Building a strong relationship with your child is essential for their development and well-being. Here are some tips for improving your relationship with your child:
Be present and attentive. Make sure to spend quality time with your child on a regular basis. Put away your phone and other distractions and focus on your child during this time.
Show interest in your child’s life. Ask them about their day, their interests, and their thoughts. Listen actively and try to understand their perspective.
Show affection and give praise. Let your child know that you love and appreciate them. Positive reinforcement can go a long way in building a strong relationship.
Set clear boundaries and consequences. Children need structure and discipline to feel secure. Make sure your child knows what is expected of them and what the consequences will be for not following rules.
Communicate openly and honestly. Be honest with your child about your feelings and thoughts. Encourage them to do the same. This will help your child to feel comfortable talking to you about difficult topics.
Be a good role model. Children learn by example, so be sure to model the behavior you want to see in your child. If you want your child to be kind and compassionate, be kind and compassionate yourself.
Show interest in your child’s activities and hobbies. Encourage their passions and talents, and attend their games or recitals.
Apologize when you make mistakes. Children need to learn that it’s okay to make mistakes and that it’s important to apologize and make amends.
Show empathy and understanding. Try to see things from your child’s perspective and understand their feelings. This will help your child feel heard and understood.
Have fun together. Laugh and play with your child. This will help create positive memories and strengthen your bond.
In summary, building a strong relationship with your child takes time and effort. It’s important to be present and attentive, show interest in your child’s life, set clear boundaries and consequences, communicate openly and honestly, be a good role model, show interest in your child’s activities and hobbies, apologize when you make mistakes, show empathy and understanding, and have fun together. By trying some of these tips, you should see improvements in your relationship with your child and create a stronger bond that will last a lifetime.
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Derek Thompson looked into why American Teens Are So Sad and identified Four forces that are propelling the rising rates of depression among young people. From 2009 to 2021, the share of US high-school students who say they feel “persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness” rose from 26 percent to 44 percent, according to a new CDC study. This is the highest level of teenage sadness ever recorded.
So why is this happening? There are several answers purposed to that question, along with one meta-explanation that ties them together. Here are four forces propelling that increase.
1. Social-media use Five years ago, the psychologist Jean Twenge wrote an influential and controversial feature in The Atlantic titled “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?” based on her book iGen. Around 2012, Twenge wrote, she had noticed that teen sadness and anxiety began to steadily rise in the U.S. and other rich developed countries. She looked for explanations and realized that 2012 was precisely when the share of Americans who owned a smartphone surpassed 50 percent and mobile social-media use spiked. In the past few years, scientists have disputed the idea that social-media use itself makes teenagers miserable. “There’s been absolutely hundreds of [social-media and mental-health] studies, almost all showing pretty small effects,” Jeff Hancock, a behavioral psychologist at Stanford University who has conducted a meta-analysis of 226 such studies, told The New York Times recently.
2. Sociality is down
Both Steinberg and Twenge stress that the biggest problem with social media might be not social media itself, but rather the activities that it replaces. “I tell parents all the time that if Instagram is merely displacing TV, I’m not concerned about it,” Steinberg told me. But today’s teens spend more than five hours daily on social media, and that habit seems to be displacing quite a lot of beneficial activity. The share of high-school students who got eight or more hours of sleep declined 30 percent from 2007 to 2019. Compared with their counterparts in the 2000s, today’s teens are less likely to go out with their friends, get their driver’s license, or play youth sports. The pandemic and the closure of schools likely exacerbated teen loneliness and sadness. A 2020 survey from Harvard’s Graduate School of Education found that loneliness spiked in the first year of the pandemic for everyone, but it rose most significantly for young people. “It’s well established that what protects teens from stress is close social relationships,” Steinberg said. “When kids can’t go to school to see their friends and peers and mentors, that social isolation could lead to sadness and depression, particularly for those predisposed to feeling sad or depressed.”
3. The world is stressful—and there is more news about the world’s stressors
Lisa Damour, a clinical psychologist and author, told me that no single factor can account for the rise of teenage sadness. But she believes a part of the answer is that the world has become more stressful. Or, at least, teenagers’ perception of the world seems to be causing them more stress. “In the last decade teenagers have become increasingly stressed by concerns about gun violence, climate change, and the political environment,” she wrote in an email. “Increased stress among young people is linked to increasing levels of sadness. Girls, more than boys, are socialized to internalize distress, meaning that they tend to collapse in on themselves by becoming depressed or anxious.”
4. Modern parenting strategies
In the past 40 years, American parents—especially those with a college degree—have nearly doubled the amount of time they spend coaching, chauffeuring, tutoring, and otherwise helping their teenage children. The economist Valerie Ramey has labeled this the “rug rat race.” High-income parents in particular are spending much more time preparing their kids for a competitive college admissions process. When I interviewed Ramey about her work in 2019, she told me that she “couldn’t believe the amount of pressure our friends were putting on their kids to get ready for college.” The “rug rat race” is an upper-class phenomenon that can’t explain a generalized increase in teenage sadness. But it could well explain part of what’s going on. And in the 2020 Atlantic feature “What Happened to American Childhood?,” Kate Julian described a related phenomenon that affects families a bit more broadly: Anxious parents, in seeking to insulate their children from risk and danger, are unintentionally transferring their anxiety to their kids.
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Mindfulness strategies are all about being ‘present’ by connecting with one or more of your five senses. They are sight, sound, smell, taste and touch. Try some of these.
Focus on 3 things you can hear, 3 things you can smell, and 3 things your body can physically feel
Touch is a great way to be present – you might stomp your feet, pat your cat or even have a massage
Get absorbed in the moment – playing sport, playing a video game or just having fun with friends is a great way to have a mental break from worries
Focus on really listening to an awesome song
Eat something yummy really slowly, savoring the taste
Splash cool water on your face – this can trigger the ‘mammalian dive reflex’ which is an automatic response that slows your heart rate and brain waves (designed to help us survive when swimming underwater)
Breathing exercises
Breathe naturally, evenly, and at a speed that feels comfortable.
Focus on sending your breath right down to your belly button – so your stomach rises and falls with each breath.
Just keep your breathing even and natural.
Do this for five slow, even breaths.
Take a moment to reflect on how this makes you feel.
Writing
Writing can be an effective means of working through stress. Writing can provide a means of expressing troubling thoughts, as well as gaining a better understanding of what is bothering you. keeping stressful thoughts and feelings in often causes them to grow, it is important to give your thoughts and feelings a voice – especially when your feelings are raw. Writing your thoughts and feelings allows you to express freely without worry about what others will think or how they will react.
To get the most out of this exercise, try letting the words just come – don’t focus on coherency, spelling, or neatness, instead just try spilling the words onto the paper. Write until you feel done.
Physical Activity
Physical activity can help lessen stress reactions and promote a general feeling of well-being. Even just a brisk walk for 15 – 20 minutes. Physical activity causes endorphins to be released, which are the body’s feel-good hormones. Regular exercise can also improve your body’s ability to handle stress in general. It is important not to overdo, wear appropriate gear (comfortable walking shoes, bicycle helmet), and not use this as permission to engage in compulsive or disordered behavior!
Try walking around a new area while listening to your favorite music. It can physically take you away from the stress and perhaps give you a new perspective in the end.
Self-Talk
If we really listen to ourselves, sometimes we say negative things to ourselves: “she doesn’t like me”, “I’m going to screw this up”, “he’s funnier than I am”. Before you know it, all you’re hearing are negative thoughts whispered in your own voice. This is called negative self-talk, and it is going to have a negative impact on you in most aspects of your life. It becomes really difficult to turn the negative soundtrack off.
Using positive self-talk, you can start to hear words of encouragement and support – whispered to you in your own voice. You will be surprised at how different that feels! Using positive self-talk consistently over a period of time also serves to rewrite the script.
Art
Creative endeavors are a known means of self-expression. Some do not like writing, and sometimes words cannot seem to effectively express your feelings. When using artistic expression as a coping skill the key is not to focus on the end product, but the process of making the art.
Grab a piece of paper and some markers or crayons. Fill the page with color
https://tenacitycounselling.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/6-Coping-strategies.jpg23041728Jamal Ahmelichhttps://tenacitycounselling.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/01_p-1-300x97.pngJamal Ahmelich2022-06-15 09:25:392022-06-03 03:31:146 Coping Strategies for Young people
In our technological world, more and more children are spending time inside on devices and less time playing outside. Spending time outdoors isn’t just enjoyable but it’s also necessary. Many researchers agree that kids who play outside are happier, better at paying attention and less anxious than kids who spend more time indoors.
Spending time in nature can build their confidence. There’s a lot less structure than most types of indoor play and they can choose how they interact with the nature around them. This gives them practice managing their own actions and encourages creativity and imagination.
Being outdoors can also teach them responsibility. For example, if they are in charge of watering a plant, they can learn that they must take care of living things to keep them alive.
Being outside gets kids moving, too. Regardless of what they’re doing, there’s usually more exercise involved than if they were sitting on the couch. Not only is exercise good for kids’ bodies, but it seems to make them more focused. This is especially helpful for kids with ADHD. Being outside also helps kids feel less stressed.
In the spirit of getting kids outside, here is an outdoor challenge for engaging boys in the natural setting. These tasks can simply be done in a backyard or at a park if needed. Fire starting and foraging are omissions from this list for safety reasons. Good luck!
Learn to Tie the Bowline Knot
Knots come in handy for a slew of survival scenarios. Tying snares, securing shelters, lowering equipment or yourself down a cliff face. Ideally, you should have an arsenal of knots, from hitches to bends to loops, in your repertoire. But if you learn only one, learn the bowline.
Build a Shelter
A shelter should be your top priority in a prolonged survival situation. To make a simple lean-to, find a downed tree/fence/rock resting at an angle, or set a large branch securely against a standing tree, and stack smaller branches close together on one side. Layer debris, like leaves and moss, across the angled wall. Lastly, insulate yourself from the cold ground–which will draw heat from your warm body–by layering four to six inches of debris to lie on. If branches aren’t available, get creative and improvise from stuff around your home.
Make a Solar Sill
Collecting water is imperative in survival situations. Try this method for getting water with the help of the sun. For an idea of how to do this, see here for an example.
Navigating by stars
This one needs to be done at night in an area with minimal city lights. To find the North Star (Polaris), which is the end of the Little Dipper’s handle. If you can find the Big Dipper, draw a line between the two stars at the outer edge of the constellation’s dipper portion. Extend this line toward the Little Dipper, and it will line up with Polaris. Face Polaris, and you’re facing true north. If there is a crescent moon in the sky, connect the horns of the crescent with an imaginary line. Extend this line to the horizon to indicate a southerly bearing.
Build a Bed
Find a dry area. Frame your bed with rocks or logs (make this a bit bigger than you are). Plug cracks with moss, leaves, or bark. Gather dry leaves and other dry materials. Pile them into the bed until it bulges. Nestle into the leaves and keep a thick layer on the ground.
Video games have increasingly become the hobby of choice for many youth around the world. With more and more options of types of games, improving graphics, social connection and intense, engaging storylines, it’s easy to see why it’s become so popular with young people. With this increased prevalence, we’ve also seen the rise in issues related to overuse of video games. While it’s hard to define where the line between healthy use and unhealthy use is, there is a point where unhealthy use can be problematic. Here are a few tips for parents to consider when reflecting on their young person’s video game use.
Strategies for prevention of overuse
Promotion of healthy activities and hobbies
Sleep
Social “in person” interactions with family and friends
Time in Nature
Physical Activity
Anything that supports a strong parent-child relationship can be a protective factor
Be a role model for healthy technology use
Setting Healthy Limits:
Connecting with your child
Positive reinforcement of good behaviour
Be positive with your child as much as you can.
Working with your child to set boundaries on use and discussing the reasons why
Setting limits that include increased responsibility of use. One day they will need to manage their own use so anything we can do to prepare them for this will help.
Setting consistent boundaries and having systems built in to support this. (For Example: Timers, Wifi controls, etc)
Limit recreational technology on weekdays. Many parents will limit video games on school days, while allowing them on weekends.
Managing Problematic Use:
Limit wifi access. For example, turning this off at night or during set periods
Change the wifi password daily.
Consider removing controllers or cables when your youth will be unsupervised
Consider removing devices completely.
What needs is your child meeting through video games?
Is your child trying to keep occupied? Find healthy activities and people.
Is your child looking for social connection? Find other ways to connect socially.
Is your child looking for adrenaline and excitement? Find ‘adrenaline’ sports such as mountain biking, kayaking, etc. to meet that need.
Is your child looking for others to validate and accept your child? If so, find responsible adults that can help your child feel accepted.
Treatment
Family participation is so important when considering, planning and implementing change in the problem gamer’s life. Family members can keep young people on track and support that positive change that may be needed in their life. Treatment can occur in multiple ways from working with a counsellor or psychologist in the community or by doing residential treatment where the youth would be at a facility for a given period of time. Therapists use various types of interventions and treatments depending on the situation such as the following.
Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT): CBT is a therapy that helps people look at their thoughts, feelings, and behaviours.
Motivational Interviewing: Motivational interviewing helps look at a patient’s readiness for change and explores ambiguity around their willingness to change problematic behaviours.
Family therapy: Excessive video gaming can impair family relationships, and family interventions seek to improve relationships between the child/youth and family members.
Treatment goals may include:
Helping the child/youth to find other activities and people to meet the needs that the video games meet. It can be helpful to explore what needs are being met by the video games. Is it a social need? Or is it a need for dopamine/adrenaline? Or is it a need for achievement?
Finding other ways to give adrenaline/dopamine, such as time in nature or physical activity.
Finding other ways to have social connection, such as with family or friends.
Finding other ways to give mental stimulation, such as reading, learning, or other hobbies.
Treating any other mental health conditions that the person has. People with excessive video gaming may have other conditions such as substance use problems, depression, anxiety, ADHD.
Addressing any other significant life stresses that the young person may have. The person may have troubles coping with family stresses. Or stresses with bullying and peers. Video games may be a way of escaping and coping with stresses.
Public speaking is one of the most common forms of anxiety that people experience with some estimates upwards of 73% of the population feeling some level of discomfort when speaking. If you fall into this category, try some of these tips to help make your next experience a positive one. Managing anxiety is best used in combination with thorough preparation and practice for a presentation. Try accepting your anxiety instead of battling with it, and you may find it becomes much less of a problem for you.
Some Basic Assumptions about Anxiety
Emotions, both negative and positive, are a natural part of living and cannot be avoided or controlled, nor do they need to be.
The fear of failure and the desire to succeed are two sides of the same coin. We feel anxious because we want to perform well. This is a normal and healthy part of being human.
Anxiety is uncomfortable and inconvenient, but not unbearable. It is when we start judging ourselves about our normal anxiety that we begin to create real problems for ourselves.
A certain amount of anxiety is beneficial to one’s performance because it motivates us and helps us to focus our energy and attention.
Destructive Beliefs about Anxiety
Have you ever found yourself thinking like this?
I should be able to control my feelings. I should be able to rid myself of anxiety prior to my presentation.
If I’m this nervous, there must be something wrong with me
There’s no way I can give this presentation until I feel more confident
I’d rather die than have to talk in front of the whole class
What happens if you think like this? It can be a vicious cycle. By trying to resist the feeling of anxiety, you prolong your focus on it. That leads you to reject your feelings and your emotional self. Your attention gets stuck on the anxiety and on yourself, increasing your self-consciousness and making you feel even worse. You’re critical towards yourself and your productivity to achieve the task at hand- the presentation. Your belief that you can’t handle these kinds of situations is reinforced. The next time you’re in the same situation, you have heightened level of anticipatory anxiety because of your previous difficulty.
Positive Self Talk
If you find yourself thinking these kinds of things, consider these more helpful and healthy alternatives to the above statements. Identify the ones that are most relevant to you and repeat them to yourself whenever you start getting anxious about your presentation.
I cannot and do not need to control my anxiety
Anxiety is a natural part of being human
Anxiety is a cue to take action
It is okay to feel nervous and anxious before and during my presentation. It reflects my desire to do well and succeed.
There is no reason to fight the nervous and anxious part of myself. I will not resist my nervousness and it will subside in its own time. I will perserve without avoiding my presentation.
Deep Breathing
Taking deep breaths will help to calm your self down in the lead up to the presentation. Try to slow down your breathing and focus on big, deep breaths right up until you are about to present. We can reduce anxiety by breathing differently. Take slow inhalations and even slower exhalations with brief pauses in between. We’ll be more likely to use this technique if practiced in times of low stress.
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People often ask me what I see others doing that helps support them be able to be successful with coursework and school. Here is a list of some of the keys that I’ve found successful students do.
Attend Classes
Don’t make the mistake of skipping class and trying to teach yourself. Since the information that your teacher thinks is important will likely be what you go over in class and more likely to show up on an exam. You’ll also be more likely to remember something from class because you are more involved. Try to get involved and ask and answer questions.
Know your Teacher
Take time to learn what’s needed to get through each subject you are taking. Study the course outline and refer to it periodically to make sure you’re on track. Find out your teacher’s marking scheme and requirements for the class. You’ll be able to tailor your work to meet their requirements.
Schedule Regular Study Periods
If you don’t set aside a specific time to review, chances are you won’t review. The most effective way to learn anything is to rehearse it regularly. Be realistic as well. It’s better to spend half an hour on each subject than to plan one hour for each one and not follow through.
Establish a Regular Study Area.
When you study in the same place every time, you become conditioned to study there. Your mind will automatically kick into gear, even when you don’t feel like studying.
Shut Yourself Away from Noise and Other Distractions
TV, Phones, and nearby distractions hamper your concentration. If this is difficult, try to do some meditation or deep breathing to help you get your focus back.
Study Short and Often
Your brain takes in information faster and retains it better if you don’t try to overload it. Four short study periods a week are more effective than two long ones.
Study When you are Wide Awake
Decide what your best time is and try to schedule your study time accordingly
Study your Most Difficult Subjects First
You’re most alert when you first sit down to study, so you’ll be in the best shape to tackle the tough stuff. You’ll also feel better getting the worst out of the way, and you won’t be tempted to spend all of your time on easier or favourite subjects.
Be Selective
No one is able to retain everything they ever read or hear and it is not necessary to do so.
Get Organized
Usually categorizing the material will make it more meaningful. You may wish to use diagrams, charts, lists, cue cards, etc. Pictures can be especially effective.
Find Meaning
Information that is meaningful is learned more quickly and remembered longer. When you are trying to learn something you don’t understand or is unrelated to anything you know, it’s very difficult to retain. If you can associate it with something you’re familiar with, you will have a much easier time memorizing it.
Take Good Notes and Review Them Regularly
The best way to learn anything is to review the information often
Reward Yourself
When you complete one of the goals you set for yourself, give yourself a reward. It doesn’t have to be anything elaborate. Try some timed phone time, TV or going for a walk. The reward system gives you an incentive to reach your goals and a pat of the back for achieving them.
Start Assignments as Soon as they are Given
A little work on an assignment each week will allow you time to give attention to its quality. Your workload will be spread out, so you’ll avoid an overload near the end of the classes.
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I’m 16 and I don’t know what to do with my life. What can I do?
First of all, don’t be so hard on yourself. It’s hard to know what the future holds when you are in your teens.
It’s through life experiences and exploring more about yourself that you’ll be able to find areas that you want to pursue. And know that there will be many different pathways you can take and that’s ok! If you view it as a journey, keeping learning more about yourself and keep an open mind, you’ll better equip yourself for finding things in your life you are passionate about and/or jobs or careers you want to pursue.
I would suggest working towards….
Joining a school club
Volunteering
Working
Traveling
Exploring your own strengths
Exploring Post secondary plans
Taking up new hobbies
Obtain life experiences
Being curious about the world around you
Best of luck finding that path for yourself. Remember to have gratitude for what you have in life already.
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Problematic Smartphone use, Nature Connectedness and Anxiety
Richardson et al dig into how these 3 items relate to one another. Society’s disconnection from nature has paralleled an increase in smartphone use. Some findings from their research:
As a result of stressful situations in daily life a, research is pointing us in a direction of getting back to our roots. Nature therapy, a health-promotion method that uses medically proven effects, such as relaxation by exposure to natural stimuli from forests, urban green spaces, plants, and natural wooden materials, is receiving increasing attention.
It is empirically known that exposure to stimuli from natural sources induces a state of hyperawareness and hyperactivity of the parasympathetic nervous system that renders a person in a state of relaxation. This state becomes progressively recognized as the normal state that a person should be in and feel comfortable. Could this immersion in nature be helpful for you?
