by Kathryn de Bruin | Oct 31, 2019 | Anxiety
I hate to say it, but we live in a culture of bullying and teasing…
I remember when I first arrived in the States twenty years ago and watched shows like Saturday Night Live, and really struggling with the satire. I just couldn’t understand how a group could make fun of others. Having lived in two other countries and traveled to countless places, I can’t say that I’ve experienced this the way that I have here. In America, we seem to take things to an extreme and we seem to make fun of everything. I wonder to myself when all of this came about, when did it become ok to be mean and to rip people off. When did this become the definition of closeness and of friendship. Is this a result of playfulness due to closeness? Or is this an avoidance of intimacy? I suppose it could be both or either, but deciphering that as a child, must be challenging. Teasing and endearment have become entangled and have added to anxiety in school. Isn’t that what we often tell our children, he wouldn’t tease you if he didn’t like you?
When you’ve been raised in a culture that is very different, with messages like “If you can’t say something nice then don’t say anything at all”, and “Be ladylike” and “Sarcasm doesn’t become you”, then you inevitably face a clash when entering this culture. It’s made for an interesting adjustment for me. Now that I’ve adjusted and can enjoy and take part in the teasing, I don’t fit in quite as well when I do travel back to South Africa. There I get flack for being so sarcastic.
We’ve faced so many school shootings, and I work with so many young children who are being bullied in elementary and middle school and who come to my office depressed and often suicidal. This means I’ve given a lot of thought to these problems, and they stand out to me as seemingly particular to this country, even more so than to others I’ve spent time in. And I wonder if these issues are related to the larger culture, and not just to a particular school and problem with bullying alone. Are we contributing to this problem as a larger culture? It’s a hard question to ask, because of course the “buck stops” with the person who actually took the action of committing a crime. But, it’s also important to look at the larger context, and ask what context this child was raised in, including the school climate, their family climate and their larger community and country. School bullying and middle-school nastiness has become a trend, a norm. And for that reason, it’s something that we need to educate our children about, and prepare our children to deal with. It’s certainly on my mind, and my children haven’t even entered middle-school yet. It’s certainly not something that I grew up with, and so knowing how to navigate these challenges, from personal experience, doesn’t come naturally for me.
So what are the ways we can better combat this for ourselves and our families?
Educate Yourself
I recently watched 13 Reasons Why and as horrifying as the series is, I would recommend this show to any parent. My experience growing up and in school was very different to what my children are experiencing today, and I need to know they are facing so that I can be ready to help equip them for the possible challenges in their social environment. Getting a feel for the pressure children feel and a sense of how the peer system is set up has been helpful to me.
Role Play
One of my favorite ways to engage children in learning emotional and social skills within the family context, is using role play. Ask your children what the meanest thing is that they have seen or heard at school, and then act it out. They love it when you switch up roles, and you’re the mean kid first, or the one being picked on. So switch it up and get them engaged. Teach them the difference between a passive response (being the doormat), the aggressive response (punching the other kid) and the assertive response (standing up for yourself, in a firm and clear way). Try each of the responses and ask them to reflect on what it’s like on the other side of these. Have them try the assertive response until it’s believable. Does their voice line up with their eye contact, facial expression and vocal tone. Would you take them seriously?
Utilize Sibling Rivalry
Luckily when you have multiple kids and they are close to each other in age, sibling rivalry is par for the course. And so there is ample opportunity to watch how your children handle their siblings meanness. I love thinking about the primary family as a microcosm of the rest of their lives.
How they learn to handle these relationships at home, will mirror how they handle their friendships, and then their colleagues at work, and ultimately their romantic partners in life.
The opportunity lies in these sibling relationships to teach respect, assertiveness and compromise. I think one of the most used phrases in our household is – ‘Find Agreement’. The three kids are sitting own to watch a show, and if they can’t ‘find agreement’, well
then there’s no show to be watched at all.
The social context our children are growing up in is entirely different, and it can be tough to relate and help. Understanding it ourselves is the first step in helping our children cope with it. Helping them to be resilient, and to be assertive are the most important tools as they face any teasing that they are bound to experience growing up.
by Kathryn de Bruin | Oct 28, 2019 | Anxiety, Emotions, Family Therapy
As you parent, you come to notice a pattern in your child’s anxious stages (it may even present as clinginess) through their development. It’s helpful to understand why they are going through this. As a resource, I’ve created this guide of natural behaviors to provide a sense of comfort and what to expect through these various phases.
9 months – 12 months
Your infant’s memory is developing and you might start to see your child have “stranger anxiety”. This happens in infants across all cultures. Infants are frightened, withdraw or show distress when they are with unfamiliar people. They now have the ability to compare the faces they see with familiar faces that are in memory, which means they know that they don’t know someone. This can lead to separation anxiety, as they can remember previous separations, and recognize signs of leaving. They also remember feelings of distress. And so they protest the separation, trying to get to parent to stay.
Infants will gradually learn to regulate this. They will also learn that their parent comes back too. As soon as object permanence develops, children can remember their parents internally and feel comfort when they miss them.
18 – 24 months
Separation and fear for the toddler, is necessary for survival, as they practice going off and coming back.
They learn that separations are survivable, reunions can be trusted, and this forms the foundation for confidence in the world.
Toddlers may be more anxious about mom’s attachment, and can be very reactive at this age, because they are developing and realizing that “My parent and I don’t think the same thoughts” and “I can’t control my parent, she has separate thoughts”. Separation and individuation is both exhilarating and frightening. The toddler experiences ambivalence, I want to push mom away, but also want to cling to her. I want to be autonomous and also maintain attachment.
Hopefully this tool helps you as you navigate those first few years and the anxiety including separation anxiety that often come with it. Knowing what your child is probably experiencing will help you know the best ways to address their concerns and needs for their age.
by Kathryn de Bruin | Jul 2, 2019 | Anxiety, Family Therapy
As parents, we have a big responsibility to help our children when they’re struggling with child anxiety.
So how do you then as a parent know what you should be doing versus what is hindering your children? Maybe it will help to first take a look at some statistics showing the prevalence of child anxiety.
DID YOU KNOW?
*16 million Americans suffer from Anxiety
*Children with anxiety who attend family therapy have an 80% success rate, as opposed to
children who do individual therapy without the family involvement – only 60%
*1 in 5 children have clinical levels of anxiety
*1/3 of children with ADHD have an anxiety disorder
*Anxiety is the leading mental disorder found in children
*Anxiety tends to run in families. Families interactions increase anxiety
Those are some DIFFICULT statistics to stomach. So what can we takeaway from all these?
Anxiety is a common childhood disorder and it can be managed
This is actually good news, because it lets you know just how common anxiety is, and also how researched it is. There is so much that can be done to manage anxiety. There are LOTS of tools and techniques available to us and especially for children, and ways we can be proactive parents in helping our children combat anxiety.
What kind of parenting PERPETUATES anxiety:
1. Parenting that offers less space and freedom to children
2. Parenting that gives children a lack of autonomy
3. Intrusive parenting where parents do for children what they could do for themselves
4. Parents who anxiously appraise situations and often find themselves saying: “No, don’t
do that, Don’t do that”. Children often adopt the way that parents see the world
5. Parents who often question children’s choices
vs
Parenting that creates RESILIENCY in children:
1. Rewarding your children for being proactive rather than reactive
2. Praising children for independent behavior
3. Allowing children to struggle rather than jumping in to help or doing things for them
Sometimes it’s hard to naturally do these things as parents. It’s hard to watch your children struggle, and obviously there is a line where you need to step in. But see if you can notice ways in your language and behavior where you can help your children have space. Space to learn and grow confident in their decisions, knowing they’ll always have your support.
by Kathryn de Bruin | Feb 24, 2019 | Anxiety, Family Therapy
Struggles with Child Anxiety: Is there really a way through this?
After our first blog entry of the series, I wanted to dive deeper into our family’s journey with anxiety and how we best combat it together. I have a sweet, soft hearted daughter, who can take life too seriously at times. She can err on the side of making others happy at her own expense and gets anxious about things that face her. This child anxiety has shown up at different parts of her development, be it separation anxiety in going to school, fear about monsters at nighttime in her bedroom, or fear about nightmares disrupting her sleep.
1. I Soothed Myself as a Parent
Seeing her develop these fears was so scary for me, because I’ve struggled with anxiety during my life. The last thing that I’ve ever want is for her to struggle the way that I have. And so I teetered on panicking when she started symptomizing and going to the worst case scenario – my daughter has an anxiety disorder and will struggle throughout her lifetime with this. After getting support for myself, I was able to make the switch to believe that I would be able to soothe her and could say to myself, my daughter is anxious at the moment (which is developmentally on par), but I can parent her through this and teach her how to manage these symptoms from early on, and she will be stronger and wiser growing up with learning how to
manage these challenges.
2. I Let Her Emote
She’s such an emotional little girl, and when she would emote and seem so sensitive I would start to worry, going into futuristic thinking. Anxiety always takes us into the past or the future, where we can’t fix anything. It’s important to recognize this and to stay in the present. I took a deep breath and picked her up in these moments. I let her sit on my lap and just held her tight. I’d say something my mom would say to me, “hold me tight and squeeze all the sadness into me”. Eventually her breathing would calm, and I could wipe her eyes. After leaning in, in this way time and time again, I can confidently say that it’s rare that she emotes in this seemingly intense way anymore. She’s learned to regulate herself a lot better. That’s a skill that children learn through experience, through being soothed regularly.
3. We Developed Rituals
We are a Christian family, and so we started making her bedtime predictable, and we set some rituals in place that she could count on. We pray together each evening, I’d make sure that her closet door is closed, and I tickle her back while we sing a song together. Our song is based on Psalm 4:8 and focuses on a God who is soothing and protective. She’s come to rely on doing this every night and I believe that the structure gives her peace and that the touch soothes her nervous system. The skin is the largest organ we have, and skin to skin contact can be an effective way of soothing.
4. We Built Her Confidence
Helping children to be assertive, and especially to have a ‘come back’, is very important in American culture. When her brother teases her, and always had the upper hand because he’s older and therefor more resourceful with his cognitive brain, I have taught her to stand up for herself. For a long time, after a smart comment from him, she’d run to me crying, looking for me to step in and take care of the situation. Instead of always stepping in, I started walking her through ways to deal with him. I’d ask her, “well do you believe what he said? Is it true? If it isn’t, what is true? What should we say back to him”, and we’d brainstorm a number of comebacks. Things like, “Why are you making a big deal about this? You can’t seem to leave me alone? You’re the one who’s being silly”….and so on and so on. Two years later, these come naturally for her and she can hold her own in social situations. She’s still a sensitive, sweet child, but she’s confident and can assert herself when others are giving her a hard time.
5. Finding Her Intuition
We take time for meditation, to slow down and to listen to the spirit/soul/body. When she’s uncertain about what to do, before giving her answers, I’ll ask her what her gut says, and get her to slow down to listen inside. I believe that this vital for a child to learn, that they have an intuition and that it can guide them in life. This is still rather abstract a concept for her, but we keep practicing this.
