20 Ways to Nurture Children's Mental Health

Foreign. I'd like to welcome everybody to Today's presentation of 20 Ways to Nurture children's mental health. I AM your host, Dr. Donnelly Snipes. In this presentation, we're going to identify what children need for good mental health, and we're going to really look at all those PACER dimensions, remember, physical, affective, cognitive, environmental and relational. And we will identify at least 25 ways to nurture children's mental health. And these are things that parents can do, teachers can do. You know, anyone who interacts with children can do. And quite honestly, I said I was not going to mess with that, but I'm doing it. Quite honestly. We can actually use those same principles to nurture our inner child. So, you know, maybe you didn't have the grandest childhood. You know, you can do things retrospectively. What would you have wanted somebody to do with you or for you as a child? What can you do now to nurture that inner child? So we're going to talk about inner children and, you know, outer children, children. Well, everybody needs to feel safe. We need to feel safe emotionally and physically. We need to feel safe, to feel our feel and to express our feelings like we're going to be understood and validated. Remember the characteristics of healthy attachment. Consistency, responsiveness, attention, validation, encouragement and, or empathy and support. So it's important to recognize that in order to feel safe, people need a healthy attachment. Children, you know, up to about age 5 really focus very strongly on that primary attachment caregiver. And having a relationship that is in which they are securely attached is really important for them to feel safe in the context of that relationship. Children learn how to take. Take risks, how to move out of that comfort zone a little bit. And they know that it's safe to take risks because somebody's got their back. They know that it's safe to take risks because even if they fail, they've got a safe place to come back to. They know that it's safe to feel their emotions because that caregiver is there to help them identify and process those emotions. Children aren't born with coping skills. They're not born with regulation skills. That's what that responsive, consistent, constant, empathetic and validating caregiver provides. That caregiver can help them label their emotions. And I know I've shared with you guys before. When my son was little, there was one time we went to the office. He had to come come to the office with me for some reason. And this was when I was working in a residential facility and I was Walking down, you know, to one department. And I don't remember what it was that triggered him, but all of a sudden he's walking down the hallway, you know, this little like three year old little dude, and he clenches his fists and he starts walking even faster and he goes, I am so angry. Well, okay, then I, you know, to this day I cannot remember for the life of me what he was angry about. But I am so thrilled with the fact that he, number one, could identify his emotions, number two, felt comfortable expressing them, because then we were able to stop and talk about whatever it was that was making him feel angry at the moment. So we were able to process that. But children need that. They need to feel physically safe. And unfortunately, with homelessness, there is a significant proportion of children, you know, not a majority, but a significant proportion of children who experience homelessness and they may not feel physically safe. And remember, homelessness doesn't necessarily mean being unsheltered, being on the street. It may mean sleeping on a friend's couch, because they don't. They lost their own housing. But physical safety means, you know, obviously safe from harm, but also having a roof over your head, food in your belly, clothes on your back. Children need that. Children need to feel competent or efficacious, if you want to use the fancy word. We need to make sure that they feel like they're able to succeed in school. And that is a huge factor when you look at issues that start to creep up for children. There's a direct correlation between failure in school or doing poorly in school and the development of mood and behavioral disorders. So we do and, and reduction in self esteem. So we do want to recognize and ensure that children are able to succeed in school. Not everybody learns the same, not everybody has the same academic strengths. We need to help students, you know, meet the bare minimum, the reading, writing, arithmetic sort of thing in a way that's meaningful to them. And as a parent of a child with a learning disability, I know that there are challenges sometimes, but it's so important to be able to find the accommodations necessary and do it early on so children don't feel like they're failing because they are not smart. They recognize that they may have different needs than other people, than other students in their class. They may, you know, have vision problems, they may have hearing problems, they may have adhd, they may have dyslexia. There's a lot of different things that unfortunately tend to go undiagnosed for way too long that impair children's ability to be as successful as they can be in school as clinicians, it is important that we try to screen for this. As parents. It's important that we are alert to this. If our child is, you know, not succeeding the way we feel that they're capable of succeeding, then we need to examine why that is culturally. And I don't want to go too far down this. This rabbit hole because that's a whole different presentation. But culturally, certain cultures learn more effectively through writing, and certain cultures learn more effectively through lecture, through auditory means. And if you have a student who's not in an environment that meets their needs, they are more likely to struggle. We see this a lot with. Alaskan natives, so that's. That's just a whole different thing. I have a video on Alaskan natives on the YouTube channel if you're interested in that. But that being said, we do need to prevent problems. We need to nurture their mental health by making sure that they can succeed at the basics and enhancing, focusing, praising, you know, reinforcing the things that they do really well. You know, I. Y' all know that math is not my strong suit. I always struggled in math, but I excelled in science. I excelled in English and those sorts of things. So it was important for me to recognize that, okay, nobody's good at everything and, you know, play to my strengths, so to speak. Children, people need to be able to succeed in managing their emotions. We need to feel competent at managing our emotions, that we're not going to be completely overwhelmed by them if we actually feel them. And part of that comes from that original attachment, making sure that the child, the person is provided with the tools they need to manage their emotions, which starts with identification, distress tolerance skills, and then problem solving and coping skills. And it's really something that we typically do. I mean, when you're working with a child, for example, they may come running to you from the playground, all in distress, and you kneel down, you greet them, you say you know what's wrong, they will tell you. You help them identify their emotion. And then generally the next step is you want to help them calm down. You want them to help. You want to help them figure out a way to tolerate their distress, whether it's deep breathing or getting a hug or whatever it is for that child. We help them down regulate so they can get into their wise mind, and then we can talk about the next steps. I mean, that's something that we kind of do pretty naturally with children, but then somewhere along the way, we forget how to do it for ourselves. I digress. And we want to make sure that children have a sense of efficacy at success. We want them to believe that they can succeed at something, you know, help them nurture their talents. My daughter, as I've mentioned, she has dyslexia, but she actually is a fabulous writer. She wrote and still writes to a, to a certain extent, some really amazing stories when she was younger. Now the spelling, because of her dyslexia, the spelling left a little to be desired, but the stories themselves were, in my opinion, pretty mind boggling. And you know, I was so proud at what she was able to do. So focusing on what she was able to do instead of saying, okay, well the spelling here, not so good. Focusing on the fact that the story was phenomenal. Focusing on the fact that she is extraordinarily gifted artistically. You know, unfortunately, she got my math jeans and math is not her strong suit. However, you know, helping her recognize instead of seeing that she's all bad in math, which she's not, helping her recognize that, okay, there are certain concepts that she has a brain cramp with, that's what we call it, she gets stuck with. But recognizing that, you know, she, she is able to do what she needs to do, the basics is just when you get into advanced math, she starts, you know, struggling. So we do need to help children recognize what their strengths are and nurture those strengths, encourage and support those strengths. And children need to feel confident. Now the difference between competent and confident. Competent means you can do it. Confident means you think you can do it. You can be really overconfident and very under competent. So that's a hard one too when you're just hearing those words. But we do need to make sure that children have esteem, they have a sense of confidence and believe that they are lovable for who they are and believe that they belong. And recognizing that when children don't feel these things, when they don't feel safe, when they don't feel competent to do something, which often translates to they, they don't feel empowered, they feel disempowered. When they don't feel confident, it's going to contribute to anxiety and depression and, you know, a host of other things. So confidence, confidence and safety, sleep and sunlight. One of my many favorite topics that I feel goes under attended in all people, not just children. But remembering that your circadian rhythms are involved in about every system in your body. Your sugar management, your libido, your, your fertility, your energy levels, your hunger and satiation, you know, it's just amazing when you start looking at all the different things the circadian rhythms are involved in, but it's an also. And your stress hormones. It's also important to recognize that our body's circadian rhythms are actually not 24 hours. Unfortunately, it's this weird schedule that we have. They're actually I believe like 20, it's like a 26 hour cycle if it's let to run wild. So our activity, our body temperature and the amount of light that we're exposed to are three main things that help us set or reset our circadian rhythms every 24 hours. When our circadian rhythms are not in sync, we will not get adequate quality sleep and all of those other systems will be out of sync as well. When we're, when we lack sleep, we wake up in the morning, we feel fatigued because we still have that adenosine in our brain. Now think about a child trying to go to school, trying to focus all day long on classes and I don't know about you, but if I have to sit still all day long, it's hard to stay awake anyway. And hopefully that child is not self medicating with caffeine. So when they don't get enough sleep, they're groggy all day long, which impairs their ability to learn. It contributes to irritability, it contributes to low distress tolerance. So you know, they're trying to do that math problem and they can't figure out the answer. And you know, it gets really frustrating really quickly. And poor concentration. None of these are going to help a child be effective, competent and confident in the school environment. So it's really important that they get sleep. Additionally, sunlight can be helpful for producing more bioavailable vitamin D, which is necessary for bone development. It's also necessary for mood. There's a significant correlation between mood and, and vitamin D levels. As you know, the research on seasonal effective disorder really started us becoming more aware of the significant correlation between depression and vitamin D deficiency. Think about children who spend a lot of time, you know, back in my day, you know, we would go skateboarding, we'd ride our bikes, we'd be outside, you know, we were expected to be outside in the afternoons. These days there is because for a lot of different reasons, youth spend a lot more time inside, on the computer, in the dark, out of the sunlight. So there is a much greater proportion of youth as well as adults who have vitamin D deficiency that are contributing to mood problems. So this is one of those easy things. Get a little bit of sunlight and you know, the doctor should be checking the youth's level of vitamin D at annual checkups and everything to make sure that they're getting an adequate amount for their age. Now the other issue that comes up and is sleep duration. Now mo most parents have children that they have to take to daycare or take to school in the morning before they go to work and then they pick them up when they come get off of work because most of us are in to work. Both, both caregivers work out of the house. So, so the children are in some sort of daycare or care after school. That being said, when you have a child who is 3 to 6 years old, they need to 10 to 12 hours of sleep per day. So this is your preschooler, your kindergartner and even your first grader. 10 to 12 hours of sleep per day, which means you know, if they can sleep till 6am they need to be in bed by 8. If you have to have them up at 5am in order to get them ready to go to school or daycare or wherever, then obviously they need to go to sleep at 7. And it's important to try to keep that schedule pretty much every day. At 7 to 12 years youth need one hour less sleep per day according to the Sleep foundation and that is 9 to 11 hours per day. Um, so again in elementary school and middle school children probably still need to be getting to bed usually by 8 because they generally can't sleep until 6am because they have to be up before that. But again, counting what would nine hours look like? And then your high schoolers need eight to ten hours a day. And that stays true for adults as well. Recognizing that unfortunately adolescents, their biological clock is actually wired to be up later at night and sleep in later during the day. I don't know why this is but the research has shown if you, if you go to pubmed and you look at, look up biological clocks and circadian rhythms of adolescents, they actually do better if they don't have to be at school and, and start functioning until 8:30 or 9am because that's how their bodies are wired. But I know that's not possible in most situations. Create a sleep routine for children. Help them develop healthy sleep hygiene and sleep habits. And you can watch the videos on sleep hygiene. I'm not going to go into depth on that. You can learn more about sleep at the National Sleep foundation as well. But recognizing if youth are feeling energized, if their circadian rhythms are set so when they wake up in the morning, their cortisol is at its highest level like it's supposed to be, then they're feeling charged and ready for the day. They're able to concentrate more in school and interact with others more effectively. So not only are they feeling more competent in their schoolwork, but they're also probably feeling more confident in themselves and in their relationships. So sleep in and of itself can be a big thing. Eliminate caffeine. Caffeine stimulates the HPA axis leading to a perpetual state of stress and has a half life of four to eight hours or I'm sorry, five to eight hours on here. So what you drink at noon is likely going to impact your sleep quality up until at least midnight. So that's important to recognize for children especially that because children with that brain that hasn't fully developed yet respond more strongly to chemical insults they call them, they respond more strongly to stimulants and other things and that can cause lasting changes in the brain. Chronic caffeine intake has been shown to increase serotonin and acetylcholine. Remember, acetylcholine is one of our excitatory neurotransmitters and inhibits the release of gaba, our calming neurotransmitter. All of these things together contribute to a feeling of alertness. Chronic caffeine intake unfortunately reduces the number of active receptors for those neurotransmitters, serotonin, acetylcholine. And so when it's stopped, the brain's abundant supply of happy chemicals is abruptly cut off and the person starts feeling depressed. Yes, you can have withdrawal from, from caffeine there. It's actually in the dsm. Caffeine also reduces co factors necessary for neurotransmitter synthesis. So when you drink a lot of caffeine, it actually prevents your body from as being able to effectively make all of the neurotransmitters it needs to and inhibits the absorption of iron, B vitamins, which are all involved with the synthesis of serotonin, dopamine and gaba. So the take home from that is try to keep the kids off of caffeine if at all possible and definitely off of those, you know, energy drinks and things like that. Because it does do a number physiologically on the neurotransmitters and the hormones and the HPA axis. People often use caffeine to compensate for inadequate sleep sleep. So if the youth is getting adequate sleep, hopefully they won't feel the need for caffeine and they can opt for caffeine free alternatives. Nutrition provides the building blocks to make neurotransmitters responsible for mood, motivation, libido, concentration and energy. And I know you're thinking teenagers. Libido, yeah. Don't really want to enhance it, but you know it all, it's all in one package. Nutrition maintains a healthy gut microbiome to help, which is where 80% of the neurotransmitters are created. And when the person has healthy nutrition, they can make effectively make the 5ht, which is a precursor to serotonin, which is form some of the mucosa that keeps the gut from being leaky. So basically we want to make sure that the person is eating a relatively healthy diet. Deficits of specific nutrients have actually been found to be associated with lower grades, more difficulty learning. The vitamins that the CDC studied or identified included vitamin A, B6, B, 12, C, folate, iron, zinc and calcium. Wow, that's a lot of them. Makes you wonder what the kids were actually eating. So what can you do? Well, if you start early, kids can really love to learn or learn to love being in the kitchen. There are a lot of really great cookbooks for kids that are out there. And yes, it's kind of like food art or playing with your food for especially for the younger kids. But it encourages them to experience different colors and different textures and those sorts of things as they get older. There are basic cookbooks for kids that can help them learn how to make particular dishes that help them feel more independent, more competent and confident. Involve children of any age in creating a weekly menu. You know, your 3, 4, 5 year old is probably going to have some opinions about what they want to eat. And no, you can't have chicken nuggets at every single meal. My son would have done that if I would have let him get away with it. But involve them in creating it with younger children. You may need to give them, you know, an option. Here are five things we could have for dinner on Monday night. Which one would you like to have instead of just leaving it wide open because you know, they may try to choose pizza every night that will help them feel committed to it. You can also involve them in the cooking process. Encourage maintenance of an online food food diary for older children. For your high school aged children, encourage them to keep an online nutrition log in order to be aware of the nutrients that they're eating. This isn't about calories, this is about monitoring the quality of what they're eating so they can recognize, you know, if they are lacking in vitamin A or zinc or something. Encourage them to eat colorfully. Three colors on the plate at every meal. Red, yellow, green, purple, black, blue, brown. There's lots of colors, which is where that food art can come in. And again, once children get older, they may not care as much. And then when you get to be, you know, my age, you actually like making a pretty looking presentation so the colors come back into it. Start a hydroponic garden. There are a lot of hydroponic garden, countertop hydroponic gardens that you can start now and children may enjoy using that. Or you could do a regular garden. You know, some, some children enjoy going out and working in a regular garden. Square foot gardening can be really fun for a family to do and it doesn't take a lot of room. You can grow a lot of things in containers, but I guess that's a whole another presentation. And keep fruits and chopped vegetables easily accessible. So instead of reaching for chocolate or some other junk food, they reach for an apple or a banana or celery. All of those things can be helpful. Heather, in terms of a, an online food diary, one of the things that I do with my children is educate them about, you know, the macros, the, the fats, the carbs, the proteins, just what they are and the fact that there are calories in them. But focusing on the fact that this nutrition log is to give them an idea of the quality of the food that they're eating. And my favorite is Spark People. But I know there are tons and tons and tons of apps out there. Spark People is just really nice because it calculates all your nutrients for you and tells you compared to what you were supposed to get on with the usrda. What percentage did you get? So that's my favorite. And it's free. I always like free. Just real quick, you can get a look at colorful foods. You know, your fruit, your blues and purples can be blueberries, blackberries, purple grapes, dried plums. Even black rice falls in that blue purple category. Eggplant, there's lots of stuff. You can even grow broccoli that is purple. Now I was looking at adding that to my spring garden. You can go online and you can find lots of images that will list different colorful foods and even have this posted on your refrigerator for kids to point at, younger kids to point at and identify foods they might be interested in trying physically. Higher physical activity and physical fitness levels are associated with improved concentration and memory and mood. Food exercise. Low intensity exercise is associated with reductions in cortisol, increases in serotonin and dopamine. Time spent in recess has been shown to positively affect students Concentration, attention and classroom behaviors. We want to remember the motivation for the behaviors. If children are acting out in class or at home, you know, what is that behavior communicating to us? What is the child trying to say? They may be trying to say that I can't hold it together anymore. I've been on my best behavior for so long and I've got this energy that's got to go somewhere. Okay, well, let's pay attention to what that's saying and figure out how we can help the youth more appropriately express that brief classroom activity. Physical breaks 5 to 10 minutes are associated with improved attention, concentration on task behavior, and educational outcomes. So letting them get up, you know, once an hour and, you know, walk around, stretch their legs, do something for five minutes, and then having them get back to their seat actually does help get that oxygen flowing, get that blood circulating again, which increases attention and focus. Children and adolescents ages 6 through 17 should do at least 60 minutes or more of moderate to vigorous activity daily. That is intense for most children who aren't doing anything right now. If we could get up to 30 minutes of light to moderate exercise a day, we would be doing wonders for their, for their mood, for their circadian rhythms, for their health. One hour of moderate to vigorous physical activity is probably a pretty high bar, but you know, I would love to try to go there. They can do this with bike riding, including stationary bikes, if you put it in front of the TV. So if you want to watch SpongeBob, you got to be on the bike. Basketball, walking, balloon toss, tag dancing, obstacle courses, and even on rainy days, you can do these in the house. Get a mini trampoline, get creative with how to expend some of that energy and, you know, help the help youth move around and not hate it. You know, just going to the gym or running or something may not be what your child likes to do. We want to encourage them to embrace a lifestyle of health and fitness. Recreation and relaxation is also important. Many youth get up, go to school, come home, do homework until 8 or 9 o', clock, then go to bed with little time for true relaxation, that's not helpful. They need to have that time to sharpen the saw, so to speak, to rest, relax, to enjoy life for a minute. Relaxation is the state of being free from psychological and muscle tension with children. You can help them develop techniques to calm that HPA axis, self regulate and, you know, reduce the psychological and muscle tension, including guided imagery, and just have them imagine a place that they want to go. It doesn't necessarily have to be Their happy place. Maybe they want to, there's all that space flight travel stuff going on right now. Maybe they want to imagine going to Mars. Okay, well, you know, use guided imagery. Have them describe what it feels like, what it sounds like, what it smells like. You know, Yoga and Tai chi can help them get more centered and calm. Now, yoga and Tai chi can be very difficult for people with ADHD or who have a lot of pent up energy. So we want to make sure that we direct the activity or the child to an appropriate activity, not one that's going to make them feel more confined and restrained. Progressive muscular relaxation and just simply deep breathing. When you slow your breathing, you slow your heart rate and you trigger that rest and digest system. We do as clinicians want to screen for autism because 1 in 59 children has some level of autism spectrum disorder. We want to screen for developmental delays, including cognitive, social and emotional speech and language and fine and gross motor developmental delays. With all the typing they're doing now, you see less handwriting. And there are associations, for example, with ADHD and certain fine motor functioning problems. So we do want to make sure that youth have the skills that they need when they grow up to function effectively. Remember that learning disabilities impact up to 10% of children. So in a 20 person classroom, at least two of those children, two of those children has probably got some level of learning disability. ADHD is another common diagnosis that needs to be differentially diagnosed and I've recommended this video to y' all before and I can't recommend it highly enough. Asperger's disorder and other common misdiagnoses and dual diagnoses of gifted children. It's from the University of Madison at Wisconsin Med School. I believe it's an hour presentation, but if you work with kids, it is well worth the watch. And the presenter is very entertaining. So it's, it's worth doing that. But if we are to help them feel competent and confident, we need to make sure that we are providing the accommodations that they need in order to and helping them figure out how to get the accommodations they need when they get older in order to ensure that they are as effective as they can be. Mood disorders impact between 3 and 8% of children. Depression is 3%, anxiety is 8 and PTSD is 4. My guess is that number is going to be markedly higher in the coming years because of a lot of stuff that's happened in, in the past eight months. So we do want to be aware of that and take steps accordingly. Students who are struggling with a mood disorder are going to have a lot more difficulty being effective in school and it's going to likely will take an impact on their self esteem as well. They may feel isolated. It may contribute to problems in relationships. So addressing mood disorders is important to enhancing the whole health of the child. Thyroid disorders is another thing that we don't often think of with children. But 4.6% of the US population age 12 and older has hypothyroidism. Just kind of let that sink in for a second. Hypothyroidism produces symptoms that are similar to depression in adults. We do want to be aware of this. Hypothyroidism is one of the most common causes of intellectual disability. Who knew the two were connected? It's important if the child seems to have excessively dry skin, seems to be sluggish, seems to have a really low heart rate, that they are assessed for thyroid issues by their pediatrician. And thyroid disorders are not necessarily present from birth. They can kick off at any old time. And thyroid hypothyroid in particular can also be a consequence of chronic stress. Environmentally, we want to help children learn by identifying how they learn best and teaching them how to modify their learning. So if they are a visual learner like I am, I struggled in lecture classes because I had a hard time paying attention. I got some ADHD going on as well. So it was important for me to learn, you know, how can I function in this environment so whatever is said doesn't go in one ear and out the other. Taking notes was one of those things. Reading the book, highlighting the book. There were a lot of tips and tools that I learned. But it's important for students to understand how they learn best and to understand that not everybody learns the same, and that's okay. Reflective and active learners are is the other dimension that's really important to recognize, Especially as a teacher, but also as a parent, as a caregiver. Active learners are learning and processing as they go. And they are really interactive. They're probably the ones in class that are always raising their hand plans because they take information and process it simultaneously. Reflective learners take all the information in, they store it up. And then when they get a second, when the teacher is quiet for a few minutes, they take all that stuff and they process it. Then they have their aha moment. It's not that they're not paying attention, it's that they don't process concurrently. They're more interested in hearing it, hearing what you're saying or reading what they're reading. And then they take all that information and say, okay, now I have all this. What does it mean? We do need to give reflective learners a little bit more time in class to have that processing moment. Encourage students to apply what they learn to things that are important or useful to them. When I taught my son about Newton's laws, oh, I loved that day. We put on our socks and we had solid floors and we learned about friction by skating down the floor and then taking our socks off and trying to skate down the floor. And you know how well that works with naked feet on a bare floor. Just making it something fun. We learn better when we are having fun. For biology, we got our yard certified as a something habitat, as an animal habitat by the National Wildlife Foundation. You can do that, you know, if you're a teacher, you can do that with your schoolyard. You can encourage students to do that as a project, as a homework project. Even if they live in apartments. Maybe they can't do it for their, their house, but maybe they can talk to the manager at their apartment complex and create a little area in the complex that is a certified wildlife environment. They can learn about nutrition and how it prevents broken bones or hand washing and staying healthy. You know, all of those things strike a chord with a lot of children. It's important to set structure and limits. Believe it or not, structure and limits helps children know that the caregiver is there, that the caregiver is paying attention, and that they care. It also helps children learn to self regulate. They learn to set limits by having limits set on them when they are younger. Structure and limits also create consistency and predictability in a sometimes often chaotic world. It creates that feeling of safety. They know what to expect. My son is, is very structured. He's very much on the J side on the kircy. When he was little, he went to kindergarten one day and they were having a birthday party early in the morning and he went into class and he sat down on the circle rug because 8 o' clock was circle time. And you know, as I said, they were doing a birthday party that morning and set instead. And he was just determined that he was not going to move. He kept telling his teacher, no, Miss Jessica, it's 8 o'. Clock. 8 o' clock is circle time. And I was like, alrighty. You know, God bless him for being consistent. Even from the time he was an infant. You could set your watch by him when he would go to sleep, when he would wake up. But he has always thrived on consistency and predictability. So interventions for structure and limits make sure that there are clear house and or classroom rules for younger children. It may need to be a pictorial representation. When you go somewhere else, like you go to grandma's house, review the rules there so children know what to expect and know what's expected of them. And review rules regularly, you know, even before getting out at the park. At the park, review what's expected with younger children, reduce exposure to adverse childhood experiences, including physical, verbal or sexual abuse or neglect. You know, obviously we want to intervene whenever possible. We want to guard our children as much as possible from these things. We want to reduce their exposure to, to family members with uncontrolled or uncontrolled addictions or mental health issues. So if somebody is in a florid psychotic state, you know, that's probably a, a potentially scary environment for a child. Not to say that you don't want people interacting, but you do want to make sure that the family members are in a place where they can be emotionally as well as physically available to the child. Caregiver loss can be a huge thing, whether it's because of death or divorce, where one parent just, you know, leaves and, and really disconnects from the child. So what do we do? We want to encourage self care for the caregivers so they can be emotionally and physically available for the children as well as self care for the children. Helping them identify, you know, what they need and what they need to do. Keeping themselves physically healthy too. Regularly discuss children's feelings and thoughts. If the family member has a mental illness or an addiction, you know, children don't really understand a lot of that, especially much younger children. So it's important to work with a counselor who can help explain it to them, who can help them process their feelings as they arise. If parents have or caregivers have to be separated from their children, encourage them to connect daily, even if from a distance. Some military families I know write letters to their children ahead of time and then the stateside partner gives the children these letters or emails now each day, as if the other parent was sending them, you know, that way. Because sometimes when people are deployed, they don't have access to the Internet every single day. But that keeps that connection going and encourages them to respond to that caregiver who is deployed. For example, safety, emotional and physical. We want to ensure that children's environments are free from threats to their physical safety from bullying or verbal abuse, and are rich with images that help them feel safe, special and included. So looking for things on social media, in television, music, posters that help them Feel safe, special and included some of my favorites. Dr. Seuss. Oh, the places you'll go. Dr. Seuss has lots of really good ones. The middle by Jimmy Eat World, Confident by Demi Lovato. Both of those are songs and inclusive television shows. We want to help them learn to be safe from their internal critic. Teach children early on about negative self talk. Don't model negative self talk or use global criticism. Instead of saying, you're a bad child, you're a bad boy, say you know I love you, but that behavior was a bad choice. We always talked about bad choices in my house. Teach children to separate fact and feeling based reasoning. Focus on objective facts. Identify and address things over which they have no control. A lot of times children feel like they are supposed to have control over everything. You know, if grandma gets sick, they may feel like it's their fault. So we need to help them process the things that they have control over and the things that they don't have control over and then develop the skills needed to accept those things over which they have no control. So again, if grandma gets sick, you have no control over this. How do you deal with it? We want to make sure that we're providing attention and unconditional positive regard for the child for who they are, not what they do. And we can do this in a lot of different ways by praising, by giving, you know, paying attention to what they do, praising what they do. Well, obviously constructive feedback is going to have to happen with just about any person providing communication to them in their love language. Yes, even children have love languages. How do they receive love most effectively? Words of affirmation, gifts, acts of service. You know, not every child is most appeal spoken to. They're, they're not. Every child's love language is gifts. Believe it or not, some of them is quality time and words of affirmation or physical touch. So do be aware of the love languages when communicating with children and praise them and show genuine interest. They can tell children are very perceptive when you're trying to fake it and trying to act interested in something. So it's important to, if there's something that you know they want you to do that you're just totally not into. You know, maybe you find something that you both are interested in that works for a lot of children. If you are working with a child who is on the autism spectrum disorder, that may not be effective. That's, that's a different ball game. But it is important to recognize that children perceive a lot from non verbals. Even if you think you're hiding it. With communication skills, we want to teach assertiveness through role playing. You know, if they're having difficulty, it was something, it's somebody at school roleplay how to handle that. If they need to ask their teacher for something but they're afraid, role play how to handle that or role play, you know, whatever situations that might be challenging, if they're going in to do something new, role play what that's going to be like, even if it means going to the doctor, you know, role play that so they can anticipate it and, and they feel more confident and competent going into it. Try to insist on using the formula I feel blank because with object, with objective language such as I feel angry because you won't let me stay out after midnight. Now obviously that's a teenager, not a 5 year old or I hear you're frustrated and I realize it seems unfair. However, I believe it's important that you get adequate sleep and you can see your friends tomorrow. So the response validates, acknowledges and validates that adolescent's feelings and states, I believe that this is important and this is why. So it gives valid reasons. It's not just a well, I don't care, I said so. When you are working with other people, but especially children, don't just ask. You know, you get that, you understand because a lot of times we will say yes to things even if we don't really understand. We're just like, well, I'll figure it out. So a lot of times, especially with complex things, have children repeat back to you what you expect them to do and insist on eye contact. Setting healthy boundaries is crucial for healthy relationships and increases self esteem, reduces stress, anxiety and depression. Healthy boundaries contribute to a feeling of safety. Boundaries, you know, I explain it to children. Boundaries set a clear line between what is you and what is not you. And it helps people not get drained by always giving, being unable to say no, or seeking help from others. So with emotional boundaries talking and this comes more, you know, with adolescence, taking responsibility for other people's feelings and problems may be a problem with boundaries. And adopting the attitude that you can empathize, but it's not something that you need to carry on your shoulders. And you know, in my house we say not my circus, not my monkeys. Letting other people's feelings dictate your own indicates poor boundaries. It's important again to recognize the difference between empathy, where you can feel, empathize with how they feel, but then you can disconnect and get back to how you feel later. Sacrificing your own needs to please others. You know, again, there's, you know, some gray area here, but when the per. When the child is always sacrificing to please, you know, that's an indication of unhealthy boundaries. And you want to talk about what that means, what does that behavior meaning why are they so desperate to get other people's approval or so fearful of rejection that they sacrifice their own needs? And blaming others for your problems is another example of poor boundaries. So you want to explore that with children. Encourage children to ask for help. Social support is one of the greatest buffers against stress. And help can come in the form of encouragement, empathy, or assistance. It doesn't mean that I need you to do it for me. It may just mean I need you to be the wind at my back. Helping children recognize that asking for help doesn't represent weakness and encouraging them to ask for help when needed and then be responsive when they ask for it. And that's crucial. You know, if you're going to tell them, you know, anytime you need help, just ask me. Then when they ask, you need to actually step up and help children learn how to find appropriate assistance. You know, where do they find help for, you know, whatever. It's not always you. Sometimes, you know, when they're at school, how do they get assistance with, you know, whatever they might need? I'm running short on examples right now. Appreciate individual differences and help children recognize and appreciate individual. Individual differences in themselves and each other. Extroverts really do well. They're great talkers. Introverts are great listeners. Sensing people focus on details. Intuitive people focus on the big picture. Can't have a picture without details as well as a big concept. Thinkers versus feelers are just motivated by different things. One's motivated by facts. The other's motivated by everybody feeling happy. Judging and perceiving really kind of focuses on time management. And I have a lot of videos on the YouTube channel that go into detail on appreciation of differences and relationships. Mindfulness and emotion identification is also important for youth. Children who can identify vulnerabilities and emotions can often intervene before they enter that red zone, that danger zone, that emotional dysregulation zone. Encourage mindfulness. Mindfulness activities by modeling emotional vocabulary back to that same formula. Again, I am feeling blank because. And it's important to model that at home. Not just expect the child to do it, but to model it yourself. Prompt mindfulness in children, you know, saying, you know, it seems like you're not happy right now. What's Going on and encouraging them to respond with, you know, I am feeling blank because. Teach them how to do a body scan periodically to identify their energy levels, their fatigue, whether they're sleeping well, their appetite, pain or discomfort, or any urges. Remember, a lot of children somaticize their emotions. So if they're starting to have headaches or stomach aches, it could be an early sign of anxiety or depression that you needs to be attended to. Encourage them to use visual, olfactory and auditory triggers for happiness. We don't want to just eliminate the negative. Encourage them to have things that they can see, hear and smell that make them happy in their environments. And even consider having them make a collage of things that make me happy. Teach them distress tolerance skills so they can tolerate things like taking tests, going to the doctor, breakups, not getting asked to a dance, somebody being mean, you know. Teach them skills that can help them distract, not react. You can have them make a poster of distraction options that work for them. So to distract and help them down regulate problem solving. Children who can solve their own problems feel much more empowered. So use scaffolding to help them solve real world dilemmas. Identify the problem. Work with them to identify together possible solutions and then figure out how to achieve the solution that they want, you know, for. Figure out a strategy and then help them work towards that strategy. Self efficacy begins by experiencing success. So teach them how to set smart goals. Remember, smart stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time limited. With children, you really want to make it as time limited as possible. Like getting all their assignments done this week, not necessarily waiting and having semester end goals. Psychological flexibility. Encourage children to reflect on what kind of person am I? And you can give them a values worksheet. They have a lot of them online you can find and talk about with them. Talk with them about what it means to embody those values. Like compassionate. What does that mean? Encourage them, once they've identified their top five values, to do one thing each day that embodies at least one of those values. Encourage them to identify the people and things that are important to them. Encourage them to be aware of how they feel at any moment, to practice mindfulness. And when they feel distressed, ask themselves, okay, what can I do to improve the next moment? What can I do to move closer to. To nurture the things that are important to me and to not give my energy to things that really aren't that important. Explore cognitive distortions, all or nothing thinking. Help them find exceptions or solutions. The fallacy of fairness. Recognizing that they may not have caused it, but they've got to fix it. Evaluate the facts to combat magnification or exaggeration. Encourage them to remember the positive things that they do and the positive things in their life because too often we get caught in the trap of minimizing the positive and if they over personalize, have them reflect on which parts of that situation were their responses. Responsibility finally, learn optimism. We are wired to pay more attention to the negative for survival. This can lead to a negative outlook and prompts us to be more aware of negative things that happen and interpret events through a negative filter. So encourage them to develop optimism through positive journaling, focusing on not only the things that went bad that day, but also the things that went well. Encourage them to embrace the idea of living in the and I can have this thing that's distressful and still have a rich and meaningful life and radical acceptance of strengths and weaknesses will help children develop self esteem and will also help them develop an appreciation for synergy, recognizing that everybody has strengths and weaknesses and you can make them fit together like a puzzle piece. Help children prevent vulnerabilities, enhance mental health by helping them address cognitive and emotional issues, ensure they have a safe environment and teach them healthy interpersonal skills. Children need to feel like they're loved and belong and that they are capable at home, school and relationships. Everybody have a great day. And yes, I agree with you Pat. Sign language can also help children who are younger communicate. Our our son used sign language when he was an infant and I think we still use it out of habit a little bit occasionally today. But that definitely can help help children start communicating at an earlier stage. Everybody stay warm, stay safe. If you're in one of those snowy areas, stay out of the road where it's all slip and slippery and all that kind of stuff and I will see you on Thursday. If this podcast helps you help your clients or yourself, please support us by purchasing your ceus@allce.com or getting your agency to sponsor an episode. A direct link to the on demand CEUs for this podcast is@allce.com podcastceus that's allce.com podcastceus to sponsor an episode of Counselor Toolbox and reach over 50,000 clinicians per week. Go to allce.com Sponsor thank you.