Child Behaviour Problem? Gary Direnfeld, MSW, RSW Maybe it’s to do with toilet training, maybe concentration at school or perhaps it’s concern for drugs and alcohol. It may have to do with not listening, breaking curfew, escalating conflicts or perhaps about sex. Whatever it is, at some point you may seek help for a child related concern and the first door opened can be that of the family doctor. Your physician can bring perspective to your concern. In so doing, this alone may resolve the issue. If not, then your physician may refer you or your child for counseling. It is important to note that there are many issues that can give rise to behaviour problems. Some of those issues include: a learning disability; attention deficit disorder, distraction by problems at home and with parents (domestic violence, child abuse, parental alcoholism/drug abuse, financial struggles); prior academic absences due to recurring illnesses creating gaps in learning; prior concussions; inadvertently permissive parents …

Retrieval Practice: The Most Powerful Learning Strategy You’re Not Using by JENNIFER GONZALEZ WHAT IS RETRIEVAL PRACTICE? Retrieval practice is the act of trying to recall information without having it in front of you. Suppose you’re studying the systems of the human body—skeletal, muscular, circulatory, and so on. You could do retrieval practice by attempting to name those systems without looking at the list. Once you’ve listed all you can remember, you’d open up your book or notes and check to see if you got them right. You might be thinking, This is nothing new. The whole concept of flashcards is built on retrieval practice, and flashcards have been around forever, right? What’s new is the research: In recent years, cognitive psychologists have been comparing retrieval practice with other methods of studying—strategies like review lectures, study guides, and re-reading texts. And what they’re finding is that nothing cements long-term learning as powerfully as retrieval practice. THE RESEARCH Agarwal and her colleagues studied the …

10 important habits of emotionally healthy families by Natasha Sharma Ah, family. The very word is likely to conjure up mixed emotions in most of us: peace yet resentment, happiness yet anger, jealousy yet joy, anxiety yet safety. Family members have a way of getting under our skin while simultaneously being some of our favorite people in the world. So how do you navigate the tricky business of promoting the long-term health and wellbeing of your family? It requires ongoing effort, reflection, adjustment and flexibility. Here are 10 vital habits practiced by families that function well and are mostly happy: 1. Set clear boundaries. There are few things more important in life than deciding how you want to be treated by others—what kind of behavior you will and will not accept. Healthy families have very clearboundaries on how family members treat other members. Even children should be allowed to set boundaries between themselves and siblings/parents. Although they may not be able to assert many when …

Working Parents And Child Development Gary Direnfeld, MSW, RSW It is a common challenge that parents face: they must work while at the same time strive to meet the needs of their growing children. Caught between a rock and a hard place and needing to pay the bills, working parents often worry if their children are suffering from their lack of availability. In truth, there are some children who are suffering. Some children who do not have adequate time with their parents are at risk of living a life feeling adrift, not connected in a positive relationship in a manner that lends itself to productive behaviour. These children are at risk of unproductive behaviour that could eventually be counter to their well being and development leading, at worst, to self-destructive behaviours including social withdrawal, early onset sexual behaviour, drug and alcohol use, truancy and delinquency. It is important to know that children derive their sense of self-esteem by the quality …

This Is What ‘Self-Care’ REALLY Means, Because It’s Not All Salt Baths And Chocolate Cake By Brianna Wiest Self-care is often a very unbeautiful thing. It is making a spreadsheet of your debt and enforcing a morning routine and cooking yourself healthy meals and no longer just running from your problems and calling the distraction a solution. It is often doing the ugliest thing that you have to do, like sweat through another workout or tell a toxic friend you don’t want to see them anymore or get a second job so you can have a savings account or figure out a way to accept yourself so that you’re not constantly exhausted from trying to be everything, all the time and then needing to take deliberate, mandated breaks from living to do basic things like drop some oil into a bath and read Marie Claire and turn your phone off for the day. A world in which self-care has to be such a trendy topic is a world that is …

Deciding At What Age To Give A Kid A Smartphone Deciding At What Age To Give A Kid A Smartphone By Claire McInerny It’s the time of year when kids are thinking about their holiday wish lists. So what’s a parent to do when a child, possibly a very young child, asks for a smartphone? We hear that smartphones can be addictive, that screen time can hurt learning, but can’t these minicomputers also teach kids about responsibility and put educational apps at their tiny fingertips? To learn more, let’s look at two families: one where smartphones are allowed for elementary to middle school-aged kids, and one where they are not. Sydney Crowe is in sixth grade and has a smartphone. While she admits she mostly uses it for “playing games and watching television,” her mom, Patty, says that’s not why Sydney got the phone. Patty’s main concern was safety. When Syndey was in fourth grade, the bus missed her stop enough times …

Will ADHD Medication Change My Child’s Brain? What we know about the long-term effects of stimulants taken for ADHD By Caroline Miller If you have a child who’s been diagnosed with ADHD, you may be facing a decision whether to try medication. Stimulant medications have been shown repeatedly to be the most effective treatment for the symptoms of ADHD, helping kids pay attention, concentrate, manage their impulses, and avoid risky behaviors. About 80 percent of kids who try stimulant medications for ADHD find that they have a positive effect on symptoms. To put that in perspective, there is no other medication for a psychiatric condition that has such a high response rate. But you may have concerns about medication that affects the way your child’s brain works. And if the medication is taken for a period of years, does it have any long-term effect on the brain? How stimulants work When a child is taking stimulant medication for ADHD, the medication …

Communication. As Simple as “I” Statements? By Lisa Thomson We have all heard about using “I” statements and sticking to the topic at hand. These are definitely useful in learning to communicate, especially with your partner or in a conflict situation. But let’s take it a step further and put some tools into action that can make a more significant impact. Actively Listen. Openness and presence begets openness and presence. Get out of your own head. Stop thinking about what you will say next. Listen with the intention of understanding. We don’t typically resolve disagreements by taking a defensive stance and continuously re-stating our own rationale. It is human nature to want to feel heard, seen and understood. When you take the time to truly hear your partner, you will likely notice in them a new openness to hearing and understanding you too. Be interchangeable with what you are hearing the other person say. Being interchangeable means paraphrasing what the …

The Power of Self-Compassion The Power of Self-Compassion By Nicole Caines, R. Psych Many of us are far better at offering kindness and compassion to others than ourselves. We judge ourselves harshly and beat ourselves up, perhaps with the misguided idea that this will somehow motivate us to do better or be better. And then we judge ourselves even more harshly when our plan doesn’t work! However, you can learn to interrupt this pattern through the practice of self-compassion. Rather than judging and criticizing yourself, you can learn to respond to personal failures and shortcomings with kindness, acceptance, and an understanding that none of us get things perfect all the time. And for those who are thinking “but if I let myself off the hook for my failures, I will never improve myself and I will lose my ambition”, rest assured. Rather than encouraging self-pity, self-compassion is a powerful motivating force. Think of it as putting all that energy you would have used …

Myth Busters: Therapy in the Media Pop culture and media have historically portrayed counselling or psychotherapy in inaccurate ways. Therapists in movies and on TV are often portrayed as overly neurotic, judgmental, incompetent, and even aggressive. These quirky caricatures of bad therapists make for entertaining programming (after all, the medias job is entertainment, not education) but they are hardly encouraging to someone who might be considering seeing a therapist. Research has shown that media portrayals of therapists do, in fact, impact the public’s attitudes about seeking therapy. Inaccurate portrayals might lead the public to believe that unethical and even abusive practices are normal. If the majority of your knowledge of therapy comes from the big and small screen, you might benefit from some help separating fact from fiction. So, what does the media tell us about therapy and how are we to know what is fact and what is fiction? Here are 3 myths about therapy that we learn from …