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 If you are a regular Thrive blog reader, you will have noticed that I have not blogged in quite some time. Initially, I was just focused on some other areas of the business and my client and family needs and then this fall, our family life became very intense due to a Covid school closure after a planned school break and I feel like I am just now catching my breath over here! With everything that has happened recently, I have not been the only one in my family struggling unfortunately. My son, Luca, who I adore, has seemed to also be struggling a bit. I have to admit that this recent period of challenge threw me for a loop! While I routinely work with my clients on remembering that their child’s development is not linear and to avoid catastrophic thinking, I struggled with this myself recently. You see, Luca, who has been in daycare his whole life essentially, started struggling with going to school after the planned vacation/time away, new school year, and then a two week closure due to Covid. Things are improving now, but wow, this really was tough for me as well! I thought it might be helpful to share about this as it has helped me clarify certain things about parenting that can be so tough for all of us, even me. Here are my suggestions when you are dealing with a bump in your child’s development and believe me, these are all things I incorporated eventually and were helpful for me as well!
Here is what it looked like for us in that situation… Luca would comment in the morning that he did not want to go to school. I would reply with “I hear you love, you don’t want to go to school” and then a few minutes later would direct him to the next task on our morning routine like brushing teeth. He would often keep commenting and at times crying a bit and I would tell him, “I know you don’t want to go to school love, this is really hard for you right now. And I believe you can handle it because we can do hard things.” This pattern continued with him sharing his feelings with me, and I would welcome him sharing about it and listen, validate his experience, while affirming that I am confident he will be okay and not giving any room for him to think he can negotiate by being unsure about his need to go to school. While this didn’t always feel great because I would rather he go to school happily, it was certainly better than the power struggles we could have had! Lately, we seem to be in a better place where this is coming up periodically but not daily which is a relief. We only had one truly explosive and aggressive meltdown directly outside of school, which is also a relief. I am grateful for the reminder of things I know in my heart to be true, which is that kids will struggle and it is okay. They will struggle, we will not know what to do, and it will work out eventually. Plus, this experience strengthens our ability to pivot as parents and our kids’ ability to cope with challenges as they get older. We just need to focus on our connection and relationship with them to get through those times as well as our village. In case you are curious, my village involves my team at Thrive and I am so grateful for them and their ability to support parents. If you are in need of support as a parent, please feel free to reach out to us as we truly get it and want to 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. |
| My husband and I usually spend Valentine’s Day with our son celebrating family love. We used to go out for a date night pre-pandemic but lately will just cook something nice and try to open a nice bottle of wine. Erica M. Wollerman, Psy.D. | I usually spend my Valentine’s Day giving to others and spreading love. I haven’t had a Valentine in years, and I know that there must be others who might be on the same boat or feel a little lonely too. I’ll make little gifts (e.g., origami boxes with candy in them) with small cards attached or bake some treats to give out. That way, everyone can feel a little love. At night, I’ve usually spent it with some close friends watching chick flicks or I’ve babysat so that parents can enjoy a night out and some quality time together. Ying-Ying Shiue, APCC |
What’s your ideal Valentine’s Day?
| Without extended family around, we have never been able to do this but it would be my ideal Valentine’s Day. I would love to be able to spend the morning as a family celebrating family love and then head out for a weekend/overnight date slightly out of town as a getaway. Sleeping in for me is now the ultimate gift (and one rarely received!). Erica M. Wollerman, Psy.D. | As a single person, I really enjoy spending Valentine’s Day treating myself and hanging out with close friends. Eating sweets, watching movies, pigging out on favorite snacks, and maybe even doing a spa night like mani/pedis and face masks. Ying-Ying Shiue, APCC |
Stay in or go out for Valentine’s Day?
| We cook a lot all the time so this is definitely going out for me! Anytime I can reduce dishes - I’m in! Erica M. Wollerman, Psy.D. | DEFINITELY staying in. I feel like it’s too crowded and overwhelming (not to mention probably overpriced) to go out. I’d rather just stay in and maybe celebrate on a different day when it’s less so. Ying-Ying Shiue, APCC |
What’s the most difficult part about Valentine’s Day?
| Embracing our life as it is post-child. I love our family and my son but sometimes it would be nice to be able to just indulge ourselves. This is true of any holiday or birthday though - with a toddler, our life revolves around our son much of the time. I try to embrace it because these days are long but the years are truly short and one day we will likely barely see him! Erica M. Wollerman, Psy.D. | Having my singleness be so apparent. Valentine’s Day decorations are everywhere and all my coupled up friends have plans to hang out with their significant others. It makes it tough sometimes to have alternative plans because everyone is already busy or preoccupied. Ying-Ying Shiue, APCC |
What’s been your best Valentine’s Day?
| My now husband proposed on Valentine’s Day in 2015! Erica M. Wollerman, Psy.D. | Well, I definitely can’t top Erica’s answer and in all honesty, I can’t really remember. But I’ve greatly enjoyed my last few Valentine’s Days because now I feel like I know what I like to do and know what I want out of it. Ying-Ying Shiue, APCC |
What’s your view on Valentine’s Day? Day to celebrate love or commercial scam?
| I think it is a little of both. I used to be more frustrated by the scam part BUT now that our life is relatively boring/mundane, it is nice to have a holiday designed to celebrate our life together. Erica M. Wollerman, Psy.D. | I agree with Erica. It’s a little bit of both! There are definitely companies that monopolize profits on the holiday, which seems silly because every day should be a celebration of love! However, I do think having a holiday is a helpful reminder to make extra efforts and gestures towards those we care about. Ying-Ying Shiue, APCC |
Favorite Valentine’s Day movie?
| Not that we watch many movies these days given that we are pretty tired by the time our son goes to bed… but all time favorite romantic movies would be Untamed Heart, The Notebook, or Love and Basketball. Erica M. Wollerman, Psy.D. | It depends on what I’m in the mood for. You’ve Got Mail is always a good one or Legally Blonde. With Legally Blonde, you can also watch all the sequels too. The movie, Valentine’s Day, has also made the list for obvious reasons. I’ve also watched Mean Girls. Ying-Ying Shiue, APCC |
What advice would you give someone who does not have a person to celebrate Valentine’s Day with?
| To enjoy being able to spoil yourself. I’m a believer in cultivating a relationship with yourself and having faith that even if things are lonely in your life for a time, they likely won’t stay that way. When you're single you get to just do what you want to do without compromise. So, order your favorite food, kick your feet up, and treat yourself in some way! So many of us don’t do this because we want to have a relationship when we are single, but believe me, the most important relationship is likely always going to be the one with yourself since that is the foundation of how you will relate to others too. Erica M. Wollerman, Psy.D. | Celebrate love! Self-love included. And just because you don’t share someone to share the day with, doesn’t mean that you can’t share the day with others. Find others to hang out with if you want and make it a point to really treat yourself. I ALWAYS eat my favorite ice cream and wear comfy sweats/pajamas. It’s a time to indulge yourself because you deserve it! Ying-Ying Shiue, APCC |
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 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.
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.
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 couldn’t be happier to be writing this blog post today. While 2020 brought so many challenges for all of us, even in our Thrive family, we have been fortunate enough to be able to add new therapists to our team that started just this week.
While I was a bit nervous about hiring during a pandemic and meeting candidates virtually, I have to say that both of our new team members just blew me away with their ability to connect, even virtually during an interview, and to both offer skills that will help our clients reduce symptoms quickly but also to dive deeper with clients into the roots of their challenges to resolve them in a more long-term way.
They will each be writing blogs to introduce themselves to our audience, but I wanted to write a little something to share my perspective on them and just how excited our whole team is to have them on board!
While I was a bit nervous about hiring during a pandemic and meeting candidates virtually, I have to say that both of our new team members just blew me away with their ability to connect, even virtually during an interview, and to both offer skills that will help our clients reduce symptoms quickly but also to dive deeper with clients into the roots of their challenges to resolve them in a more long-term way.
They will each be writing blogs to introduce themselves to our audience, but I wanted to write a little something to share my perspective on them and just how excited our whole team is to have them on board!
 Alexina Clarke is a Registered Associate MFT (AMFT110916) who is supervised by Jennifer Gonzalez (LMFT98444) | Alexina Clarke, AMFT Alexina is a rare find. She is an associate therapist who also has a lot of specialized experience as she was trained specifically in Emotion Focused Therapy working with couples as well as individual clients. While she does not work with children, Alexina brings a unique perspective to her work with individuals as she views everything from a systemic and relational perspective that I find fits well with the rest of us at Thrive. Plus, she is bringing a whole new service to Thrive by offering couples therapy! Alexina impressed me with her ability to connect with and understand the complexity of situations in a very deep and intuitive way that I think allows her to work with a lot of different presenting issues. She definitely is a welcome addition to our team! If you would like to read more about Alexina and her approach in therapy - please check out her bio here. If you would like to connect with her to discuss how she can help you and your family, please call us today! Link this to our phone number please! |
 Ying-Ying Shiue is an Associate Professional Clinical Counselor (APCC 5349) who is supervised by Jennifer Gonzalez (LMFT98444) | Ying-Ying Shiue, APCC Ying-Ying is indeed a perfect fit at Thrive! She works with everyone we all love working with - children, teens, parents, families, and adults and is incredibly easy to get along with. Her warmth and easy going personality won us all over pretty quickly. However, Ying-Ying is much more than just someone who can get along with all of us - she truly has the experience and ability to connect with clients quickly and then help them move into a place of change with her support. Her insight, easy going nature, and ability to address and understand complex challenges make her a huge asset to our team! If you would like to read more about Ying-Ying and her approach in therapy - please check out her bio here. If you would like to connect with her to discuss how she can help you and your family, please call us today! |
As I mentioned, this was not an easy decision in terms of hiring during a pandemic but it has been so rewarding for all of us. Alexina and Ying-Ying bring needed new energy and perspectives to Thrive and we can’t wait to see how each of them progresses in their careers with us.
Please contact us today to learn more about Thrive, our team and how we can support you and your family!
Please contact us today to learn more about Thrive, our team and how we can support you and your family!
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 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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