Encouraging Presence Over Presents: Helping Kids Stay Grounded
The holidays are filled with many emotionally altering events. Kids are even more reactive to all of the changes and often lose the ability to manage emotions. We want our kids to be mindful (and grateful) for the gifts they receive, act in socially appropriate ways (saying thank you for gifts received), all while playing nicely with the cousins! That’s a big ask for kids but here are some things we can do to help them feel grounded and manage emotions more effectively:
Review the events of the day each morning. Talk about what’s on the agenda and limit the events to 3. Write events on a visual space so kids can see what’s happening throughout the day. Include time and location. This helps kids see what’s coming and helps them feel safe with an unusual schedule.
Reflect on the events each evening. At the end of the day, discuss what they enjoyed most, what didn’t go well and things they could have done differently. This isn’t a time for consequences or shame. It’s a time to look back, be grateful and also discuss ways to improve things in the future.
Talk about feelings throughout the day. Model emotions by talking about how you feel. Let kids know you’re excited to see family members, worried about traffic and hopeful you’ll have a favorite dessert. Acknowledge feelings in your kids, too. You can say, you seemed sad when you didn’t get to play the game or you seemed super exited when you got that gift! Feeling cards are great to take along on your travels to help kids identify and manage the feelings they experience.
Last, but not least, take a few minutes each morning to help yourself stay grounded this holiday season. A few deep breaths, a short meditation, a few minutes to journal or sit quietly in front of the Christmas tree before going to bed. It’ll all be over before we know it and we will have survived it once again. Let’s take a few moments to enjoy it, too. Ultimately, the more grounded we are this time of year, the more grounded our kids will be.
Happy Holidays to you all!
Allison
How to Reset the Brain During the Holiday Season
The holidays are a mixed bag for most families. There’s the hype of get togethers, special events and gifts. Then, there’s the stress of the same things. As emotions go, when there is intensity, it goes both ways: up and down. Happy and sad. Excited and angry. There is also the end of the year approaching and a time for reflection. What went well? What didn’t? What can I do better next year? What can I let go of?
During this time of mental flux, it’s important to know how to reset the brain. As I have talked about over the years, blood is always moving from our top and bottom brain throughout the day. The top brain is rational and stable. The bottom brain is irrational and primal. When the bottom brain gets triggered (and ultimately it will over the holidays) it’s important to know what to do.
The bottom brain gives a biological response, not psychological, so we must address it with the body, not the mind. The way to reset the brain is to change the five senses: sight, sound, touch, taste and smell. Sight is the most powerful sense so if you find yourself getting triggered, move away from the trigger visually. Then, listen to a favorite song, have a cup of tea or smell an essential oil. This will wake your brain up and send blood to the top of the brain. This works for kids, too! If you find your child flooded, walk outside with them and let nature change their senses. If you need to stay inside, there’s nothing better than a warm bath to change the senses.
As a former educator, I know the struggles children face when they need to reset during the school day. I have a tool Brain Reset, that you can download for free to help a child reset their brain at school. There is also a reset pouch you can make at home and send it to school, a sleepover, camp, or any other time your child is away from you. This process is simple, but hard to remember in the midst of a stressful event. One thing I have found useful over the years, is to write RESET on a notecard and hang it in a high traffic place so I will see it often. It reminds me to control what I can, my reaction to things.
As we move into Thanksgiving week, I am so grateful for all of you and the work you do with kids in schools, the community and with your own kids at home. Your efforts to provide emotional support while also empowering kids will pave the way to the future. To show my gratitude, I am offering 50% off of all feeling cards - code FEELS50. Peace to you this holiday season.
With gratitude,
Allison
Cognitive Strategies, Neuroplasticity and Intention: A Self-Study
Sometime in the fall of 1996, I was sitting in my car outside a gym in rural Missouri. I was in my second year of undergrad and I had no idea what I wanted to do for a career. I had spent the majority of my time focusing on basketball, my first love, and how I was able to afford my college tuition. Just before I turned the engine off I heard a woman on the radio discussing a book she had written about how kids learn. I was fascinated by the way she described kids and how their emotions shape their learning and essentially their lives.
I never went into the gym that day. Instead, I listened to the interview and after, said aloud, alone, there in the parking lot, “I am going to work with kids and be an author and speaker someday.” It was a pivotal moment in my life and the next fall I choose Education as a major and went on to study Counseling in grad school. I have had very few moments in my life when I knew I was meant to do something but in that moment, I knew.
As I dove into psychology in grad school, I was fascinated by cognitive strategies and essentially, the ability to choose what I thought about. I had always been anxious and, for as long as I could remember, believed I had no control of my thoughts. My mind was filled with what could go wrong, how I could keep things from going wrong and why I needed to perform. I didn’t think there was a way out of them.
So, I tried cognitive strategies myself. I spent my days repeating positive thoughts in my mind: I am safe. Life is working as it is supposed to. I am okay. I am enough.
And, it worked. I felt a relief from anxiety and slowly, I felt calmer. Then, I began studying neuroplasticity and learned that our brains are constantly changing and evolving and I began to wonder, “can I change my anxious brain?”
I have been doing cognitive strategies since 1998. I have spent time meditating and have created intentions for myself, for my life, and this is what I have found: My brain has changed. I have more control of my thoughts and am able to calm myself in ways that were impossible when I was young. I will also say that my mind is still incredibly active. I have not become a relaxed person, by no means. But I have found the ability to choose my thoughts to be the single most important factor in managing my anxiety and enabling me to do the things I have wanted to do.
One thing I keep coming back to is this: feelings cannot be changed but thoughts can. And if you can change thoughts, you can change your brain. I find this reality to be one of hope for myself and for the many kids I have worked with over the years. During this time of uneasiness in the world, I encourage you to find one or two, maybe three positive thoughts to say to yourself, over and over, throughout your day. See if they work. Look for the calm. And control what you can control. Love to you all.
New Book and What it Means to Grow Up Strong
Build resilience in kids.
In the spring of 2023, a school shooting took place at Covenant School in Nashville—just two miles from my office. Having my own two kids in schools nearby and counseling children who were either at the school during the shooting or knew kids who attended the school, I found there weren’t enough emotional muscles to prepared for such an event.
Following the shooting, I met with kids who devised plans to avoid being shot, such as climbing in the ceiling tiles or not allowing themselves to drink water during the school day to avoid going to the bathroom. One child said, “Since I play sports after school, I’ll allow myself to start drinking water at 1:30 so I won’t have to use the bathroom at school.
Another child shared, “Going to the bathroom is when you’ll get shot.”
Another student, just weeks after the shooting had a panic attack during a fire drill. “I thought, ‘This is it,’” she said, recalling the event.
What’s even more alarming are the kids I spoke to who were relatively unfazed by the incident. One teen said, “I’ve grown up in the Newtown era.” She went on, “If twenty six-year-olds can be killed in five minutes at a school, it’s always a possibility for me.”
Another child said, “Every time I hear a loud noise, I jump. Another student’s water bottle fell off the top of their desk and I nearly jumped out of my seat. The thing is, other kids jumped too. Even the teacher. We’re all afraid. So now we have a new rule that no metal water bottles are allowed in class.” I shared how sad I was to hear this, and she replied, “That’s just our reality.”
When I think back to my own childhood and the anxiety I felt, I can’t imagine adding school violence to my plate. I can’t imagine sitting in a classroom terrified of a fire drill or the sound of a water bottle falling off a desk, but this is what today’s kids feel they have to do. One art teacher I met shared that her colleagues had quietly devised a plan to go behind a hidden door in the school if a school shooter came in. During a school shooter drill, her colleagues thought it was real and took off to the hidden door. It took an hour to find them. “I guess they were just going to leave me,” the art teacher said. “Guess I know where I stand with them.”
I finished this book in Portugal, where I spent six weeks with my family. After the school shooting, I needed a professional sabbatical to step away from my practice and take a breath. The grief I have
felt for children and the violence placed on them is palpable. My kids were in a summer program and on a bulletin board, were words written in bold:
CHILDREN’S RIGHTS
I have the right to have a house.
I have the right to be protected.
I have the right to play.
I have the right to be taken care of.
I have the right to have someone listen to me.
I have the right to feel loved.
Wishing all of you love as you parent, educate, and counsel the future of this world. In this book, I hope you learn not only how to build emotional muscles in children, but also to value them, respect them, and know they are the lights, leading us on to better things.
As you journey, help the kids, and help yourself. We can never outgrow emotional regulation. My hope is that readers of this book will join me in changing the paradigms of how we address mental health in children. We will help children identify feelings beneath behaviors and learn how to manage them. We will watch children build emotional muscles and begin facing challenges on their own. And finally, we will gain relief in knowing we have prepared kids well for the road ahead.
You can order your copy of Growing Up Strong here. For every copy, you will receive 50% off a set of feeling cards with code STRONG50.
Let’s Grow Strong Kids Together,
Allison