How Do I Talk to My Child About Counseling?

You know your child better than anyone, and lately, things just don’t seem right. Maybe you have noticed your child seems to be more worried than other kids her age. Or, you’ve been waiting to see if your child’s tantrums were just a phase, but they’ve stuck around long past the toddler years. After consulting with friends, the pediatrician, or “Dr. Google”, you’ve decided that child counseling could help. How do you tell your child you’d like her to see a therapist? It’s not a conversation most families have every day, which can make it feel awkward. In this post, I’ll share some tips from my experience as a children’s therapist on how to introduce therapy to your child in a positive way.

Common Concerns When Discussing Counseling

The most common concern I hear from parents is that their child will think something is wrong with them if they see a counselor. Views on mental health are changing quickly, but there can still be a stigma attached to getting therapy. The last thing a child struggling with anxiety, depression, or low self-esteem needs is another reason to feel different or “bad”!

Parents of younger children often worry about separation anxiety during sessions, especially if this is one of the issues bringing a child to therapy in the first place. Will it be too frightening for their child to meet with a therapist alone? What be done to help soothe their child’s fears?

When the child is a preteen or teen, there’s sometimes a worry that kids will “shut down” or not be receptive to attending therapy if it wasn’t originally their idea. Any suggestions from Mom or Dad might be viewed with suspicion by a teen or tween. How can we explain therapy in a way that encourages kids to keep an open mind?

If any of these worries sound familiar to you, congratulations! Your concerns are totally normal and you’re in the right place. Keep reading for some tips on how to handle this important talk with your child.

Don’t Bring Up Therapy in the Middle of a Fight!

There isn’t one right way to bring up the subject of therapy. However, there are a few that are…not so great! This is one to avoid. As frustrating as arguments with your child can be—especially if this is your millionth meltdown this week—don’t let this be the way your child learns about therapy.

Telling your child you’re sending them to a therapist between screams or from behind a slammed door virtually guarantees they’ll view therapy as a punishment. It increases a child’s feelings of shame and embarrassment, which won’t help them get better. What’s more, it can turn children off to the whole idea of therapy. They enter their first therapy session feeling resentful and not trusting the therapist to be on their side. That is a hard place to start.

Instead, wait until everyone is feeling good to start a conversation about therapy. This way, your child won’t connect going to a therapist with bad behavior. Avoid times of the day when you know you or your child will be stressed, tired, or hungry. A quiet evening after dinner or snack time after a good day at school is a great time for this discussion.

Describe the Problem as Belonging to Everybody

It’s often easiest to start the “counseling talk” by identifying the problem at hand. Even if your child is showing the most symptoms, it helps to acknowledge that parents have a role to play in therapy, too. This way, the child doesn’t feel like she’s a problem that needs to be fixed: everyone is in this together.

Try to describe the problems you’re seeing in a matter-of-fact, non-judgmental way. It helps to empathize with the emotions your child is feeling, even if the behaviors may be tough. Avoid making assumptions about why the problem is happening, if you aren’t totally sure, and stick to the what instead. If you think a child’s struggles were set off by a particular event, you can always “wonder aloud” about the possible connection.

For example, if your child is having anxiety about going to school, you could try saying: “I have noticed you have had a lot of stomach aches and worries lately, and they usually happen right before it’s time to get on the bus for school. It must be terrible to feel so nervous every day! I wonder if starting in your new school has been scary. I don’t always know the best way to help you with your worries.”

Once you’ve outlined the problem and how it’s affecting your family, you can move on to talking about therapy itself.

Explain What a Counselor Is to Your Child

Children need to know that a counselor is someone who can help them—and you—deal with their big feelings. They need to know that therapy is common and not something to feel ashamed of. In fact, we could all use counseling at some point in our lives!

When I meet younger children, I often describe myself as a “feelings doctor” even though I don’t have a doctorate degree. Most little kids are very familiar with going to their pediatrician’s office, so it’s a good comparison to make. If you have a cold or hurt your arm, a doctor can help you feel better. If your worries, sadness, or anger are bothering you, a feelings doctor can do the same thing. It’s important to explain that feelings doctors can’t give shots!

I tell older children that a therapist is an adult whose job is to be there to listen to them. A therapist is different than a teacher or parent, because they can’t give out punishments or make the rules. They are also different from a friend, because you don’t have to worry about offending your therapist or giving them a turn to speak in conversation. Therapists also keep what you say private, which is helpful and reassuring for older kids to know.

Talk About How Child Counseling Works

When describing child therapy, it helps to keep things simple. Sometimes, over-describing the situation only adds to the anxiety. You might consider something like this: “When you see your therapist, you can talk or play about anything you want. She’ll help you with your strong feelings and will keep the things you say private. She’ll also meet with me to help me understand you better.”

You can also prepare your child for what the therapy session will look like. If you’ll be meeting the therapist in person, describe where the office is and how it looks. Young children are often excited to know that there will be a playroom filled with toys! Tell your child where you’ll be during their session, for example, that you’ll stay in the waiting room nearby.

If you’ll be meeting online, explain how that will work to your child. Most kids are intimately familiar with Zoom these days, but they may still have questions about how much privacy they’ll have or who exactly will be on the call with them. You can pick out a quiet, private location for video calls with your child, and practice logging into the therapy platform together. Younger children may want to pick out a few toys or art materials to “show” their therapist on the first day.

Looking for a Child Counselor in Davidson, NC?

I live and work in the Lake Norman area, just north of Charlotte, North Carolina. If you’re in my neck of the woods, I specialize in working with preteen anxiety and trauma at my Davidson child therapy office. If you aren’t local to Charlotte, I also work with kids throughout New York, North Carolina, and Florida using online CBT and play therapy. And no matter where you live, my coping skills courses are available to access and use at home.

Want to see if we might be a good fit? Feel free to drop me a line to ask questions about what to expect in therapy, or to schedule an intake appointment.

Does My Child Have Generalized Anxiety Disorder?

If you’ve been spending what feels like an overwhelming amount of time talking through your child’s worries, you might be wondering about Generalized Anxiety Disorder. It’s a pretty common mental health disorder, but it can sometimes be tricky to spot. Unlike other forms of anxiety, kids with generalized anxiety aren’t dealing with one specific fear. Instead, many day-to-day events can be the source of their worries. Today I’ll be writing about the signs and symptoms of Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), and how you can help your child with anxiety.

When Does Worrying Become a Problem?

As uncomfortable as it feels, anxiety is a healthy emotion to have. If we never felt anxious, we’d have no inner voice letting us know when a situation is potentially dangerous. Kids are still learning about the world, so it makes sense that they’d be on high alert in new situations. It’s totally normal, age-appropriate, and even healthy for kids to worry sometimes.

Very young children usually worry about being away from their parents. By preschool, fears of animals, monsters, and the dark become more common. Grade schoolers often worry about more complex, “real world” fears like germs, serious illness, natural disasters, and kidnapping.

Kids with generalized anxiety worry about these common topics, too, but the nature of their worrying is different. While many kids might focus on a single worry for a few weeks or months and eventually move on, kids with GAD seemingly worry about everything.

They have a laundry list of worries, both big and small. Parents of kids with GAD may notice that their child’s stress level seems out of proportion to the actual situation, and it’s hard get that stress under control. The worry these kids experience is so intense that it affects their sleep, and can even lead to physical problems like tension headaches and fatigue.

Symptoms of Generalized Anxiety Disorder

Therapists use specific criteria to diagnose mental health problems like anxiety and depression. Here are the symptoms we look for when diagnosing Generalized Anxiety Disorder:

• Excessive worrying and anxiety about a variety of topics, events, or activities. The worrying has to happen most days, and last at least 6 months.

• The worries are very difficult to control—the child can’t easily shift away from them.

• The anxiety affects the child physically or mentally in at least one of the following ways:

  • Feeling on edge

  • Fatigue

  • Trouble concentrating

  • Irritability

  • Body aches, or muscle tension

  • Problems falling or staying asleep

• The anxiety (or the physical and mental problems it causes) get in the way of a child’s day-to-day life, and make it harder to participate in activities at school or home.

• There isn’t a more obvious reason for the worrying, such as a recent trauma.

Signs of Generalized Anxiety Disorder in Children

Here are a few more signs that might suggest generalized anxiety is to blame for your child’s worries. If your child is struggling with GAD, you might notice:

• A lot of time spent worrying about things that could happen in the future, whether or not they seem very likely to happen.

• Frequent complaints of headaches, tummy troubles, or other problems that don’t seem to have a medical cause.

• Your child seems to worry more often and more intensely than other kids of the same age, and has a harder time setting his worries aside.

• As soon as one worry gets resolved, another seems to rise up to take its place. The worries shift rapidly from topic to topic.

• Your child is extremely worried about bad things happening to herself or to you, even if you’ve never been in a dangerous situation before.

• Mildly stressful events at school cause major anxiety, for example, a test, big project, or a competitive game.

How Parents Can Help Kids with Generalized Anxiety

Kids who have generalized anxiety need help to relax, so they can ease their muscle tension and sleep more peacefully. Parents can help their kids develop healthy coping skills to relax the body and mind, like mindfulness, deep breathing, and progressive muscle relaxation. Trying one of these skills out one time might help a little bit, but kids with GAD will likely need daily practice in order to see results.

We know that sleep has a big impact on mental health, and sleep-deprived kids (and adults) are more prone to anxiety and depression. Kids with generalized anxiety can fall into a vicious cycle, where the anxiety causes poor sleep, and the poor sleep causes even more anxiety. Using relaxation skills at bedtime can help kids get in the right mindset to drift off—muscle relaxation and guided visualizations are especially helpful for this.

These skills will be even more helpful if they’re part of a “settling routine”: a simple ritual you and your child share each night. The repetition of the same routine sends a signal to your child’s brain that it’s time to unwind and go to bed.

Start Child Counseling in New York, North Carolina, or Florida

So, you’re noticing some signs of generalized anxiety in your child…where do you start looking for help? For some fast relief while you’re looking for a therapist or considering next steps, consider teaching your child some coping skills to deal with anxiety. My online course, Worry-Free Tweens, was designed especially for kids ages 8-12 and their parents. In it, you’ll find step-by-step directions for both you and your child on how to manage anxiety, panic, and overwhelming worries at home.

Kids who have been anxious for a long time may need more than a few coping skills to get back on track. Counseling can help kids stop the endless cycle of worry and learn to feel more in control of anxious thoughts. Younger children can work through their fears and practice coping skills through Play Therapy, while older kids can develop lifelong tools for anxiety management with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.

I love working with anxious kids and tweens in my Davidson, NC office. Not within driving distance? I also provide online counseling services, and can see kids in New York and Florida remotely, too. If you’d like to get started, or you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me here.

3 Signs Your Child is Ready for Social Media

Figuring out when to cave to your child’s pleas for a social media account is easier said than done. With more and more of life happening online, having Instagram or Snapchat can feel like a lifeline to kids. On the other hand, parents are right to be concerned about the (very real) dangers that children can be exposed to on social media, even if your child is only intending to talk to other kids. The stakes are really high!

Pretty much all the major social media apps set an age minimum of 13 for kids, but many experts agree that parents should base their decisions about social media on a child’s development and maturity, rather than just their numeric age. After checking in with some of the big organizations that speak out about children and social media, I’ve come up with a short list of signs that your child may have the maturity needed to stay safe online.

Readiness Sign #1: Your Child Can Think About Cause and Effect

As adults, we are painfully aware that anything we put on the internet is pretty much there forever. Even if we try to delete it, there’s no guarantee it’s been completely wiped from the record. When we interact with other people, we have a little running commentary in the back of our head that guides what we say and do. We’re aware that our actions have consequences. Embarrassing selfies or flame wars with strangers in a Facebook group doesn’t just exist in a vacuum: they could come back to haunt us in a job interview someday.

Adults are able to think abstractly and play out different possibilities in our heads. This helps us to make guesses about other people’s motivations and how they could affect us. It also (hopefully, at least most of the time) keeps us from saying or doing things online that we might really regret later on.

Kids are often concrete thinkers up until about age 11, but this can vary. Younger children tend to live in the here-and-now, and use the information they have in a given moment to make decisions. It is harder for them to play out hypothetical situations in their minds, especially when those things could occur far off in the future. It’s totally normal and healthy for kids to think this way, but it makes it harder to appreciate some of the risks of social media.

Some kids develop their abstract thinking abilities earlier than others. If your child is able to consider problems from different angles, plan ahead for different scenarios, and improvise solutions to problems, she’s likely reached this point in her development. If you are considering allowing your child to get on social media, check in about her ability to visualize different situations she might encounter online. If she’s able to understand cause and effect and anticipate possible issues, it will be easier to make safe choices.

Readiness Sign #2: Your Child Has Healthy Body Image

Honestly, even as I’m typing this I am asking myself how many tweens I know who fit this description. I can name maybe a small handful of tweens and early teens whose self-esteem about body shape, weight, and appearance seems pretty unshakeable. Many more kids share that they feel extremely vulnerable and open to criticism about the way that they look. While we may think of poor body image as a problem that mainly affects girls, boys can be impacted, too.

Researchers have started looking at possible links between social media use and poor body image and disordered eating in young girls. Although nothing has been proven for sure, studies suggest that photo-based social media apps, like Instagram, make girls feel worse about their bodies. Tweens on social media are inundated with images that are designed to look candid and casual—the “woke up like this” shots. In reality, though, these pictures have been heavily edited and posed by a team of professionals. The standard of beauty keeps getting more extreme and hard to attain as our ability to filter images becomes more commonplace.

In my own child and tween therapy office, young people tell me that they can’t help but compare themselves to others on social media. They scrutinize the likes their classmates have received, and question why they can’t look like the influencers they follow. I don’t think social media is solely to blame for the body image issues teens and tweens have to deal with, but it doesn’t make things any easier.

Before moving ahead with a social media account for your child, you might want to think about how you’ve seen your child respond to criticism or bullying from peers. Does she crumble when someone says something mean to her, or is she able to let it roll off her back? Does she celebrate the way she looks, or do you see her frequently comparing herself to others? How media literate is she—can she recognize an airbrushed or unrealistic photo when she sees one? If the answer to most of these questions is “yes”, she may be ready to brave the world of Instagram.

Readiness Sign #3: Your Lines of Communication Are Open

Chris McKenna at WaitUntil8th.com wisely points out that you should make sure you’ve had “the talk” and all other potentially awkward conversations with your child before letting them loose on social media. Even kids who are not looking for trouble are likely to stumble across explicit material on any of the major platforms. You want your child to be prepared when that happens, and not confused about what they have come across.

Being on social media also makes your child more vulnerable to sexual predators, which means you need to talk about safety and go beyond simple stranger danger. Your child should know how to recognize signs of grooming, and have a plan for what to do if someone makes them feel uncomfortable. You’ll also want to talk about what to do if that uncomfortable pressure is coming from someone your child knows—for example, a friend or classmate asking for inappropriate photos.

Social media opens up a new, private world for your child where they might encounter all kinds of uncomfortable stuff. It requires a certain level of mutual trust between parents and kids. As a parent, you’ll want to know that your child is responsible and makes good decisions. However, your child also needs to trust that they can come to you with problems, and you won’t immediately panic or ground them for the rest of time. If something inappropriate happens online, your child should feel safe coming to you for help. This will go a long way toward keeping them out of harm’s way.

More Help for Tweens and Teens

Tweens are stuck dealing with many of the pressures of teen life, like social media, demanding homework, and friend drama. But, they have to do it without enjoying a lot of the same freedoms that the older kids have. It doesn’t always seem fair, and it’s hard for both parents and kids to figure out.

In my Davidson, North Carolina therapy office, I help tweens learn skills to manage anxiety and recover after stressful or traumatic events. If you and your tween are having a hard time navigating this exciting, challenging, and sometimes awkward phase of life, counseling can help you both get through things a little more smoothly. Even the seemingly small stuff—like deciding when to get a social media account—can cause a lot of unnecessary stress, and it can be nice to have a neutral party around to help sort out everyone’s feelings.

If you’d like to get started in counseling, I’m available to help kids in North Carolina, New York, and Florida. You can learn more or schedule an initial appointment by phone or email.

Should My Child Have Social Media?

Depending on who you ask, social media is either the best or worst thing to ever happen to kids. Is it the way of the future, giving kids endless entertainment and a connection to peers all over the world? Or is it an unsupervised no-man’s-land that exposes children to danger and risks their mental health? I’m not here to tell you what to do—every kid and family is different. But, as a children’s counselor, I can go over the pros and cons of social media for children from an emotional perspective. Hopefully, this post gives you a more balanced perspective so you can make the right choice for your child.

What’s The Right Age to Get Instagram, TikTok, or Other Social Media?

If you ask pretty much any social media company, the answer is easy: 13. Instagram, TikTok, Discord, Snapchat, YouTube, and Facebook all require users to be 13 or older to join. This seems straightforward enough—end of blog post, right? If only life were so simple. Sure, Instagram says you have to be 13 to join, but Instagram doesn’t have a tween daughter begging for an account, claiming she’s the last person in her class who is without one.

As far as I can tell, the 13 year old age limit has very little to do with kids’ readiness to be on social media. Nobody consulted with a child psychologist or child development expert to come up with this magic number. Instead, it has more to do with big media companies not being allowed to collect data on little kids. One of the reasons social media apps remain free is because they’re collecting data on us all the time, so that they can target advertisements to us. I guess that, somehow, it’s deemed okay to do this once a child turns 13.

What does this mean for parents? I think we should all be taking this age guideline with a grain of salt, because it’s a little bit arbitrary. Depending on their maturity level, some kids may be ready for social media at 13. Many others may need to hold off until they are older, or have a lot of parental supervision to make sure they stay safe. Personally, I would not feel comfortable with any child age 13 or under having an unsupervised social media account of any kind.

How Social Media Hurts Kids’ Mental Health

Have you seen The Social Dilemma yet? If not, go watch it and come back…I’ll wait. It does a much better job than I could possibly do of explaining how social media puts children at risk of developing anxiety and depression. Imagine your 13-year-old past self for a moment. Think about how important your friends’ approval was to you. Remember how awful it felt when someone made a snarky comment about you? Multiply that by ten, one hundred, even a thousand, and that’s what tweens and teens are exposed to on social media.

Our brains were not designed to deal with social acceptance or rejection on such a large scale. Getting “likes” activates the pleasure centers of the brain and can become addictive. Kids on social media aren’t just comparing themselves to other students at school, but to professionally styled, heavily filtered influencers on TikTok and Instagram. This can really do a number on a child’s self-esteem. Research shows that depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts are all more common among teens who frequently use social media.

The Safety Risks of Social Media for Children

We have all heard horror stories about internet predators at this point. Fear-mongering news stories aside, it’s absolutely true that there are people out there who try to victimize kids online. Even if you’re in a “child-friendly” corner of the internet, or talking to someone who appears to be a fellow teen, you never really know who you’re dealing with.

Even though most kids are very aware of “stranger danger”, predators know what to say and do to earn trust. This is called “grooming”, and it lowers a child’s defenses and makes them more vulnerable to being financially or sexually exploited. Because being online feels so anonymous, it’s really easy to accidentally overshare personal information. Younger children tend to be impulsive, and they have a hard time considering the long-term consequences of their decisions. This can (incorrectly) make it feel less dangerous to send photos through apps like Snapchat, where they’re seemingly only available for a short period of time.

Are There Any Benefits to Social Media For Kids? (Actually, Yes)

Okay, so this all sounds pretty grim. Even though it’s super common, it’s undeniably risky for kids’ mental health and safety to have unrestricted social media access. But here I am, the children’s therapist, writing this blog post with Instagram pulled up on my phone and Facebook in the next tab on my browser. You may be surprised to learn that I think social media—when used in moderation—can be beneficial to kids’ mental health.

Social Media Is a Child-Friendly Creative Outlet

Social media can be an amazing creative outlet for kids. Many of my child clients primarily use social media to share fanfiction and fan art that they’ve created based on their favorite TV shows. Aspiring makeup artists, photographers, and fashion designers can also find an outlet for their passion online. I could write a whole blog post on the possible mental health benefits of this kind of creative expression. It’s meaningful, positive social interaction that helps kids build real-life skills. Especially during times when kids are stuck at home, positive and creative experiences like these can reduce their risk of depression.

Social Media Encourages Diversity

I also think social media can open a child’s eyes to a bigger, more diverse world. If you live in an area where everybody looks the same, this is an opportunity to provide racial windows for your child that give her a peek into another culture or way of life. Did you know there’s a big Indigenous and Native American community on TikTok performing dances and teaching about their culture? I didn’t until this year, and now I love watching their content.

I also think social media is a godsend for anyone living with a disability or chronic illness. A child who lives with a medical condition may be the only person at their school with that diagnosis. However, social media can connect him to tons of other people who get exactly what he’s going through. It can be a source of moral support, positive role models, and even advice. Being different can be isolating, and social media can make a child feel less alone.

Need More Help? Try These Resources for Tweens and Teens

It’s tough to figure out how to navigate the internet when you have young children. Unless you are planning to move off the grid, internet access is a necessary evil for today’s kids. My age-by-age guide to internet safety can help you figure out what activities are appropriate for kids from preschool through late elementary school.

If you have older children, my guide on internet and phone safety for preteens and teens may help. It talks about the specific risks older kids face online. You’ll also find advice to consider if you’re deciding whether your tween is ready for their own phone.

As you may have gleaned from this post, I’m a children’s counselor in Davidson, North Carolina. I especially love working with preteens who are dealing with anxiety and trauma symptoms. I’m able to work with families in North Carolina, New York, and Florida thanks to online counseling. If you’re in one of those states and would like to learn more about starting therapy, you can reach out to me here.

5 Books on Transracial Adoption for White Parents of Black Children

If you’re a parent considering transracial adoption, you’re probably experiencing a whirlwind of emotions. On one hand, there’s the joy of growing your family—possibly after struggling with infertility or other setbacks. Expecting a child is hopeful and exciting! On the other hand, you may be feeling sorrow for your child’s first family and anxiety about how to effectively parent a child of another race. How can you help your child navigate a racist world? How can you teach your child about a culture that isn’t yours?

One benefit of adoption is that adoptive parents often have a lot of time to prepare for parenthood. It can be a long wait! If you’re waiting to meet your child, you can use that time to read up on the subject of transracial adoption. Today, I’ll be sharing 5 books that I’ve personally read and enjoyed as I learn more about adopting a baby of another race.

Who is This Book Recommendation List For?

This list focuses on books for white parents adopting Black infants or children. Most of the adoptions described are domestic infant adoptions, although a few books touch upon international or older child adoption. Although most books are geared toward adoptive parents, grandparents, relatives, and interested friends will find something of value in them, too.

I’ll share the pros and cons of each book (from my perspective) as well as who might benefit from giving it a try. I’ll also present these books in the order that I wish I’d read them—if you’re interested in learning more about transracial adoption, you can start with my first recommendation and move your way down the list.

#1. So You Want to Talk About Race, by Ijeoma Oluo

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Although not an adoption book, this is a great start for any white person wanting to learn the stuff about race and racism that wasn’t covered in school. Ijeoma Oluo, a Nigerian-American author, talks about her experiences as a Black woman in a way that sounds almost as casual as a friend talking over coffee. Each chapter of the book is devoted to exploring a different issue, such as white privilege, cultural appropriation, or affirmative action.

The Pros: I wish this book were taught in schools. It’s a great introduction to concepts that might feel overwhelming or intimidating to talk about. Whereas other books about race and racism can feel very dry and academic, this one is easy to read. Oluo shares personal stories that bring the concepts to life, and there’s a lot of humor despite the heavy subject matter. One big takeaway of this book is to expect to make mistakes: trying to speak up and putting your foot in your mouth is better than never speaking up at all.

The Cons: If you have already done some work learning about race and racism, this book may be too introductory for you. I was hoping for a little more depth. Most of the discussions of race focus on interactions between white and Black people, which may not be as helpful if you’re wanting to learn about the experiences of other races. I would also have loved some more actionable advice on how to start conversations with my family, friends, and acquaintances.

#2. In Their Own Voices: Transracial Adoptees Tell Their Stories, by Rita J. Simon and Rhonda M. Roorda

If you are a hopeful adoptive parent, start here. This isn’t so much a book as it is a collection of interviews with adult transracial adoptees. If you don’t know adoptees in your personal life, it can be hard to find these kinds of first-hand experiences, which makes the book really valuable. The young adults interviewed for the book were also part of a study on what it’s like for kids to grow up with a family of a different race. The results of that study are shared and unpacked in the book. The book includes an even number of male and female interviewees, all of whom are Black or biracial and grew up with white parents.

The Pros: There are a lot of transracial adoption books out there, but most of them are written by white adoptive moms. It’s harder to find books that share other perspectives. Rhonda Roorda is a transracial adoptee herself. She writes not just as a researcher but as someone who personally knows what it’s like to grow up as a Black child in a white family. The adoptees she interviews come from all different types of families, so their experiences are different and interesting to read.

The Cons: This is not the most reader-friendly book. It has an academic writing style that makes it feel like a book you’d be assigned in a college class. The interviews were all conducted in the mid-90s, and the book hasn’t been updated since. The book shows its age in some places: all the adoptees were in closed adoptions, which is no longer the norm, and there’s a lot of ‘90s slang. I’d love to see a follow-up with more modern adoption stories!

#3. Dim Sum, Bagels, and Grits: A Sourcebook for Multicultural Families, by Myra Alperson

This is a good book for adoptive parents, but I think it might be an even better fit for grandparents or other family members who may not be doing as much research as a new mom or dad. Myra Alperson is a white, single mom to a daughter adopted from China. She shares stories from her own family’s experience trying to blend multiple cultures under one roof, and brings in quotes from other families, as well. There’s a lot of direct advice about how to honor a child’s birth culture in your day-to-day life.

The Pros: This is a quick and easy read, which is one reason why I think it’s a great option for non-parents who are curious about someone else’s adoption. I really enjoyed the passages from other adoptive families and adult adoptees. It was helpful to learn that adoptees may have different levels of interest in their birth culture throughout their lives, and that’s ok! There’s no need to force a child into cultural activities just because that’s what adoptive parents “should” do.

The Cons: Because the author adopted her daughter from China, this book isn’t quite as relevant for white families adopting Black children in the U.S. This book could also really benefit from an updated second edition. There are some really impressive, very detailed resource lists at the back for stores, websites, and book series that look amazing—but many of them no longer exist.

#4. Secret Thoughts of an Adoptive Mother, by Jana Wolff

As you can guess by the title, this is a memoir that offers a peek into the private thoughts of a transracial adoptive mom. I think this is most helpful for people considering transracial adoption and wondering what the emotional experience will be like for them. Very close friends or relatives might also enjoy it. Jana Wolff is the mother of a biracial son, and details her adoption process from infertility through her son’s early childhood. She also touches on some of the discoveries she made about subtle racism after her son was born.

The Pros: This book does a good job of covering the full range of emotions a person might feel when considering adoption: both the good and the not-so-good. If you’ve had any worries about bonding with your baby or any other aspect of adoption, you’ll probably feel validated by this story. It’s a quick read—I finished it in an afternoon. Moms may find this book especially helpful, because Wolff talks about the pressure society puts on women to get pregnant.

The Cons: I’ve seen some controversial reviews of this book online. Some people feel that Wolff is too cynical or harsh in the way she describes her adoption experience. I’ve even seen a few concerns that her son might read this someday, and feel uncomfortable with his mom’s less positive thoughts. Ultimately, this is one person’s very personal and individual story. You might see parts of yourself in it, but you probably won’t connect with the whole thing.

#5. In Their Voices: Black Americans on Transracial Adoption, by Rhonda M. Roorda

This is another book by Rhonda Roorda with a very similar title to book #2 on this list, so don’t get them confused! In this later book, Roorda interviews Black Americans who are somehow involved with or touched by transracial adoption. They aren’t adoptees, but they may be lawyers, social workers, teachers, or the adoptive parents or siblings of a Black child who was adopted by white parents. The interviews are organized based on age, and gives a lot of context for what was happening in Civil Rights as these interviewees grew up. Because it’s more in-depth, I’d recommend it for parents as opposed to other family.

The Pros: This might be the most informative book on this list. It manages to teach about racism, give perspective on the positives and negatives of adoption, and provide concrete “to-dos” for adoptive parents all in one book. Even though Roorda doesn’t shy away from the hard parts of adoption, she’s advocating for you, too. The final chapter of the book includes specific tips to connect your child to his or her culture, plus a list of further reading. Honestly, that last chapter is worth buying the book all by itself!

The Cons: Like the other books in this series, In Their Voices is very dry and a slow read. It’s written like an academic textbook, and not the kind of book you’ll breeze through in one sitting. Because this book isn’t from the perspective of an adoptee or a parent, it might feel a little less relevant if you’re just starting off in your adoption journey. But come back to it later—it’s worth it!

Mental Health Resources for Kids and Parents

No matter how your children join your family, sometimes kids need emotional support. There’s some research to suggest that adopted kids are more at risk for certain kinds of mental health struggles. If your child is dealing with anxiety or trauma symptoms, counseling can help both of you to navigate your child’s big feelings with less stress.

I’m a children’s therapist who works with children and tweens in the states of North Carolina, New York, and Florida. If you’re close to Davidson, North Carolina, you can stop by my office for a face-to-face session. Otherwise, I’m available for online therapy using a video conferencing platform.

Have any questions? Did you read one of the books on this list? I’d love to hear your thoughts. You can always reach out to me here, either to schedule an appointment or let me know what’s on your mind.

Signs of Perfectionism in Children (And How Parents Can Help)

When you think of a child who is a perfectionist, what do you envision? Most of us probably think of the stereotypical straight-A student who is enrolled in 5 extracurriculars and still somehow finds time to volunteer on the weekends. Even though we all know perfectionism is a “problem”, it tends to be seen as a good problem to have—the kind of thing it’s okay to mention on job interviews when you’re asked to describe your weaknesses.

Although it’s not officially a diagnosis, perfectionism is often misunderstood when we talk about kids’ mental health. Just like we casually say “I’m so OCD” and mean we are super clean or organized, we tend to call anyone who is a high achiever a perfectionist. But perfectionism isn’t always something that pushes kids to succeed: it can also hold kids back, and put them at risk for anxiety and depression. Keep reading to learn about the common signs and symptoms of perfectionism in kids, and how you can help your child who has a perfectionistic streak.

Perfectionism Can Hold Kids Back

A lot of us—myself included, sometimes—think about perfectionism as something that drives children to succeed. After all, holding yourself to a high standard challenges you to work harder and not give up. True perfectionism doesn’t always work this way. Perfectionist kids are so terrified of failure that they may limit themselves to activities that come easily to them.

They might avoid new sports or extracurriculars where they would risk making mistakes. They may also stick to familiar school subjects and interests rather than stretching themselves in new, less certain directions. Over time, this can limit a child’s growth. Mistakes are a crucial part of learning, so avoiding them means a child is missing out on learning opportunities in the long run. These children also run the risk of missing out on opportunities for fun, too: maybe some of those unfamiliar activities they passed up would have been really fun, if only they’d given them a shot.

What Are the Symptoms of Perfectionism in Children?

Perfectionism is a personality trait, not a mental health diagnosis. This means there isn’t an official list of signs and symptoms we can use to determine if someone is a perfectionist. However, it can be good to know if your child tends to think in a perfectionistic way, because it can sometimes lead to bigger problems with anxiety over time. Some children with perfectionistic traits may also have diagnoses of social anxiety, generalized anxiety, or OCD.

If you’re wondering whether your child might be a perfectionist, here are some symptoms to look out for:

• Unrealistically high expectations for themselves or other people: more than just a high standard, these expectations are overly tough.

• Easily frustrated by mistakes on homework or during other activities, to the point that the child might abandon the whole project.

• Avoiding or putting off activities that the child fears may be difficult.

• Worries about failing that are out of proportion to the actual situation.

• Taking a long time to finish assignments or repeatedly re-starting them due to anxiety about not getting things exactly right.

• Self-consciousness, low self-esteem, or lots of negative self-talk about the child’s own achievements.

• Meltdowns when a child feels they have been criticized or not done well enough on their work.

Perfectionism goes beyond just a desire to succeed: the standards kids impose on themselves are unrealistic and exaggerated. Children may fear that their teachers will be extremely disappointed with them, or imagine their work is extremely sub-par, when in reality the situation is not so serious. Even small tasks can become a big deal when a child is struggling with perfectionism.

Can Perfectionism Cause Low Grades?

Not all perfectionistic kids are straight A students! While some perfectionistic kids are driven to excel in school, others have the opposite experience. Some children actually see their grades suffer as a result of perfectionism that’s gotten out of hand.

These children earn grades that are below their ability level because they are not handing in work they deem “not good enough.” Sadly, this often happens after hours of agonizing and working on an assignment—only to get no credit for it.

Even when a child with perfectionism is successful in school, it comes at an emotional cost. Although they may seem happy and accomplished on the outside, these children are often insecure and unhappy on the inside. It’s hard to feel satisfied with your achievements when it always feels like you could have done more.

How to Help a Child With Perfectionism

Parents can do a lot to support children who are prone to perfectionism. Many schools are starting to recognize the importance of developing a growth mindset, which encourages kids to focus on their effort instead of simply the end result. Fostering a growth mindset is one of the best things you can do to combat perfectionism. Here are a few things you can try at home to get started.

• Focus on the process, rather than the product. Instead of just praising your child’s amazing drawing or their high score on a test, let them know you are proud of the work it took to get to that point. You can compliment your child on all the research they did, how careful they were in drawing their picture, or how much time they put into learning a new skill. Even if the end result isn’t perfect, the effort is still worthy of praise.

• Make the connection between accidents and growth. Older kids might like to hear stories about some famous mistakes that led people to unexpected success. For example, penicillin was discovered accidentally when mold grew on a petri dish the scientist was trying to use for something else. Potato chips are the result of somebody cutting French fries way too thin. Penicillin saves lives, and who doesn’t love a potato chip?

• Read books that celebrate mistakes. Younger children might enjoy Beautiful Oops!, a pop-up book that shows how mistakes in art can be turned into something beautiful. I use this book a lot in my therapy practice. Although it’s intended for young readers, older children like it too. It can open up great conversations about creative problem solving.

• Be a good role model. Whether it’s because of genetics or just learned behavior, perfectionism can run in families. Kids study their parents closely to decide how they should deal with things, so even day-to-day setbacks can be a casual learning opportunity. Pay attention to how you talk about your own mistakes, especially if you tend to be hard on yourself, too. If you can reframe them as something that isn’t a big deal, your child may follow suit, too.

When Perfectionism Turns Into Anxiety, Child Therapy Can Help

Perhaps unsurprisingly, perfectionist kids are prone to developing anxiety and depression. Sometimes, perfectionism can be the first sign of a mental health disorder like OCD, which can involve repeating things, checking work, and recurring worries about mistakes. It can be really isolating to struggle with perfectionism, and children may feel like they’re the only people on earth dealing with these feelings.

If you’ve tried self-help coping skills and they aren’t enough to overcome your child’s worries, counseling can help your child approach school in a more balanced way. Approaches like cognitive behavioral therapy help notice when their thoughts are unrealistically focused on failure. Over time, kids can learn to think more flexibly and take mistakes in stride. Almost as importantly, therapy reassures kids that they’re not alone: plenty of kids (and adults) have felt this way, and overcome their worries.

If you’d like to learn more about counseling, you can check out my page on child therapy here. I am available to help kids in the states of North Carolina, New York, and Florida from my online and in-person therapy office in Davidson, North Carolina. If you’d like to talk more about therapy with me, you can drop me a line here.

Helping a Teenage Girl With Anxiety: What to Say, and How to Say It

Did you know that teen girls struggle with anxiety at higher rates than teen boys? During the elementary school years, about 5% of girls and boys will be diagnosed with depression. As puberty approaches, those numbers shift: by the teen years, as many as 20% of teen girls have symptoms of an anxiety disorder. If your teenage daughter is struggling with anxiety, she isn’t alone.

It can be easy as an adult to look back at the high school years through rose-colored glasses. As exciting as the teen years can be, they also come with a lot of stress. Teenage girls have to tolerate all kinds of uncertainty: a changing body due to puberty, shifting friendships and social groups, and unknowns about life after graduation. Social media pushes an impossible standard of beauty on teen girls. Meanwhile, standardized testing and resume-building activities are putting more pressure on today’s teens at school than ever before. It’s no wonder so many young women are feeling stressed.

Some of this stress is inevitable, but parents and caregivers can do a lot to make life easier for teen girls. Here are a few ways you can help your anxious teen to cope with stress in a healthy way.

Don’t Try to Solve Your Teen’s Problem—Validate It

If someone is venting to you, it’s tempting to start offering advice right away. This is especially true with teenagers, who are going through problems that might sound all too familiar to us from our own teen years. I struggle with this same advice-giving impulse sometimes in my therapy office: therapists were teenagers once, too! Unless you’re directly asked to give advice by your teen, it might be more wise to validate their feelings rather than jumping straight to a solution.

When a teen vents her worries or frustrations, she’s not necessarily asking you to “fix” anything. She’s looking to connect with you and feel heard. That may be all the comfort she needs to self-soothe and figure out the solution to her issue on her own. You can let your teen know that you empathize with her and that what she’s feeling is totally normal and understandable. If you’re feeling the pull to give advice, consider a short, sweet validating statement instead:

• “Ugh, that sounds awful.”

• “That would upset me, too.”

• “I can see why this is so important to you.”

• “What a rough day.”

Highlight Your Teen Girl’s Strengths, Rather Than Her Anxiety

Sometimes, talking about anxiety actually makes it worse. While some venting and validating can help (see above!), continuing to rehash the same information tends to intensify anxious feelings. Have you ever found yourself in a conversation where you’re hitting the same points over and over again, and it kind of feels like you’re circling the drain? You keep analyzing and re-analyzing, but there’s no resolution.

This kind of circular thinking pattern is called ruminating, and it’s common in both teens and adults who struggle with anxiety. Just like water circling a drain speeds up and gets faster, ruminating tends to amplify our worries. Rather than falling into the trap of ruminating, redirect your conversation to focus on your teen girl’s strengths. After you validate her feelings, you can show her you’re confident that she can overcome whatever situation she’s facing. Consider saying something like:

• “This sounds so hard, but I know you can handle it.”

• “You are so brave.”

• “You’ve done this before, and you can do it again.”

• “You’ve got this!”

Practice Coping Skills to Relax and Manage Worries

We all know we need to relax when anxious, but it’s easier said than done. Well-meaning friends might suggest that we “just breathe” or “just relax”, which might work fine for someone who has a lot of practice using coping skills. For many teens, though, this advice isn’t specific enough. They need to learn what relaxation feels like, and find the coping skills that work best for them.

Learning how to take deep belly breaths, rather than shallow breaths, can help teens learn how to use the breath to soothe anxiety. For some teens, body-based techniques like progressive muscle relaxation work better than breathing. Mental health apps designed for teens, like What’sUp?, give teens portable tools to stay grounded during panic attacks. I also have an online course, Worry-Free Tweens, that teaches my favorite coping skills for anxiety to both kids and their parents.

Although teen girls are more likely to struggle with anxiety than younger children, they also have more options when it comes to dealing with their worries. Teens have the advanced verbal and cognitive skills needed to start noticing their own thoughts. Rather than accepting their worries at face value, teen girls can double-check to see if they are worth listening to. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy can teach teens and young adults how to “think about thinking” and manage worries more easily.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Teen Girls With Anxiety

If supportive conversations and coping skills don’t seem to be enough, counseling can help teens girls overcome anxiety. You don’t need to be in a full-in crisis situation in order to benefit from therapy. Normal life transitions like starting at a new school, managing homework stress, or dealing with friend drama are common and valid reasons to seek out a counselor. Sometimes, it’s just nice to have an unbiased person to work through all this stuff with who isn’t a friend or a parent.

In particular, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy can be a great option for teen girls with anxiety. It goes beyond just talking about worries—teens walk out the door with tools they can use right away to start coping with life stress. It’s really empowering to get a handle on strong feelings like anxiety. Teens can take the newly learned self-confidence and coping skills they learn in CBT with them into young adulthood.

If you’re in North Carolina, New York, or Florida and looking for a CBT therapist for your teen girl, I’d love to help! I’m local to the Davidson, North Carolina area, but I can see teens from all three of these states online. You can learn more about me and my approach, or shoot me an email if you’d like to set up a first appointment.

5 Things Your Child Learns When You Play Together

“Mom! Dad! Play with me!” If you are the parent of a young child, you’re familiar with this plea. Kids crave individual playtime with a parent more than pretty much anything else on the planet. We all know that “quality time” is important for families. And, if you’ve ever visited a children’s counselor, you’ve probably heard all about the importance of parent-child playtime from them, too. What exactly makes this play so special? When you play together with your child, you’re teaching them important lessons about themselves and the world.

Children Learn Through Play

Have you ever watched your child repeat an activity over and over again? Maybe your preschooler watched the same movie every day, or loved to repeat the same game for what seemed like forever. Kids repeat things in their play because they are using play to figure out something new. Play is one of the main ways the children learn. Even when it looks like they’re just goofing off and having fun, they’re also doing serious work that helps them grow and develop.

Social skills, fine and gross motor skills, and creative problem-solving are all learned or practiced through play. You are nurturing life skills when you play with your child, but you’re also nurturing your relationship. Play can help you and your child to bond. It can also teach your child important lessons about herself, and how you see her.

Play Lesson #1: “I Am Important”

Some parents are surprised to learn that setting aside time for individual play is so helpful to kids. After all, many children are with at least one parent all day long! Sometimes, it can even feel like there’s a little too much togetherness when everyone is cooped up at home.

Even if you and your child are together a lot, much of that time is spent multitasking. We have all “uh-huh-ed” our way through a conversation with a child while replying to a text, or half-watched a movie while trying to finish some work. That’s life! Nobody is perfect.

During playtime, however, all of your focus is on your child. You are totally present. Ideally, this means no phones or screens. When you do this, you are letting your child know that they matter to you. Their interests and feelings are important, and worthy of your undivided attention. This kind of attention strengthens your child’s self-esteem. It may also make it easier to handle not being the center of attention at other times of day.

Play Lesson #2: “My Parents Listen to Me”

As a play therapist, I help parents learn how to play with their kids as part of my work. Sometimes parents tell me they aren’t sure what to say while playing. How do you respond when your child is telling you about an elaborate Star Wars Lego adventure or dollhouse family saga?

When in doubt, you can always reflect what your child says back to them. When you paraphrase or repeat back what your child just said, it shows you are listening. Kids love to feel heard, and they don’t always feel like grown-ups pay attention to what they say. It is empowering to know that what you say is important enough to be listened to, even if the topic is Star Wars Legos.

Children learn social skills through play. When you listen to your child, you are teaching them to be a good listener by example. Over time, it can help them to be a better listener when you’re speaking, too.

Play Lesson #3: “This is What Good Behavior Feels Like”

Kids are usually on their best behavior when playing. And why wouldn’t they be? It’s fun, it helps burn off energy, and it gives children a chance to feel like they’re in charge for a little while. Whining, tantrums, and other forms of negative attention-seeking often seem to melt away. This is especially true when a parent is following the child’s lead during play.

Children are more likely to repeat behaviors that we pay attention to. All too often, good behavior gets ignored due to the business of everyday life. We might only stop to reprimand a child for negative behavior, and take advantage of quiet “good behavior” times to get other work done. This can mistakenly lead a child to believe that the only way to get our attention is by acting out.

Playing with your child gives you the chance to point out good behavior and reward it with a heaping helping of positive attention. Your smiles, praise, and focus lets your child know that you like what they are doing. That feels great! Kids can then mentally “flag” that behavior as something that got a positive reaction from you. This means they’ll be more likely to show that good behavior again in the future.

Play Lesson #4: “I Can Be Mindful”

Another trick I teach parents in my office is to verbally track what their child is doing during play. This is something that play therapists do all the time. “Tracking” means simply describing the actions you see your child doing. If you imagine a sports commentator talking about a game, it’s a similar idea.

Children are still learning to be self-aware. A lot of the time, they’re acting on their impulses and are not really conscious of what they’re doing, or why they are doing it. This can make it hard to be “well behaved”—after all, how can you change your behavior if you’re not aware that it’s happening?

Describing your child’s play increases their self-awareness, and helps them to be more mindful of their actions. We know that mindfulness is an important skill for helping children (and adults) to manage strong feelings without becoming overwhelmed. Being more mindful during play also helps active or distractible children to focus on an activity. You may notice your child sticks with an activity longer if you are narrating while they play.

Play Lesson #5: “I Am Loved”

The activity you choose for playtime doesn’t really matter. The warmth exchanged between you and your child is what’s most important. A lot of nonverbal communication happens during play: smiles, laughter, hugs, or pats on the back are common. Play makes it easy to feel and show affection, which brings up warm, fuzzy feelings for kids and parents alike.

Playing together strengthens your parent-child bond. It helps children to feel safe in their knowledge that you love them unconditionally. Feeling loved increases a child’s emotional resilience. It can make it easier for them to cope during periods of stress.

All this bonding has a benefit for parents, too. If your child has been challenging you with difficult behavior, it might be hard to summon up those warm, fuzzy feelings all the time. During stressful times, positive experiences with a child can feel few and far between. Setting aside time to play makes sure that those positive experiences keep happening even during hard times. Playtime can help you feel closer to your child, and make parenting feel more rewarding.

Are You Considering Play Therapy in North Carolina?

Individual playtime with a parent can work wonders for children. It can improve relationships, increase resilience during times of stress, and even improve tough behaviors. Sometimes, though, children need more help. A specially trained play therapist can work with you and your child to help you get through stressful times more easily.

Play therapy is a great fit for younger kids, because they still do most of their learning through actions rather than words. It can help kids with anxiety, trauma, and general life stress. If you’re looking for a play therapist and you live in North Carolina, New York, or Florida, I may be able to help. My play therapy office is located in the Charlotte area, and I also provide online counseling to kids in all three of these states.

You are always welcome to call or email me to learn more about how play therapy can help your child. If you’d like to go ahead and request an appointment, you can do that too!

What Age Can A Child Start Therapy?

How young is too young to see a counselor? Every week, I talk to parents on the phone who are trying to figure this out. Starting therapy can feel like a big step, and nobody wants to jump the gun. On one hand, a child may be passing through a phase that will resolve on its own. On the other, behavior struggles are tough for the whole family even if it is “just a phase.” In this post, I’ll unpack how old a child needs to be to benefit from therapy. I’ll also share tips on what to expect in counseling according to age, and signs that you should consider getting help.

The Younger the Child, The More Involved You’ll Be in Therapy

When you imagine what therapy looks like, you probably envision the patient sitting alone in a room with their counselor. Individual therapy is the most common form of therapy in the U.S., especially for adults. Things look a little different for kids in therapy. Depending on their age and developmental level, kids don’t always get the most benefit from working 1-on-1 with their therapist. As a rule of thumb, the younger your child is, the more time you can expect to spend in the room with your child’s counselor.

Parents are the center of a young child’s life. Little kids look to their caregivers to decide how they should think, feel, and act. Their connection with their parent is what helps them feel safe. Because your young child takes so many cues from you, it’s hard to create any lasting change in therapy if you aren’t kept in the loop.

Can Really Little Kids Benefit From Counseling?

You might be surprised to learn that special forms of therapy exist to help babies and toddlers with emotional problems. This type of therapy always includes the parent and child together, and helps the parent learn new ways to soothe their baby and deal with hard behavior. This can be especially helpful for young children who have survived trauma.

When I see preschoolers in therapy, I try to have parents join for about half the session. That way, we have a chance to learn coping skills together and problem-solve anything new that’s come up during the week. Most preschoolers are able to meet alone for part of their therapy session. However, they’ll need their parents’ help to practice the new things they’re learning in therapy at home.

For elementary-aged kids, it’s still helpful to have a quick check-in at the beginning of the therapy hour. Kids this age usually meet alone most of the time, but will still need reminders and support from parents in between sessions. I like to meet with parents periodically to talk about our progress in therapy, and discuss skills they can use to at home to help their child.

When Can Children Go to Therapy By Themselves?

Many preschoolers can benefit from individual play therapy. In my therapy office, I usually meet with 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old kids alone for half of each session. Preschoolers make sense of their world through play, and can’t always put their feelings into words. This makes play therapy a fantastic option for this age group, since it builds on a young child’s natural strengths.

I usually start seeing children for therapy by themselves around ages 7-9. By this age, kids have gotten used to separating from their parents each day for school. They are more independent, and much more able to verbalize their thoughts and feelings. Elementary school kids are also starting to develop more advanced thinking skills. This makes them a great fit for cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT, which helps kids learn how to deal with overly negative thoughts and feelings. Parents of elementary school kids should still plan on meeting with their child’s therapist on at least an occasional basis.

By middle and high school, most kids are able to manage therapy almost entirely by themselves. Tweens and teens crave independence and have started forming an identity away from the family unit. Having an unbiased listener to vent feelings to in confidence can be really helpful at this age. While I still work closely with parents of tweens and teens, they don’t usually need to meet with me as frequently.

How to Tell if Your Child Is Old Enough for Therapy

Age isn’t the only thing to consider when deciding whether your child is ready for therapy. Every child is unique and develops at their own pace, so there’s no one-size-fits-all answer. Keep an eye out for these signs to decide whether your child will benefit from one-on-one time with a therapist:

• Your child has started make-believe play: for example, they can use an object to represent something else while playing.

• Your child can communicate her needs to other people if you aren’t around.

• With help, your child can focus on an activity for more than a few minutes.

• Your child has started verbalizing thoughts and feelings.

Every child’s situation is different. If your child is meeting milestones at a different pace due to a health condition or developmental delay, they can still benefit from counseling. Look for a therapist who has training in helping children with special needs to make sure you have the best possible fit.

Signs That Therapy Could Help Your Child

It’s totally normal for young children to throw tantrums, fear monsters under the bed, or enjoy using the word “No” whenever possible. So how do you figure out when a problem has gotten big enough to consider therapy? In my experience, the fact that a parent is considering therapy at all is usually a sign that things have gotten too hard to manage.

You don’t have to wait for a crisis to call a therapist. In fact, sometimes it’s nice to get an outside perspective on the typical, every day problems of growing up. Even if you can muddle through a situation on your own, a therapist can help make things easier and less painful for everyone involved.

Here are a few indicators that therapy could help your child:

• Your child is struggling with her feelings more than other kids her age

• The problems are getting in the way of daily activities like eating, sleeping, play dates, or school

• Your child is having difficulty making or keeping friends, or getting along with siblings

• The problems started after a stressful event

• You’ve noticed that things are getting worse, not better

After you have thought about your child, take a minute to check in with yourself, too. How is your stress level about this issue? Are you feeling so overwhelmed by your child’s emotions that you’re not sure how to help her manage them anymore? Feeling pushed beyond your own limits as a parent is a totally valid reason to look into counseling.

Begin Child Therapy in Charlotte, North Carolina

If you are looking for a child therapist in the Charlotte area, I can help. I’m a children’s counselor and Registered Play Therapist who loves working with kids from preschool through the preteen years. You can meet me for individual or parent-child therapy at my office in Davidson, or join me online from anywhere in North Carolina, New York, or Florida.

Not in one of those states? I can’t provide counseling, but you may be interested in my coping skills class for tweens. It’s an online video course that includes step-by-step help for both kids and parents to better manage anxiety at home.

Have questions about getting started? Learn more about me here, or reach out by phone or email.

How Often Should a Child See a Therapist?

For most kinds of healthcare, we don’t have to worry about when or how often to show up. We go for an annual check-up or drop by the doctor’s office if we feel sick. Dentists send reminders for six month cleanings, and pediatricians have a set schedule of appointments to keep babies and children healthy. Therapy is a little different: we need to attend on a regular basis in order to see results, but what “regular basis” really means isn’t always clear. This can be especially true for kids in therapy. In this post, let’s unpack how often children should be seeing a therapist in order to see positive changes in their mental health.

Kids Need to Attend Therapy Regularly to See Change

Children thrive on predictability and repetition. They need time to absorb new ideas and put them into action. The fact that therapy happens on a regular, predictable basis is part of what makes it so effective. Kids know they can count on their counselor to be at the office each week for their scheduled appointment, and that they have a special time set aside to work through their feelings. This helps to reduce anxiety about the therapy process, and builds trust in the therapist-client relationship.

The positive changes that happen in therapy don’t happen all at once: they are usually gradual and incremental. Each session builds upon the next one. This is why it’s extremely difficult for kids who only attend therapy occasionally to make any meaningful progress. With these kids, so much time has to be spent reviewing old skills and getting caught up on current events that there isn’t much time left for “deeper” work. It’s also hard to establish trust and feel comfortable with your therapist when you only see them once in a blue moon.

Weekly Therapy Sessions Work Best for Most Children

In my own child counseling practice, I recommend that nearly all kids start therapy with weekly appointments. This how often most experts recommend that you see a therapist, and for good reason. Making therapy part of a child’s weekly routine helps them to mentally plan ahead and look forward to appointments. It means that kids and parents are setting aside time for regular self-care, just like they set aside time for piano lessons, sports practice, or any other activity in a child’s life.

I use cognitive behavioral therapy with children, and meeting weekly gives kids a chance to practice coping skills between appointments, without forgetting what we talked about last session. This gives us plenty to talk about the following week! For most kids, weekly CBT is a good balance between feeling supported and having enough free time to participate in the extracurriculars that keep life fun.

Younger Children Need More Frequent Therapy

Meeting weekly is especially important for younger kids. Preschoolers and early elementary-aged children can’t retain information over long periods of time the same way that older kids can, so repetition is key. This is especially true for young children who have separation anxiety about leaving Mom or Dad in the waiting room when they come to therapy. Getting regular opportunities to practice separating makes it much easier, and it’s common for young children to feel a bit nervous about coming to therapy if they have been away for a while.

In general, I still think most little kids do just fine with weekly appointments, and it’s rare they need to meet more often. However, if you’re having a parent session with the therapist one week, consider scheduling an additional appointment for your child in order to keep the momentum going.

Older Kids Can Sometimes Be Seen Less Often

Every once in a while, I will suggest that a kid who is 12 years or older can start therapy on an every-other-week basis. As kids approach the teen years, their ability to retain information and practice skills independently increases. Kids in this age range also face more demands on their time from school, sports, and other extracurriculars, which can make it a little more difficult (and stressful) to schedule regular therapy sessions.

While it’s still usually best (and fastest) to meet weekly, every-other-week sessions can sometimes be a good compromise for busy kids. However, there are a few times when this might not be a good idea. Kids who are experiencing severe symptoms of anxiety or depression really need more consistent therapy in order to feel better. This is also the case for children who have survived a trauma or stressful event. Finally, preteens or teens who have thoughts of suicide or self-harm absolutely need to be seen more frequently until they’re in a safer, more stable place.

Do Kids Ever Need Therapy More Than Once a Week?

There are some situations where kids really need to be seen two or more times a week for therapy sessions. Often, this is a short-term plan designed to help kids get through an extremely difficult time. The goal is always to help children strengthen their coping skills enough that they can function independently for longer, and come to therapy less often.

Here are a few circumstances that could affect how often a child needs to be seen, and require more visits:

• A child has just experienced a new trauma or loss, such as a death in the family

• Severe anxiety or depression prevents a child from doing important daily activities, like attending school

• A child or teenager has expressed serious thoughts of suicide, or has made a suicide attempt

• A child is “stepping down” from more intensive therapy, like inpatient therapy at a hospital

Going More Often Might Mean Fewer Sessions Overall

This is purely based on my own experience as a child therapist, although I’m sure there’s research out there to back me up. I have noticed that my clients who come to therapy on a weekly basis usually end up needing fewer sessions than those who come less often. Weird, but true!

Sometimes, parents request every-other-week or even monthly therapy sessions due to financial concerns. I totally get it—therapy can be a big investment of both time and money. However, I’ve noticed that kids who come to therapy every other week often need to stay in therapy much longer, because we have to spend more time playing catch-up. In the long run, this makes therapy more expensive: more sessions are needed to achieve the same result.

Are You Considering Child Therapy in Charlotte, NC?

Now that you know how often you can expect your child to go to therapy, maybe you’re thinking about next steps. If your child is struggling with anxiety, my online course can help her learn coping skills as you consider your options. You can check out Worry-Free Tweens here.

If you live in the Charlotte, NC area and have a child struggling with anxiety or stress, I’d love to help at my Lake Norman office. You can learn more general information about child counseling here, learn more about me, or contact me to book an appointment. I can also see kids for online therapy throughout the states of New York, North Carolina, and Florida.

5 Classic Toys with Mental Health Benefits for Children

I am an easy mark for any toy that’s advertised as being educational or good for a child’s development. I’m a sucker for toy delivery services that promise to teach Montessori at home, or for dolls and toys that introduce a child to another culture in an accurate, respectful way. As I’m writing this, we’re about to enter the time of year when everyone gets inundated with ads for the latest, greatest new toys.

But here’s the thing: if you take a peek into any play therapist’s office, you’re probably not going to see any of these hot new toys, no matter how wholesome or beneficial they claim to be. What you’ll see are classic toys you probably remember from your own childhood: no frills, no bells and whistles, and probably no batteries required. If you’re looking to stock your child’s home playroom, here are 5 classic toys that encourage emotional growth and promote good mental health.

Baby Dolls Help Children Learn to Nurture

Rocking, feeding, dressing, bathing…baby dolls teach children how to empathize and care for others. Parents have to learn how to respond to their babies’ cues in order to give them what they need. When children play make-believe with dolls, they’re using their imaginations to practice this same important social skill.

Interestingly, when kids pretend soothe and nurture a baby doll, they’re also soothing and nurturing themselves. In play therapy, kids who have had difficult experiences in early life can use baby dolls to reconnect with a feeling of being cared for and loved. This probably goes without saying, but kids of all genders can benefit from playing with baby dolls: if we want all our kids to be loving parents and empathetic people, they need practice to develop these skills!

Play-Doh Encourages Sensory Awareness

I’ve written a lot in this blog about the not-so-hidden mental health benefits of the slime craze…I am all in on slime and it’s a staple in my play therapy room. But if you aren’t as thrilled by the idea of dried glue on every upholstered surface of your home, maybe Play-doh—slime’s older, less trendy cousin—is more your speed. Play-doh and other similar products, like modeling clay or kinetic sand, provide kids with a great opportunity to engage in sensory play.

Sensory play activities help kids get in touch with their 5 senses: scented markers, musical toys, and water tables are all great examples of toys that give kids interesting sensory experiences that go beyond sight. This type of play has been shown to help with motor and language development, but it offers benefits for emotional health, too. Focusing on sensory input is a form of mindfulness, similar to paying attention to the breath while meditating. Kids tend to get very absorbed in sensory play because they’re super aware of what’s happening in the present moment, rather than multitasking or letting their minds wander to other thoughts. This can have a soothing and focusing effect for kids who are feeling anxious scattered.

Dress-Up Clothes Let Kids Try Out New Possibilities

Playing dress-up is more than just make-believe fun. Putting on a costume allows kids to test-drive new ways of thinking, behaving, and interacting with others. Playing dress-up is a form of roleplay, which drama therapists often use as a mental health tool with both children and adults. Drama therapists believe that we all have roles we play in life that dictate our behavior: we probably behave pretty differently at school, at work, with our families, and when out with friends, for example. Children are still learning the social and emotional skills they need to operate in all these different settings, and dress-up gives them a chance to practice.

Thinking about the kinds of costumes kids choose for Halloween can provide good insight into the types of dress-up clothes that can be helpful for emotional growth. “Real life” costumes like doctor and firefighter outfits help kids to emulate adults in their life, explore their interests, and develop a sense of responsibility. Superhero costumes are awesome for building self-esteem and self-confidence: who doesn’t want to feel like Superman or Wonder Woman for a day? Even villain costumes have a function for kids, allowing them to experience feeling powerful and letting out aggressive energy in a safe and playful way. Consider stocking up on at least one costume in each of these three categories if you’re building a dress-up area for your child at home.

Toy Weapons Help Kids Vent Anger Safely

Whether or not kids should be allowed to have toy guns is a pretty fraught subject, and may schools, daycares, and parents have decided to ban them. It’s a complicated issue, and these days there are a lot of reasons why it may not be a good idea for kids to have toy weapons in public places. Nevertheless, I think there are some good reasons why toy weapons can actually be beneficial for mental health when used in a therapy playroom or at home.

Many parents are worried that playing with toy guns will encourage violent tendencies in children. I used to wonder about this, too! However, the research shows this isn’t the case: kids who play with toy guns do not grow up to be more aggressive than kids who don’t. In fact, playing out war or fight scenes may help children learn how to better understand and control their own anger. Children play things out in order to better understand them, and to develop a sense of control over their surroundings. When kids act out angry scenes, they are learning how to handle their own anger and safely express it in ways that don’t hurt people in real life.

Play therapists often say that “toys are a child’s words”, because kids often use play, rather than language, to work through their thoughts and feelings. Sadly, many kids enter play therapy after witnessing violence, and they often need toy weapons available to give them the “vocabulary” they need to express themselves. If toy guns feel too risky to have at home, consider getting a very childish, non-realistic nerf gun or another play weapon such as a sword, instead.

Play Kitchens Strengthen Parent-Child Bonds

Almost every child I’ve ever worked with in play therapy has enjoyed making pretend food to serve their parents in the play kitchen. Children imitate their parents as a sign of affection: they want to be just like you! Many kids see their parents preparing food all day long, and play kitchens give kids a chance to step into that grown-up role for themselves.

Similar to the baby dolls I mentioned earlier in this post, play kitchens give kids a chance to practice nurturing and caring behavior. Plenty of kids use the play kitchen to make meals for their dolls and toys, but play kitchens also get kids interacting more with parents or other adults in the playroom. In many families, food is love. Even though play kitchen food is pretend, serving food to parents or other special people gives kids a chance to express their own love and care. In play therapy, this kind of interactive, open-ended play is wonderful for helping kids and parents reconnect and increase feelings of attachment.

Learn More About the Emotional Benefits of Toys and Play

Children naturally use their play to explore their feelings and figure out the world around them. If you are looking for mental health support for a child in your life, play therapy is an option to consider. I provide play therapy to children in and around Charlotte, NC, and work with kids across North Carolina, New York, and Florida in my online child therapy practice.

If you’d like to learn more about play therapy or set up an initial appointment, contact me here.

How to Explain Anxiety to Kids

It can be lonely being a kid with anxiety. Children who struggle with uncontrolled worries often think they must be the only person who feels things so strongly: after all, anxiety is invisible, and many people are really good at hiding theirs! Not understanding anxiety can lead children to feel ashamed of their emotions, and can also make them feel hopeless about it ever getting better. This is why it’s so important to explain anxiety to kids in terms they can understand, especially if you’re considering therapy for your child.

Teaching Kids About Anxiety Can Help Them Tame It

Early in therapy, many children describe their anxiety to me as something that happens to them, seemingly out of the blue. It feels almost like a force of nature: there’s no rhyme or reason behind it, and it’s impossible to control. As you can imagine, this makes the idea of managing anxiety pretty intimidating. By teaching kids about what anxiety is and why it happens, we are also letting them know that there are ways to make it better. Once you know the source of a problem, it’s much easier to find a solution.

Teaching kids about anxiety serves another important function: it normalizes what a child is going through. Many children are surprised to hear that everybody experiences anxiety from time to time, and that anxiety disorders are pretty common, too. Kids who don’t understand that anxiety is a universal experience may feel deeply ashamed or like something is seriously wrong with them. Learning that they are not alone alleviates that shame, which can improve self-esteem and put a child in a more empowered position to cope with their feelings.

Anxiety: Too Much of a Good Thing?

Is anxiety a good thing or a bad thing? I often start off first sessions with anxious kids by asking this question. 99% of the time, kids respond that anxiety is definitely bad. Most kids enter therapy with the idea that their anxiety is a problem and means something is wrong, and they have come to a counselor to get rid of it completely.

It is pretty surprising when I tell kids that I would never want to get rid of their anxiety! Anxiety feels terrible, but it serves a really important function: it helps keep us safe. What would happen if you never felt anxiety? Maybe you would cross busy streets when the light was red because you weren’t worried about being hit by a car. Maybe you would agree to do dangerous things with your friends, because there was no little voice in the back of your head saying it was a bad idea.

I like to ask kids what would happen if a giant, angry bear crashed through the window of our therapy room: would we both sit here calmly and act like nothing had happened? No! That would be weird. Our anxiety would kick into high gear, give us a burst of energy, and help us run to safety. The difference between plain old anxiety and an anxiety disorder is that, for some of us, we get anxiety when the proverbial bear is not around. Kids with anxiety disorders get anxiety in situations that aren’t really dangerous, which gets in the way of enjoying life. They just have too much of a good thing.

The Fire Alarm Analogy

I’m not the first therapist to describe anxiety as being like a fire alarm: I think a lot of us use this analogy, and for good reason. It’s super helpful! All children are familiar with fire alarms, and they have probably practiced a million school fire drills by the time they reach my office.

We have a tiny part of our brain, called the amygdala, that is sort of like our body’s fire alarm. It is constantly scanning the environment for danger, in order to keep us safe. When it detects danger—like that big angry bear, for example—it sounds the alarm! Think about how it feels when a fire alarm goes off: it’s loud, it’s jarring, it’s unsettling. It is not a nice sound to listen to. Our amygdala’s alarm is similar. It sends a burst of energy all through our bodies that makes our heart beat faster, our palms get sweaty, and allows us to move quickly to get away from the threat. It is not a comfortable feeling, but it gets the job done.

But, sometimes, fire alarms go off for no good reason. For example, if you are cooking in the kitchen and you make a lot of smoke, that might trigger your fire alarm. The sound is exactly the same, but it’s going off at the wrong time. This is what happens with anxiety: our brain is telling us there is danger, when really there isn’t any. Once children understand that the anxious thoughts and feelings they are having may not be true, they can start to take back control of their worries.

Think About Word Choice with Young Children

Anxiety has become such a household word that most older children (late elementary and up) are probably familiar with it already. I’ve noticed, though, that sometimes we get into the habit of labeling any negative feeling as “anxiety” so it may still be helpful to define the term for these older kids. Being able to put a name to their feelings can be really helpful for older children, because it means they aren’t the first or only person to have experienced this emotion.

For younger kids, however, the word “anxiety” may not be as helpful. If your child is in early elementary school or preschool, “anxiety” is probably not in her vocabulary yet. For these kids, it may not be as helpful to be able to label their feelings with such a clinical term. I have much better luck using “worry” or “nervous”—words they have likely heard before—when describing anxiety to younger children.

When to Consider Therapy for Kids with Anxiety

Not every kid with anxiety necessarily needs to see a counselor. Sometimes, a little extra support from Mom or Dad, some at-home coping skills, and a conversation about how anxiety works is all a child needs to get through a stressful time. If you’re looking to go this route, check out Worry-Free Tweens, my online coping skills class for preteens with anxiety.

Sometimes, though, counseling can help a child work through anxiety more quickly and easily than if she muddled through it alone. Hearing about how common (and sometimes helpful) anxiety is from an “expert” who isn’t a friend or family member can be meaningful for some children. Having a safe space to voice worries without judgment, and learn how to spot thoughts that are unhelpful or untrue can help children manage their anxiety in the present, as well as in the future as they grow.

I use a form of counseling called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to help kids with anxiety learn about their symptoms, calm anxiety responses, and “talk back” to overly negative worries. Learn more about how CBT works for children, or contact me to request an appointment.

Help! My Child Won't Stop Interrupting Conversations!

It's normal for young kids to blurt things out sometimes, but parents can help make it easier to hold that thought.

Remember “BBC Dad”? The guy who was giving an interview with the BBC about South Korea when his 4-year-old toddled through the door behind him on camera, followed shortly by his adorable baby in a bouncer? I’ve been thinking a lot about poor, flustered BBC Dad lately in this age of Zoom calls, and how tough can be when kids continuously interrupt conversations, whether they are virtual or face-to-face. In this post I’ll be unpacking a few reasons why kids may struggle with interrupting, and what parents can do to help.

Why Does My Child Interrupt?

It’s normal, common, and even developmentally appropriate for young kids to interrupt conversations sometimes. From roughly age 2 to age 7, children are naturally egocentric, meaning that it’s hard for them to think about points of view different from their own, or to separate their thoughts and feelings from other people’s. Kids this age tend to assume that everyone is thinking and feeling the same way that they are. This can make it hard for young children to realize that other people have important thoughts to share, too, and may not be ready to hear what a child has to say.

Here are a few other factors that can contribute to frequent interrupting behavior in kids:

• Difficulty with impulse control

• Boredom

• Trouble with social skills, such as recognizing natural give-and-take in conversations

• Desire for attention from a parent or other adult

• Stalling to avoid an unwanted activity

Has Zoom Made Kids’ Interrupting Worse?

I accidentally interrupt people on Zoom calls all the time. The few seconds of lag time between when someone speaks and when you hear their voice makes it easy to assume someone is done talking when they really aren’t. It’s pretty easy for adults to navigate this with minimal awkwardness, but for kids, it might be much harder to do.

In addition to the slight sound delay, there are fewer opportunities to pick up on nonverbal communication in video conferencing calls, especially if there are many participants. We can’t really read body language when we’re only seeing people from the shoulders up, and people’s faces are pretty tiny when the whole class is on the call together! This could make it even harder for kids to know when it’s a good time to talk.

Finally, I know that some kids feel quite anxious about online school. While Zoom calls are a big relief for many children with social anxiety, for others, it can be overstimulating. Kids who are feeling a little uneasy about being on camera or who worry they may be overlooked by their teacher due to the large number of kids on the call will be much more likely to interrupt.

Give Visual and Physical Cues To Let Your Child Know You’ve Heard Them

Kids who interrupt are trying to connect with people around them, which is awesome! They may just need a gentle acknowledgement that we’ve seen their request to speak and haven’t forgotten about them. A hand gesture can let your child know you’ve seen them and will be with them shortly, without you having to break the flow of your current conversation.

Ariadne Brill from Positive Parenting Connection describes how she used to gently hold her child’s hand when he interrupted her on the phone, to let him know that they were still connected and he’d have her attention soon. For older kids, try holding up 2 or 5 fingers to let them know how many minutes you need, or coming up with a funny secret code together that you can use to gently make them aware of their interrupting when it happens.

Boost 1-on-1 Time Together

When kids are craving attention, they’re more likely to rely on difficult behaviors like interrupting to try to get their needs met. If your child has been going through a particularly stressful time, she may need a little more attention than normal to feel secure. Similarly, kids who have had to share a parent’s attention with a sibling may be feeling a little lacking in individual support.

Setting aside a few minutes a day of individual, focused playtime with your child can help them get their need for attention met in a more positive way. Kids who get this 1-on-1 time often feel more secure in their connection with their parent, which can make it easier to tolerate time apart. This can help cut down on interrupting in the long run.

Practice Social Skills at Home to Interrupt Politely

Some kids may just need the right language to interrupt politely. You can teach your child to say “excuse me” or “may I please interrupt” when they have something important to say, and praise them when you hear these words. It’s also helpful for kids to learn the times when it is good to interrupt, such as in an emergency or when someone has been injured.

The picture book “My Mouth Is a Volcano!” is a children’s therapy go-to for young kids who are struggling with interrupting. The story, told from the point of view of an elementary school-aged boy, can be validating for kids who interrupt. It highlights the positive intentions that sometimes motivate kids to interrupt: for example, being really eager to share information that feels important with your friends and family. At the end of the story, children learn a simple coping skill to help them self-soothe and hold on to important thoughts until there’s an appropriate time to share them.

Model the Behavior You’d Like to See

Kids learn how they should behave from the adults in their lives, so any time a child is struggling with a behavioral issue, it really helps them to see the grownups around them practicing what they preach. Do you come from an outspoken family where people tend to talk over each other? Have you been a little lax in your own manners when you need to interrupt your child in conversation? I know this is something I could be more mindful of in therapy sessions, myself!

Nobody is perfect, but really accentuating the behaviors you’d like to see more of can help your child pick up on them, too. Make a point of saying “excuse me” or apologizing to your child for interrupting when it’s really necessary to do so. When you notice your child using good manners, heap on the praise! Children tend to repeat the behaviors that we pay a lot of positive attention to, so showing your enthusiasm for their newfound manners is a good way to encourage a repeat performance.

More Ways to Help a Child Who Constantly Interrupts

I’ve written a few other blog posts that might be of interest if you’re struggling with a tiny interrupter. If your child is really struggling to stay on task during online school, these tips to help combat Zoom fatigue may help improve his focus and comfort during class.

Online social groups are an excellent resource for kids looking to brush up on their social skills while still practicing social distancing. I’ve rounded up a few suggestions for online groups here, as well as outlined the benefits of these kinds of group activities for kids.

If your child is having a hard time picking up on social cues and collaborating with others, counseling that incorporates drama therapy might be a fun, low-pressure way to practice teamwork, nonverbal communication, and the other “soft skills” that help children communicate effectively and make friends.

I run an online group that helps middle schoolers brush up on social skills through game play—if that sounds appealing for your preteen, you can read more about my Dungeons & Dragons Social Support Group here.

4 Ways to Keep Kids Engaged on Zoom (and Avoid Zoom Fatigue)

Remember when unlimited screen time was a child’s dream come true? I’ve been joking with my kid clients that the pandemic is teaching all of us to be careful what we wish for: maybe being on screens all day isn’t as much fun as we imagined it would be! As schools reopen and many students find themselves gearing up for another semester online, I thought might be helpful to discuss the phenomenon of Zoom fatigue: what it is, why it happens, and how we can help keep kids engaged and having fun on their school calls.

What’s Zoom Fatigue, and How Does It Affect Kids?

Have you ever finished a long day of back-to-back video conference calls and found yourself feeling surprisingly drained, even though you’ve been sitting still all day? That’s Zoom fatigue, a pandemic-era term for the physically and emotionally sluggish feeling some people describe after spending lots of time on video conference calls. Depending on your workload and how easily affected you are, you might feel a little irritable or flat-out tired.

Kids can be affected by Zoom fatigue, too, and I find that large group calls are often the hardest for them to manage. Older children can make the connection between their low energy and Zoom calls, but younger children may not be able to articulate what is hard for them about Zoom meetings. Here are a few signs and behavior changes to look out for that might mean Zoom fatigue is setting in for your child:

• Reluctance or tearfulness when it’s time to join a call, even when it’s a social or fun meeting

• Irritability or meltdowns that immediately follow Zoom calls

• Fidgeting, difficulty sitting still, and trouble focusing

• Unusual frustration or arguments with peers during meetings

• Headaches, eye strain, or other physical complaints

If you’re noticing some of the symptoms above in your child, keep reading: there are ways adults can help make this temporary new normal easier for kids to manage.

But Wait! Zoom Isn’t All Bad News

Even though this post is about how to handle Zoom fatigue, I don’t want to leave you with the impression that all online activities are horrible. I’m a firm believer that online meetings aren’t necessarily better or worse than face-to-face. Zoom meetings are just different, with their own pros and cons, and we are still figuring out how to do them well.

For some kids, online sessions have some major advantages over meeting in person. Research shows that people who struggle with social anxiety feel more at ease online, which can make interacting over Zoom a more positive, less intimidating experience. Children with social anxiety may find it’s easier to make the first steps towards speaking up in class or talking to peers when there’s no pressure to immediately meet face-to-face.

There’s also a thought that meeting online equalizes some of the factors that could lead to bullying and teasing in person. For example, differences in height and other physical traits are less noticeable in Zoom meetings, where everyone is seated and your whole body isn’t on display. I wonder if online classes have also reduced teasing about the clothing children wear, since it’s hard to pass much judgment on an outfit when it’s mostly out of frame.

Zoom Engagement Tip #1: Add More Movement

It’s challenging enough for many kids to remain seated at a desk all day, but classes used to be broken up by recess, as well as trips to the bathroom and water fountain, gym class, and walks between classrooms. All those little breaks added up to a decent amount of movement throughout the day. In online meetings, kids aren’t getting any of those opportunities to move. Being sedentary all day long can drain energy, lower mood, and make it more difficult for kids to focus.

You can help your child minimize the drain of sitting down all day on calls by intentionally building more movement into your day. Use 20 minutes of your child’s lunch break to take a walk outside, or try out a yoga video on YouTube. Encourage your child to get out of her chair and stretch between calls, rather than simply waiting for the next one to begin. Hopefully, teachers are finding ways to incorporate movement in to their lesson plans, but any added opportunities to move can combat fatigue.

Another way to add more movement is by giving your child a fidget toy to use while seated. Kids aren’t getting the same sensory-rich experience on Zoom calls that they’d be getting in person, which can make sitting still in front of a screen even harder. A quiet, non-distracting fidget toy such as a Tangle or a Boink can help children keep their bodies engaged without pulling focus from the teacher.

Zoom Engagement Tip #2: Create the Right Space

When the pandemic first started, I assumed I’d be working from home for a matter of weeks. I grabbed a hard plastic folding chair, propped it awkwardly in the corner of a spare room, and figured I’d be good to go. Two weeks later, I was getting tension headaches, my energy was low, and I was starting to feel the drag of Zoom fatigue. Setting up a designated office space with a comfortable chair has made a big difference in my stamina for doing online conference calls.

One benefit of virtual meetings is that we get to control our own environment. We control the temperature of the room, we can sit in a way that feels comfortable, and our favorite drinks or snacks are available to us pretty much any time. When I see children for online therapy, they often have their favorite toys, blankets, and even pets on hand to help them feel comforted and grounded during session.

If you started off online school the way I started online therapy—preparing for weeks, not months, of working remotely—the new school year is a good time to reassess where and how your child is taking Zoom calls. You don’t need a Pinterest-worthy home office setup, but giving a child a designated, comfortable place to work can make it easier to stay focused as well as a more enjoyable experience. Here are a few tips to consider if you’re creating a “Zoom space” for your child this fall:

• If your child will be joining calls from his bedroom, encourage him to sit at a table or desk rather than lying in bed. I’ve found when kids are joining calls from under the covers it leads to low energy, poor focus, and a general desire to go back to sleep!

• The larger the screen, the easier it is for children to stay focused. Phones are not great for virtual calls, tablets are better, and a laptop or desktop computer is your best bet, if one is available.

• Position your child’s computer at eye level to reduce strain and simulate “real” eye contact. All you need is a stack of books under your computer, and this can make a world of difference on Zoom calls.

• It can be really tempting to pull up a second window to start a game or chat with friends during online calls: we’re all used to multitasking on computers, and it’s harder to get caught! Consider helping your child reduce distractions during school time by installing an app that blocks social media or other websites during study time.

• Adding some sensory elements to your child’s work area can help offset the lack of sensory stimulation they’re getting from Zoom calls, which don’t often engage the full body the way in-person learning does. Weighted blankets, textured pillows, fidget toys, or scents that calm or energize your child can be helpful grounding tools as well as a way to make work time feel more fun and special.

Zoom Engagement Tip #3: Shift Your Schedule

Many schools are including more asynchronous learning this year, meaning that classes will be pre-recorded and available for children to watch at any time. This gives parents (and kids) a lot more freedom in figuring out a learning schedule that works for them and reduces Zoom fatigue. I think this is another silver lining of online learning: if your child is not a morning person, or learns better when they can have frequent breaks, they no longer have to conform to the typical 8-to-3 school day schedule.

On a personal note, adjusting my own schedule was the most helpful thing I have done to combat Zoom fatigue. Even though you’re sitting still, virtual calls can take a lot out of you! Communicating with other people online sometimes takes a little extra effort, especially when you’re still adjusting to the format. Working longer hours over 4 days worked well for me doing in-office work, but ended up being too much screen time for online calls. Spreading my sessions out over 5 days gives me more breathing room, and I’m much more energized for my meetings.

If you have some flexibility with your child’s school schedule this year, here are a few points to consider that may help combat Zoom fatigue:

• If possible, give your child some control over her own schedule. Many children have felt very powerless during the pandemic, and being able to choose when to do school work can be empowering.

• Consider breaking up the school day into smaller chunks, or spacing out the work over a longer span of days in order to reduce the consecutive hours spent in front of a screen each day.

• Keep your schedule consistent whenever possible. Encourage your child to go to bed and wake up at the same time each day to promote healthy sleep. Maintaining predictable times for meals, study time, and play time can be reassuring for kids and reduces anxiety. It can also help kids maintain the habits and structure they’ll need when in-person school resumes.

Zoom Engagement Tip #4: Be Picky!

At the beginning of quarantine, many of us experienced a tidal wave of social Zoom calls. While we are all craving connection and looking for ways to spend our newfound free time, it’s okay to be selective, too. This is especially true for children, who may have a hard time staying engaged on social calls after a long day of school.

Just like any other activity, Zoom calls can become too much of a good thing. Be picky about what social calls you and your child agree to, and prioritize the meetings that are most important. If you notice your child is already feeling worn out from school calls, it’s totally fine to turn down the optional class check-in or book club chat. This allows your child to conserve his time and energy for the stuff that really matters.

In general, smaller calls cause less fatigue than larger group calls. Conversation flows much easier and feels more natural when you aren’t accidentally interrupting 10 other children. If you have an option for your child to meet with peers individually or in small groups, give this format a try. It’s likely to be a more fun experience for all involved, and you may find your child connects more easily with friends when there are fewer kids on the call.

I hope this post has been helpful to you as you navigate another highly unusual school year. Please drop me a line if you have questions or found this article helpful—I’d love to hear how you are managing online school! If you are looking for online counseling for your child, my (virtual) door is always open. I’m able to offer therapy to children and families in New York, North Carolina, and Florida.

If you’re looking for non-therapy resources, my online courses teach coping skills to kids to manage anxiety and stress. Check out Worry Free Tweens, which helps kids ages 8-12 learn how to cope with panic, anxiety, and worries.

Common Preteen Behaviors, Explained

It can be tough to be a tween. Things that felt easy in elementary school can suddenly get complicated as middle school approaches. How do you make new friends when you can’t just run up to someone on the playground and say hi? How can you manage the increase in expectations and homework at school? How do you respond if your peers start trying things you feel uncomfortable with—do you speak up, or just play along?

The complexities of a preteen’s social life, along with the surge of hormones as puberty approaches, can lead to behaviors that are challenging for kids and their parents to deal with. I’ll be unpacking a few of those common preteen behaviors in this post, explaining why they happen, and sharing some tips on how to manage them.

Preteen Behavior #1: Super Focused On Body Image

What it looks like: Preteens who are struggling with body image issues may unfairly compare themselves to celebrities, social media influencers, or their peers. They may make self-deprecating comments about their appearance, body shape, or weight. They may appear self-conscious or have a hard time accepting compliments about their looks. For some kids, this can progress into restricting food or over-exercising, and the beginning of disordered eating.

Why it happens: Sadly, poor body image is extremely common in preteens and tweens: studies show that 40% of 9 and 10-year-old girls have already tried to lose weight, and by age 13, 53% of girls report they’re unhappy with their bodies. Many tweens are experiencing physical changes of puberty, and at the same moment that they may be feeling awkward about their own bodies, they’re introduced to a flood of unrealistic portrayals of teenage bodies on Instagram, TikTok, and TV.

Preteen kids are old enough take these images to heart and be affected by them, but not old enough yet to think critically about what they’re being shown. A preteen’s self-esteem often comes from external things, like clothes, belongings, or their looks. When you pair that focus on superficial items with movies, TV, and social media that emphasize the importance of being attractive, it’s understandable why poor body image becomes a struggle for so many young people.

How to help: Preteens, and girls in particular, need support to learn that their bodies aren’t decorative objects: they have important jobs to do beyond just looking attractive for other people. This becomes even more important as kids approach puberty, and dating and sexuality take center stage. Here are a few things to consider:

• Teach your child about how images are manipulated in the media to sell things or influence people.

• Limit time spent on social media or screens in favor of “real life” interactions with peers: this has been shown to improve self-esteem and body image.

• Get your child involved in activities that help her show her talents, learn new skills, and develop a sense of pride in herself not based on physical appearance.

• Praise your child for things other than looks.

• If you’re worried about changes in your child’s eating or exercise patterns, consult with their pediatrician.

Preteen Behavior #2: Sassy, Snarky, Sarcasm

What it looks like: Even a gentle comment or request can be met with an annoyed response from your preteen. It doesn’t take much anymore for them to snap at someone, and that “someone” is usually a parent. Sarcasm, insulting comments, eye rolling, and general disrespect are all common at this age.

Why it happens: On average, girls start puberty at age 11 and boys at age 12. The surge of hormones associated with puberty can also lead to mood swings, and make kids feel extra irritable. At the same time, kids’ brains are going through a growth spurt, too. The prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for things like impulse control, regulating emotions, and social skills, gets a complete overhaul during puberty to prepare teens for adulthood. However, while it’s under construction, preteens and teens may have more difficulty in those areas.

How to help: Although not all preteens struggle in this area, sassy comments are so common that they’re considered a normal part of preteen life. You may not be able to entirely avoid the snark, but you can find ways to make it more manageable—for both you and your kid. Here are a few tips to help tone down sarcasm:

• Avoid name-calling or using sarcasm with your child, so you can show them what respectful language looks like.

• If your preteen has blurted out something rude without thinking, offer a chance for a do-over.

• Ignore the small stuff: sometimes paying attention to these annoying behaviors make them worse.

• Help your child understand the brain changes that go along with puberty: she might be as distressed by her mood swings as you are!

Preteen Behavior #3: Craving More Privacy

What it looks like: Suddenly, everything you do embarrasses your kid! Your child might be asking to do more things independently, like walking into school alone without a big fuss at drop-off. You might also notice your child spending more time alone, or involved with friends, rather than spending time with the family. Your preteen may share less about her life with you, too, compared to when she was younger.

Why it happens: Children have both physical and psychological milestones they have to meet during adolescence. A major psychological milestone for preteens and teens is figuring out who they are as an individual, away from their parents. After all, in a few short years your preteen will be a young adult living alone for the first time, needing to make choices without you. This process of individuating can feel rocky and off-putting, but it’s totally normal and won’t last forever.

Preteens approaching puberty may also be dealing with body changes and feelings they don’t feel totally comfortable with. Puberty can be really awkward to talk about, especially with a mom or dad! Preteens may feel more comfortable talking to their peers about this stuff, but it’s important to make sure they’re getting the right education from you, rather than misinformation from friends or the internet.

How to help: Know that this isn’t going to last forever, and you won’t always be the World’s Most Embarrassing Person in your child’s eyes. As tough as this phase can be, it’s a sign your child is growing and maturing the way they need to in order to be a successful adult someday. Here are a few ways to support your child’s need for privacy while also staying connected:

• Get to know your child’s interests. Is there a manga he’s obsessed with, or a TV show she loves? Showing an interest in the things your preteen likes can keep conversation flowing, and help you continue to keep an eye on how he spends his time.

• Find one-on-one activities to do with your child. Preteens still need (and want) attention from parents, and sometimes this is easier away from friends.

• Make sure your child has age-appropriate education about sexuality and puberty.

• Remind your child that if you’re there if he ever needs you, and there’s no subject of conversation too bad or uncomfortable to be discussed.

Preteen Behavior #4: Following Trends

What it looks like: Your kid’s interests are shifting from “kid stuff” to “teen stuff.” They’re devoted followers of YouTube personalities and influencers, and are suddenly fluent in memes you’ve never even heard of. You might also notice your child seems more susceptible to peer pressure than she did before, and have more of a desire to fit in. Similarly, you may observe that your preteen’s taste in music, personal style, and friend groups change rapidly.

Why it happens: Trends and fads are another way that preteens start to practice individuation: the process of developing an identity separate from parents that helps turn children into adults. The rapid shifts in interests and style may seem random, but they serve an important purpose. Preteens are starting to try on different identities for size to see what fits them and what doesn’t. As children become more independent, friends take on an increasingly important role, and acceptance from friends and peers feels crucial. This can sometimes make preteens more easily swayed by peer pressure, especially if they don’t feel comfortable being assertive.

How to help: Honestly, there’s not a lot of helping to be done with this one! Provided that your preteen is staying safe, experimenting with fads, trends, and identities is a sign that their development is right on track. Here are a few ways you can support your preteen as they learn about themselves:

• Roll with the changes in clothing and style without making a big deal about them.

• Provide your child with age-appropriate education about topics that might lead them to feel pressure from peers, like vaping and adult internet content.

• Get to know your child’s friend group, and ask questions about what her friends are up to. This lets your child know that their friends are important to you, too, and helps you keep an eye out for unsafe situations.

• Praise your child and highlight her personal qualities that you enjoy and make you proud.

For More Info On Preteen Mental Health…

Preteens are one of my favorite groups to work with in therapy, so I write about them quite a bit these days! If you’ve got a tween at home, you might want to check out my posts on tweens and internet safety, preteen anxiety, and preteen girl drama.

Most preteens I meet could use some solid coping skills, which is why I created my online course, Worry Free Tweens. If your preteen child is struggling with anxiety, it may be worth a look. This self-help course includes instructional videos for both you and your child to deal with strong feelings and take control of worries.

If you’re looking for counseling for a preteen, I see this age group for online therapy in New York, North Carolina, and Florida. I offer individual therapy, as well as online game-based social groups for preteens. You can learn more about my practice here, or check out how to make an appointment.

Preteen Girl Attitude? How to Get Along With Your Preteen Daughter

While most of us know to expect moodiness from teenagers, some parents may be surprised when the angst starts earlier than they expected with their preteen girls. Seemingly overnight, the sweet, well-behaved little girl you’ve raised has turned into a sassy, eye-rolling machine. What happened?! Is this normal? The short answer is yes, absolutely, and it’s nothing to take too personally. For the long answer, you can keep reading this post on how to manage preteen girl attitude, and keep your relationship with your daughter going strong.

Why Is My Preteen Girl Suddenly So Disrespectful?

It can be a little shocking for parents to witness a sudden transformation in their child’s behavior during the preteen years. After all, 10, 11, and 12 year old girls are still pretty young! Many girls this age still have an interest in playing with dolls and toys, and at the same time they’re starting to have decidedly grown-up reactions like sarcasm and heavy sighs.

We can thank hormones and puberty for a lot of these behavior changes. While preteen boys can certainly be moody as well, I notice that girls often start noticing this irritability sooner. This is likely because girls tend to start puberty a little bit earlier than boys, typically around age 11. Preteen girls are grappling with big changes physically, emotionally, and socially during this time.

What Causes Tween Girl Attitude? (Hint: It’s Not All Your Fault)

On one hand, girls’ bodies are maturing and their brains are going through a major restructuring. Estrogen and progesterone, the hormones responsible for puberty in girls, can also cause mood swings. Meanwhile, the brain is going through its biggest growth spurt since toddlerhood…which might be why there are some similarities between toddler and teen meltdowns.

During the preteen and teen years, the brain is adding new neural connections and eliminating ones that it no longer needs. While other parts of the brain are “under construction,” preteens and teens might be relying more on their amygdala to make decisions. This part of the brain is associated with the fight-or-flight response, aggression, and impulsive reactions.

On the other hand, increasingly complicated friendships and more demanding homework make the middle school years the most stressful years of school for many kids. In fourth grade, most girls probably weren’t worried about being kicked out of their friend group or voted off the lunch table, but by sixth grade this can be a real worry.

When you think about all these changes occurring in a short period of time, it’s no wonder we see fairly sudden changes in how many preteen girls are feeling. You didn’t suddenly become mean or uncool. This is just par for the course with growing up.

It’s Not Just You! This Is Actually Pretty Normal.

Most, if not all, of the less-than-pleasant behaviors you’re likely to seen in your tween daughter are totally normal. As difficult as they are to live with, they are also a sign that your daughter is developmentally on track. Please don’t beat yourself up worrying that you might have done something to cause this! No matter what, most preteen and teen girls are going to struggle with intense emotions and attitude at some point.

Preteen girls are beginning the difficult process of separating from their parents, and figuring out who they are as individuals. It’s a necessary step in their path to adulthood, but it can also be a bumpy ride. Here are a few behaviors that are totally normal and expected for preteen girls:

• Eye rolling

• Sarcastic tone of voice

• Overly harsh responses to criticism or being told to do something

• Crossed arms or other defiant body language

• Criticizing or nitpicking you

• Heavy sighs or other nonverbal expressions of being annoyed

When Should I Step In to Help My Tween?

Although very annoying, the behaviors listed above are not likely to be harmful, and will usually go away on their own with a little patience and understanding. On the other hand, there are some behaviors to look out for that are not as typical for the tween years, and are a sign your child needs extra help. If you notice your child struggling with one or more of the behaviors on this list, bring it up to your pediatrician or a therapist:

• Breaking or damaging things when angry

• Getting into trouble for disrespect at school

• Withdrawing from friends or losing interest in activities

• Difficulty getting along with other children

• Thinking or talking about self-harm

• Any very sudden or dramatic changes in mood or personality

How Should I Discipline A Tween for Attitude Problems?

Preteen girls often tell me that they are just as bothered by their moodiness as their parents are. The sarcastic comments fly out of their mouths before they even fully realize what they’re saying. It feels out of their control, and it’s no fun for anybody.

Because most tween attitude issues aren’t dangerous or deliberately harmful, and they are a part of normal development, the best response might be to ignore the behavior. I realize this a tall order for parents! Often, children repeat behaviors that get a lot of attention from parents. By ignoring the attitude, you may help your preteen get over this stage faster, while also saving yourself an argument. Here are a few more tips to consider:

• Watch your own tone. Think about how you tend to talk when you’re angry or stressed. If you’re using sarcasm or yelling, it’s more likely your child will copy your behavior. You can model the behavior you want to see in your child by making sure to speak respectfully around the house.

• Use natural consequences. Is your tween child refusing to do her chores? This might mean you have to do them yourself later, and won’t be free to drive her to her friend’s house this afternoon. This type of discipline is often more effective than just taking away a privilege, because it helps kids connect cause and effect.

• Offer a chance for a “do-over.” Sometimes, preteens don’t even realize that they’re not using a great tone of voice. You can help your child develop more self-awareness and practice speaking calmly by letting them “rewind” a conversation and try saying something again, minus the attitude.

• Pick your battles. It’s exhausting being a parent, and it’s doubly exhausting trying to deal with hard behaviors. Conserve your own energy by focusing on the conflicts that really matter to you, and let the rest slide. It’s okay to ignore an occasional sassy comment without making it a teaching moment every time.

How to Get Along Better With Your Tween Daughter

There is some truth to the stereotype that teen (and preteen) girls tend to butt heads more often with their moms than anyone else. If you are a mom who has enjoyed a close relationship with your daughter up until this point, it must be so disheartening to suddenly feel like everything you do drives your kid up the wall. Even though it’s a normal phase and not your fault, there are things you can do to keep your relationship with your daughter strong while you weather these preteen years together.

• Build in more positive, one-on-one time. If your daughter seems to be snapping at you every time you open your mouth, you probably aren’t feeling so thrilled about being around her right now. In fact, you might find yourself avoiding her or bracing yourself for another fight whenever you’re in her presence. Over time, this can make parent-child relationships more strained when, deep down, your daughter still wants your time and attention. Finding activities you both enjoy doing together can make arguments less likely, and give your daughter the focused attention she is craving.

• Connect with what interests her. Lots of tween girls I know are superfans of a particular TV show, anime series, or book series. They’d love nothing more than to be able to gush over their interests with an adult who is willing to listen! When you take the time to learn about the subjects your tween is geeking out about, you are showing her that you take her interests and opinions seriously.

• Teach her about her brain and emotions. Preteens are able to think more abstractly than younger kids, which means they can understand how the changes in their brains and bodies might be affecting their moods. It can be a relief for a tween to know that there is a valid reason she’s feeling so moody and vulnerable. Talking about moodiness as a brain change can also help both parents and kids to take the behavior less personally the next time it happens. If you need help with this, check out my coping skills courses which provide lots of education about how our feelings work.

More Help for Preteen Girls

If you’ve got a preteen girl who is struggling with anxiety or other big feelings, check out my coping skills course, Worry Free Tweens. This is an online, educational class (not therapy) that includes videos for both you and your child to watch at your own pace. You’ll come out of it with a set of specific tools you can use right away to deal with worries, panic, and anxiety.

I write about preteens a lot on this blog, because they’re one of my favorite age groups to work with in therapy! You can check out some of my other blog posts here:

How Preteens Are Stressed About Covid-19 (And How You Can Help)
Internet Safety for Preteens and Teens
What Causes Anxiety in Tweens?

If you’re thinking about enrolling your preteen child in counseling, my virtual door is always open. At the moment, I can work with families in New York, North Carolina, and Florida through online therapy.

Anxiety About Returning to School After Covid? Here's How to Help.

Even kids who are usually eager to attend class may be feeling nervous this back-to-school season. The pandemic threw a wrench in many children’s daily routines, leaving them with tons of unstructured time and few opportunities to hang out with other kids. Combine that with the uncertainty in many school districts about what the new school year will look like, and you’ve got a recipe for school anxiety. Today, I’m sharing some advice about back-to-school anxiety, and how to help your child feel confident and prepared for an unusual school year.

My Child Loves School. Why Is This Year So Much Harder?

We are going to be seeing the after-effects of the coronavirus pandemic on children for a while. As daycares, schools, and extracurricular activities reopen for business, many kids find themselves feeling more anxious, rather than less. Back-to-school jitters are common for all kids, but there are a few good reasons why this year’s return to school may be especially challenging:

• Kids have been out of school much longer than a normal summer vacation, which makes returning harder

• It’s tough to transition back into the strict routines of school after lots of unstructured time at home

• Not having chances to socialize with other kids can increase social anxiety

• Some children are very worried about the coronavirus, and how they’ll stay safe at school

• New safety measures, like masks and social distancing, might trigger anxiety for kids

• Uncertainty about the school’s reopening plans can make anxiety worse

What Are The Signs and Symptoms of School Anxiety?

Chances are, if your child is nervous or reluctant to go back to school, you are hearing a lot about it already! However, sometimes it’s hard to distinguish between run-of-the-mill worries about the first day of school and stronger anxiety that might need some extra help to overcome. In addition, some kids are not as vocal about their anxiety, and their symptoms may be more body-based. Here are a few clues to look out for if you think your child might be struggling with school anxiety:

• Headaches, upset stomach, or complaints of other physical problems on school mornings

• Frequent trips to the school nurse during the school day, without a clear illness

• Repeated worries about bad things that could happen while at school, such as getting sick

• Tantrums, anger, or outright refusal to go to school

• Panic attacks, which may seem to come out of the blue

• Anxiety that seems to be more intense or long-lasting than what is usual for the child’s age

One or more of these symptoms might indicate that your child’s worries about school are stronger than they need to be, and they could use some help to move past them.

How Can I Help My Child Get Ready to Go Back to School After Coronavirus?

Right now is a great time to help your child combat anxiety and prepare to go back to school. There is no getting around it—this school year is likely to be a weird one, and it’s understandable that kids are feeling nervous! Even so, there are steps that parents can take to help kids soothe their worries and feel more ready to deal with the changes this year might bring.

If your child has been spending tons of time isolated at home, now is a great time to (safely) help them get used to being back in public. You don’t want your child’s first venture back out into the “real world” to be on the first day of school! If you are safely able to do so where you live, let your child accompany you on grocery store runs or other errands. Try some outdoor activities that allow for social distancing while still letting your child be around other people.

This can help your child re-build their tolerance for transitions between activities and get used to socializing again. It’s also a great opportunity to practice wearing masks and using good hygiene, which might be needed for in-person school.

School Hasn’t Started Yet. What Can I Do Now to Reduce My Child’s Coronavirus Anxiety?

The summer weeks leading up to the start of school are also a great time to prepare your child for what changes to expect when school reopens. Are they likely to be online, in-person, or a mix of the two? Will children be expected to wear masks? Will their desks be spaced further apart, or will children be attending school in smaller groups? Younger children can benefit from acting out these changes through play, while older kids can handle a simple conversation.

Even if you’ve done it before, this is also a great time to review facts about coronavirus with your child and check for any misinformation that is causing anxiety. Make sure your child knows how coronavirus is and isn’t spread, and emphasize what measures their school will be taking to keep students and teachers safe. Many children I work with are very fearful about catching coronavirus through food, or simply by being outside of the house. Accurate knowledge about how the germs spread can reduce anxiety.

School Has Started For My Child, And The Anxiety Hasn’t Gone Away. How Can I Help?

For some kids, anxiety about school might subside once they’re settled into their new routine. For others, anxiety symptoms may stick around and continue to cause problems. This year, parents may be put in the difficult position of having to make decisions about whether or not to allow their child to return to in-person classes. Parents might also find themselves worried about or not in agreement with school policies, but needing to send their child to school, anyway.

Whatever choice you make, it’s a good idea to avoid speaking negatively about the school’s decisions in front of your child. Kids will take your opinions to heart, and they’re looking to you to help form their own beliefs about school. You can help to set a tone in your household that is both optimistic and realistic. If you need to vent about the impossible situation you’re being put in as a parent, find a friend to talk to away from your child’s listening ears.

My Child Won’t Be With Friends This Year. How Can I Make It Easier?

Some children may struggle from being separated from their friends at school this year. Whether it’s due to social distancing in the classroom, attending school on alternate days, or friends changing schools or switching to homeschooling, this can have a big impact on a child’s attitude about school. Help your child find ways to keep in touch with friends, whether through group zoom chats, after-school activities, or an old fashioned phone call. Games or structured activities might make staying connected with friends feel easier and less awkward.

The usual, non-pandemic advice for how to help kids with school anxiety still applies, too. Practicing relaxation skills at home, encouraging consistent attendance, and reading books to children about school stress can help ease the transition back to the classroom. You can check out my earlier post on back-to-school anxiety for more detailed advice.

More Help for Returning to School After Covid

Unicef has a great mental health guide for helping kids re-adjust to school this year. I also really like healthychildren.org’s practical advice about how students can stay safe at school, as well as how to address bullying and other issues that might be more intense as this school year begins.

My favorite tools for helping children practice relaxation skills are Headspace and Insight Timer for guided visualizations, and the app What’s Up? to help kids struggling with panic attacks feel more grounded.

If you’re looking for counseling for your child with school anxiety, my virtual door is open, and I’d love to hear from you. I can see clients in New York, North Carolina, and Florida for online therapy.

How to Talk to White Children About Racism and Protests (and Why You Should)

In the week since my last blog post, round-the-clock media coverage of the coronavirus pandemic has given way to round-the-clock coverage of nationwide protests following the death of George Floyd due to police brutality. The footage of the protests can be scary: just a few nights ago, protesters in Charlotte, North Carolina (where I live) had a frightening conflict with police. I can’t imagine how overwhelming it must be for parents and families to be thrust directly from one crisis into another: how can we possibly begin to explain this to children who have been through so much already?

I have been looking for resources to help my White families discuss the protests and racism with their children, and have been coming up short. There are plenty of articles on how to have “the talk” with Black children to help them understand how to stay safe around police as they grow up, but not as many on how to help White kids become better allies. If you’re living in a mostly White community, like I am, it’s easy to avoid having uncomfortable discussions like this because we don’t see or feel the impacts of racism on a daily basis.

Even if you’re living in an area where there aren’t protesters nearby, I think it will benefit your child’s mental health to make them aware, in an age-appropriate way, of what is going on in our country. Let’s talk about how to talk about race.

Why Is It Important to Talk to White Children About Race?

I grew up a in a White family, living in a mostly White neighborhood, attending a mostly White school. It was a friendly community where nobody made overtly racist comments, and the school system encouraged tolerance and kindness. Each February, for Black History Month, we read books about Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rosa Parks and talked about how we used to discriminate against Black people in our country.

Since we only ever talked about racism as something that happened during slavery or in the protests of the 1960s, I assumed racism was a thing of the past. Looking around my classroom of kids who all looked like me, there was nobody to help me think otherwise. If I had never left my small town, would I have learned this wasn’t true?

We all want our children to grow up to be empathetic, moral, and accepting of others. In order to achieve this goal, White kids need to understand the real struggles that others go through on a daily basis. While it’s important for children to learn that everyone is equal, it’s just as important for them to learn that some people aren’t treated equally by our society. It can feel really uncomfortable to talk about racism as a here-and-now event. However, if kids grow up believing that racism is a solved problem, they may have a hard time believing their Black friends when they encounter discrimination.

At What Age Can We Start Talking About Race?

Children are able to notice differences in skin tone and hair color at an early age: one study found that babies as young as 3 months old already show a preference for looking at faces of their own race. Toddlers are often quick to point out differences in people around them (whether it’s polite to do so or not) and this is a great time to help give them the vocabulary to talk about race in a respectful way.

By openly talking about race with children as they grow, we’re showing them that it’s okay to do it. Race is an uncomfortable subject for many adults, and children pick up on this and avoid bringing up the topic as they get older. For kids who are too young to have a conversation about race, you can teach your child through your own actions. Here are a few suggestions for how to introduce the subject of race to young kids:

• Do your best to let your child see you interacting with people who don’t look like your family

• Give your child dolls and toys that represent other races, and use playtime to discuss differences in people’s skin, hair, and language

• Read picture books together that have non-White main characters

What Should I Say to Kids About the Protests?

Just like we have tried to shield children from alarmist coverage about the coronavirus pandemic, it’s also a good idea to protect young kids from media about the George Floyd protests that is not appropriate for them. Repeatedly seeing violence on TV can be scary, anxiety-provoking, and even traumatic for both children and adults. Kids do not need to see the George Floyd video or other violent acts firsthand in order to understand the injustice that caused them to happen.

Elementary school-aged kids are usually very interested in rules, right and wrong, and the idea of things being fair or unfair. This can be a great way to frame conversations about racism that uses language children already understand. You can ask your child to think of a time when they were treated unfairly, and discuss what they did to make things right. Author Jennifer Harvey told NPR she is using this technique to help her White children understand why the protests are happening now:

I [talked with my children about] how they might respond when they have been harmed or an injustice or an unfairness has happened to them and they aren't heard. Because we've been having these conversations, my kids understand that peaceful protest has not yielded justice for black and brown people in this country.

We're wrestling with it as a family and acknowledging that it's really unsettling, but also appreciating that people are really hurt and really angry. 

Kids know how it feels to be really angry, and helping them to understand the protests as an expression of pain and anger can help them connect with what is happening in an age-appropriate way.

Should I Wait for My Child to Bring up the Subject?

Talking about race feels so taboo for many children that they may not bring up this subject on their own. By initiating a conversation about racism and the protests with your child, you’re communicating that it’s an okay, safe thing to talk about. This might make it more likely that they bring up the subject on their own next time.

You can always let your child lead the discussion after you bring up the topic, and use their questions as a gauge for how deep the talk needs to go. It might be helpful to ask your child what they have already heard about the protests: given the constant media coverage, it’s possible your child has already heard a lot about what is going on. Learning what your child has already heard in their own words can also help you to correct any rumors or misinformation, and to identify worries your child might be having about the protests and other current events.

Resources for Talking About Racism and Protests with Kids

If you’re ready to start having this conversation but you’re looking for a guide, here are a few resources that I have found and liked:

Beyond the Golden Rule is a free downloadable ebook from Teaching Tolerance that has tips, child development information, and interviews with experts to help parents talk about prejudice with kids from preschool through the teen years.

Parents also has an age-by-age guide for talking to kids about race that is a shorter read and has concrete action items for kids up to age 8. This one might be especially helpful if you’ve ever heard your child say something judgmental or unkind about someone else’s race or appearance.

I found this article about how to discuss the current protests with White children very helpful. The author interviewed for the article also has a book, Raising White Kids, to help parents talk about race and teach anti-racism to their children.

If you can’t make it to a bookstore right away, you can find read-alouds of many children’s books that discuss race and diversity on YouTube. Check out Sankofa Read Aloud’s channel for a few options, including this reading of The Day You Begin.

If you are more of a podcast person, check out the 20-minute podcast “Talking Race with Young Children” to get advice from experts on how to have helpful conversations that are age-appropriate for little kids.

How Preteens Are Stressed About Covid-19 (And How You Can Help)

Preteens are often left out of discussions about mental health. Not quite little kids and not quite teenagers, it can be harder to find resources that are meant just for them. I was interviewed recently for an article on Healthline about how kids of different ages are dealing with coronavirus stress, and it inspired me to dig a little deeper into how tweens, in particular, are being impacted by the pandemic. I’ll be sharing some of the worries I’ve noticed are on preteens kids’ minds, and how parents can support their tweenage kids through this time.

What’s Considered “Preteen”?

For the purposes of this post, I’ll be considering ages 10-12 as preteen kids. Typically, kids in this age group are getting ready for or just starting middle school. Many children this age—especially girls—are dealing with the physical and emotional changes of the beginning of puberty. Lots of preteen kids are still playful and imaginative, but they’re also developing more of an interest and awareness of teen culture. It’s an interesting in-between time in a kid’s life, and it’s one of my favorite ages to work with in therapy.

Preteens Worry About Family Due to Covid-19

Preadolescent kids have more strongly developed empathy than kids in the younger age ranges. Whereas younger kids may be most worried about their personal safety during the pandemic, preteens have more awareness of how the coronavirus might also impact people around them. Since preteens have more access to the internet and media, they’re more likely to know basic facts about the pandemic, and understand that kids are not usually seriously affected by the virus. However, they’ve also heard that older people are more susceptible, which can lead to worries.

Many of the preteens I work with are voicing concerns about the well-being of their adult family members, both physically and financially. Lots of kids in this age group are aware of the impact the pandemic is having on employment and businesses, but they usually don’t have an in-depth understanding of their family’s own financial situation, which can lead to worries. Here are a few common worries I’m hearing from preteens about family:

• Worries that grandparents, great-grandparents, or other elderly family members or friends may contract the coronavirus and get seriously ill.

• Worries about their parents’ health if the family is affected by COVID-19, particularly if parents have pre-existing medical conditions.

• Worries about whether their parents can afford to be out of work, fears about having enough money to support the family, and concerns about how these financial changes could impact daily life.

How to Help Preteens With Family Worries

While children don’t need to know all the details of a family’s finances, it can be really helpful for preteens to hear reassurance from parents right now about how the family is planning to deal with financial setbacks. It’s often enough for kids to learn that there are no worries about continuing to put food on the table, or to hear about the family’s plans to get financial assistance to help support the family business.

On a similar note, discussing how the family is planning to care for older family members, and the steps that family members are proactively taking to stay safe, can alleviate some anxiety for preteens about the family’s health. Encouraging preteens to FaceTime or text family members who are living alone or have health concerns can empower them to feel involved in helping their relatives, and keep family connections going while social distancing.

Preteens Are Susceptible to Coronavirus Rumors

Many preteen kids have similar access to the internet and smartphones as their teenage siblings, but their critical thinking skills aren’t as developed as an older teen’s. Since the coronavirus is still dominating the news cycle, kids on the internet are likely getting all sorts of information about it when they go online, and this information may or may not be reputable. Even if your tween child doesn’t have this kind of access, her friends likely do, which allows rumors to quickly spread and become exaggerated as they pass through a social group.

Getting age-appropriate information about the coronavirus tends to reduce anxiety, but on the flip side, reading sensationalized news stories or information from questionable sources can make preteens’ anxiety worse. Many preteens view influencers on social media and YouTube as being trustworthy and relatable. They may not be as skeptical about information that’s presented as fact from what they perceive to be a trusted source.

How to Help Your Preteen Sort Out Coronavirus Facts From Fiction

Here are 3 common misconceptions I’m hearing from many preteen clients, and how you can help your child to make sense of all the information they may be getting from friends, the internet, and social media:

Where the virus came from: Conspiracy theories abound about the “real” source of the cornavirus, which can lead to increased confusion, anger, and fear for tweens. You can help your preteen by presenting the facts that we know for certain, as well as acknowledging that there are things we still don’t know for sure. It might be helpful to point out that when we don’t know something, people are tempted to fill in the blanks with information that might not be true.

Newly discovered symptoms of COVID-19: Doctors are making new discoveries all the time about how the coronavirus impacts people. However, there is also a lot of misinformation online about what problems can be symptoms of coronavirus. Tween kids need help making sense of what they’re reading, and understanding that many of these complications are very rare.

Racist content online: Sadly, some kids are telling me that they are reading or hearing things from others that express racism towards Chinese people for “giving” us the coronavirus. This can be really confusing for preteens who aren’t sure what they’re supposed to believe. You can help your child by making clear in no uncertain terms that we can’t blame any ethnic group for this illness.

More Support for Preteens Dealing with Coronavirus Stress

Many preteens are going to be able to muddle through this pandemic with some extra support and patience from the adults around them. However, if you’re noticing that your preteen’s anxiety seems to be getting worse over time, is much more intense than other kids his age, or is getting in the way of daily life, it could be a sign your child needs extra help to cope with this stress.

After seeing so many preteens struggling, I created a class called Worry-Free Tweens to help kids learn coping skills for anxiety and stress management. It’s a self-paced course that’s available wherever you are.

Online therapy can be a great option for preteens, who are usually tech-savvy enough to manage sessions without a lot of help from parents. Sometimes, just having an adult to vent feelings to who isn’t a parent can help preteens unload some of their stress. A licensed counselor can also arm your child with coping skills to help them deal with intense feelings and get through stressful times more effectively.

If you’re in North Carolina or New York, I’m able to provide telehealth to kids in these states. You can reach out to me here. If you are located elsewhere, check out Psychology Today for options near you.

How to Help a Child Cope with Anxiety

4 ways to take care of your child (and yourself) when stress is high

If you are the parent of an anxious child, you know how draining anxiety can be. Worries, rituals, and meltdowns can consume tons of time and energy, not just for your child but for the whole family. When a child’s anxiety is too strong to manage, the effects can ripple outward to impact siblings and parents. This is even more true during quarantine, when everyone is cooped up together and it’s harder to take time away to blow off steam. Even in unusually stressful times, kids can learn to feel more in control of their worries, and there is a lot you can do to help as a parent. Here are 4 ways to help your child learn to cope better with anxiety.

Help Your Child Understand That Anxiety Isn’t Bad

I often ask kids who are coming to my office for anxiety a trick question: is anxiety a good thing, or a bad thing? Many children assume that the goal of therapy is to totally eliminate their anxious feelings. As a parent, you can help your child understand that anxiety is an important feeling because it helps them know when something is not safe. Can you imagine what would happen if we didn’t feel at least a little anxious before crossing a busy intersection? Have you ever had a bad “gut feeling” about a person or situation that turned out to be right? Those are times when anxiety is good to have, even if it feels uncomfortable.

Because anxiety doesn’t feel good in the body, children often get anxious about being anxious: they notice their anxiety response starting to kick in, and worry that it means something is really wrong with them. In reality, their body is doing just what it is supposed to do by alerting them to danger…it just might be doing this at unhelpful times. Kids with anxiety have too much of a good thing: their “danger alarm” is going off more often than it really needs to. You can help your child understand that anxiety isn’t dangerous, it can’t hurt them, and that while you can’t eliminate anxiety (and you wouldn’t want to!) there are lots of ways to cope with the feelings to make them easier to deal with.

Practice Relaxation Every Day, Not Just When Your Child is Anxious

Helping anxious kids find ways to relax is usually one of the first goals in therapy. Many coping skills have been developed to help kids (and adults) unwind, but activities like exercise, art, and meditation can be just as helpful. In my opinion, it doesn’t really matter what coping skill you choose to use—what matters is how often you use it.

Practicing a relaxation technique is kind of like going to the gym. If you do it once, you might notice you feel a little better when you’re done. However, the boost probably won’t last very long. If you want to create lasting, positive changes, you’re going to have to do it regularly over a longer stretch of time. Deep relaxation techniques change the way our nervous system operates, helping us move out of the “fight-or-flight” mode that triggers anxiety and into the “rest-and-digest” mode that promotes calm. If a child is practicing a relaxation skill frequently, she may spend more time in this restful state and be able to access it more easily the next time she’s stressed, leading to less anxiety in the long run.

Practicing how to self-soothe daily has another benefit, as well: it helps kids master the technique before they really need it. You don’t want your child to be trying to figure out how to take deep belly breaths for the first time in the middle of a panic attack. Think of daily relaxation practice as being like a fire drill, helping your child master the coping skill while she’s calm, before she really needs it.

Focus on Your Child’s Strengths, Rather Than Worries

When a child is really anxious about something, it can be tempting to talk about it with them in detail in order to reassure them that their fears aren’t realistic. If your child is losing sleep at night due to fears of monsters in their room, for example, you may feel the urge to help them investigate in every closet and under all the furniture to prove that the room is 100% monster-free. While helping kids to spot unrealistic thoughts can be helpful, spending a lot of time talking about a fear in the moment can backfire and lead to more anxiety.

When we have a long conversation with a child about their worry, we might accidentally send them the message that it’s something worth being worried about. After all, if we’re spending all this time talking about it, it must be a possibility! Your child might wonder why you’d look under the bed in the first place if there wasn’t a chance the monster might be lurking under there. Long discussions can also encourage anxious children to ruminate, thinking about their worries again and again without coming to a resolution. This can make their anxiety increase, rather than decrease.

Instead of talking about the worry itself, focus on the positive strengths your child has that will help them deal with it. You might consider saying something like “I know you’re brave and you can do this,” “This is hard, but you’ve handled it before, and you can do it again,” or “You are so good at taking deep belly breaths!” This can help shift a child’s focus away from the problem, and toward a solution. It also sends the message that you understand how worried your child must feel, but you aren’t taking the worry itself seriously. You can be empathetic without reinforcing the fear itself.

Put the Oxygen Mask On Yourself First

You have probably heard this common advice from flight attendants applied to life outside of the airplane: put the oxygen mask on yourself first, before helping your child. It’s cliche, but it’s true! Helping a child to cope with anxiety is hard work, and it’s difficult to do if you’re feeling run-down or anxious yourself. Parents have to provide so much emotional labor for their kids every day, and they may find they’re giving and giving without getting much support back in return.

Kids are extremely attuned to how their parents are feeling. They look to the adults in their lives to determine how they should respond in a situation. During times of stress, your child is probably watching you closely, and paying attention to your facial expression and voice tones for clues to how you’re feeling. If a child senses that you’re feeling stressed, odds are good he’ll start to feel stressed out, too. This can lead to more anxiety or acting-out behaviors like tantrums and meltdowns. On the flip side, when a child sees that you’re managing your own stress, it sends the message that they can feel safe and relaxed, too.

When things are particularly stressful, a parent’s self-care might be the first activity to get crossed off the to-do list. If your child is struggling with anxiety, I’d encourage you to make your own self-care a priority. Figure out what helps you to cope emotionally, whether it’s taking an hour to exercise, going on a drive alone and listening to music, or calling a friend. Your kids will feel the effects of your improved mood, and you may find their anxiety decreases as your stress levels go down. When you practice self-care, you send the message to your children that coping with anxiety is a normal part of life. When your children see you managing your own stress, they learn that they can do it, too.

If your child’s anxiety is getting hard to handle at home, counseling can help make it more manageable, even during quarantine. You can read more about online counseling for kids here, or reach out to me to set up an appointment.