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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.  What do you mean I’m supposed to talk to a STRANGER?! And tell them my deep dark secrets?! I barely even share that to the people I actually know! I get why starting therapy can be overwhelming and intimidating. It’s hard enough to talk to people you actually know, so why would you want to talk to someone you don’t know? But actually, talking to someone outside of your circle can be liberating and refreshing. Here’s why:
Anyway, in a therapy session, you have all the power to dictate whether you want to stay or go and what you want to say or don’t say. You can also tell your therapist how you’re feeling and address your concerns or anxieties with them during session. It’s crazy to think that you can tell someone all these things right off the bat, but here’s the craziest thing of all, it works. When you find YOUR therapist, someone who you actually like talking to, someone who understands you and will listen to you, someone who really gets you… it works. 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 we are one month into 2021 and I think it’s safe to say that we need to gauge our expectations of ourselves accordingly… While it would be easy to get overzealous and set a bunch of goals for this year, maybe that’s not the best plan forward. Of course we want to make plans that help us achieve our goals as well as bring back some semblance of normalcy to our lives but, I hate to say it, we are still in a pandemic. I repeat...we are still in a pandemic and honestly, many of us are still very impacted by the events of the past year because they have not stopped… Kids are still home, virtual learning and working is still the plan, many of us are not vaccinated or seeing our social networks, and most of us are still desperately stressed, lonely, restless, etc. This means that we are likely not our best selves and I would advocate that any goals need to be ones that help you manage stress and take care of yourself better. Not to get things back to normal necessarily because that is just not possible right now. Even though we all still crave that path. Let’s start a bit smaller with some achievable goals first as we ease into the year. Maybe it is taking 5-10 minutes to meditate, walk, do yoga, read a book for fun, watch a show, laugh with your kids and forget about online learning. It could just be making an effort to be kinder to yourself and your family. Letting things go a bit more so that it feels less stressful. Whatever it is, let’s not overwhelm ourselves and overextend ourselves… That would just be overwhelming and disappointing when we come to the inevitable conclusion that we really can’t take on much still. While that is frustrating for so many of us, it can also be liberating to just focus on what we can control. So, while it is perfectly understandable to want to set goals in 2021 like it is any other year, it's not. And something to watch out for is that even if things with the pandemic improve - we might still struggle for a bit. Keep in mind that everything we have been feeling is cumulative and when we are out of this crisis, there is likely going to be a surge of feelings about the situation we just endured. The best thing is to set goals to help you endure as best you can and then remember that we will need to process what we just experienced collectively and individually later. 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, for those of you who have been reading my blog for a while might know that I usually set an intention for each year around this time. 2020 has certainly not been a year where many of us have been able to keep our intentions, or resolutions for that matter. I debated about posting anything about setting an intention for next year as, well, I almost don’t want to put anything out into the world that will leave me disappointed! So much of the lessons of 2020 I think have involved digging deeper into ourselves and our relationships to figure out how we deal with extraordinary situations and difficulties. My word for this year ended up being Embrace (this is after a few revisions because I started with something else I believe). And well, as much as I might not like to say it, this is exactly what this year led me to do. I spent a lot of time leaning into and embracing things that have been hard and do feel that I have learned about myself, the world, and how to be a better mom, wife, person, and therapist. Do I dare consider setting an intention for 2021? I think I do. I would encourage you to as well to be honest. I think it is important to always consider how we can lean into or improve things in our lives, even during extraordinary times. My word for next year is going to be Generous. While I am often a very generous person, particularly at work and with my team, I struggle to be generous in the way I interpret my loved ones words or actions. The narrative that I come to most easily is often not the one that is kind and generous in spirit. I would truly like to work on this and considering the fact that 2021 seems like it might start out just as challenging as 2020 has been… I think there will likely be ample opportunities to practice my generosity! If you are considering setting an intention for the coming year, I applaud you! I think it is brave right now to want things and to work on improving ourselves and our lives beyond just getting through the day. Throughout this pandemic, I have been so impressed with my clients who have kept on working through the things that come up rather than just hiding from all of it considering the immense pressures on all of us. For those of you who would rather not tempt fate and want to give 2021 some space to be an improvement on this year, I get it. I want it to be better too! And it is entirely okay not to challenge yourself if that feels like too much. We need to all be compassionate and kind with ourselves right now. This is my last blog of 2020 as I will take a break for the holidays and resume in the New Year! I hope everyone stays healthy and finds some silver linings in the messy world of ours. If we at Thrive can do anything to help support you or your loved ones, please don’t hesitate to reach out! 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.  What does that even mean? Let me go back a bit to the beginning of my career in the field of psychology to share more about how I learned to relate to struggle, chaos, and challenges a bit differently. I still remember sitting with one of my first mentors and discussing some of the challenges I was seeing in the homes I worked in with parents of autistic children. I was at times so overwhelmed with the struggle I witnessed and the limitations of what I could truly do in the time I spent with them each week. This feeling of powerlessness in the face of humanity and deep struggle was something that was not new to me and was actually the reason I went to grad school at all. So, finding it yet again while I was in grad school, trying to learn how to fix things for people, was a surprise. You see, I was pretty young and pretty unfamiliar with how change actually works. My mentor, with so much compassion and grace for me and my immaturity in this area, had so many long talks with me about chaos. What he taught me was that chaos creates change. Change doesn’t occur in a vacuum where things are going so well that we just decide to make positive changes. Change often is bred on the wind of conflict, pain, and deep struggle. What he explained was that change is so difficult for us as humans, that we have to literally be forced into it by the nature of our situations being so deeply unmanageable or painful that we just have to change. This framework and way of thinking about struggle was different than I had been taught to think about suffering. You see, I, like most Americans, was taught to consider struggle something to overcome if not to avoid entirely. Even my deep and complicated feelings were considered something I should suppress or not have. I was never taught that our struggles, pain, feelings, and suffering are guideposts to help show the way towards something different. Towards change and new possibilities. Time and time again, I have seen this in practice. Chaos truly does lead to change. This is a belief that has helped root me in optimism about my clients, about myself, and about our world. I truly believe that by leaning into our challenges and simply just seeing them as messages about what we need or want to cultivate in our lives, we can lean more strongly towards change in a positive or healthy direction. This is the hope that roots me even when our world feels so tumultuous, challenging, and overwhelmingly chaotic. Days like today, Election Day, this is my mantra. Chaos creates change. 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.  For so many parents, it is so hard to cultivate a mindset of positivity towards ourselves. Particularly for those of us who are super perfectionistic and are truly trying to achieve that super-parent life that we seem to believe everyone else is living. You know, doing all the things, all the time. It’s easy to feel like we are failing when our standards are unrealistic. I find that the pandemic has exacerbated this situation for so many of us and while in the beginning, I think it felt acceptable to release expectations and let our lives be a bit different - you know, messier, or less grinding towards goals - now, 7 months and counting, I think many of us have ramped up those expectations again. I think it is important to always keep in mind the fact that being hard on ourselves is the least productive thing we can do. You see, when we are hard on ourselves about everything and truly feel like if we are not perfectly doing everything that we are failing, we end up adding unneeded guilt and shame to our lives. These feelings not only take a toll on how we are feeling but they also add in a lot of emotional labor to engage in. We either spend time avoiding those feelings, projecting them onto others, or trying to heal them. I would suggest that our time is better used by spending it on working on the way we talk to ourselves. Rather than demanding more of ourselves all the time and being relentless in our guilt when we screw up, what if we talked to ourselves the way we would talk to a small child, baby, or even kitten or puppy? Most of us, particularly parents will be kinder to others than ourselves and using a dose of self-compassion can be infinitely more helpful than anything else in terms of helping us feel calm, grounded, and confident that we can do hard things. Here are some ideas for putting this into practice… “I see that you are struggling with that, let’s take a break and come back to it.” “It’s okay to be sad, overwhelmed, angry (etc.)” “What can we do to make this situation better” “You can do this” “Eventually, things will be okay” “This feeling is temporary” The more we can approach ourselves with loving, kindness the better we will feel. And guess what, then we can also approach our loved ones with even more loving kindness as well. Plus we are then modeling for them how to manage their emotions a bit more effectively! 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 the pandemic has progressed and for many has been either a process of very gradual expanding of our social networks and for others, a process of opening our lives back up and then reducing again, it has been really tough to know what to expect of events anymore. Particularly events like the holidays feel different right now. While I am not personally even the biggest Halloween fan, I found myself feeling a bit sad about Halloween and not being able to take our toddler trick or treating this year. I imagine that we are not the only family in this situation either! I was thinking about how our family has approached things as well as what other parents might be struggling with, such as how we handle the conversation with our kids about holidays and holidays not being what we expect or anticipate. I think one of the most important things we can do as parents is be clear about what our plans are. I think at this point, two weeks away from Halloween, most families should come up with exactly what they are going to do. Are they going to trick or treat in their neighborhood? Are they going to any small events? Are they dressing up at all? Are they going to the pumpkin patch? All of the things you would normally do should be considered to see if you plan to do them this year. Once you and your parenting partner(s) decide the plan, I think it is best to clearly share it with your kid(s) so everyone knows what to expect. Next up… we need to be really understanding about our kids’ feelings and spend time validating them and listening to how they feel about the change. Remember that a big part of holidays is the tradition around them and the expectation of the fun things we get to experience as a family. Whatever is different this year will likely be challenging in some way and we don’t want to brush off our kids’ feelings. Try asking them what they are really missing the most and see if it is possible to recreate it in a safe way! Finally, if there is anything in your conversations with your kids that comes up as safe alternatives to the usual plans that involve lots of people, try to see if you can work that into your plan. Perhaps you can trick or treat between a few neighbors houses over and over. Perhaps you can do some extra zoom calls or “boo” treat bags for friends. While this year is not going as we had hoped it would in January, I do think we are all getting a bit better at rolling with whatever life hands us! While we can hope the same of our kids, we need to be sure to allow them the space and time to be upset, sad, or disappointed when things don’t go how they want. They are kids after all and they have much less experience at managing expectations than adults, despite 2020 giving them so many opportunities to do just that! 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. |
Blogs from the Thrive Family!Musings from Erica, Jennifer, Maria, Kim, Andrea, Molly, Abbey, and Ying-Ying Categories
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