The end of the school year is upon us!  As we start our summers during the age of COVID-19, we will continue to have to be flexible and manage our expectations.  Trips have been canceled.  Summer camps will look different; if they happen at all.  And the worry of what school will look like in the fall looms large for many.  Radical acceptance is a difficult concept for many adults to adhere to, so what about our kids?
 
In my lifetime, there has not been a global situation that has affected our children as much as this pandemic is, and the effects will be ongoing, long after there is a vaccine and our worlds look closer to how they were in 2019.  These times can be confusing, frustrating, and scary for many.  Our children’s mental health will be affected if it hasn’t been already, and while mental health professionals are equipped to deal with these experiences that our children are living through, parents are on the front lines.  Parents are the first line of defense.  This may seem really scary as a parent (I have the privilege of being a parent to two wonderful boys and feel unsure all the time).
 
How can we as parents help our children weather this storm?

The holiday season is upon us.  A time for family and friends, too much food and presents.  Many parents I know worry about how much is too much when it comes to presents and gift giving.  Parents buy many many toys that are sometimes tossed to the side and not used in the ways that you hoped.  This can bring up feelings of frustration and resentment and may make you wonder what your child is grateful for, if anything.  If you ask your child what they are grateful for, many times you will hear that they are grateful for their tablets or phones, toys, maybe their house or if you’re lucky they might say you or their family.  While these are definitely things to be grateful for, the ideas of gratefulness or gratitude are much bigger than the things we possess.  How can we teach our children about the power of gratitude?

By Sybil Cummin, MA, LPC

If you’re like me, you have always thought you’d be cool as a cucumber as a parent.  I will connect with my child and they will tell me everything.  We will be so close.  I will not do all of those annoying things that my parents did.  And then your sweet little child gets in your car after a day at school and you ask, “How was your day?”  The response, “Fine.”  So then you casually ask, “Well, did you learn anything new today?”  “No.”  By now your anxiety is moving up through your body.  “Did anything interesting happen at school today?”  “Not really.”

THAT’S IT!  I haven’t been with you for the past 8 hours (sometimes even longer) and that’s all I get?  Four words!!!  For many families, this change from sharing every little piece of information about their day to one and two word answers starts in the tween years (10-13 years old).  Well, for me, this conversation, if you can really call it that, happened when my child was three years old and I was picking him up from preschool.  

By Sybil Cummin, MA, LPC
​Adolescents

​Beginning middle school can be a very daunting experience.  I do not know many people that would say, “middle school was the best years of my life.”  The transition from one consistent teacher and a consistent group of kids in your class to a new teacher and new classmates is difficult enough.  Add in having a locker, twice as much homework, and usually waking up earlier, and it seems like it can’t get any worse.  But the most scary aspect of middle school for the majority of the kids I work with (and I would bet for a huge chunk of the tween population) is navigating the social scene in grades sixth through eighth.