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 It’s hard to believe that we have all been living through this pandemic since March. And it’s really tough that in many places in our country the challenge of containing Covid19 seems to only be increasing, which sadly is only placing more pressure on parents and students with many schools announcing that they will be online only in the fall. At our office, we are hearing about the very real impact this is having on families particularly families where both parents work outside the home. While the impact of these choices is definitely impacting families with young children dramatically, I felt it might also be important to speak to ways it is impacting our teens and young adults as well. Plus, then we can talk about how parents can try to help! I have noticed that teens and young adults are struggling with similar things as the adults and parents I talk to. They feel that this situation has gone on far longer than anticipated and fear there is no end in sight. They worry about their futures and how they are going to be impacted by the economy as well as how to safely pursue their goals. Some are graduating and unsure of their next steps while others are having to adjust all of their plans from where they will live to where they can work or get an internship. Covid19 has truly upended everything for all of us and while teens and young adults have the ability to do many things online, they are still being hit hard by this situation. While parents of younger children are sharing that their kids want to be with them all the time, parents of teens and young adults might be noticing that their kids are more frustrated and wanting to be away from them more. I think a big part of this is that for many of them, they are in a part of life when they want to be showing their independence outside of their families. They want to flex their wings of freedom and fly free as much as possible. Unfortunately, that is not an option for so many of them right now which is a big part of why some of them might be grumpy or irritated at home. As parents, I think there is some of this that is just the storm we are all weathering right now. We might need to just accept that this is how things are for our family during a pandemic - with everyone often in their separate rooms. However, I do think that parents can try a few things to better support their teens and young adults right now. Here are 5 suggestions of things you can try today:
I hope these suggestions help you and your family cope with this unprecedented time more effectively! If you would like more support, please subscribe to our newsletter, follow us on social media, or feel free to reach out to see if we can help you and your family during this time. 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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 Every blog that I write lately, I want to begin with both - how is it already August but also, what a long year 2020 has become. It truly has just been such a challenge for all of us and while each of our storms is slightly different, we have all certainly been in a storm of some kind these days. For many of us, we may be trying to cope by using various methods of self-care like exercise, sleeping, baking, cooking, hobbies, cleaning, etc. Some people may be wondering why they are doing all of these things if they don’t seem to have lasting change and results in terms of “feeling better.” The layers of challenge that we have all been faced with are so immense that I think it is worth mentioning that while self-care can help us tolerate and get through and cope with our situations, it is not going to alleviate all of our suffering and emotional discomfort or pain during a situation like this. The truth is that while self-care has been touted as the new “be all end all” of solutions to help us cope, it is a term that seems to also be synonymous with “not feeling upset anymore, not struggling, not being so darn tired, etc.” Unfortunately, while coping skills and self-care strategies are helpful, they are band-aids when the real problem we are dealing with is living lives that are not sustainable for one reason or another. Unfortunately, no amount of self care will take away the discomfort we feel from living lives that are not sustainable. The unsustainable status of your life might be because of impossible expectations of yourself or others, the heaviness of our current social and political climate, declining health of yourself or a family member, or living without an alignment of your values and actions. Coping skills and self care are a bandaid meant to reduce intensity of symptoms so that you are able to do the work that is needed to make real change in your life. This is the thing that many of us get entirely wrong about self-care or coping strategies - they are not the solution in and of themselves. They are just there to help the pain you are in be less acute so that you can address the root causes of the pain. If you’ve been trying to fix things and feel less through self care or coping skills, you’re not doing it wrong. But you’re not feeling better because you’ve got more work ahead of you. The work is in the incredibly intense and sometimes painful but also keenly rewarding work of taking a deep, long look at your life and exploring what is working for you and what is not. This requires exploring yourself, your patterns, how you cope, what you react to, and what your underlying beliefs, assumptions, expectations, and values are both of yourself and of others. While this process is intense and difficult, it is no less intense or difficult than repeatedly trying to push away feelings that come up when our lives are out of balance and alignment. In order to try to figure out what is going on for you, it helps to take some space to either journal, meditate, or maybe take some time for personal reflection through reading personal growth journeys or books. You could also do this kind of work with a therapist. Often, our job is to help our clients communicate and identify their beliefs and values and hold up a mirror to help them see their life with more clarity. With that clarity and a judgment free space like our office, our clients are better able to make changes to help them feel better longer term. If you're reading this and wondering how to gain clarity about your values and how they are influencing your choices, try out the following activities:
The more we can learn to connect our day to day choices with our values and how we are living our lives, the more we can either notice that we are living consistent with our intentional values and goals or that we are not. If you aren’t finding your values line up with your choices, this consciousness can help you find small ways to make changes. If you feel frustrated often or like you are being too hard on yourself or your loved ones:
I hope this is helpful to you! I know it can be difficult to put a lot of effort into trying to cope differently and more effectively but to also not actually feel that it is helpful. I am hoping these strategies will be more beneficial in the long run even though they take more time in the short term! 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’s so hard to believe that it is already July and by the time this blog posts, it will be almost August. Time has been an interesting element during the pandemic in that most of the people I know personally and professionally have noticed that time is passing in such a strange way lately. All at once, it feels like the longest year of our lives and then it also feels like everything is on pause and how on earth could it be almost back to school time???? Anyways, time is strange lately and I’d be remiss not to mention that in a blog post about how teens and young adults are doing these days. When the pandemic began, I remember thinking that one positive byproduct of everyone having to be home for the time being was that the pace of life for our kids would slow down a bit. While I think that has certainly been challenging in some ways, a lot of teens have been feeling less stressed due to having less demands on their time and more down time overall. Some even have enjoyed being out of the peer relationships that can be so challenging at times in schools. As someone who has commented a lot about how the current climate of our world puts so much pressure on teens and young adults, I was glad to see some of them leaning into relaxation and doing things they enjoy more. I noticed that they seemed less anxious and often less depressed which has also been a welcome change. Interestingly though, it seems that a lot of parents are struggling to allow their kids to just relax and try to get through the pandemic by coping through the fun things that are still permitted like video games, TV, reading, hanging out with friends from a distance, etc. Some kids and teens also still feel the need to be productive and do as much as possible. While options are limited, it’s interesting to observe how uncomfortable it has been for a lot of people to have down time and to not work towards a linear, future oriented, academic or professional goal. This pattern has led me to become very curious about our society and why we are just so darn focused on productivity and linear achievements. Particularly as someone who is much more invested in who my clients are and how they feel about their lives and themselves, what we do, while important, seems just less important particularly when it comes to coping during a situation like a pandemic. I believe that while most of the world is on pause in a sense, many of us are struggling with the idea of putting our productivity on pause. That somehow by just taking it easy, we might lose some of our momentum and ability to accomplish great things. Perhaps we can reframe this situation as an opportunity, rather than a loss of productivity. Perhaps we can reframe it as an opportunity to learn about ourselves and what we like to do when we don’t have external pressures of the world and its’ machine-like focus on accomplishing things. Perhaps as adults, we can model for kids and teens how to just “be” rather than to always “do.” To do this, we might need to learn how to be more still and allow ourselves to just follow our passions. We might need to put our to-do lists aside and just let our days develop, rather than be so scheduled. For anyone who is able to do this (as I am well aware some people are still working!), I'd encourage you to give it a try and to lean into the uncertainty around a lack of a plan or lack of a checklist of accomplishments. I would be curious what is waiting for you on the other side! Maybe you can learn more about yourself and your passions. I find that often there is a level of growth that comes from a paradigm shift that you just can’t find without the destabilization that comes from the shift. While uncomfortable and challenging, this is a worthwhile endeavor just like all of our to do list items. I would encourage parents to also allow their kids to just be for a while. After all, many of them may not have an opportunity to do that for quite some time! 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.  Since our office will continue to offer solely telehealth therapy sessions for the foreseeable future due to the current pandemic, I wanted to share some tips about how to help yourself or your child/teen get the most out of their session. While some people have been reluctant to try out telehealth (video) therapy sessions - including us as therapists - we have noticed that overall we have been able to adapt our sessions to work well using video as our platform. We think that it will help you out to also try to follow some of these tips and suggestions!
While the pandemic has certainly been difficult to adjust to and manage for all of us, we at Thrive are so grateful for our clients and ability to support them during this difficult time. If you are struggling with stress, anxiety, depression, parenting, or how you are adjusting to the pandemic, please don’t hesitate to reach out to one of us for help. These are truly unprecedented and unpredictable times in our world and I believe that going through it less alone will help. 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 I sit alone in my office, as I have for months now during the Covid19 pandemic, I have thought a lot about Thrive’s options going forward in terms of how to provide the best care for our clients and community. I have debated with myself about the idea of reopening for in person sessions and talked with my team at length about it. I have felt sad even at the lack of activity in an office that I designed and decorated to be a safe space for both our clients and our team. The decisions that business owners are having to make in light of the pandemic are truly challenging for all of us. While I do not have any right to comment on what any other office is doing, nor am I interested in doing so, it is my job at Thrive to lead us in the best way possible right now for our team, our clients, and our greater community. As such, we are not planning to reopen our office to in person sessions anytime soon. So, I thought I would write a blog post to share more with our readers as to why we have come to this conclusion.
We appreciate our clients so much and their willingness to hang in there with us during this difficult time. I know that it is not easy to follow all of the social distancing guidelines and maintain our mental health, both collectively and individually. If our office staying closed allows you to see a close friend or family member with less risk, I’m happy to have helped in this way. For those who are struggling with telehealth sessions and are wanting to jump right back in, please know that I care about you as well and that we will do our best to make that decision to work together in person when it makes sense and we can guarantee that you (and your loved ones) are safe with us. 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 know that when I had the realization about my toddler, my lovely but also monstrous at times toddler, that he just doesn’t leave our house anymore. It helped me recognize what I was needing a lot more of, which is a little bit of time alone where I don’t have to take care of anyone but me. I’m sure we have all seen, and laughed at, the posts on Insta and Facebook about parents going to great lengths to get some time alone these days. Like the one about sending your kids in another room to look for a toy you have in your pocket? I definitely laughed and then realized that maybe we should all pool together ideas that parents are using to help themselves get a bit of alone time while we are all home together so much more. Here are some of my ideas and strategies I have been using:
These are just a few ideas I had! I’d love to hear more in the comments and for parents to share out of the box ways to get some time alone. Also, I want to remind everyone that it is perfectly natural to struggle without having time alone… If you have an ideal version of yourself as a parent who is always kind, patient, and loving and also around your kids 24/7 – you might be struggling with that as it is entirely unrealistic. In order to help ourselves be the best, most intentional versions of our parenting selves, we likely need some time to recharge our batteries and regroup. Especially during hard days and unfortunately, during a pandemic, there is just no shortage of hard days! 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.  Talking about race to children can be a touchy subject. Some parents might not even have an option to talk about race because their children would have to learn about it by what they confront in their everyday life. Teaching your children about race early on is actually beneficial given that children as young as 6 months are able to notice racial differences! In fact, there have been research on newborns and infants showing racial biases towards members of their own race. Talking about race to a young child could be as simple as pointing out the physical differences they notice. For example, a 3-year-old might ask questions about skin color or hair texture. The hard part though… is the discussion about racism. The recent events might prompt children to ask questions. While some might wonder if it could be better to turn off the tv and shield their little young minds until they are old enough to understand, we have to remember that children notice and receive many messages around them no matter how much we try to control it. And importantly, if we are not discussing these kinds of topics, they will make their own assumptions and come up with their own ideas about why that is or how we feel. Even though it is challenging or might be uncomfortable, it is important to lean into these crucial conversations and explore together the questions they have and what we can all do to be better humans in the world. So where do we start? In order to feel comfortable talking about race to your children, you have to first be comfortable with talking about it yourself. It’s better to be proactive than to wait for children to ask you questions. While you have these discussions with other adults in your life, notice what comes up for you. What ideas or assumptions do you hold? Where did they come from? When you become aware of your own biases, it is more likely that you’ll be able to work on it and overcome it so you don’t pass it on unknowingly. And remember that this part is never complete. Gaining awareness of our preconceived ideas about racial groups and challenging the way we think about race is an ongoing process. When you speak to your children about race or racism, there are key points to remember. Let them ask questions. We all know children may not necessarily ask questions in the most polite or respectful way. But giving them a safe space to do so with YOU would be a good opportunity to start a discussion. Even when the questions are uncomfortable for you, embrace the question and encourage your child to keep asking them. When children are shamed about asking questions, they learn quickly to stop doing it. It’s also okay to be emotional. Because they are receiving information about themselves and about others, this can spark a lot of feelings. The most important thing about the emotions that may come up for you or your child is to normalize them. Tell your child that it is understandable to feel sad or angry about the injustice in the world and that you do too. And remember that this is a marathon. You don’t need to have all the answers and be able to have a discussion with them in the moment. For younger children, you can start by explaining what racial differences mean. They might say something like “his skin looks dirty…”. While your instinct might be to shush your child as you want to teach them not to be rude or disrespectful, you are unintentionally teaching them that talking about race is not okay. You can say, “His skin is brown, but it isn’t dirty. His skin color is just different from yours because we all have different levels of something called melanin. People come in all colors, shapes, and sizes”. Asking questions such as “what makes you say that?” or “why do you think so?” can help you understand where these ideas are coming from. And even though talking about physical differences (hair, skin color, etc) may seem like the most obvious, don’t forget to mention other factors that are important to diversity such as cultural practices or languages. This will help shift the attention away from looks and towards other qualities. I remember in Kindergarten, my teacher read a book about the different types of homes people lived in around the world and as an Asian American immigrant who had just moved to the U.S., it was so nice to see my teacher focus on something other than what I already knew was different about me… my skin tone or my eyes. Older children might have more questions as they start to observe the world around them. This is an opportunity to have discussion that involve more critical thinking. You can start talking about stereotypes and biases, and what they mean. Not only can you talk about how these statements are hurtful, you can also talk about inequality, inclusion, and exclusion. Why is generalizing a whole group of people bad? Does someone benefit from it? What can we do to help? How would you feel if someone was thinking or talking that way about you? Lastly, I encourage everyone to integrate more diversity into their lives. My favorite Disney princess is Mulan, and it always will be. I remember watching Mulan for the first time on VHS and I happily pointed out to my parents that there’s someone who looks just like me on TV! And sadly, out of all my toys, the Mulan doll was the only one I had that looked like me. Take this opportunity to notice what your child is exposed to. Who is portrayed in the media they consume? What do their toys look like? Do they go to a diverse school? Perhaps it’s time to intentionally include things that feature people from different races and ethnicities. Remember what I said about this being a marathon? It’s okay to make a mistake and to regret the way you answered a question. You are a role model for your child. Acknowledge that adults can make mistakes too and that you’re still learning to be better. This is a challenging topic to discuss, and like most uncomfortable topics, it is one of the most important conversations we can have. If you are interested in resources about how to further these conversations and help your child be an Anti-Racist, please check out our new resource page all about this topic. As always, we at Thrive are here for you and your families and hope to help you further your ability to have difficult, often uncomfortable, but important conversations in your families and address the topics that are coming up in our 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.  So, this has certainly been a wild ride for our family, as I imagine it has been for yours as well. While my husband and I both feel very lucky to be able to work and provide for our family right now, having our toddler son home with us full time while also working full time has been a challenge to say the least. While I do not have a ton of suggestions for families on how to make decisions about increasing their social circles in order to manage this situation better (for example through nannies or daycares or other sorts of supports), I do feel that we all need to recognize and weigh out the costs and benefits of these steps. As a parent myself and a therapist working primarily with families or parents, I am watching the dramatic impact of social distancing on all of our families. While I am relatively cautious about exposing our family to risk, I completely understand why families are choosing to make some exceptions to help themselves cope. This is one of the toughest situations we have all been in collectively and it is hitting families with young and school age children the hardest. I also have noticed that some weeks seem to be more challenging than others. My friends and I have said that we need to readjust our gages of how people are doing. Rather than 1-10 being a range of happy to sad (or something along those lines), it has now become more like 1 is in a pit of despair and 10 is keeping my head above water! While there have certainly been moments of true connection and joy with my family, there have been equally challenging times of wondering how the heck we are going to keep this up much longer without totally falling apart. One of my favorite ways to keep going during hard times is through affirmations and at times, I seem to find a “theme song” of sorts to help me cope and process my feelings. My current theme song is “Good job” by Alicia Keys. If you haven’t listened to it, I highly recommend this song as an anthem for parents right now. We are all doing a good job with what we have been given, which is a pretty difficult situation! Other than the theme song suggestion, I thought I would make a list of affirmations for families during tough times like this. Hopefully it is helpful to you on those tough days!
I also thought it might be helpful to share some thoughts about affirmations about our children during a time like this. As much as most of us know that this situation is hard on them too, it might be a good way to remember that!
I genuinely hope these ideas help motivate you to come up with your own list of affirmations, mantras, or intentions to help get through this situation. As we all know, this situation is so far beyond our control that the only thing we can control is our reaction. While doing so has certainly been a challenge, taking little steps every day to cope better will hopefully add up to this situation being less challenging in some small way! At Thrive, we are happy to help support you and your family if you are struggling right now! We are accepting new referrals both for individual therapy and parent consultation but also group therapy! We have three groups currently – Teen Anxiety, Young Adult, and Parent Support. Check out this page for more information. 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.  An Open Letter to the Thrive Community and Friends
 For those of us who are parenting young children right now, the struggle is truly real. It has been and continues to be at times completely overwhelming to try to both continue to work as well as parent my own toddler. I am hearing the same from the families that I work with at my office (virtually of course right now!). I thought it might help to compile some of the things that my family has been doing to help support our son right now. The truth is this blog post came out of a particularly difficult morning where my son was struggling to adjust on Monday to having another “dad working in the garage” morning. I could tell during breakfast that he was sad and missing dad but just couldn’t say it. Of course, these feelings then manifested into some behaviors which are of course expected at this age but can leave any parent (including me) feeling completely inept. I wanted to offer support to other parents struggling with similar situations by sharing the way I have been trying to handle things as much as possible (believe me, I am not perfect either!).
This is a particularly hard time to be a parent to a young or school age child. As parents, we often are the ones setting the tone in our families and I notice that while my family is adjusting to this situation, we are much quicker to struggle than we used to be. I think this is just the nature of the situation so we are trying to be proactive in our self-care right now. If you are struggling to figure out how to engage in self-care because most of what you used to do is now unavailable (ex. Massages, nights out, time away, gym classes, beach days, etc.), try to start with thinking about your personal needs. And not what you think you should need but what you really need as a person to thrive. For me, I need some down time as well as time to feel connected with friends and our community. While this is by no means as possible for me as it was before, I have found that even a little bit of time by myself (even just a walk on the weekends alone) and just a little bit of time to miss a daily routine like bedtime has been helpful. I am fortunate that I have a partner who can help with this and recognize that some people don’t have that available right now. I would encourage you still to focus on figuring out what it is you are looking for in your life and strategies or ways to access it, even while social distancing. As always, I am of the belief that the more parents are feeling effective, peaceful, and calm within themselves, the more they can parent from a place of intention and less reaction. At Thrive, we are happy to help support you and your family if you are struggling right now! We are accepting new referrals both for individual therapy and parent consultation but also group therapy! We have three groups currently – Teen Anxiety, Young Adult, and Parent Support. Check out this page for more information about our groups! 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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