Do you sometimes feel like you’re walking on eggshells with your teen? Like certain things you do or say could easily set them off? If your child’s emotions are causing a disconnect and leaving you at a loss for how to respond, don’t worry! Teens are prone to emotional ups and downs; it’s part of growing up. Sometimes intense emotions will quickly pass, while other times, they’ll stick around for a while. How can you navigate your child’s emotional experience without either of you feeling as frustrated, confused, or upset? Emotion regulation skills can help! Ask yourself these questions to make the experience more manageable for you and your teen…
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Do you find it tough to stay focused, or to get your kids to stay focused? It’s hard for us all to maintain our attention, especially when there are plenty of distractions around us. Our phones are going off with notifications, our kids are vying for our attention, and our worries are pulling us from the present moment. How can we stay on task when there are so many things fighting for our attention? The key is to concentrate on just one thing: the task at hand that’s right in front of you. Mindfulness techniques can help you do just that! Mindfulness is all about being present in the moment. If you can be present, you can focus more easily. Here are some tips to help you avoid distractions and actually get things done…
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With the new year comes new goals. We have the intention of being healthier, cultivating stronger relationships, and pursuing our interests in the year ahead, amongst others. It’s important to be ambitious as you pursue and accomplish your goals. But sometimes, you can overwhelm yourself with too many goals or drain yourself trying to meet goals that are unrealistic. The stress and anxiety can make it even more challenging to see things through, and it may lead you to abandon your goals altogether. So, how can you achieve realistic goal setting for 2023? Here are some pointers…
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The end of the year is a time of reflection. It’s a time to look back on how we’ve changed, learned, and grown. We like to think about what we’ve accomplished this year and what we can improve upon in the year to come. We all have areas of our lives that we would like to enhance, whether it be our health, our relationships, our careers, or how we spend our time. By being self-aware and checking in with ourselves, we can make a plan to be an even better version of ourselves in the year ahead. It’s helpful to focus on the one or two areas of your life that you most want to improve instead of taking on everything at once. Here are some helpful prompting questions to get you started…
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Are you unhappy with your current relationships? Do you find that you tend to give more than you get? Do you feel like your voice isn’t being heard? This could be occurring in any kind of relationship: a romantic relationship, a family relationship, a friendship, a work partnership, and so on. No matter what interaction you’re struggling with, don’t worry! Relationships are tricky. It can be challenging to ask for what you want or to find the courage to say “no” when you’re uncomfortable. Luckily, there are ways to build your confidence and speak up for yourself in your relationships. We’re here to help…
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Do you ever feel like your relationships aren’t going well for you? Do you find that you give in more often than not? Do you tend to have a passive role in your relationships? No matter what kind of relationship you’re struggling with, don’t worry! It can be challenging to ask for what you want or to find the courage to say “no” when you’re uncomfortable. If you’re looking for a way to improve your assertiveness, try using the DEARMAN skill! It’s an interpersonal effectiveness DBT skill, which means that it’s designed to help you communicate better with others. It teaches you how to calmly and effectively ask and receive. Let’s learn about how it works…
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Do you have trouble keeping your cool when parenting your teen? Do certain behaviors of theirs cause you to lose your temper? It’s understandably challenging to deal with teens’ emotional up and downs while keeping your own emotions in check. Therefore, taking a dialectical approach to parenting might be helpful for you. Being a dialectical parent means finding balance—specifically, balance between opposites. There is an opposite to everything in life, and we tend to be most effective when we balance those opposing ideas. By finding balance between things that seem completely opposite to you, like a draining day and a calm mind, you can manage your teen without the emotional strain. Are you ready to apply dialectics to your parenting?
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Every moment of every day, you’ll find a number of things fighting for your attention at once. Whether it’s your phone going off with another notification, your children asking for you, or your co-worker sending you a question via email, it’s understandably tough to stay on task. With so many distractions, your attention is often split between multiple things at once. When your attention is divided, you’re not as focused in the moment. How can you focus on what’s right in front of you, avoid distractions, and actually get things done? Try using mindfulness to cultivate your attention and enhance your experiences. Let’s explore how to go about this…
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Parenting has its ups and downs. When your children are getting along and they’re in good moods, it’s wonderful. But when one child is misbehaving, or another child’s behavior is out of control, you may naturally feel frustrated, concerned, and unsure of how to respond. While there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to parenting, there are ways to reduce stress and help your children grow. One option is conscious parenting. Conscious parenting is a mindful, parent-focused approach. The central idea is that in order to help your children, you must first help yourself. Let’s learn more about how to be a conscious parent…
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Have you been dealing with a lot of emotions lately? Supporters of both candidates feel a variety of intense emotions after an election. Both the thrill and excitement of a win and the disappointment and frustration of a loss can have lasting impacts post-election. While it’s okay to feel your feelings in the moment, it is important to know when to let go of those emotions. The tricky part of any emotionally-charged event is determining when to let your feelings pass, and how to move forward without allowing your emotions to overtake you. If you’re unsure about how to proceed during these days and weeks following the election results, don’t worry! Transition from intense feelings to a place of calmness and composure with these useful strategies…
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Is life’s unpredictability getting to you? We’re in the midst of uncertain times. Between the implications of the coronavirus pandemic and the election results, many people are feeling understandably uneasy. We’re not sure what the future will look like and that uneasiness is causing us distress. When we feel fearful or overwhelmed, we have a natural tendency to go into fight (criticize, yell, get into arguments), flight (run away physically or mentally), or freeze (shut down or isolate) mode. This occurs because our minds and bodies are perceiving the uncertainty as a threat. While it’s okay in the short-term, it can take its toll on our bodies in the long-term. Chronic stress can cause us to feel fatigued, to experience anxiety or depression, and to suffer from sleep issues, among other things. It’s not healthy to be in this mode more often than necessary. Luckily, you can escape the constant state of stress and combat the unpredictability. Here are some quick tips and suggestions to give your mind and body a breather...
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It’s possible that you’re facing election-related stress. With November 3rd just around the corner, most Americans are understandably anxious. The uncertainty of who our next president will be has everyone on-edge. The first step to coping with any kind of anxiety is to acknowledge how you’re feeling. Recognize that you are feeling increasingly nervous, or more easily frustrated, or more emotionally volatile. Next, develop ways to address the impact of your emotions today, before the election, and after the election results are announced as well. What can you do to remain emotionally resilient in the days ahead? Here are some helpful tips…
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Does your teen have trouble adapting to change or bouncing back from challenges? Teenagers don’t have it easy during a pandemic. Their lives were already full of physical, social, and emotional changes every day. With the added stress of COVID-19, it’s understandable for teens to struggle with changes or setbacks. A mistake as small as spilling their glass of water or a problem as big as doing poorly on a math test could negatively impact their mood for the rest of the day. In today’s world, it’s more important than ever for teens to cultivate emotional resilience. It will help them deal with life’s changes and challenges without all of the emotional suffering. Share these helpful tips with your teen so that they can cope with adversity effectively…
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Is your child “stuck” in negative pattern behavior? In a perfect world, you could tell your children what they’re doing wrong and they would actually listen. They would stop procrastinating homework, scrolling mindlessly through social media, or getting emotional when under pressure. Making a change is easier said than done. Whether it be managing time more effectively, being increasingly present in the moment, or staying focused on the task at hand, your teen can make a change for the better. How? By focusing on target behaviors. Let’s explore how your child can use target behaviors to succeed at self-improvement…
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Does your teen struggle to stay focused on schoolwork? School was challenging enough before the pandemic. With online and hybrid learning, it has become even more difficult for teens to manage the responsibilities of being a student. It’s tough to focus in class when the classroom has become their bedroom. It can be a hurdle just to get started on homework when your teen is anxious about the workload. When teens get stuck in overwhelming feelings of anxiety, mindfulness skills help bring them into the present moment. Practicing mindfulness can really make an impact on your teen’s learning experience. Here are some mindfulness tips to help teens succeed at school…
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Have your emotions felt out of control lately? It’s hard to be your best self during a pandemic. Trying to keep the family calm so that you all get along is a major undertaking—let alone keeping your own emotions in-check. Though it would be nice, you can’t ever have complete control over how you feel. The best you can do is to develop better emotion regulation skills so that you’re not feeling emotionally drained by the end of the day. Here are some DBT-inspired tips and tricks to manage an endless list of to-do’s while maintaining your composure…
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Do you get easily frustrated with your family? Maybe it’s the way your kids chew with their mouths open or the way your partner stacks the dishes in the sink that gets on your nerves. These minor bothers can get exacerbated during a pandemic. Your emotions are only heightened with the added stress of health, financial, and social concerns. With so many things to worry about, it’s understandable that the little things might put your emotional state over the edge. One of the best ways to keep your cool during a pandemic is to practice patience. Patience is more than being able to wait for something or someone. It’s also the ability to tolerate unpleasant situations without getting angry or upset (without getting into Emotion Mind, as it’s called in DBT). Parents who are patient are better able to handle daily challenges within the family without losing their cool. Like playing the piano or riding a bike, patience is a learned skill that you can strengthen over time. Here are some ways to cultivate patience…
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Have you been getting more involved in your kids’ online learning? Many parents are stepping in this school year to support their children with online learning so that they don’t fall behind academically. But have you ever considered the impact of your added involvement on your children’s executive functioning skills? Executive functioning skills are the set of skills that your child doesn’t get graded for; however, they do play a key role in learning and earning high marks. Strong executive functioning skills allow kids to organize, prioritize, and complete tasks effectively. With remote learning, strive to find a balance between stepping in to help and stepping back to let your kid figure things out on their own and develop vital executive functioning skills. Here are some strategies to help you and your children this school year...
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Kids and teens of all ages recognize that this school year is not like any year before. Whether their school year is starting off with remote, hybrid, or in-person learning, it is a major change from what they are used to. The new school year already comes with the anxieties of new classes, different classmates, new teachers, and potentially a new school. The addition of a pandemic only makes the nervousness, uncertainty, and apprehension even more intense. As a parent, you can help to ease your child’s worries. Here are some strategies to make the extra daunting transition back into a new school year more manageable…
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With the school year starting any day now, many parents and children are understandably anxious. There’s a great deal of uncertainty about what the new school year will look like and how it will compare to expectations. No matter what happens, this start of school will not be “normal.” It requires a different approach than previous years: an approach composed of determination, patience, compassion, and mindfulness. If you’re looking for ways to ease this especially challenging back to school transition for the kids (and for yourself), here are some helpful tips…
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