduled. I would often tote my toddler to a playdate and then the children’s museum all before our mid-day nap. I think I was often afflicted with a feeling of restlessness of sitting still and just being. Despite my history as a play therapist, I struggled to just play at home and let Luca enjoy our time together there. I loved a good, overscheduled weekend. Time is much different for us now. Now that we have been living this life for about 6 months, I have found that there are still certainly many challenges… I mean, I don’t need the volume of plans I had before but I would love an occasional playdate or night out with my husband! In addition to the challenges, there have also been some real learning opportunities for me at least. Since I share so much of my parenting journey in this blog, I thought it would be helpful to share these thoughts too!
I hope this might help some of you who are also wading through the pandemic parenting part of our lives! My biggest goal is to always let parents know that they are not alone. We are truly all in this together and now more than ever, I believe we are all doing the best we can and that we are incredibly human and will make mistakes along the way. That’s okay. We can get through this one moment at a time! And of course, if you or your loved ones are in need of support, we are now accepting new clients throughout California via telehealth 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.  I can still remember the complex mix of emotions I felt after having my son, who is now 3. The love, adoration, and awesome responsibility of having this tiny human in our lives was overwhelming. That responsibility in the beginning at times manifested as fear. I still remember wondering why on earth anyone would trust me with this perfect tiny person… Surely there are more “adult like” adults around to take better, more perfect, care of him? I also remember thinking to myself, wow, if I am feeling this way as a person with decades of childcare experience plus a doctorate degree which I use daily to work with children, parents, and families… This is a crazy parenting world I am entering. I remember reflecting on parenting culture prior to having a child myself and having some semblance of understanding of the intense pressure on parents. But man it sure sank in once I had our son and felt the intensity of the weight of the pressure on parents myself. This pandemic has been, for me, most similar to either my very raw and emotional teen years or my new motherhood months. I have felt so much more aware of the responsibility I have of keeping my son safe but also keenly aware of his development and how each and every choice we make impacts him. It has been emotionally overwhelming at times and it has become easy to fall into the trap of thinking that someone out there must have the answers of how we get through this and protect our children from harm at all costs. I can recognize now the fear and sincere worry for his well being that has been underneath all of this. I also am the first person to say that parenting from fear is truly never the way to go. Our fears, particularly during a pandemic, need to be recognized, acknowledged, and then given the energy that is warranted. But no, we can’t live in the fear and we certainly don’t want our kids to either. This brings up the question, if keeping my entire family home in a bubble is not the thing to do, what should I try to do instead? This brings up an even bigger question for parents, what do our children really need from us, particularly now in a pandemic?
What all of this boils down to is that our kids need a parent who is emotionally connected and attuned to their experience to help them get through this situation as best we can. We need to help them feel safe and secure while not doing things we would normally do and this can be accomplished simply if we have released our own fears about “what if” and “what could be” and just live in the moment with them. We need to let ourselves know that, now more than ever, they just need us. They don’t need some different, more perfect version of us that can somehow fix all of this for them, they just need US. Our messy, emotional, challenged, tired selves. I am a big believer in the idea that there are no perfect parents but even more so now. None of us will weather this storm making perfect decisions and preventing every challenge. It is just not possible. All we can do is emotionally meet as many of our kids’ needs as possible and ride this out together. I have been enjoying a few podcasts recently that I wanted to mention here for any of our readers who are looking for more support in an audio version! Janet Lansbury - Unruffled Ask Lisa - The Psychology of Parenting Both of these present helpful parenting tips and tools while also understanding that parents are human and going to struggle, especially right now. This is a tough world to live in as a parent and we can only take it one day at a time right now. If you or your loved ones would like more support, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us at Thrive! We have space for a few new clients and would love for that to be you! 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.  While the past 5-6 months of living through a pandemic have certainly not been enjoyable for most of us, it seems like August was a TOUGH month for many people. In the beginning of this crisis, it seemed like different people were struggling with different things. Single or young people were struggling with the social isolation and boredom of staying home so much. Parents were struggling with the sheer magnitude of tasks facing them with having their kids all home. Working parents were just frantically trying to get anything done at any time of the day. August though was different and as someone who works with and talks to people in so many different situations, it was interesting that my clients, friends, colleagues, family, and even myself were having such a universal parallel experience of August being an extremely difficult month to get through. It seems that most of us hit a “pandemic wall” and just had some period of time where we just couldn’t face our reality. The reality being that it became super clear that we are going to be in this for a LONG TIME. Especially here in San Diego, once schools started announcing the change to all virtual learning in the fall, it was like a domino effect of families sharing just how hard this is for them. I think that while many of us, myself included, saw the writing on the wall a while ago and realized that this situation is not ending anytime soon - it didn’t become truly real until these announcements and the ripple effect of realizing we are going into fall and flu season with a barely controlled virus already circulating. For me at least, it was like the cumulative pressure, stress, sadness, despair, grief, frustration, and every other feeling I have had for the past 5 months just bubbled up all at once and overwhelmed me and led to a feeling of deep weariness. There was even a day or two where it just felt kind of hopeless. I remember thinking, if this is how I feel, as a therapist who can usually manage my emotions pretty well at this point, how is everyone going to get through this! I also remember then seeing my pain mirrored in everyone’s faces for weeks and noticing that almost everyone I talk to had at least one period of time in August that was a significant low or change from their usual. This led me to think… What happened in August? Here are some of my thoughts and a few ideas of how we can cope.
Just like any hard thing in life, this pandemic feels like it is challenging all of us to learn more about ourselves, our worlds, our families, and how we get through hard things. I believe that the more we can try to lean in to the discomfort and find some kind of learning or positive experience in this mess, the better we will all be when we come out of this! Hopefully this blog helped some of you consider ways to take our struggles and cope a bit more effectively with them. While the pandemic will go away (it really will!), our struggles as humans will not. So coping is our only path forward! 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.  As a follow up to our post helping parents support their younger children engage in distance learning, we wanted to share some ideas for teens and young adults as they adjust to virtual learning this semester!
We hope this helps all of us adjust as well as possible during this challenging time as students, and families. The best we can do is just approach it with a positive attitude, be prepared (hopefully by using some of our tips), and try to be flexible with our expectations and adjust as needed over time! If any of our readers need further support, please feel free to reach out to us 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.  As therapists who work primarily with children, teens, and their families, we at Thrive have all been witnessing just how stressful this fall has been for families. Everyone seems worried and anxious about distance learning so we thought we would put together some tips to help families adjust as best as they can! This blog reviews our tips for younger children and we will post one about teens later this week!
For most families, this is going to be a huge adjustment and possibly very challenging. The best we can do is just approach it with a positive attitude, be prepared (hopefully by using some of our tips), and try to be flexible with our expectations and adjust as needed over time! If any families need further support, please feel free to reach out to us 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. |
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