Archives: Blogs

Listening to and understanding our children are two very different things.

Communication can be difficult for the best communicators but what about those who are just beginning the process? From an early age our children attempt to connect with us, on many levels at once, with few of the communications skills they’ll eventually possess as adults.

Deciphering Needs

The process of listening to our children begins with parents’ (and other caregivers’) careful attention to the cries that a baby makes. In doing so, the parent or caregiver learns how to determine whether the child is hungry, wet, sleepy, or otherwise distressed. But listening soon becomes more complicated. As our children grow, they experience more types of distress and increase their repertoire of verbal and non-verbal communication methods. This is an important time to let your children know that you are listening and available.

Letting Your Children Know that You are Listening:

• When your children are talking about their concerns, stop whatever you are doing and listen.
• Let them complete their point before your respond and listen to their point of view, even if it difficult to hear.
• Repeat what you heard them say to ensure that you understand them correctly.
• Express interest in what they are saying without being intrusive.

Being Available for Your Children:

• Notice times when your kids are most likely to talk – for example, at bedtime, before dinner, in the car – and be available.
• Find time each week for a one-on-one activity with your child and avoid scheduling other activities during that time.
• Learn about your children’s interests and initiate conversation by sharing what you have been thinking about.
• Start the conversation; it lets your children know that your care about them and what’s happening in their lives.

Young children communicate for various reasons. Some of these communications are, of course, for physical comfort or emotional sharing and reassurance. By contrast, communications with emotional roots can have many different meanings.

This statement is pretty obvious. The operative word is “some”. Some communications are are purely about comfort the balance are rooted in reassurance and emotional sharing which can be highly ambiguous. This ambiguity is further compounded by the fact that some children are not as straightforward in their play and talk as others.

Little Things Mean a Lot

As a kindergartner, my son went through a phase where he needed reassurance each morning before he entered the classroom. This wasn’t unusual – everyone needs extra encouragement from time to time – but one morning he flat out refused to enter the classroom.

I decided not to be insistent. Instead, we sat together quietly on the playground outside his classroom. After a long while, my son told me that he and his classmates had practiced a fire drill the day before. Then he gave me a hug and went inside.

Problem solved? Hardly.

The next day my son repeated the previous morning’s routine and refused to go into the classroom. This situation continued every day for several months, much to his mother’s and my concern. What was going on? It took a while, but we finally figured out what our son was going through.

Trauma, Reinforced

My son had spent the previous summer at camp. While he was there, he experienced a traumatic event. Several of his closest playmates were seriously injured, and all of the children were evacuated in a panic. In my son’s mind this meant that he was going to experience traumatic events on a regular basis. When his kindergarten teacher practiced fire drills with the students, it reinforced my son’s fear.

My son felt horribly unsafe in the world. He couldn’t communicate his fear, nor could he fully understand our reassurances. It took years for him to begin to feel safe at school, and to understand that his traumatic experience at summer camp was most likely a once-in-a-lifetime event.

A Tough Job for Parents

It is important, as a parent, to see and hear our children – good, bad or otherwise. Listening is difficult because of what we can’t or don’t want to hear:

• that our children are angry at us (it’s even harder when they have good reason)
• that our children are feeling afraid, sad, jealous, sexual, or vengeful (depending on what we’re uncomfortable with)
• that they feel ashamed or guilty, or make us feel guilty
• that their distress is very real and not easily relieved

Our temptation as parents is to treat things as if they are simple, to pretend we always know what to do, and to listen judgmentally – or not to listen at all.

Getting the Point Across

A child may communicate using words, actions, or some “disguised” manner whose code is difficult to decipher but might include a broad range of verbal and non-verbal cues including: stoicism, clapping, singing, tantrums, isolation and more.[example]. The communication may make the adult uncomfortable, but listening is worth the effort.

Helping a child to understand and accept his or her feelings is a crucial step in the development of emotional intelligence (being aware of your emotions and able to express them in a healthy way), promotes the child’s mental health, and is crucial to establishing solid relationships in the future.

On the average, children who learn how to establish meaningful relationships as toddlers, small children, and adolescents are unlikely to get involved in substance abuse, violence, unprotected sex, or other maladaptive behaviors.

Genuinely hearing and seeing our children is one of the best gifts we can give them.

The staff at West Valley Counseling Center provides therapy and family counseling to dozens of clients every day. In this blog series our therapists will explore how to create “valuing relationships” throughout your child’s life. We will go step by step through a child’s emotional development, giving clear descriptions with real-world examples of how to foster strong emotional relationships and help our children deal with the ups and downs of life. Look for our next blog coming soon.

For more information or to speak to one of our staff, please contact us at (818) 758-9450 or email us at info@westvalleycounseling.org

Traditional spring cleaning brings to mind scrubbing floors, throwing away useless or broken items, and maybe a new coat of paint on the house. However, life usually finds a way to evolve into something that’s anything but traditional, giving us no choice but to respond accordingly.

Spring cleaning can be a great opportunity to purge more than just dust and broken food processors. Spring is a signifier of new beginnings and a perfect time for self-reflection and goal setting. Here are just a few aspects of life that may benefit from a little spring cleaning:

Consider Relationships
Evaluating current relationships and friendships can have a huge impact on happiness, time, and personal growth. Take the time to figure out who is a true friend, and who could use some distancing from. Friends who constantly judge or ridicule decisions, who are not trustworthy, or who flake repeatedly may be adding another element of stress to life.

How to deal with toxic relationships or friendships that have fallen by the way side is up to the individual, but consistency and firmness are crucial.

Clear Important Spaces
Cleaning your entire life can seem like an incredibly daunting task, but entirely doable by tackling projects in steps. A great starting point is the spaces that are frequently used. It could be an office, kitchen, car, or even bedroom. Go as slowly as needed, but really focus on doing at least one thing every day until the space is cleared of clutter.

Focus on Yourself
Winter is not always kind to waistlines. Spring brings warm weather and sunshine, and is perfect for taking strolls around the neighborhood after dinner or going on bike rides with loved ones during the weekend. These healthier choices fuel a happier you while helping to lose weight or maintain your figure. Use spring cleaning as a chance to buy healthier groceries, plan meals at home, and focus on creating a healthy and happy you! A new haircut or pair of shoes can also be a well-deserved treat.

Tackle that ‘To-do List’
To-do lists are inevitable facts of life. While a to-do list will always have things on it, try and cross off a few of the peskier items that have been haunting your day planner for a while. This may seem counter-intuitive to spring cleaning—aren’t we supposed to be tying up loose ends instead of starting new projects?—but getting tasks out of the way will help you to focus more on current projects. It is also important to reflect on to-do lists. Is redecorating the sitting room worth the stress and time commitment? If not, take it off the list and revisit it later. We can’t do everything, but we can do the important things.

Overall, there are many ways to spring clean and improve quality of life. Spring cleaning can often seem like another stressful chore, but its potential could help reduce daily stress and fatigue, and lead to a happier and more balanced life.

For more information or to speak to one of our staff, please contact us at (818) 758-9450 or email us at info@westvalleycounseling.org

West Valley Counseling Center is located at 19634 Ventura Blvd. Suite 212 Tarzana, CA 91356

Hobbies are one of the greatest pleasures in life, but hobbies can often be overlooked in adolescence. As a parent, mentor, or guardian, one of the most positive things you can do for an adolescent is encourage extracurricular activities and hobbies.

Hobbies and Extracurricular activities help to:

1.) Avoid Bullying

Involvement in after-school sports, clubs, or band gives adolescents a healthy way to interact with peers and develop a high level of social support. If your child has a consistent network of friends, their social skills may be ‘exercised’. Hobbies provide youth an opportunity to work diplomatically with peers instead of using violence or verbal attacks.

2.) Detect and Prevent Early Warning Signs of Delinquent Behavior

Adult supervision, increased access to trusted adults, and friends are great ways for adolescents to reach out when they need help. Trying to provide support that still respects privacy and an adolescent’s sense of autonomy encourages individuals to stay away from delinquent behavior, such as substance abuse. Additionally, the extra involvement can make parents aware of an adolescent’s friends, activities, and behavior.

3.) Increase Self-esteem

It is no secret that self-esteem is very important for adolescents. Hobbies and extracurricular activities prove very beneficial in highlighting strengths while providing a warm environment where teens feel safe and valued. Children with high levels of self-esteem oftentimes perform better in school, have closer family relationships, and are less likely to turn to drugs or alcohol when they have problems.

4.) Make friends

Making friends can be difficult during the transition from childhood into adolescence; having multiple interests and hobbies can help adolescents befriend like-minded individuals and engage in constructive activities. Having friends who also enjoy similar hobbies can provide scaffolding that will help an adolescent. For example, two friends who enjoy knitting may take turns teaching each other new stitches or helpful hints. Learning from peers can be a very valuable tool that may yield better results than constant lecturing from adults.

5.) Make adolescents competitive for higher education opportunities and scholarships

Hobbies and activities for fun can often be added to resumes and are beneficial on college applications. Not only do adolescents with hobbies tend to do better in school, they may be eligible for music or sport scholarships that can lessen the financial load of universities. Hobbies, clubs, and activities provide your adolescents with immediate AND long-term benefits.

6.) Lessen chances of obesity and sedentary lifestyle

Obesity rates are climbing at an alarming rate, especially for children and adolescents. Having hobbies can reduce time spent in front of a television or computer and teach healthy habits that can follow them throughout their life.

 

For more information or to speak to one of our staff, please contact us at (818) 758-9450 or email us at info@westvalleycounseling.org

West Valley Counseling Center is located at 19634 Ventura Blvd. Suite 212 Tarzana, CA 91356

As a Super Parent, you are a natural teacher. But even Super Parents don’t have all the answers. How can you help your children avoid the abuse of drugs and alcohol? How can you encourage your children to express their natural emotions in healthy ways?

By Teresa Lalicker, MFT, Program Director, West Valley Counseling Center.

In our first blog, Dr. Burnett said that, “The key is to create resiliency in our children from their early years onward. We do this in our parent-child relationships by paying close attention to how we listen to our kids and model for them healthy emotional expression.”

How can we foster this resiliency in our children?

1.) By fostering healthy attachment in infancy.

Attentive mothering/caregiving creates a safe environment for the infant. Infants establish secure attachments when caregivers like you (mother, father, etc.) accomplish three things:

– learn to recognize your child’s verbal and nonverbal signals,
– accurately interpret those signals, and
– respond in a timely fashion and in an appropriate manner.

Let’s say that you, as a parent, have a weepy six-month-old who is in pain from teething. You respond to your child’s crying with an appropriate comment such as, “I see you are sad because your teeth are hurting you.”

What you’ve just done is called sensitive responsiveness. You responded to your child’s emotional signals in a healthy, appropriate, and positive way.

Challenge yourself to respond sensitively when your child expresses his or her emotions, and try to make sure that your responses don’t conflict with each other. Here’s an example: Hugging, kissing, and showing affection to a young child can be a sensitive response on your part, but not if it abruptly interrupts your child’s ongoing exploration and play.

Another example: If you comfort a crying child, this can also be a sensitive response from you, but not if it is accompanied with a verbal barrage criticizing the baby for being such a pain.

Securely attached infants will learn how to seek out and feel safe in healthy relationships. Then, as they grow into teens, they’ll be able to identify, express, and process their emotions in healthy ways, rather than turning to drugs and alcohol for comfort.

What’s another way that we can create emotional resiliency in our children?

2.) By teaching our children how to identify, express, and process their emotions.

We can help infants and young children identify their feelings by expressing those feelings for them. For example, you can say to your child,

“That loud noise really scared you.”
“You are angry that it’s time to go to sleep.”

If you initially “label” your children’s feelings for them, then your children will eventually learn to identify and express those feelings for themselves.

Lastly, it’s important for young children to learn how to process their own feelings and emotions. This will eventually create the ability to self-soothe.

Self-soothing occurs when your child is able to respond to his or her own emotions in a positive way. Methods of self-soothing include taking deep breaths, talking about their pain, or allowing themselves to cry.

The ability to self-soothe, in healthy ways, provides skills for our children that will make drug and alcohol use less appealing as coping mechanisms for difficult emotions.

The staff at West Valley Counseling Center provides therapy and family counseling to dozens of clients every day. In this blog series our therapists will explore how to create “valuing relationships” throughout your child’s life. We will go step by step through a child’s emotional development, giving clear descriptions with real-world examples of how to foster strong emotional relationships and help our children deal with the ups and downs of life. Look for our next blog coming soon.

Between work, family, friends, and community obligations, life can often seem more like an endless to-do list than an actual life. Finding a balance in life begins with finding your own autonomy, and structuring your life in a way that brings you daily joy in order to incrementally reach your goals. Here are a few ways to manage stress and bring a balance into your day-to-day functions.

1. Manage Your Time Efficiently

Time management is not a one-time goal. Ask yourself if you are accomplishing things in quantity or quality, and adjust accordingly. Utilize a calendar or day planner to ensure that you do not miss important appointments or events. Procrastinating will increase stress and inflammation, and can add strain in your relationships. Finding the discipline to stick to a schedule can be difficult, but it will allow you more time to pursue hobbies or to simply relax.

2. Do Not Commit to Obligations Until 24 Hours have Passed

We have all been in the position. A PTA member you have never spoken to needs a huge favor on your day off. What do you do? Is making cookies for the bake sale more important than spending time helping your kids with homework or relaxing doing an activity you enjoy?

While it is important to partake in the various organizations you are affiliated with, it is also important to put yourself and your family first. Before committing to obligations, (i.e.; anything other than a fun social event) give yourself time to determine whether you can comfortably commit without feeling irritable, resentful, or angry.

When asked “Can you….?” always respond with “I’ll get back to you tomorrow or in the next couple of days.”

Your body and mind will thank you.

3. Reflect Weekly

It is healthy to realize that you cannot do everything. You can, however, do what is important. Finding a balance is all about reflecting on what areas of life you feel competent and accomplished in, and what areas you could work on.

Reflect weekly through meditation, exercise, or doing a quiet activity that helps you feel present and calm. We spend so much time looking into the future, that looking back and finding behavioral patterns and problem solving strategies can be very beneficial.

4. Focus on Improving One Area of Your Life at a Time

It is when we try to do everything at once that important events, relationships, or goals fall through the cracks. Try focusing on one or a few aspects of your life at a time, and remember that some are better than others.

For example, the holidays are a great chance to get in touch with old friends and distant family members. Use this time to get closer to the important people in your life. By spending a few weeks or months focusing on family, and then career, and then friendships, and then organization, etc. you can make positive change without overwhelming yourself.

For more information or to speak to one of our staff, please contact us at (818) 758-9450 or email us at info@westvalleycounseling.org

West Valley Counseling Center is located at 19634 Ventura Blvd. Suite 212 Tarzana, CA 91356

As a Super Parent, you are a natural teacher. But even Super Parents don’t have all the answers.  How can you help your children avoid the abuse of drugs and alcohol? How can you encourage your children to express their natural emotions in healthy ways?

Listening to Your Child with an Open Heart
by Sharon Burnett, PhD, Executive Director of West Valley Counseling Center

Why Do Kids Use?

Many kids are drawn to drinking alcohol and taking drugs. After all, alcohol and drugs are attractive because they can soothe difficult or disruptive emotions, mask the effects of family turmoil, and possibly mask trauma. Peer pressure can push a child over the line and into drugs.

The catch? The soothing effect of drugs and alcohol is only temporary. In the end, the child’s emotions are still there, waiting to be dealt with, somehow.

As parents, we can see how the temporary solution of drugs and alcohol actually creates deeper problems in our children. But our kids, who are trying to survive each day, don’t have this perspective. In fact, kids are often willing to sacrifice their long-term well being for some short-term calm.

How can we prepare our children to combat this “temporary fix”? We can we help them choose a different path.

The key is to create resiliency in our children from their early years onward.  We do this in our parent-child relationships by paying close attention to how we listen to our kids and model for them healthy emotional expression.

Relationships

How do our kids deal with difficult emotions, with trauma, with things that they don’t understand or that frighten them?

Maybe they talk to us, their parents. Maybe they talk to friends, teachers, or counselors. Maybe they don’t talk to anyone at all.

“Parents are the first line of defense.”
— Susan Blauner, director of operations, Saving Lives Drug and Alcohol Coalition

There’s a better way to help our children soothe their emotional turmoil: a strong, healthy relationship. Your relationship with your child starts with emotion. Emotions are the natural cues we feel that tell us what we need. During difficult times, we depend on the people around us to make us feel cared for. And when we feel cared for, amazing things can happen in our lives.

A good relationship provides a child with the feeling of loving — and being loved by — another human being. A relationship teaches our kids something incredibly important: that they have value, and that other people value them as well. The most important and powerful relationship in which this occurs over the course of a lifetime is the parent-child relationship.

Listen

When you listen to your child, you create and strengthen a bond, and several important things happen:
– You help your child identify his or her feelings, worries, and fears.
– You encourage your child to express his or her emotions without passing judgment.
– You talk about these emotions so your child can process what he or she is feeling — and why.

How you listen and respond to your children will change as they grow and respond to the world around them. But the simple act of noticing what your children are feeling — and helping them express those feelings — creates for a child the sense of being seen, loved, and valued.

When you do this, you help your child meet his or her basic needs of growing up. When their needs are met, children feel soothed. Suddenly the attractiveness of drugs and alcohol will most likely fade. After all, your children now have a consistent and natural way to soothe those tough emotions: they ask you, their parent, to listen to them.

The staff at West Valley Counseling Center provides therapy and family counseling to dozens of clients every day. In this blog series our therapists will explore how to create “valuing relationships” throughout your child’s life. We will go step by step through a child’s emotional development, giving clear descriptions with real-world examples of how to foster strong emotional relationships and help our children deal with the ups and downs of life. Look for our next blog coming soon.

Bookmark this blog, and visit us soon for Part 2:  “Listening to Your Child with an Open Heart: The Early Years.”

For more information or to speak to one of our staff, please contact us at (818) 758-9450 or email us at info@westvalleycounseling.org

West Valley Counseling Center is located at 19634 Ventura Blvd. Suite 212 Tarzana, CA 91356