Why is My Child More Clingy During Quarantine, And How Can I Help?

You deserve to be able to go to the bathroom in peace! If your Self-Isolation is feeling a little crowded due to clinging, there are ways to help your child relax and adjust.

Kids react in all sorts of ways to stress, from anxiety and fearfulness to anger and irritability. If you’re a parent who is self-quarantining with children, you may be starting to see this wide array of stress responses at home. I have noticed that, among the kids in my practice, the past week or so has been a turning point for many children. While the first week off from school might have felt fun and novel, like a snow day, the second week of school feels more like the beginning of a new normal. The serious change of pace is bringing up anxiety for many kids, and one form you may notice it coming out in is increased clinginess to parents. If you expected your self-isolation to include a little more alone time, read on to learn why kids get clingy when stressed and how we as caregivers can help them adjust.

Why Do Kids Get Clingy During Stressful Times?

Children see their parents as their “safe base.” Mom or Dad is the person who is always predictable, will always protect them, and knows how to keep them safe. Usually, the older kids get, the more comfortable they feel straying farther and farther from their safe person, knowing that their parent will always be there for support if needed. During times of stress, like quarantine, the distance from parents that feels safe may shrink. This is especially true if there has been a loss of predictability due to changes in routine: if a child is no longer able to predict what happens next each day, a parent’s continued presence may feel less predictable, too.

It is also common for children’s behavior to regress during a period of trauma or stress. While it’s normal and common for infants and toddlers to have separation anxiety, preschoolers and older children who have move past this stage might revert back to it if they’re feeling vulnerable. This is usually a temporary phase, and kids will shift back to more age-appropriate behavior once the stress has resolved, especially if they have support in managing their anxious feelings.

How Can I Tell If My Child’s Clinginess Is Normal?

Separation anxiety and clinginess are a normal (and stressful!) part of child development for babies and toddlers, especially from the age of seven months old to about two and a half. Around this age, kids are learning that even when they can’t see a person, they still exist in the world and can still be relied upon to come back again. This is a concept called object permanence.

While some clinging is normal, it’s also possible for toddlers and older children to develop separation anxiety that is outside of the norm and cause added distress for everyone. Here are a few signs that a child may need help overcoming their clinginess:

• Your child can’t tolerate even brief separations from you: for example, a trip to the bathroom or to go outside to get the mail.

• Your child’s anxiety when away from you is so intense that they can’t cope.

• The clinginess is getting more intense with time, rather than less.

• The anxiety and clinging are more than you’d expect from a child of this age, and it’s interfering with daily activities.

It’s possible to reassure kids that they are safe and loved and help them to gradually increase their independence. You deserve to be able to go to the bathroom in peace, especially during these stressful times!

Make Your Child’s Routine Predictable

If you think your child’s clinging might be a response to their routine being thrown off, adding some structure to the day can be extremely helpful. For young children, predictability equals safety. Being able to anticipate what will happen each day and when allows them to trust that they’ll be taken care of and transition between activities more smoothly. When that predictability goes away, it can make children feel out of control and unsafe.

You don’t need to create an elaborate, Montessori-inspired routine in order to increase your child’s sense of safety. Simply setting established times for meals and snacks, playtime, and bedtime can go a long way in helping a child feel like their life is more in control. For bonus points, you can create a visual schedule of your day so that your child can follow along and know what to expect next.

Build Some Individual Playtime Into Your Day

A predictable routine is extra effective if your child knows they can rely on getting some individual, face-to-face time with you every day. I know this can be a tall order when everyone is working from home and cooped up with family 24/7. However, I have found that even 10 or 15 minutes of individual playtime with a parent is a huge help for kids with behavioral problems. Children crave focused attention from parents, and when they’re feeling insecure they often seek it out in unhelpful ways, like clinging and tantrums.

If you’d like to try this approach at home, find a time each day when you know you’re consistently available to spend time with your child. Right after dinner, after bathtime, or before bed might be good opportunities to sneak in a few minutes of togetherness. Make sure your child knows this is part of the routine, and if they start to cling to you at other times of the day, remind them that you’ll have special time to spend with them later on.

Praise or Reward Your Child For Being Independent

Most of us feel moved to speak out when someone around us isn’t doing the right thing, and this is especially true with kids. Good behavior, however, often goes unrecognized. Adults may be used to not getting praised every time they do what they’re supposed to do, but for kids, not getting praise for good behavior can accidentally reinforce behavior issues.

Kids crave attention from parents because it makes them feel safe. If a parent’s eyes are on you, it means they can look after you if something dangerous happens. As a result, children tend to repeat behaviors that have gotten them attention—positive or negative—in the past. If we get into the habit of ignoring good behavior, it’s less likely to happen again!

If your child has been struggling to separate from you at home, make sure you enthusiastically call out the times they succeed. If your child is playing independently, praise them for it! Kids who are really struggling to separate from a parent for any period of time often benefit from a reward chart. The positive reinforcement of earning a “prize” can motivate children to do the hard, scary work of separating.

Address Your Child’s Fears About The Coronavirus

Even young children are likely picking up more information about the coronavirus pandemic than you might expect. Lots of children I speak to understand that the virus is more serious for adults than for kids, and this has led to worry for some children that their parents might fall ill and not be able to care for them. This can lead to more anxiety about being away from a parent, and more clinging.

If you think this might be the case for your child, make sure they understand all the ways you’re keeping them and the family safe. For example, maybe your family is practicing social distancing, washing hands, getting groceries delivered, or even eating extra healthy during this time. It might also be reassuring for children to hear that there are lots of other caring adults in their extended family or neighborhood who will be ready and willing to help if the child ever needs them.

A child getting clingy during quarantine can be an added stress on parents during an already challenging time. Adding some structure and predictable opportunities to play each day can help your child adjust to their new normal feeling safe and secure. If you find that your child is still struggling even after trying these ideas, online child counseling or online parenting support can help you get back on track. Hang in there, parents! This phase won’t last forever.

3 Common Fears Kids Have About Coronavirus (And How to Help)

I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling pretty saturated with news about the coronavirus pandemic right about now. If you’re like me, you are getting coverage 24/7 from all sides: the news, social media, friends…it can be a lot to take in. While we adults are busy processing all of the sound bites we’re getting from various media sources, kids are listening in, too.

The urgent tone of the news coverage of coronavirus can be alarming for children, and increase their worries. The good news is that there is helpful, age-appropriate information we can be giving to children right now to ease their anxiety. Today I’m sharing 3 of the most common fears I’m hearing children mention this week, as well as what we as adults can say and do to help.

#1. Fear of Getting Sick, or Fear of a Family Member Getting Sick

“Am I safe?”

This is often the first question kids have in moments of change, crisis, or transition. It’s totally normal for kids (and adults, too!) to worry about their personal safety above all else. Because children are so dependent on their parents, children often worry about their parents’ safety, too. Many kids may worry about what will happen to them if a parent is ill or otherwise unable to take care of them during a crisis.

I’m hearing many children voice concerns right now that they might become seriously ill, as well as worries about parents, grandparents, and relatives who may be elderly or have preexisting health problems. If your child has similar fears, you can help by making sure your child understands that the coronavirus usually causes very mild symptoms in children, and sometimes no symptoms at all. You can explain that children have strong bodies that can fight off coronavirus germs easily, but they can still carry these germs to other people who might get sick. This is why school and other group activities have been canceled: not because lots of kids are in danger, but to avoid accidentally spreading germs that might make others ill.

It’s also useful to remind children about all the steps that you and other important adults in their lives are taking to stay healthy: for example, washing your hands, practicing social distancing, and eating healthy foods. You can remind your child of the big network of caring adults in their lives, which may include close friends, extended family, and neighbors. Your child may feel more secure in knowing that these people will be available to take care of them, too, if you were ever feeling sick.

#2. Fear About How the Virus is Transmitted

We are still learning details about how the coronavirus spreads between people, but we have a pretty good understanding of how the illness is spread from person to person: through respiratory droplets, or by touching a contaminated surface. However, the fact that we can’t see the coronavirus can make it feel extra scary: we’re not sure where it is and isn’t, which means everyone is taking extra precautions. I’m finding that many children aren’t totally sure how the virus is transmitted, and may have incorrect ideas about how it is spread that lead to more anxiety.

Kids don’t need to know every detail about the current pandemic, but giving some age-appropriate information about what the virus does and how it is spread can alleviate worries. For example, I’ve heard many children have concerns that they might catch the virus through an open window, or that it might come into their home in the air without a sick person being nearby. By helping children understand exactly how a person gets coronavirus, we can allow them to feel more empowered about preventing the spread.

You can explain to children that usually the virus needs help to get into our bodies, and it can hitch a ride on our hands if they have germs on them when we touch our eyes, nose, or mouth. By washing our hands and avoiding touching our faces with dirty hands, we can help to keep the virus outside of our bodies.

#3. Fear of the Unknown

Personally, it is easier for me to cope with a situation when I know the end date. Wouldn’t it be easier to self-quarantine if we all knew for sure when the outbreak would resolve? I think many kids feel this way, too. It is hard for them to not know when school will be back in session, or if they will be able to celebrate their spring birthday with friends, or even if their summer vacation will happen as planned. This uncertainty can lead to more anxiety.

Right now, kids may have questions that we don’t have answers for yet. If your child asks you a question you don’t know the answer to, it’s perfectly fine to tell them you’re not sure. We can reassure children that we do know that the outbreak won’t last forever, and that things will eventually go back to normal. It might also be helpful for children to know that when we practice social distancing, we’re helping doctors and nurses to fight the virus so that the pandemic won’t last as long as it might otherwise.

Although a lot of routines are changing in children’s lives, some things remain constant. Help your child to recognize the parts of life that have stayed the same during the pandemic: maybe your whole family still has dinner together each night, or they still get to talk to their grandparents on FaceTime every Saturday afternoon. By maintaining family traditions and routines and highlighting them for children, you can make the world more secure and predictable for kids.

How to Help Children with Coronavirus Fears

Children are looking to the adults in their lives right now to determine how they should think and feel about the pandemic. By talking to our children honestly, but calmly, we can help them to take the outbreak seriously without adding unnecessary worry. When children don’t get enough information about the coronavirus, they tend to “fill in the blanks” with ideas or assumptions that might not be correct, leading to more fear. Providing age-appropriate facts can empower kids and reduce this anxiety.

You can also support your child by making sure they get a little bit of individual playtime with you each day, since children use their creative play to process their feelings about the world. This is also an important time to practice your own self-care, so that you can share your own feelings of calm with your children. If your child’s anxiety symptoms are increasing during the pandemic and you think they might benefit from some extra support, you may want to consider online therapy. If you’re in the Davidson, NC area, I’m happy to help!

Why Playing With Both "Boy Toys" and "Girl Toys" Is Good for Kids

I really believe that kids benefit from having access to a diverse array of toys, regardless of their gender. Play therapists are fond of saying that “toys are a child’s words.” If this is the case, why not supply them with the broadest vocabulary we can? In this post, I’ll be digging into whether there really is such a thing as “boy toys” and “girl toys” and sharing some of the benefits of giving kids of all genders more play options.

Common Myths About Raising Boys

Not too long ago I was quoted in an article about old wives’ tales related to raising boys. While everyone has different values as a parent, some of the preconceived ideas we have about boys may not just be outdated, but actually negatively impacting their mental health. We inherit a lot of our ideas about gender from our own parents, which makes it easy for them to go unexamined. Their influence on our behavior can be pretty subtle, too, and we may pass on unhelpful ideas to kids without even realizing it.

One common misconception I hear in my therapy office is that playing with stereotypically “girly” toys might be damaging to boys or confuse them about their gender role. Parents are sometimes concerned about a male child’s interest in baby dolls or jewelry-making, or express that they want to make sure their child understands what it is to be a boy.

Will Playing with Girl Toys Confuse a Boy?

I can find no research to suggest that playing with toys has any influence on a child’s gender. Kids figure out their gender really early in life—by about two years old. Many psychologists believe that children learn about gender primarily by observing the behavior of the adults in their lives. While toys can help children to express their feelings, explore new ideas, and review what they’ve learned, playthings don’t have the power to shape a child’s gender identity.

It’s worth considering that many girls play with boy toys, enjoy more “masculine” rough-and-tumble sports, and aren’t as interested in girly play. Most people don’t think twice about a tomboy, or worry that boyish toys will impact her gender identity. It seems to be easier to think about girls enjoying “boy stuff” than when the roles are reversed. A lot of this might be rooted in old ideas about masculinity that aren’t super helpful to today’s boys.

Different Toys Teach Different Skills

Kids learn about the world and develop their cognitive abilities through the toys they play with. Research has found that toys aimed at girls and boys teach each gender different lessons, and encourage them to develop different types of skills through play. If your aim is for your child to grow up well-rounded, with strong cognitive, creative, and spatial skills, it makes sense to provide toys that promote all these types of learning.

How “Girl Toys” Shape Child Development

According to a study on girls’ and boys’ toys, “girly” toys tend to focus more on physical appearance and attractiveness. They were also more likely to promote nurturing, caregiving play, and to help children roleplay household skills like cooking and cleaning. If a little girl is only supplied with super-girly toys, she might strongly develop her nurturing skills but miss out on other areas of development. She might also get the idea that her appearance should be a top priority if she’s surrounded by toys that encourage this trait.

How “Boy Toys” Shape Child Development

The same study found that boys’ toys were more likely to be competitive, aggressive, and encourage risk-taking during play. Boys toys were also more likely to teach children about spatial relationships, science, and how to build structures. If a little boy is only given hyper-masculine toys, they may be exposed to lots of violent play that could encourage more aggressive reactions in real life. He might also miss out on some of the nurturing and family-oriented skills provided by more girly toys, which are important skills for future husbands and fathers to develop.

Interestingly, this study concluded that the toys that provided the best cognitive, artistic, musical, and physical enrichment for kids tended to be gender-neutral or slightly masculine toys. This means that having a variety of more neutral toys at home, along with a few strongly “girlish” or “boyish” items, is a good way to ensure kids have opportunities to develop all the skills they’ll need as they grow up.

Toy Stores Are Moving Away From Gendered Toy Aisles

While researching this post, I learned that for a good portion of the 70s and early 80s, toy stores did not market strongly gendered toys to kids. Before that time, especially in the 40s and 50s, toys tended to be strictly advertised as intended for little boys or little girls. In the mid-80s, the trend was picked back up, which might explain why I remember toy store aisles being clearly divided along pink and blue lines. Today, big chain stores like Target are changing their approach to selling toys, dividing items by type (dolls, trains, blocks) as opposed to by gender. While may not change the toys a child seeks out on a trip to the toy store, it might communicate that no toys are off-limits to consider when shopping.

What If My Son Is Really Into Trucks or My Daughter Loves Barbie—Is That OK?

It is OK! Kids like what they like. Plenty of little kids genuinely enjoy and are drawn to the toys designed for their gender. A study of infants showed that babies as young as 9 months old start to show a preference for gender-specific toys. This may mean that there are differences in biology between boys and girls that lead boys to be more interested in toys with wheels and moving parts, while girls prefer more fine-motor and nurturing play.

However, there’s also research to suggest that kids also learn from adults about what toys are acceptable for them to play with. In a study of 4-7 year old kids, children who were shown pictures of kids playing with toys: one group saw photos of boys and girls playing with gendered toys, while the other group saw photos of children playing together with all kinds of toys. Later, researchers asked the children about what toys boys and girls should play with. Children who had seen photos of kids playing with non-gender-specific toys were more likely to say that any child could play with any toy than the ones who’d seen gender-divided photos.

The bottom line: if you have a boy’s boy or a girly girl, that is great! Celebrate what they love, and provide some gender neutral toys to help them expand their learning. If you have a boy who loves dolls or a girl who loves trucks, that’s great too! Provide opportunities for all kids to broaden their horizons, and let them know that it’s OK for girls and boys to play with whatever toys they’d like.

Want to learn more about play therapy and how toys can help kids express themselves? Read my page on play therapy or drop me a line to inquire about scheduling an appointment.

Emotion Identification Activities for Preschoolers: 4 Ways to Practice Naming Feelings

“Use your words.”

Have you ever asked a young child to do this? Me too! Preschoolers and toddlers are notorious for acting out their feelings through tantrums, whining, hitting, and countless other behaviors that can be stressful for everyone involved. One of the reasons why preschoolers often resort to physical displays of emotion is that it’s hard for them to put their feelings and needs into words. When you aren’t able to tell people around you that something makes you angry, it’s easy to understand why you might resort to showing your feelings instead! When children can say “I’m mad”, it' makes them less likely to show their anger in other ways, like hitting.

I wish I could say that helping your preschooler name feelings would magically resolve all tantrums and naughty behavior. That’s not the case. I do notice, though, that young children in my office are often familiar with feelings words, but have a hard time applying those words to themselves or other people. Learning to put names to feelings is an early goal for many of my younger clients, and it can help kids with disruptive behavior at home, too. Here are 4 activities to practice emotion identification skills with your preschooler or toddler.

Make it a Game

Lots of children’s games can be modified to incorporate education about feelings. In my office, I have a wooden toy fishing set (this one) with photos of different emotions taped to the bottom of each fish. Whenever someone catches a fish, they have to name the feeling and mimic the facial expression shown. Kids really have fun with this, and I’ve found that after repeating the game a few times, it’s easier for them to correctly name the feelings.

You can apply this idea to all sorts of games. Here’s a few others to consider:

• Memory game: print 2 pairs of each facial expression and lay the images face-down.

• Charades: take turns portraying different emotions with your child, and guess what feeling the other is trying to communicate.

• Simple games like Candy Land and Jenga that require drawing or collecting blocks or cards can be tweaked to include emotion identification. Add an emoji sticker to each block or card, or use color coding to prompt children to identify or talk about a specific feeling whenever a card of that color is drawn.

TV and Books as Learning Opportunities

Any children’s story has lots of opportunities to prompt kids to reflect about feelings. When watching TV or reading a book with your child, you can model how to think about other peoples’ emotions. This can make it easier for your child to identify feelings in themselves and others, and also helps to develop empathy. You might want to pause stories to ask questions like:

• How do you think the character feels when someone is not nice to them?

• What kind of face is this character making?

• What feeling is the character’s body showing?

You can also select books to read at home that specifically introduce the subject of naming emotions. One book that I particularly like is The Color Monster by Anna Llenas. It’s a pop-up book that is bright and engaging enough to hold the attention of preschool children. It helps kids understand emotions by linking each feeling to a different color.

Help Your Child Label Emotions

Young children aren’t always aware of how they are feeling in the moment: their feelings may be intense and sudden, but hard to express in words. You can help your child develop their ability to connect her emotions to the physical sensations she feels in her body by calling out feelings when you see them. It’s also useful to practice naming your own feelings for kids, and guessing about the feelings of family members. Comments like these can help children feel more understood, and make it easier to name feelings:

• “Wow, your baby sister smiled and laughed when you did that! It made her feel really happy.”

• “I can see that your hands are making fists and you are feeling angry right now.”

• “It must be scary to see those monsters on TV.”

When labeling feelings for young children, stick to simple emotions: happy, mad, sad, and scared are a great place to start. As children get older, they will be ready to talk about more nuanced and complex feelings like surprise, frustration, and jealousy.

Use Visual Aids

Before children master the vocabulary to name feelings, they can often point to how they’re feeling if shown some options in pictures. If you went to school in the 90s, you might remember that ubiquitous “How Are You Feeling Today?” poster that had a ton of cartoon faces showing complex feelings like “lovestruck” and “ecstatic.” A large number of choices and advanced vocabulary are not super helpful for preschoolers, but lots of options exist for simpler, less busy feelings charts.

You can find tons of examples of feelings charts online, or make your own at home by gluing feelings faces to a piece of paper, or tacking them on to a bulletin board. Consider adding the basic emotions (happy, sad, angry, scared) and perhaps a few others your child might be working on mastering, such as surprised, tired, nervous, or excited. Ask your child each day to point to how he is feeling, and follow up by naming the feeling he selected and talking about why he feels that way today.

I often use a strip of cartoon or emoji faces that looks like the pain scale used in doctor’s offices to help children rate how intense their anxiety or anger is at a given moment. This can help children to understand that emotions don’t always have to be the same strength, and that using coping skills can reduce the intensity of a feeling.

I hope this list has given you some inspiration to start talking about feelings with your preschooler in a more deliberate way. While a good emotional vocabulary can’t solve every preschool problem, it can definitely help. If you think your preschooler could use some more help expressing feelings in a healthy way, reach out to learn more about play therapy and child counseling.

Internet Safety for Preteens and Teens

This is my second post in a series on internet safety. For part one, click here.

It’s rare to see a tween or teenage kid today without a smartphone. They can be an essential part of everyday life, allowing kids to share music and messages with friends, as well as giving them a way to reach out to parents in an emergency. However, access to a smartphone comes with serious risks for teens and tweens: research shows that half of teens are cyber bullied and one third of teen girls are sexually harassed online. The addictive nature of cell phones and the dangers children are exposed to on the internet have led some experts to recommend waiting until 8th grade to give a child a phone. Regardless of when you choose to let your child have a phone, here are some steps you can take to help your tween or teenage child stay safe online.

How Can Smartphones Cause Emotional Problems?

Too much time in front of a smartphone screen can lead to problems with emotional health, relationships, and safety. While some risks, like the risk of predators online seeking out children, are well-known, other risks are more subtle and less easy to recognize. Here are some points to consider when thinking about smartphone and internet safety for your preteen or teen:

• Many apps and social media platforms are designed to be addictive, making it difficult for teens to stop using them once they’ve started.

• Screen time cuts down on the face-to-face interaction a teen has with other people. Over time, this can lead to reduced empathy and a harder time recognizing other peoples’ emotions.

• Influencers on social media may lead teens to be more materialistic and competitive.

• Teens whose phone use isn’t monitored are at risk for being bullied by peers, which can contribute to anxiety and depression. This kind of harassment is surprisingly common, with at least half of teens reporting they’ve experienced it.

How Can Smartphones Be Dangerous for Teens?

Totally unsupervised smart phone use can expose teens and preteens to adult situations that put them at risk of being manipulated or abused. While many teens will never cone into contact with a predator online, for those who do the affects can be very damaging. Here are a few statistics about teens and crime on the internet:

• According to the FBI, more than 50% of sexual exploitation victims are kids between the ages of 12 and 15.

• The majority of attempts to make inappropriate advances on children happen in chatrooms or on platforms where users can direct message each other.

• 1 in 5 teens in the U.S. say they’ve received an unwanted sexual comment or advance online.

Given these stats, what can parents do to parents do to protect preteen and teenage kids from harm online without smothering them? Keep reading for some tips on how to keep preteens and teens safe online while still allowing them some freedom.

Internet Safety for Preteens

Preteens (ages 11-13) are often eager to imitate older teenage kids, including by getting on to social media platforms like TikTok, Snapchat and Instagram. Many preteens chat with their friends by text or through apps, and online friends are increasingly common for this age group. This can put preteens at risk, because it’s impossible to know exactly who your’e speaking to online, and preteens are still very susceptible to being manipulated or scammed by adults.

You can support your preteen by keeping their computer in a public area of the house, rather than their bedroom, and by filtering and monitoring their activities using parental control software. Children this age don’t need to be on social media platforms intended for adults, even though they are tempting. Although kids this age no longer need an adult constantly supervising their activity online, preteen kids should not have any email or social media accounts that parents do not have passwords or access to. At this age, parents should also be reviewing safety skills with kids, including the danger of speaking to strangers online, giving out personal information, or agreeing to meet an unknown person in real life.

Internet Safety for Teens

Teenagers (14-18) are getting ready to live their lives independently, but they still haven’t developed all the problem-solving skills they’ll need to navigate the adult situations that can arise online. It’s normal for teenagers to push the envelope by seeking out edgy or inappropriate content online, but searches for adult content can increase the risk of a teen being exposed to danger. Teenagers lack the life experience and history that adults have, which can make it harder to make informed decisions when it comes to issues like cyberbullying, sexting, communicating with strangers, and making online friends.

Many experts recommend that a teen’s online activities should still have an age-appropriate level of filtering and monitoring from parental control software. Similarly, it’s still recommended that a teenager use a computer in a public area of the house, as opposed to a private bedroom where there is no supervision at all. Parents should educate teens on how to be safe and responsible online, and the risks involved with sending people bullying or explicit messages. Many teenagers develop online friendships, and they may be eager to meet their friends in real life. Parents need to stay in touch with their teen children about their social lives online, and it is up to parents to decide whether an (accompanied) meetup with a new friend seems safe or not. Finally, any purchases that a teen makes online should be reviewed and monitored by parents to prevent illegal activity, identity theft, or overspending.

For More Information

I frequently recommend Internet Safety 101 as a resource for parents who are deciding on age-appropriate internet rules for their kids. You can also read more about the Wait Until 8th campaign, which advocates waiting until 8th grade to give children a smartphone. If your child has been affected by online bullying or harassment, my resource pages on anxiety and trauma may give you ideas on how to support your child through the experience. If you’re in the Davidson, NC area and interested in counseling for your child, you can contact me here.

Mirrors and Windows: Why All Kids Need Racially Diverse Books

As I write this, we are right in the middle of Black History Month, and I’ve been thinking a lot recently about how I can be a better ally to my clients of color. What can I do as a white therapist, living and working in a town that is not very diverse, to better support these kids and families? One small step I’ve taken is to select images for my website, therapy office, and playroom that represent many races and ethnicities. My hope is that children who visit me in the office will feel that it is a place for them, regardless of whether or not they look like me.

Working toward this goal, I’m making sure that new toys and books that I add to the playroom reflect the children who are going to be using them. I believe this is helpful to all my clients—regardless of their background—because everyone benefits from better representation. Kids of all races need opportunities to see themselves in stories, as well as chances to see the world through other peoples’ eyes. In this post, I’ll be sharing 5 books that provide racial mirrors and windows for kids of many backgrounds, while also giving parents opportunities to introduce conversations about race.

What Are Racial Mirrors and Windows?

“Racial mirror” is a term that may be familiar to you if you’re in the adoption community, particularly if you’ve adopted a child whose race is different than your own. A racial mirror is a person whose identity matches yours, and who can reflect your own experiences back to you. Racial mirrors can help a child feel seen and validated, and also help them to imagine a place for themselves in their community and the world at large. White people have lots of opportunities for racial mirrors, usually in their own neighborhoods as well as in their schools, in politics, and on TV.

For children of color, racial mirrors can be harder to come by, especially if a child is being raised in a family of a different race or in a largely white community. While it’s important for all kids to understand prejudice, it’s just as important for all children to be able to see positive role models who resemble them. Studies show that students do better in school when they have teachers who are racial mirrors. For Black children, having at least one Black teacher in elementary school reduces the likelihood of dropping out of high school by 39%.

A racial window, on the other hand, offers children an opportunity to see into someone else’s experience of life. Children begin to learn empathy by putting themselves in someone else’s shoes, so getting lots of opportunities to see life from another perspective can help kids grow into more empathetic, caring adults. Having many racial mirrors might also help make us more skilled at solving problems creatively. Researchers have found that diverse groups of people are better at coming up with new and innovative ideas, because the individuals have gotten smarter about considering a problem from many points of view.

Why Kids Need Diverse Books

I often use books in the therapy room to gently introduce topics that might otherwise feel too overwhelming for kids to talk about. Books can make heavy subjects like trauma, grief and loss feel more manageable. They can provide kids with language to describe their feelings when faced with unfamiliar situations, like a new sibling or the first day at a new school. Most importantly, books help children know that they aren’t alone with their thoughts and feelings: other people have been where they are now, and have felt these things before.

Books aren’t a replacement for real-life role models as racial mirrors and windows. However, children learn through stories, and easily identify with characters in books. Reading stories together can be a meaningful and child-friendly way to give children more reflections of themselves, as well as glimpses into the lives of others. Because race is a taboo subject for many families, books can provide a good jumping-off point for conversations with children. Fictional stories give kids a safe remove from serious or real-life topics, which can make them less threatening to talk about. I often find that, after reading a book together, kids share takeaways that I would have never expected.

5 Books With Racial Mirrors and Windows

The following books are ones that I like, because they feature ethnically diverse children and also address themes common to children in therapy, like self esteem, friendship, and empathy:

The Day You Begin by Jacqueline Woodson

I’m obsessed with this book, and so is the rest of the internet. Maybe you’ve already heard of it! This story, written in verse like a poem, describes a girl’s insecurity about returning to a school where she feels singled out for being different. Along the way, we’re introduced to other children who also have reasons to feel left out. I love this book because children of all backgrounds can see themselves in it: white kids, Black kids, kids living with a disability, and kids of various economic backgrounds. The story is open-ended enough that it allows children to put themselves into the narrative, while also making it easy to discuss race and other differences. The text and illustrations are both beautiful, and make this book feel really special.

Even Superheroes Have Bad Days, by Shelly Becker

This cute, brightly-illustrated book uses a cast of superheroes to teach kids about how to handle strong emotions. If your child is into superheroes, this could be a great way to start talking about coping skills and healthy ways to burn off anger. The gang of superheroes as well as the people they rescue are a pretty diverse group, which makes this a nice option if you’re looking for books about feelings. Other books in this series have the superheroes tackling the issues of sleep and making mistakes, so if this is popular with your child, you have more books to explore.

Lovely by Jess Hong

I just added this one to my own shopping cart. The illustrations are, well, really lovely, and I can imagine this art style appealing to lots of little girls in my practice. I love that the author of this book is an Asian-American woman. Aimed at younger children, this book is light on text and heavy on illustrations, and uses contrasting words to show how all different ages, body types, hair colors, and skin tones are worthy of being celebrated. The only downside is this appears to be out of print, and is a little hard to find.

Sulwe by Lupita Nyong’o and Vashti Harrison

A beautifully illustrated and popular book co-written by actress Lupita Nyong’o, this book addresses colorism from the point of view of a young girl who feels ashamed by the darkness of her skin. This book has a fairytale quality and incorporates fantasy elements that help children connect with the story and elevate the message of the book. This book won a Coretta Scott King award for its illustrations, and is a New York Times bestseller.

All the Colors We Are by Katie Kissinger

This bilingual, photo-rich picture book gives young children language to understand the concept of race. I like that it discusses that our skin color comes from melanin and our ancestors, and acknowledges that members of a family can have different shades of skin. This seems like a great way to explore the subject of race and ethnicity that doesn’t split people into a binary of “White” and “not White”. I can imagine that children appreciate being able to see real photos of other children, and to get a chance to see themselves and lots of other kids reflected in this book.

More Resources for Racially Diverse Books

If you are specifically looking for books with racial mirrors for Black children, or books that celebrate the Black experience, you can’t go wrong with Coretta Scott King Award-winning books. This award is given each year to an African-American authors and illustrators of children’s books that “demonstrate an appreciation of African American culture and universal human values.” These books are intended for many different age ranges, so you’ll find picture books as well as longer chapter books and YA novels.

This list of 21 Multicultural Books About Feelings was a great resource for this post and has many more options for books with a therapeutic bent that also happen to feature a diverse cast of kids.

I hope this post gave you some ideas about how you can use books to help your child see themselves and others through stories. You can always reach out to me here with questions about how counseling can help children dealing with anxiety, trauma experiences, and other life stresses.

Internet Safety for Children: An Age-By-Age Guide

When I was three, my Dad brought home our first computer. It was an enormous, boxy thing that ran on MS-DOS and made screeching noises for about 5 minutes as it booted up. I was thrilled! Having access to games and limitless information was magical. Today, children are growing up in a world where they are inundated by internet access, and that access carries many more risks than it did when I was a kid in the ‘80s and ‘90s. I often hear that parents are questioning whether or not their child is old enough to go online, or how they can make sure their child is getting safe, age-appropriate experiences on the internet. Read on for tips on how to keep kids safe online, according to age.

Kids and Tech: The Pros and Cons

It can be tempting to try to keep kids off the internet entirely, to minimize the risk of them being exposed to dangerous or inappropriate situations. As scary as these risks can be at times, I think most children benefit from age-appropriate access to the internet. The internet has become most peoples’ primary source of information, and it can connect kids with tons of free resources to complete school assignments and generally learn about the world.

Lots of kids’ culture is now based online, and a child with no access to the internet is likely to feel left out of conversation with peers. I often hear from children that their desire to fit in with their classmates is their number one reason for wanting to go online or play a particular game. It’s important for children to feel like they’re a part of their peer group, and I think this is a valid reason to give kids exposure to at least some pop culture online.

On the other hand, there are very real dangers to unrestricted internet access. We’ve all heard horror stories about internet predators actively targeting children, sometimes with devastating results. Even if kids aren’t able to directly chat with anyone online, it’s very easy for children to come across violent material, hate speech, sexually inappropriate material, or even plain old fake news that can cause confusion. Often, children aren’t even seeking out this material but may stumble upon it anyway: for example, YouTube automatically queues videos to play, and has a bad track record of accidentally allowing disturbing videos into child-friendly feeds.

The internet is so pervasive now that it’s almost impossible to fully block a child’s access. Even if kids don’t have access at home, it is easy for them to sneak onto a friend’s smartphone at school, or get access in a public place. When internet access is completely forbidden, it can become “forbidden fruit” that is even more appealing to children. Providing structured, supervised access to the internet at a young age can help kids feel connected to their friends, while also teaching them safety skills that will help them navigate the internet more responsibly as they grow up.

Internet Safety for Preschoolers

Preschool-aged children have vivid imaginations, and it’s difficult for them to differentiate between what is real and what is pretend. Characters from TV, movies, and the internet can easily be frightening to young kids, and lead to nightmares and other anxiety-related problems. Preschoolers also don’t have the problem-solving skills yet to keep themselves safe online. For these reasons, it’s a good idea to put strict limits on screen time, and only allow preschoolers to use a computer if you’re sitting right beside them. Children at this age don’t need to be online, but Internet Safety 101 recommends that if you’d like to start teaching computer skills to your child, you can introduce them to age-appropriate educational games.

Internet Safety for Early Elementary Students

Kids in the early elementary school range (ages 5-7) are still working on separating what’s real from what’s pretend, and can still be prone to nightmares and anxiety from cartoon characters and other media. Most kids this age can already easily navigate a phone, type things into Google, and may even figure out how to make online purchases. For this reason, kids this age should always be supervised online. You might want to consider investing in parental control software to limit the places your child can go online, or limit them to a handful of websites you’ve already checked out and know are safe. Elementary school kids should never be able to chat with other people online, or give out any real information about themselves.

Internet Safety for Late Elementary Students

Older elementary school kids (ages 8-10) are maturing and crave more independence. Some kids this age may already have their own phone or tablet. Games like Minecraft and YouTube channels for kids are a huge part of popular culture for kids this age, but children this age are trusting and can still be easily tricked or scammed by adults online. Experts recommend keeping a family computer in a public area of the house, rather than in a child’s bedroom, and continuing to filter their internet access. Some kids may be ready to chat with friends on child-friendly platforms but shouldn’t be allowed to comment on sites with adults. Parents should still be supervising internet use, and can begin to teach kids about online safety.

More Resources for Kids and Parents

Internet Safety 101 is a fantastic resource for families that goes into more depth on how to help kids of all ages use technology in a safe way. I also recommend exploring options for parental control software to filter inappropriate websites, as well as apps like Bark that monitor kids’ computer and phone use for keywords that might signal a problem with bullying or other issues. If you’d like more guidance on this or other parenting concerns, and would like to hear about how counseling can help, reach out to me here.

Slimed Out? 3 Sensory Play Alternatives to Making Slime

I am fully on board with the slime trend. Slime is an easy way to add more sensory play to a child’s life. Sensory play—any kind of playful activity that engages the 5 senses—can be emotionally soothing and also helps children to develop and learn. I have to confess, though, that sometimes I get tired of slime. It is messy. It can be expensive. Sometimes you’ve got to take a break from burning through that much Elmer’s glue. If you (like me) occasionally feel a little “slimed out,” I hope some of these sensory play activities will be good alternatives to making slime.

Slime Alternative #1: Orbeez

What it is: Have you ever seen those little plastic pellets in potting soil? That’s what Orbeez are. These tiny spheres are made out of a plastic-like substance that absorbs many times its weight in water, turning into a squishy, jelly-like ball when hydrated. If you’ve ever had bubble tea, they look and feel similar to boba. They also remind me a little of fish eggs, which is kind of icky.

How to play with it: Kids love the squishy, wet texture of Orbeez, which have a similar sensory quality to slime. You can pour Orbeez into a big bin and play with them like you would a sandbox, using shovels, funnels, or other sand/water toys to move them around. Some kids love to submerge their hands or even their feet in Orbeez. We’ve also experimented in the play therapy office with making stress balls by funneling Orbeez into a balloon.

The pros: Unlike some slime recipes, Orbeez are nontoxic and biodegradable…but please do not test this by eating them! Because Orbeez are solid, they’re easier to clean up than slime, and less likely to get stuck on carpets or furniture.

The cons: Orbeez take a while to hydrate, so you can’t use them right away. Orbeez can be reused, but eventually they may stop rehydrating or become moldy, so eventually they need to be replaced.

Slime Alternative #2: Shaving Cream “Snow”

This “snow” is made by combining shaving cream with either baking soda or cornstarch to create a light, fluffy, snow-like mixture. It naturally feels cool to the touch, and can be packed and molded like the real thing. You can find a recipe here.

How to play with it: Kids may enjoy packing their “snow” into snowballs or making snowmen, especially if they live in a place where snow isn’t common. Children can also use miniatures in the snow for imaginative play. Sand and water tools could also be useful to dig and sift through the snow.

The pros: With only 2 ingredients, this is a much simpler recipe than slime. Because there’s no Borax, it’s less likely to irritate sensitive skin. Also, this white snow doesn’t require any food coloring, so there’s less risk of staining skin or clothing. I have found shaving cream is much easier to clean up than slime.

The cons: Not everyone is crazy about the scent of shaving cream. Although less likely to stain, you may still have some mess to deal with after playtime is over.

Slime Alternative #3: Dry beans, pasta, or rice

This one is an old favorite of occupational therapists, who often use play activities like this to help children with sensory processing issues. Dried beans, pasta, and rice can be a fun indoor alternative to a sandbox, particularly for younger children. You can buy these in bulk, and different types of beans will provide different color and textures, changing the sensory experience.

How to play: You can create a sort of indoor sandbox by pouring the dried item(s) of your choice into a large Tupperware container. Be sure to put a blanket or tarp underneath to catch any spills! Some kids enjoy hunting for “buried treasure” in the box, searching for small toys or plastic coins. Others might prefer to sort the items by color, which can also be a soothing activity. I’ve seen many kids try to climb in the box, which is a great sensory experience but has a higher risk for mess!

The pros: Because these items can be bought in bulk and last a long time, this is a cheap and effective option for sensory play. The dry ingredients won’t stain, but may need to be swept or vacuumed when playtime is over. Since all these items are food items, they aren’t likely to cause a problem if someone nibbles on one.

The cons: While they won’t mess up clothing or fabric, you probably will be left with some stray pieces to pick up or vacuum. This is a very different texture to slime, so it may not be quite as satisfying as a slime alternative for kids who want that squishy feeling.

More Sensory Play Alternatives to Slime

If you’re needing more ideas for slime alternatives, there are tons of sensory play suggestions online. Check out this site for more ideas for how to make a simple “bean box” fun and exciting for younger kids. This seasonal Christmas play-doh recipe is a little more labor-intensive, but also looks really fun for winter. To learn more about how play helps kids to develop learning and emotional skills, check out my play therapy page.

If you’re in the Davidson area, I’m always happy to chat more about the benefits of play therapy for kids. You can reach out to me here.

Are Imaginary Friends Normal?

Your child is excitedly telling you about her new best friend. They seem to be inseparable! You’re hearing all kinds of stories about their adventures, and even a few of their arguments. There’s only one problem… your kid’s friend has superpowers, has a strange name, is invisible, and is totally made up.

It can be jarring for parents when a child has an imaginary friend, especially if the child has gotten deeply invested in the friendship. Parents may wonder if their child is lonely, or if the friend is a sign their child can’t tell the difference between reality and pretend. In this post, I’ll talk more about the interesting phenomenon of imaginary friends, and why it’s totally normal if your child has one.

How common are imaginary friends?

Research on imaginary friends has found that about 65% of kids will have an imaginary friend at some point during childhood. So, if your child has dreamed up a new companion for himself, he’s in good company. Firstborn and only children are more likely than other kids to create an invisible friend, possibly because they are spending more time playing independently.

At what age do imaginary friends start?

Invisible friends are an extension of a child’s normal make-believe play. Kids usually start this kind of play in the late toddler or early preschool years, so imaginary friends can develop as early as two-and-a-half or three years of age. Studies have shown that kids between the ages of 3 and 5 are the most likely age group to have an imaginary friend.

How long do imaginary friends last?

An imaginary friend can be present in a child’s live for anywhere from a few months to a few years. For most children, imaginary friends taper off by late elementary school—around age 8 or 9. For a few kids, though, invisible friends can last much longer, even into the teen years. As long as an older child’s imaginary friend isn’t getting in the way of his or her social life, this can still be a healthy expression of imagination.

Imaginary friends are a sign of creativity, not loneliness

Kids with invisible friends are no more likely to be lonely than any other child. Although an imaginary friend may be a convenient form of entertainment on days that a playmate can’t come over, they don’t necessarily mean a child is unhappy or doesn’t have real-life friends. In fact, the more researchers learn about imaginary friends, the more benefits they find to having one. Children who have imaginary friends are often highly creative, and can easily lose themselves in stories. This trait can last a lifetime, leading kids to artistic pursuits later in life.

Because an imaginary friend is a heightened form of make-believe, it can offer children the same benefits as imaginary play. Children with a pretend friend are practicing social skills through role play, which can strengthen their real-life socializing with peers. An imagined friend can also be a source of support for children during stressful times, helping them to make sense of the world around them.

Also, in my own experience, kids are almost always aware that their imaginary friend is not real. If you ask about the difference between real and pretend, the child can easily differentiate between the two, and might even share with you that their friend is make-believe. Imaginary friends are real for a child in the same way that a doll or stuffed animal are “real”: the emotions feel genuine to the child, but she knows the difference between play and reality.

How to support your child’s (totally normal) imaginary friend

If your child has an imaginary friend, congratulations! Here are a few suggestions for how to navigate issues that can come up with a make-believe companion:

• If your child is blaming bad behavior on an imaginary friend, you don’t have to play along! It’s fine to tell your child this is not something that their imaginary friend could have done and to offer consequences as usual.

• It’s okay to have discussions with your child about the difference between real life and pretend. Kids with vivid imaginations can be prone to fear and nightmares from scary movies and stories, so reinforcing that scary characters don’t exist in real life can be reassuring.

• Try not to tell your child how their imaginary friend behaves. Invisible friends are ghly personal—they’re an extension of the child’s own imagination—so this can feel confusing or upsetting for kids. Instead, ask them questions about what their friend is up to, and follow along with your child’s stories about their friend.

Can an invisible friend ever be a problem?

An imaginary friend is almost always a normal, healthy part of child development. Rarely, it can be a sign of a deeper problem that needs to be looked into. Sometimes, children who experience trauma develop imaginary friends as part of dissociation—a way of distancing or disconnecting from reality during a stressful time. If a child’s imaginary friend says cruel or hateful things to the child, or encourages them to behave badly, this could also be a cause for concern. Finally, if a child’s imaginary friend is getting in the way of socializing with real-life kids, especially at an older age, it is no longer helpful to the child.

The overwhelming majority of kids with invisible friends will never encounter these kinds of problems. However, if you notice these traits in your child, it’s a good idea to review them with your child’s pediatrician. They may benefit from counseling or other assistance to help get back on track.

If you’re located in the Lake Norman area of North Carolina and you’d like to learn more about how to support highly imaginative kids through counseling, feel free to reach out to me.

How to Help a Child with Separation Anxiety

The first time your child told you they didn’t want you to leave, it might have been a sweet moment. Being sad to see someone go is a sign of a close, loving relationship. Maybe you offered a little reassurance and a few extra hugs, and sent your kiddo on his or her way. Lots of kids have worries about a parent going away every once in a while, but for some kids, these worries quickly snowball into larger fears that need extra help to resolve. When a child suffers from separation anxiety, it can get in the way of day-to-day activities and cause stress and frustration for the whole family.

If your child is struggling with separation anxiety, there is some good news: it’s totally normal and natural for children to want to stay with their parents. Children are hardwired for survival, and they know that their parents are the safe people in their lives who will protect them from harm. Almost all children go through a period of separation anxiety as infants and toddlers, and a lot of the time, the worries resolve by themselves once children learn that when Mom and Dad leave, they always come back.

Signs and Symptoms of Separation Anxiety

How can you tell if your child is experiencing a passing worry, or is struggling with anxiety that might need extra help? Here are a few signs that might indicate your child needs some extra support to move past their worries:

• You notice that your child appears much more clingy than other children his or her age

• The anxiety is keeping your child from participating in activities they want or need to do, such as school, birthday parties, or sleepovers with friends

• Your child’s worry seems to be getting more intense over time, or you are noticing more worries about other issues coming up

• Your child’s anxiety includes body symptoms, like headaches or stomach aches

If any of these bullet points sounds familiar to you, you might benefit from the ideas below.

How Parents Can Help Kids with Separation Anxiety

Stay calm: It can be nerve-wracking wondering if today is a ay your child is going to panic at school drop-off. Kids are really tuned into their parents emotions, and can often sense a parent’s anxiety. If a child sees that a parent is feeling nervous about separation, it can heighten the child’s anxiety, too.

Highlight your child’s strengths: It’s helpful to take focus away from a child’s worries, and put the focus on how capable the child is of handling a difficult situation. Rather than trying to talk your child out of her fears in the moment, tell her you know she’s a strong, brave person, and she can do this!

Practice deep breathing: Learning coping skills, like taking deep, belly breaths, can help kids to calm their bodies and minds. This can help children deal with their stress, and might cut down on body-based symptoms like stomach aches, as well.

Don’t prolong the separation: Sometimes, the longer a parent stays around, the more a child’s anxiety rises. It can be really hard to make a quick exit and not stay to give extra hugs and kisses when a child is feeling nervous, but a brief and loving goodbye helps a child transition faster into his next activity.

Child Therapy for Separation Anxiety in Davidson, North Carolina

Need more help with separation anxiety? Whether you live local to me in the Lake Norman area of North Carolina or far away, there are options to help. My educational course for kids teaches coping skills to deal with anxiety and life stress, and you can stream it immediately so your child can start learning right away.

If you’ve tried these techniques, and are still having a hard time helping your child get separation anxiety under control, it might be time to contact a child counselor for some extra support. Therapy can be a big help for children with anxiety, helping them to strengthen their coping skills, express feelings through play, and gradually learn how to separate from their parents or loved ones without fear.

If your family is in the Lake Norman area of North Carolina, please feel free to reach out to learn more about how counseling can help kids work through separation anxiety. I can also provide online therapy to kids in other parts of the state, as well as in New York and Florida. With some help and support, kids can feel more confident at school drop-off, sleepovers, and other independent activities.

How to Help Grieving Children Through Christmas

Whether your child has lost a loved one recently or long ago, Christmas can rekindle feelings of grief for children. Happy memories of past Christmases with a parent or family member who has died makes their absence during the holidays even more apparent. Christmas is often described as the “most wonderful time of the year” for children, and the movies, songs, and advertisements targeted at kids can trigger complicated feelings as the holiday approaches. Here are some ways to support a child in your life who is grieving over Christmas.

Involve Your Child in Holiday Planning

The Dougy Center is one of my favorite resources for bereaved children and their families. Their tip sheet for getting through the holidays is an excellent guide for how to discuss an upcoming holiday with bereaved kids. Asking your child how they feel about continuing with holiday traditions helps you to gauge what could be comforting to them, and what might be too painful to handle this year.

Many children benefit from predictable routines, especially after trauma or loss. Participating in Christmas traditions as they have always been done might be just the thing to help some kids. These holiday rituals can help restore a sense of normalcy for children, and give them an opportunity to feel close to family after the loss. On the other hand, some holiday traditions may feel so closely connected to the lost loved one that they are too overwhelming to practice. Asking your child about his or her preferences gives them some control in a tumultuous time. It’s okay to keep some things the same, modify others, and leave some traditions for another year.

However Your Child Feels About Christmas is Okay

Children grieve deeply, but the way they show their grief can be different than adults. Adults can remain in mourning for a long time. Even as they get back to their daily lives, they are aware of their grief. Children, by contrast, often grieve in bursts. This may be because they don’t have the same capacity to handle deeply painful emotions as adults do.

It’s common to see an intense outpourings of emotion from bereaved children, interspersed with periods that are relatively calm. It doesn’t mean the child has forgotten about their grief: they just need to take a break. The child will “pick up” their grief again when they are ready to keep processing it.

Because kids sometimes grieve in bursts, any reaction to Christmas is normal, okay, and healthy. Children need permission to feel mad, sad, guilty, or frightened about celebrating holidays without their loved one. They should also be allowed to feel excited, to enjoy holiday traditions with family, or to anticipate receiving gifts from Santa. Letting a child feel whatever feelings come up for her supports her in working through her grief. You can help support your grieving child by letting her know that her feelings about Christmas are normal, even if they change day to day.

Tell Stories About Your Loved One

Because Christmas is loaded with family memories for most people, it can be a good opportunity to tell stories about a family member who has died. Many children have a strong desire to share stories about a loved one following a death in the family. Sharing these stories can help a child feel connected to their deceased family member, and help them to heal.

If your grieving child is interested in telling stories about her lost loved one, you can support her by talking about favorite holiday traditions. What was the family member’s favorite food? What was a memorable gift the family member gave or received? It can also be helpful to remember less happy memories involving a deceased family member. This shows children that negative feelings are okay to share, too.

Read Children’s Books About Grief

The holidays may be a good time to share a book about death, loss, and bereavement with your child. Children’s books can approach grief in a more general way, which can be less threatening for kids. Books can also normalize the feelings that children have after a death, reassuring them that their reactions are normal and they aren’t alone.

The Invisible String is a classic book for children that doesn’t directly address the topic of death, but talks about how love between a parent and child never goes away. It can be a helpful book for children who are grieving the loss of a family member, as well as children who are anxious or sad about separation from a loved one for any reason.

When Dinosaurs Die is a more educational book that speaks directly about death, and addresses questions children may ask after a loved one dies. Instead of reading this book cover-to-cover, it might be more helpful to pick sections to read based on an individual child’s experience and the nature of their loved one’s death. The illustrated dinosaurs in this book help keep the book feeling safely removed from everyday life, which helps the book feel more reassuring for kids.

Take Care of Yourself During the Holidays

Therapists often use an airplane analogy when talking to parents about self-care. When you’re in an airplane, the flight attendants tell you that, in case of emergency, you need to put on your own oxygen mask before helping a child. The same can be true during grief.

Children rely on their caregivers heavily after a death. They may become more clingy, and need more individual attention, as they heal from their loss. Kids also look to their parents to learn how they should be feeling, and to get reassurance that they will still be safe. Caregivers need to take care of themselves, physically and emotionally, so they can have the strength to take care of their grieving kids.

It’s okay to say no to holiday events, if you don’t feel up to the task. Practicing self-care, especially around Christmas, is really important for a mourning parent. It is okay to let your child see how you’re feeling, even if you’re feeling sad or angry. Parents can show children that it is okay to cry, and also model the ways that both adults and children can care for themselves during grief. It’s also always okay to step away from holiday celebrations and take a break, if things become too overwhelming.

Help Your Child Cope With Grief During Christmas and All Year Long

If your family is grieving this season, you’re not alone. We can’t take a child’s grief away, but parents and caregivers can give children the tools they need to cope with their loss in a healthy way. My activity book for bereaved kids and caregivers is available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, as well as through small booksellers near you. Inside, you’ll learn how children grieve differently than adults, and get over 100 ideas for hands-on activities you and your child can try together to manage the difficult feelings of grief.

Children may have symptoms of trauma after a death, especially if the loss was sudden or violent. You can learn more about symptoms and help for trauma here. If you’re in the Lake Norman area in North Carolina, my door is always open if you’d like to reach out.

How Do I Teach My Toddler Gratitude?

4 Tips from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to Help Your Toddler Learn About Gratitude

This is the second in a 2-part series on gratitude. For Part 1, click here.

Toddlers aren’t exactly known for their gratitude. 2-, 3-, and 4-year-olds are naturally egocentric: they are really focused on their own feelings, and aren’t aware that other people might have a different point of view. When we describe an adult as being egocentric, it’s usually an insult, but for toddlers and preschoolers, egocentrism is a totally normal and healthy part of child development. Not being able to take another person’s perspective makes it hard for toddlers to really appreciate what others do for them. However, there are things that parents can do to help plant the seeds of gratitude for very young children. In this post, I’ll share 4 tips inspired by cognitive behavioral therapy to teach your toddler or preschooler about manners and gratitude.

Be a Good Role Model

Little kids learn by observing the grown-ups around them. Whenever we’re playing or interacting with a toddler or preschooler, they’re watching us intently to see what we do and how we react to things. If you have a toddler or preschooler in your house, you know that they love to mimic what their mom or dad does. Toddlers love their parents, and want to be just like them! You can use this power for good by making sure that you consistently model the grateful, polite behavior you’d like to see in your toddler or preschool child.

Make sure you’re demonstrating how to use polite words like “please” and “thank you” to encourage your child to do the same. When you ask your child to do something, phrasing it in a polite way makes it more likely your child will listen, and also models for them how to ask you questions in the future. During play, show your child how to treat toys gently and respectfully, which includes picking up at the end of playtime.

You can also teach your toddler gratitude by making sure you voice your own appreciation out loud, letting your child know the things you are grateful for. If you’ve received a gift, describe what makes it so thoughtful. If your child has done something kind, be enthusiastic in showing your appreciation. Pointing out everyday moments that you feel grateful gives your children a model for how to do it, too.

Catch Your Toddler Being Good to Encourage Gratitude

In cognitive behavioral therapy, we sometimes talk about “catching a child being good.” Nobody would ever compliment an adult for sitting patiently, saying “please”, or using good manners: good behavior is expected as par for the course with adults. It’s easy to forget that young children are still figuring out what good behavior is, and by taking their good behavior for granted, we aren’t helping them learn what kind of behavior we want to see.

Whenever you see your toddler or preschooler saying “thank you”, treating toys respectfully, or showing appreciation, make sure to praise them! Calling out good behavior, rather than simply reprimanding bad behavior, helps kids learn what we want them to do, as opposed to simply what we don’t want. Praise makes kids feel good about themselves and more connected to the adults around them, which means they’ll be more likely to repeat the behavior that was just praised. Catching toddlers being good not only teaches them about good behavior, it makes it more likely that the good behavior will occur again.

Encourage Your Child to “Help”

Since we know toddlers and preschoolers love to mimic their parents, recruiting young children to help out with household chores can also help lay the groundwork for developing gratitude. Young children are often eager to “help” their parents with chores like sweeping, cooking, and feeding pets. Even though their efforts to help may make the task take a little longer, it’s a good idea to let them try. Encouraging young children to pitch in with a task gives them a sense of responsibility. Children learn to understand the time and effort it takes to do everyday tasks like prepare a meal, which eventually leads to more appreciation and gratitude.

Read Books to Teach Toddlers About Gratitude

Reading books together can be a great way to introduce young children to big ideas like gratitude. A good picture book helps get a child’s gears turning about the subject in a fun, engaging way, without feeling too lecture-y. Learning about behavior through stories about another child or character gives the child some distance from the subject, and makes it less threatening to talk about. Here are a few books on gratitude for toddlers and preschoolers that get great reviews on Amazon:

• Bear Says Thanks is a picture book for children ages 3-8. The illustrations have a Thanksgiving tone to them, but there are no direct references to the holiday, which makes this book useful for reading year-round.

• The Thankful Book is part of a very popular book series for preschoolers by author Todd Parr. This simple and brightly colored book gives great examples of simple things children might be thankful for in their daily lives.

• Thank You and Good Night introduces children to the idea of practicing gratitude at the end of the day, through the eyes of a group of animals having a sleepover.

I hope you’ve found some helpful tips here on how to teach your toddler about gratitude. If you’d like to learn more about how cognitive behavioral therapy can help young children with behavior problems, you’re always welcome to reach out to me here.

How to Teach Children Gratitude Through Play: 2 Tips from a Play Therapist

2 Play Therapy Techniques to Encourage a More Thankful Mindset

This is the first in a 2-part series on gratitude. For part 2, click here.

Happy Thanksgiving! This week, I’ve been thinking a lot about the theme of gratitude, and how it impacts the children I see in my playroom. Our culture pays a lot of lip service to gratitude. We have an entire national holiday dedicated to the concept of being grateful for what we have. Interestingly, right after Thanksgiving, we are catapulted into the most materialistic season of the year. In this post, I’ll be talking about how to navigate this with children, using play therapy skills to teach children gratitude through play.

The day after Thanksgiving, Black Friday sales will immediately start peddling the hottest new products to both adults and children. In fact, lots of kids’ culture is based on needing the hottest new toy, from unboxing videos on YouTube to TV commercials targeted directly at children to videogames that constantly push in-game purchases. In a world where Thanksgiving and Christmas are so loaded with messages about needing more, how can we help teach children gratitude and help them to be thankful for what they already have?

I came across this 2014 article from the Atlantic by Jenn Choi recently, and I think it’s fantastic. It’s advice from a parent’s point of view on how to effectively teach gratitude to kids without preaching or lecturing. The author, a mom and journalist, feels torn: she wants to provide her kids with the material things her own family couldn’t afford as a child, but also worries about spoiling them. She decides to appeal to her kids’ interests and speak their language—toys and play—in order to instill the value of gratitude:

Kids do not know how big or little your paycheck is. Kids do not understand what income tax or health insurance deductibles are either. However, they do know how much a Nintendo DS game cartridge costs. They know how much a Wii costs. Or a slice of pizza or a bottle of Gatorade. This is their vocabulary—their understanding of values in our material world. We can work with that. And to get our kids to understand the meaning of gratitude, we must.

The entire article is worth a read, and it’s a good reminder that adult worries about finances are just not good motivators to help kids learn to be more grateful. They’re too abstract for children to understand, and hearing about financial difficulties might make children feel guilty or anxious, rather than grateful. It got me thinking about how play therapy can help parents to teach the concept of gratitude at home without resorting to lecturing.

Lots of the skills that are “bread and butter” for play therapists can be used by parents at home to promote gratitude in a fun, engaging way. Here are some play and activity-based tips to consider if you’d like to encourage your children to develop a more thankful mindset.

Give Them Responsibility

In play therapy, we talk a lot about “returning responsibility” to a child, which simply means encouraging children to do things by themselves whenever possible. Rather than jumping in immediately to help if a child is working hard to open a jar lid or balance a tower of blocks, a play therapist allows the child to struggle a bit and try to achieve the task alone. With a little patience, the child can usually do the task all by herself, and feels proud of herself for doing it.

Being responsible for an activity can also help children be more grateful for the end result, because they appreciate the effort that went into it. When children are given a job to do during family chores, cooking, and cleaning, they feel more thankful and take less for granted. Here’s two ways to promote gratitude by giving kids responsibility:

• Get kids involved with their own meal prep: even toddlers can help with tasks like mixing, dumping ingredients, and washing produce. Older children can cut food with child-safe kitchen knives, measure ingredients, grease baking pans, and rinse dishes. Involving children in the kitchen is a common recommendation for helping picky eaters, because children are more likely to appreciate and enjoy food they have helped to cook themselves. Similarly, kids who took part in cooking their own food take pride in their accomplishment, and are more aware of the work it takes to put food on the table each day.

• Let kids assemble their own toys: Did your child just come home with a massive Lego set or playhouse requiring an elaborate set-up? While it may not be realistic for your child to put everything together themselves, encouraging the child to put their new toy together with you can help them to grasp the work and effort that goes into building their new plaything. This might help your child to feel more thankful for his new toy and treat it with more care.

Less is More

Play therapists work with toys for a living, and yet if you peek into a play therapist’s office, you’ll likely find a small collection of traditional and fairly “basic” items. Having a mountain of toys in the office can overwhelm children, making them feel more anxious and unfocused, so many play therapists take a “less is more” approach and carefully curate their playrooms to include classic toys rather than the latest “it” item of the season.

Research now shows that kids with fewer toys focus for longer and play more creatively than children with more. A study published in Infant and Child Development showed that toddlers in a room with only 4 toys showed more imaginative and advanced play than children in a room with 16 toys. The kids in the 4-toy room were also able to play with their toys for longer periods of time, without becoming distracted. Children don’t need every hot new toy advertised on TV, or 100 presents under the Christmas tree. In fact, teaching kids how to make do with less might lead to happier, more grateful kids.

You can read more about play therapy and its benefits for children by clicking here. I’ll be back next week to share some more tips about teaching gratitude to kids during the holiday season and year-round.

What to Do When Your Child Won't Eat Anything

Help for Picky Eaters

It can be frustrating for both parents and kids when a child refuses to eat anything you cook. Lots of kids go through a picky eating phase at some time in their lives. You can probably think of a child in your life who can’t stand when his foods touch on the plate, or who refuses to eat anything green, or who insists that the crusts be cut off his sandwich…but tomorrow might insist that the now-cut-off crust be placed back ON the sandwich…

The majority of children pass through this stage easily and grow up to enjoy a wide variety of foods. For some kids, though, picky eating is more than just a phase and can develop into a bigger problem. These children may have become so selective about food that they are left with a very short list of foods they can tolerate, or they may be extremely reluctant to eat more than a few bites at mealtimes.

Food issues can be particularly stressful for both kids and parents. There’s no avoiding mealtimes, so parents of picky eaters have to go through this struggle at least three times a day. For many families, food is love. When a child rejects food, it can be frustrating and even hurtful to the parent who is working so hard to feed the child. Many parents also fear that their child isn’t getting the nutrition she needs to grow. Parents may find themselves resorting to bribing their child, cooking special meals the child is likely to eat, or getting into power struggles with their child over food.

Does this sound like your family? If so, don’t despair! When kids are having these kinds of problems with eating, therapy can be an effective way to break the power struggle cycle and make mealtimes a more enjoyable experience for everyone.

Is picky eating ever a serious problem?

Plenty of picky eaters will grow out of it on their own without additional help. Their picky eating may be a minor annoyance, but it’s not likely to interfere with their relationships or activities. Other children may need some extra help to expand the repertoire of foods they can eat. Here are some indicators that children’s picky eating may be causing bigger problems that need extra assistance:

• The child frequently tantrums at mealtimes, or cries when an unfamiliar or disliked food appears at the table.

• The child has a very small list of foods they like to eat…and the list may be getting smaller.

• Parents find themselves pleading, bargaining, or getting upset at mealtimes when the child won’t eat anything.

• Parents are making extra accommodations for the child, like cooking special meals or allowing TV at the dinner table.

What causes picky eating in children?

Figuring out the source of a child’s difficulties with food is an important first step. For some kids, sensory sensitivities are an underlying cause of picky eating. These kids may find certain smells, flavors, tastes or temperatures of foods off-putting or overwhelming, even when the rest of the family has no problem with the meal. If your picky eater only eats foods with a certain texture, avoids very mushy or crunchy foods, or has difficulty with foods touching or mixing, they might fit in this category.

For other children, avoiding eating can be a way of gaining control. Because nutrition is so important for growing children, parents and kids often get locked in a power struggle over food. Sometimes, the more a parent insists that a child eat, the more the child refuses, which worsens the cycle. These children may be feeling a bit “out of control” in other aspects of their lives, and mealtimes may be one of the few places that a child can call the shots.

How can I help my child who won’t eat anything?

Helping children develop healthy eating habits takes time, but it can be done… if you are very patient. Studies on children’s eating habits suggest that kids need to be exposed to a new food up to 15-20 times before they accept it as a regular part of their diet. Continuing to offer a variety of foods, even if a child seems disinterested in them, can be helpful in the long run. Here are a few other tips to try:

Model healthy eating for your child: Children decide how to behave by observing the grownups in their lives. Show your child that you enjoy lots of different foods (including fruits and veggies), and let them see you eating when you are hungry and stopping when you are full. Seeing that you are enjoying a “gross” food might make a child more curious to try it himself!

Schedule (screen-free) family mealtimes: Whenever possible, try to eat dinner as a family without distraction from phones or TV. Eating together encourages healthy eating habits and helps the family stay connected. It can also take some of the pressure off a picky eater who gets stressed at mealtimes, since the focus won’t be entirely on the child and her eating. While screen time might distract kids from fussing about their food in the short term, it can worsen eating habits over time. Screen-free meals encourage mindful eating and help kids pay attention to their own hunger and fullness cues.

Encourage sensory play: Kids who avoid certain textures in food sometimes benefit from having more opportunities for messy play. Slime, play-doh, orbeez, and other sensory-rich activities can help kids acclimate to the types of textures they might be avoiding, so that they are not so overwhelmed the next time a mushy or sticky food arrives at the dinner table.

More help for kids who won’t eat anything

If you’ve tried these tips at home without much success and you live in the Charlotte, North Carolina area, please reach out to me to learn how I might be able to help! Play therapy can help children reduce sensory sensitivities, work through their feelings, and expand the variety of foods in their diet. Parents can also learn ways to make mealtime a less stressful experience, and encourage lifelong healthy eating habits.

Back-to-School Anxiety: 3 Ways to Handle Monday Morning Jitters

Depending on where you live, school has been back in session now for a month or two. Maybe it already seems like ages ago that you snapped that cute photo of your child holding a sign announcing their new grade and teacher’s name.

By this point in the year, many children are already fully immersed in standardized testing practice, project deadlines, extracurricular activities, and other school happenings that can be both exciting and stressful. Ok…maybe more stressful, and less exciting. Possibly very stressful. Today, let’s talk about what you can do when Monday mornings have become a source of dread. Here are 3 ways to help your child manage school anxiety!

Anxiety About Going to School…In October?

I see many kids begin to struggle with school anxiety in late fall. By this point in the year, the novelty of being back at school has worn off, and the daily routine has fully set in. Big class projects and tests are in full swing. Even kids who were a little excited to return to school in September may be dreading it by October or November.

While it’s normal for most children to feel hesitant to get on the school bus occasionally, or to have a tough time waking up in the morning, some children’s worries about going back to school become so overwhelming that it interferes with their attendance in class. If you’re wondering whether your child’s anxiety about school has reached a level where therapy might be helpful, here are a few questions to consider:

• How often is the anxiety happening? For example, is it just on Monday mornings following a weekend away, or is it becoming an everyday occurrence?

• Is your child complaining of physical symptoms, like headaches, stomach aches, or vomiting, that only seem to occur on school days?

• Is your child’s anxiety response getting stronger or weaker as the school year progresses?

• Have your child’s worries escalated to the point that tantrums or intense fearfulness are keeping him from being able to attend class?

If you found yourself answering “yes” to a couple of these questions, you are not alone! School is an extremely important, formative part of a child’s life, but the day-to-day experience of attending school can be stressful even for bright, resilient children. The increased focus on standardized testing and the added peer pressure of social media don’t make the experience any easier. Keep reading for a few tips on how to handle school anxiety.

School Anxiety Tip #1: Teach Relaxation Skills for Back-to-School Stress

Simple techniques that use the breath or senses to soothe anxiety can be used almost anywhere, and are easy enough that even young children can master them. Teaching your child to take slow, deep belly breaths (called diaphragmatic breathing) can be helpful, as well as helping your child to practice tensing and relaxing the muscles of the body, starting at the head and moving down toward the feet (called progressive muscle relaxation). It’s best to practice these skills repeatedly while the child is feeling calm. That way, the next time she is feeling anxious or panicked, she knows just what to do.

If these relaxation techniques work well for your child and you’d like to learn more of them, check out my coping skills courses for kids. These educational courses give kids tools they can use right away to manage big feelings like anxiety, anger, and stress. They also include a guide for parents, so you can help your child make the most of their coping skills at home.

School Anxiety Tip #2: Read Books that Tackle School-Related Worries

In therapy-speak, we refer to using books in the counseling process as bibliotherapy. Reading a book with your child can be a great way to gently open up a conversation about a topic. Children may feel less nervous or threatened talking about their school worries when the conversation is focused on a fictional character, rather than themselves. A good story can add some much-needed humor to a scary situation, while also helping children feel less alone with their fears.

Two of my favorite books about school for young children are School’s First Day of School by Adam Rex, which tells the story of a first day in Kindergarten from the perspective of a school building, and The Pigeon HAS to Go to School, from Mo Willem’s popular series for kids. Neither one feels overly “therapy-y”, but the plotlines are reassuring and empowering. They’re interesting enough stories that kids stay emotionally invested throughout.

School Anxiety Tip #3: Keep Class Attendance Consistent (Even When It’s Hard)

This is the hardest advice to follow, but it might be the most important! When a child is in extreme distress about attending school, it is very tempting to diffuse the situation by allowing her to stay home and relax. Taking an occasional mental health day is not likely to cause problems for most children. However, for kids with severe school anxiety, taking days off is virtually guaranteed to make anxiety worse over time.

By avoiding the anxiety-provoking situation, we are alleviating a child’s fears for the moment, but also sending a message to the child’s anxiety response that school is worth being afraid of. The next day, the child may find it is even more difficult to get back to class. Helping children face their fears is the best way to combat anxiety about going back to school.

Middle School Is Tough, But Your Child Is Tougher. Therapy Can Help With Back-to-School Anxiety!

If you’d like more information on how to support a child struggling with back-to-school anxiety, feel free to reach out to me. Counseling that utilizes play therapy and cognitive-behavioral techniques can be a big help in reducing anxiety about school for children who are really struggling. You can reach me directly by filling out this form to inquire about how therapy might be helpful for your child. I can help families living in North Carolina, New York, or Florida through online therapy.

Not living in one of those states, or not ready for counseling? For some kids, learning effective and easy-to-use coping skills can be enough to break the cycle of back-to-school anxiety. My educational course, Worry Free Tweens, is designed especially to help middle school or late elementary-aged kids learn how to overcome anxiety. Kids walk away from the course with a better understanding of how anxiety works, and how they can control their worries—both now and as they grow up.

Good luck, and may this school year be your best one yet!