Anxiety, Kids Mental Health, Parenting, Relationships, Self-Care, Self-doubt, Uncategorized

self-compassion for parents

Parents in this generation are working hard to acknowledge their kids’ emotions and be understanding when something that might seem silly to us is big in their world.

So, when your daughter is excited to invite her friend to come over and play after school but feels disappointed when her friend can’t come today, you would not say, “Oh come on, it’s no big deal, don’t be a baby and you absolutely cry in public. The only places you can cry are in the bathroom and alone in the car.” Any parent who said those things to their kid would realize that they owe their child an apology.                                                               

However, for many of us this is how we talk to ourselves when we face a disappointment or frustration. We are not allowed to have big feelings. We have to listen to that drill sergeant in our heads and bottle up those feelings until they spew and sometimes, they leave a huge mess in their wake. In order to parent from a place of love and belonging you must start from a place of love and belonging for yourself, imperfectly being patient with yourself as you learn and grow as a human and as a parent.

If you were supposed to have a date night and your spouse had an emergency at work and had to stay it’s ok to feel disappointed and even more so it’s ok for your kids to know that you were looking really forward to your date night tonight and now, it’s not going to happen. This gives you space to be a human with feelings and it normalizes feelings for your kids.  Even moms and dads sometimes feel disappointed or have to change things when they don’t want a change.

It’s also a great opportunity to let your child contribute and support you. They might offer you a hug, a special song or to take a walk, like you do with them when they feel like you do now. They get to practice empathy and see what it is like to process real emotions in a healthy way.

Be kind to yourself like you’re kind to your babies.

Anxiety, Kids Mental Health, Parenting, Relationships, Uncategorized

The Holiday Overload

The tinsel, the lights, the wrapping of gifts, the overload of food and cheersing ourselves into oblivion. 

 If ever there is a time of sensory overload it is the holidays. 

Too much to take in with our eyes:  the lights, the wish lists, decorations in every spare space.

With our ears: holiday songs on repeat, kids screeching excitedly or fully melting down, dogs howling at the fireworks

With our noses: heavy holiday foods, holiday candles of every possible concoction including winter sweater and Christmas sugar cookie, fire… did I leave something in the oven or is that just the fireplace?

With our mouths: sugary treats, savory delights, candy being offered to us and our kids at every turn, holiday greetings hoping we remembered to ask about the right things and people and didn’t step in it by asking about the boyfriend who didn’t make it past thanksgiving! 

With our hands: checking off lists, baking, wrapping gifts, shopping. Judging which sweater is just the right weight for her, wiping tears off cheeks, soothing disappointed kids, and grieving loved ones. Carefully cleaning up broken ornaments, hot candle wax dripping onto our hands as we try to stop and remember the sacred in the midst of the chaotic.

After all of this, it seems as though a rest might be in order but instead our culture demands we set aside our noise makers and glasses of champagne and decide our goals for the new year: GET FIT! GET ORGANIZED! GET THAT PROMOTION! THIS IS YOUR YEAR!

This may be your year to truly hustle and get all those goals accomplished before the calendar turns to February, but maybe you, like me, need to slow down and re-group before you start crushing your goals.

Maybe for you January looks like:

-Slowly take down all your holiday decorations and let things be a little barer around your home than it is the rest of the year, to give your eyes a rest. 

-Spending time in silence, either as a spiritual practice or just giving your mind and ears a rest. Instead of listening to a podcast on your way to work or kid music in the morning, maybe it would help to make space for silence. 

-Eating simple meals made at home to enjoy more slowly and to have less clean up. 

-Consider putting some of your gifts away out of sight until you can use them. If you got several books for Christmas but only put the one you’re reading on your nightstand and put the rest away. Or if you got a new candle but the one on the side of your tub still has a lot of life in it, put the new one in the cabinet and it will be a fun treat later in the year. Rotating toys, some in the closet, some in the toybox can make playing more enjoyable for kids, even though it may be hard on the front end. 

-Lastly, make a list of the things that help you feel rested and add some of them into your January. These things might be: Sunday afternoon naps, Family movie night, having your home professionally cleaned twice a month, walks by the lake, reading books regularly. Take some time in January to figure out what you and your family need to feel rested and then set clear goals for the new year.

Wishing you and yours a calm and contented 2023.

Anxiety, Kids Mental Health, Parenting, Relationships, Uncategorized

Your child’s teacher thinks they have ADHD… now what?

Some things to consider before jumping to labels or medication:

–Breathe, relax. A teacher recommending getting a child assessed for ADHD isn’t the same thing as your child receiving a diagnosis. This doesn’t mean that your child is already labeled with this diagnosis. You are allowed to question them, take some time to determine what is best for you, AND get a second opinion outside the school.

–You might want to talk to someone you trust who either has ADHD or has a child with ADHD to get a more personal take of what it looks and feels like for them. It is true that ADHD exists on a spectrum and different people experience it differently, but it can help to get a ‘real life’ perspective and see how it resonates with you at all. 

–Talk to people in other settings and get their experience with your child. The indicators of ADHD have to be present in at least 2 settings for it to be diagnosable. If your child only shows those behaviors at school, for example, then you might be talking about a different issue. These people could be grandparents, your kid’s soccer coach or their teacher from last year. 

–Make a list of all of your questions and your fears, no matter how catastrophic or trivial they might seem. Then decide what you really want to know and bring them to a professional you trust to assess your child. Often counselors will do a discovery call, or introduction call to see if they are a good fit for you. (Read more about our approach here)

–Be honest about what you want or need in getting your child assessed.  If you are strongly opposed to medicine, be clear about that. Or if you have a full schedule, be clear about what therapies, coaching or tutoring you can commit to in order to address ADHD. 

At EDT we understand that even the suggestion that your child may be differently wired or need a diagnosis can be scary or overwhelming. We are happy to speak with you about your family’s needs and explain how our assessment process works. If we are the right fit for your child, we would be honored to walk through this experience with you and your child.

Anxiety, Kids Mental Health, Parenting, Relationships, Uncategorized

Holistic options for ADHD

At East Dallas Therapy, we believe our clients have many solutions to their problems. In our practice we think we’re in a unique position as family counselors to give you and your child the attention you need to provide an in-depth evaluation and assessment. After we provide an assessment, we coach parents on their communication and help kids learn to express, identify and regulate their emotions.  As we often tell clients here there are many stops on the bus before we get to medication.

Check out some of these holistic aids for ADHD:

Occupational Therapy:

ADHD is a neurological difference and occupational therapy helps activate positive chemicals in the brain using physical exercise and cranial-sacral therapy. For our child clients, we have seen occupational therapy help with concentration, calming big emotions like anxiety and build their organization and planning skills. We highly recommend North Texas Therapy Innovations, a family OT clinic that has been active in this community for decades. Check out this article about occupational therapy for children with ADHD

Supplements:

Your child’s pediatrician or occupational therapist will be able to recommend which supplements may be appropriate and helpful. Like many differences in the body and brain, ADHD exists on a spectrum and different people struggle more profoundly with certain elements of ADHD (i.e. attention, planning, focus, emotional regulation, etc.). A doctor who knows your child’s specific needs can help you decide how to use supplements.  Look at this article on the positive effects of supplements. 

Get moving:

It is often hard for ADHD kids to remain still for long periods of time so if you know they’re going to have to sit through a long church service take them outside to move and play before going inside and have fidget toys available for them during this time. 

It’s important to have family dinners. If your child struggles to stay in their seat, we recommend getting your child a yoga ball to sit on during dinner so they can move. When you introduce this to your child, talk about what is ok, and what is not ok with the ball. 

ADHD can often lead to anxiety and shame. Sometimes a child can get stuck in that negative self-talk. In this case, your role as a parent is to teach them to regulate. Here are a few tools for regulating big emotions: 

  • have your child walk outside barefoot for at least 20 minutes
  • sleep with a weighted blanket
  • use a brown noise machine
  • have your child write a letter to their worries and then tear up the letter or burn it (with parent supervision!). 

If these and many other supports do not work, medication may be the answer for your child. We know that sometimes medication is the best support for families. We believe that you have so many tools in your toolbox as parents, and there is no shame in using medication as one of many ways to care for your child.

Anxiety, Kids Mental Health, Parenting, Relationships, Uncategorized

Our favorite ADHD Tools for time management and organization!

To help with ADHD time fog:

  1. Colorful analog timers. These work well for children, teens and adults. It gives a visual representation of time for a given task. This will help your child stay on schedule and complete tasks in a timely manner with less guilt and frustration for everyone.
    1. Here is one option.
    2. Another cute one!

2.  Create a Shower Playlist. ADHD kids can easily lose track of time in the shower. It’s such a big parenting moment when your kids can finally bathe themselves. But parents often are frustrated because their kids spend forever in the bathroom forgetting to do things like washing their bodies or shampooing their hair. You may find yourself asking, “What have you been doing in here?!” Using Playlists can help you stay on track. Choose from a playlist on Spotify such as “Songs to Sing in the Shower.”

Listen Here

Additionally, some parents laminate a list of shower tasks (that can also be placed in a Ziplock bag):

3. Structure for Success-Think ahead, create visual cues, and auditory guides. It helps to do as much as you can ahead of time and having things near the door to get ready to go but sometimes things can still get left behind. We recommend door organizers which are pockets that hang on the back of your door to help you remember things that often get forgotten like a water bottle, a friend’s book that needs to be returned or a permission slip that was signed the night before when your kiddos backpack was upstairs. Such as: this doorknob organizer or this over the door organizer 

4.  If your child is more of an auditory learner, try these 30 second recording buttons that can be recorded and re-recorded over and over for reminder. They can be placed anywhere in the house. 

Please let us know if we can help you on your ADHD journey or also let us know what great ADHD hacks & tools you have found, we would love to hear from you.

Anxiety, Relationships, Self-Care, Self-doubt, Trauma, Uncategorized

Know Your Triggers

If you keep catching yourself overreacting to normal situations, feeling guilty for being “too sensitive,” and finding yourself inexplicably overwhelmed at the strangest moments, you might be triggered.

Triggers can be anything that remind you of past trauma to the point where you react like you’re in danger. The reminder might not be conscious, but your body registers the cue from the environment as a threat.

The problem is, when you don’t know you’re triggered, it’s super easy to judge yourself as being “crazy” or “too emotional.” And that kind of self-condemnation can stir up feelings of shame, which can trigger you too!

Knowing your triggers is the first step to healing. Consider some of the following types:

  1. Neutral triggers:  These triggers aren’t safety issues, just normal aspects of everyday life. For example, let’s say you survived a terrible fire in the past. Now you’re out camping when you smell campfire smoke. Suddenly your heart starts racing, it’s hard to breathe, and fear consumes you. Logically you know there’s no real threat from the contained campfire, but your body is reacting the same way it did to the fire in the past. In this instance, it can help to remind yourself that you’re safe in the present moment.
  2. Dangerous triggers:  It’s important to be able to differentiate harmless triggers from truly threatening ones. For example, an abusive and controlling friend might remind you of a past relationship that was also toxic. Sometimes being triggered is a sign you’re in danger and need to reach out for help.
  3. Upsetting but not dangerous triggers:  Imagine you and your partner are stressed, a conversation gets heated, and your partner gets so upset they ask to take a break from the argument. Without warning, you’re flooded with intense feelings of worthlessness. Part of you knows your partner just needs time to cool off, but the other part is convinced they hate you and are going to leave you. In this scenario, feeling upset makes sense to some degree. Most people feel frustrated during an argument or dislike having to wait to resolve a problem. But the emotional intensity signals a deeper issue.

When you’re triggered and don’t know it, you might accidentally assume the trigger is to blame for how you feel. For instance, in the previous example, the feelings of worthlessness aren’t caused by your partner, they’re caused by past trauma. Past emotions from traumatic events can break through into the present even if the trauma occurred years ago.

When this happens, it helps to validate both your emotions that fit the situation (such as irritation with your partner), and your emotions from the past (such as fear of abandonment from a neglectful caregiver). Remind yourself that how you feel about the past is okay, it just may not apply very well to your current situation.

For more information on triggers, read “Transforming the Living Legacy of Trauma” workbook by Janina Fisher.

Anxiety, Couples Counseling, Marriage Counseling, Relationships, Self-Care, Self-doubt, Trauma, Uncategorized

What Do Healthy Relationships Look Like?

A previous post explored the dysfunctional relationship roles described by Dr. Stephen Karpman’s “Drama Triangle” – the perpetrator, victim, and rescuer. People can get stuck in these roles especially when they don’t know what a healthy relationship looks like.

Thankfully, there’s a way out of the dysfunction. The “Empowerment Triangle” explains how to jump off the Drama Triangle and into healthier ways of connecting with others:

1. The Challenger:

  • Is no longer a perpetrator
  • Becomes assertive rather than aggressive
  • Stands up for their own needs and the needs of others
  • Takes responsibility for their own actions and consequences

2. The Creator:

  • No longer overgeneralizes victimization
  • Recognizes when they do have control
  • Begins making their own choices
  • Pursues dreams and goals to create the life they want to live

3. The Coach:

  • No longer rescues by enabling
  • Recognizes their own needs and practices self-care
  • Supports others by empowering them and teaching them skills
  • Encourages others by reminding them of their own strengths

Unlike the Drama Triangle roles, everyone on the Empowerment Triangle has learned how to take responsibility for their own emotions and problems. This leads to a healthy way of relating that involves mutual respect, support, and deeper connection.

Jumping from the Drama Triangle to the Empowerment Triangle can be tricky at first while you’re still learning how to differentiate the two. The more you practice, the easier it gets. However, just because you successfully jump off the Drama Triangle doesn’t mean everyone else on the triangle is automatically going to follow suit.

Sometimes they’ll notice the changes you make, and they’ll want to change too. But you may also run into people who have no intention of leaving their dysfunctional role. When that happens, they may even intensify their efforts to get you back onto the Drama Triangle, because otherwise it becomes unbalanced.  

Which of the Empowerment Triangle roles do you identify with the most? And who in your life have you noticed consistently practicing one of the healthy roles? You can use the Drama Triangle and Empowerment Triangle to figure out who fits best into your support network.

For more information on the Drama Triangle as well as healthy roles, read this article by Lynne Namka: https://lynnenamka.com/anger-management/anger-management-articles/drama-triangle/

Couples Counseling, Marriage Counseling, Parenting, Relationships, Trauma

Are You in a Drama Triangle?

After growing up in a highly dysfunctional household, you may find yourself repeatedly engaging in the same relationship patterns later in life without knowing how you got there.

Dr. Stephen Karpman devised a simple way to understand how these kinds of relationships typically work. He calls it the “Drama Triangle.”

The Drama Triangle consists of 3 roles that each relate dysfunctionally to each other:

1. The Perpetrator:

  • Believes they have all the power and control
  • Bullies and blames to get what they want
  • is aggressive/passive-aggressive
  • Scapegoats the Victim and ropes the Rescuer into covering for them

2. The Victim:

  • Believes they have no control
  • Gives up on making their own choices
  • Feels worthless and helpless
  • Feels powerless against the Perpetrator and dependent on the Rescuer

3. The Rescuer:

  • Focuses only on others’ needs
  • Ignores their own needs
  • Tries to control how others feel
  • enables the Victim and makes excuses for the Perpetrator

Different family members will usually gravitate toward one or two of the roles, but over time the roles can start to flip around too. For example, the rescuer in the family may get so burnt out trying to help the family victim, that they start to feel victimized themselves, and begin to view the victim as a perpetrator.

Or the victim may begin to see the rescuer as a perpetrator if the rescuer gets too drained, leaving the victim feeling abandoned. Sometimes the perpetrator may also play the victim role to try to get someone else to rescue them from the consequences of their own actions.

What do all three roles have in common? Everyone on the triangle neglects to take responsibility for their own emotions. The perpetrator blames others, the victim waits to be rescued, and the rescuer focuses on saving others from their emotions instead of acknowledging their own.

Unless someone else is around to consistently model healthy relationship roles, kids born into highly dysfunctional families can grow up to assume all relationships follow this same unhealthy pattern. Then when they encounter similar relationships as an adult, they easily fall back into old familiar roles. It feels normal. When you don’t know what healthy roles look like, it’s also possible to accidentally assume someone is being a perpetrator, victim, or rescuer when they’re actually relating in a healthy way.

In a future post, I’ll talk about what healthy relationship patterns look like in comparison to the Drama Triangle. Stay tuned!

You can check out this quiz if you’re curious to see which role you fall into most: https://cdn.website-editor.net/848c74c539684751972b4649bf55aae7/files/uploaded/Drama%2520triangle%2520quiz.pdf

Anxiety, Kids Mental Health, Parenting, Self-Care, Uncategorized

Cleaning Out Our Emotional Backpacks

Have you ever let your kid’s backpack go too long without being cleaned out? It’s like the creature from the black lagoon’s habitat in there! There’s no telling what you may find but you can be pretty sure it will be horrifying.


Kids also need to clean out there emotional backpacks on the regular! 

I got caught talking so my teacher wrote my name on the board.
So I stuff embarrassment, anger and injustice (because my friend started the conversation) into my emotional backpack.

I finally figured out that math concept I’ve been faking that I understood for days but couldn’t celebrate because I wanted everyone (including my teacher) to think I already got it.
So I stuff frustration, deferred pride & self-hatred into my emotional backpack.

My best friends were pulled for a special project and I wasn’t so I had to hustle all of recess to find new kids to play with.
So I stuff sadness, loneliness and feelings of inferiority into my emotional backpack.

Some kids like to verbally unpack their emotional backpacks and a feelings chart can be helpful. You can ask which of these feelings did you feel today? Encourage them to list more than one and then say, “It was important enough for you to carry (enter their feeling word here) with you all day & you brought them home. What do they want to say?”

Some kids like to creatively unpack their emotional backpacks. Encourage them to build paint or journal their feelings. A prompt that might help would be, “It sounds like you felt really proud of yourself today but you didn’t get to shine. Can you show me that shine with your markers & glitter or magnet tiles.”
PSA: Playdough is great for cleaning up glitter 

Some kids like to physically clean out their emotional backpacks. You can offer the opportunity to write out difficult feelings and tape them to a punching bag, trampoline or bury them in the back yard.

Cleaning out our emotional backpacks should help mitigate meltdowns, sibling squabbles and rigidity after school.
Parents might want to try cleaning out their emotional work bags too!

Kids Mental Health, Parenting

Our Most Recommended Books By Age Group

Littles and Pre-K Kids

No Drama Discipline – By Daniel J. J. Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson 

  • This is a parenting book on how to stay calm when your child isn’t calm. This book helps you combine connection and clear limits every time your child needs discipline.

The Way I Feel – By Janan Cain

  • A simple book on feelings. We like to read it to our kid clients and ask them about times they’ve felt those feelings.

Charlotte and the Quiet Place – By Deborah Sosin and Sara Woolley 

  • A great description of what it feels like when you’re overstimulated and overwhelmed and what they can do about it.

Moody Cow Meditates – By Kerry Lee MacLean

  • This books is really cute and I think many parents with more “outspoken” kids will relate to it! It does a really good job describing anger and how to calm the internal storm.

Elementary

Jabari Jumps – By Gaia Cornwall

  • This is an inspiring story of a kid struggling with anxiety around trying a new skill, his dad supported him and celebrated with him when he did it. 

Sitting Still Like a Frog – By Eline Snel

  • This book introduces mindfulness techniques in a child-friendly way

Blessing of a Skinned Knee – By Wendy Mogel, PhD

  • This book is helpful for parents struggling with over-parenting, wanting to raise self-controlled, self-reliant children.

Whole Brain Child – By Daniel Siegel & Tina Bryson

  • This book explains the Interpersonal Neurobiology of Children and how to work with them to help regulate their emotions and enjoy childhood more mindfully. 

9-12 Tweens

Brainstorm – By Daniel J Siegel

  • This explains the changes that happen in the adolescent brain and it also provides discussion guides for parents and children. 

Untangled – By Lisa Damour, PhD

  • This book guides parents through seven important transitions from childhood to womanhood addressing a girl’s inner and outer world. 

The Care and Keeping of You (Revised): The Body Book for Younger Girls – By Valorie Schaefer

  • This book is forthright description of a girls changing body. I recommend parents read it first so that they’re prepared to answer questions and discuss the topics further with their girls.

Parenting

Parenting From a Place of Value

Parenting is difficult in every generation. Currently though, it is so hard because we are dealing with not only how our parents parented us, how our friends are parenting their kids, and what the latest parenting book says. We are also faced with how influencers on social media, experts on podcasts and literally every person we’ve met since high school (thank you social media) is handling every minute problem of parenting. There are so many voices and they all have an air of importance and authority. How can you know what is best for your family? How can you get off this wild carousel?

What about learning to parent from a place of personal values instead of peer pressure or indecisiveness?

Consider these questions and process them with your co-parent to identify your values:

  • Where do we spend the majority of our time and our money? When we have to choose between two important things, which one usually wins out?
  • If I have a day where I feel like a great mom/dad what have I spent the day focused on or what feedback did I get from my kids?
  • Whose approval really matters to me as a parent (note: not whose approval should matter or whose I wish matters but whose really does).
  • If I have a rough parenting day, when my head hits the pillow I think, “that was a dumpster fire of a day but I hope my kids still know__________________.”
  • Imagine that your child is a young adult coming home for a visit with the person they are seriously dating. You have some time alone with their significant other, and they say to you, “I’m grateful to be in a relationship with someone who (fill in the blank).” Try to come up with a list of at least three and no more than five things. It could be hardworking, empathetic listener, gracious with those in need, spiritually attuned, etc. Try to be as specific as you need to to identify what it will take to parent this kind of person. 

Once you identify your values, quiet the voices that go against your parenting values. This may mean unfollowing some social media accounts, taking certain books to the used book store for resale or repeating a mantra when your Aunt Karen gives you parenting advice that doesn’t fit for you. It could be something like, “We will parent from a place of value, not of pressure.”

If you need more help sorting through your value system in order to parent from a place of value consider seeing a therapist for parental coaching. If you have any questions about this topic, feel free to contact me (Kate) here at East Dallas Therapy!

Depression, Kids Mental Health, Parenting, Trauma

When parents bring their kids to therapy it’s usually for these reasons:

We support families in East Dallas in all sorts of ways.

Kids sometimes need someone to talk to other than their parents. And parents need a sounding board, a support person in helping their kids be a success. We like to bring families more peace in their homes. We help you focus your parenting strategy and build consistency and security in your family.

Here are some reasons families come to us for counseling:

  1. Parent coaching
  2. A child has a mental health diagnosis: ADD, ADHD, Spectrum Disorders, Sensory Processing Disorder, Anxiety, Depression, PTSD 
  3. A child is differently abled and needs help coping with big feelings
  4. A family is grieving a loss or a recent trauma
  5. A child needs help being assertive
  6. A child needs learn to calm down anger outbursts or other big emotions

Kate Miller, LPC is our family therapist and can meet your kid where they’re at and give them the tools they need to succeed. Read more about her here.