In times of stress, when we feel confused – in our selves and in our parenting – how shall we respond? Every family will have its moment of crisis; no one is immune. Some guidance may be to talk to a trusted counselor or therapist. These suggestions can also offer us a posture to take when we start to feel the weight of everything coming down on us…

1) let your thoughts and concerns be known to someone and even a higher power [deep breath in – cry out, deep breath out – release tears and tension]

2) throw your worries onto something greater than yourself and feel the weight of it all gradually be taken from you [deep breath in – off, deep breath out – and away]

3) let your heart and bones go soft, resting your small frame in the deep care of something much bigger than yourself [deep breath in – resting, deep breath out – giving away]

4) by leaning on the support of others, your vulnerability reveals your/our common humanity, and this allows yourself to feel true and deep compassion for yourself [breathing in – I’m important, breathing out – I will allow healing for myself]

5) seek out words that bring life to you: write them in short phrases so you can breathe them in and breathe them out – speaking it over yourself. [write the words on your mirror or some butcher block paper, so it is easily visible]

📷: adobe stock

Summer slide

It’s normal to feel like we’ve forgotten some skills after not practicing it over the summer. When we’re down to only a couple weeks left, it can be helpful to review a few things. We’re doing a bit of alphabet writing and long division over here. Also, if your sleep schedule is way off, now is a good time to start moving bedtime up by 30 min or so every few days so that when school starts, our bodies are adjusted.

The ethics of a diagnosis

The Hippocratic oath for physicians is to “do no harm.” However, in the world of psychiatry and psychology, over-diagnosis is rampant. The alphabet soup of diagnostic abbreviations from the DSM can lead to an overwhelming deficit in the special education system, which is frankly not prepared to help each and every individual in the best way possible. The numbers are just too overwhelming and teachers and parents alike, are in tears.

How did we get here and what are we to do? Get rid of standardization? Advocate for full inclusion? I don’t know the answers to this complex systemic problem, however it may be prudent and beneficial for a child to only carry the diagnoses needed for a certain situation, for example, extra support in school, or for insurance reimbursement, and possibly to provide some self reflection on the way he or she has been created or how their brain works, so to speak.

Anything other than that, a diagnosis is just that, a label. When working at the shelter, children and adolescents have been over diagnosed and over pathologized and it ended up affecting them in harmful ways. For instance, those in the system “read really hard on paper” and therefore often do not find a home or a placement that will take them. A diagnosis benefits no one if it leaves them apart from the community.

Therefore, it is important to consider the “ethics of a diagnosis,” the purpose it serves, and whether it is benefiting the child – now or in the future. Try to find a counselor, therapist, psychiatrist or psychologist that understands the nuances of a diagnosis and when and when not to use it. Children are our most vulnerable and we need to be considerate of the paper trails we create and that may follow them.

Touch as a self compassion practice

“We teach soothing and supportive touch as a foundational self-compassion practice… When we are upset, sometimes we are too overwhelmed to remember to speak to ourselves kindly. The act of dropping out of our heads and into our bodies by moving our attention away from our thoughts to focus on a physical sensation such as touch can be incredibly helpful in difficult moments.

“Instructions:

“Try out some different types of touch to see how they make you feel. Linger for about fifteen seconds with each type of touch and let yourself really sink into the experience. Check in to see the effect on your body. It’s good to find one touch that can help you feel soothed and comforted and another that helps you feel strong, empowered, and supported. People are different, so experiment until you find what works best for you.

“Some tender soothing options include:
One or two hands over your heart
Cradling your face in your hands
Gently stroking your arms
Crossing your arms and giving a gentle squeeze
Hugging yourself and rocking softly back and forth

“Some strong supportive options include:
A fist on your heart with the other hand over it
One or two hands on your solar plexus, your energetic center (which is located right below your ribcage and about three inches above your belly button)
One hand on your heart and one on your solar plexus Squeezing your own hand
Two arms planted firmly on your hips

“The idea is to find a “go-to” touch that you can use automatically in stressful or difficult situations. Choose a couple for now and try using them whenever you are feeling emotional or physical discomfort. Sometimes our minds are too overwhelmed to think straight, but you can use touch to communicate compassion to your body. It’s an easy and surprisingly effective way to care for and support yourself.”

~ taken from Dr Neff’s book on Fierce Self-Compassion

Lavender

If you don’t have this plant in your garden yet you may want to get one soon. Lavender has leaves that range in color from a gray to a green. They will grow into a nice mound that will fill your garden with brilliant purple flowers… having it will encourage you to take a deep breath of fragrance.

Some of the actions of lavender are antimicrobial, anti-spasmodic, diuretic, stimulant, and tonic. The big picture is that lavender calms ailments down. Using lavender in a tea bath and breathing in deeply are some ways to help your body with anxiety, insomnia, wound healing, depression, stress, headaches, moodiness, fungal infections, inflammation, insomnia, acne skin conditions, burns digestion, cramps, and the list goes on…”

~ excerpt taken from the Children’s Corner of Christian Herbal Magazine, Issue 3, Summer 2024

The basics of special ed law

Did you know that when your child starts achool, you as the parent, can request that the school (public or charter) test your child for any suspected diagnoses? The first step is to draft a letter requesting the testing by the special education department. You can even write what you are concerned about and ask for specific testing in that area.

The school has 10 days to respond to your request, 45 days to do the requested testing, and 30 days after that to have an ARD meeting for you where the special accommodations are listed in an IEP (individual education plan). This is free.

If you disagree with the diagnoses, you can get your own private independent educational evaluation which can be later given to the school for them to use as a guide to re-draft the IEP. This testing can cost up to a couple thousand dollars or more, depending on whether the provider takes insurance.

Around the age of 14, it is a good idea to repeat testing so the school can begin to transition its approach in how to make the most opportune educational/vocational pathways available to the student by providing parents with resources specifically helpful to your child.

These are laws under IDEA that protect students with special needs. If you are needing extra guidance in this area, there are several types of professionals, like educational consultants, school psychologists, lawyers with expertise in this area, that can help. The Disability Rights Texas website is also a great starting point.

Imaginative design!

Image by Ecoversity

Struggling with creating the right IEP for your child?

This can be easy for some, but the more complicated your child’s diagnoses, the more help you will need to make school “doable and enjoyable” for your child and agreeable by the school’s special education department. Needing help in creating a solid IEP at your next ARD meeting? Call us and let’s get the ball rolling before school starts up this fall!

You are his home

* “Mothers are Home. [Idyllically] They represent everything good and right, comforting and safe. She is where I want to go when I hurt and the first person I want to call if something good happen. My mom is my biggest fan.”

* “My mom is my plumb line and my moral compass. She’s the one person who accepts me for who I am because she knows who I really am. I don’t need to hide anything from her..”

* “Home is where he find finds his roots. [You] were the place where your son’s first roots develop. This has been studied and researched in the maternal infant bond. Those who have more secure attachments tend to enjoy better emotional health and suffer less [mental health issues] later in life.”

*” If a boy’s roots are strong and he feels deeply connected to his mother, he will feel safer when it comes time to move out and into the world. For example, as your son starts middle school, he can spend more energy figuring out what he likes to study, what sports he likes to play, what friends he likes to do things with, because he doesn’t need to use all of his energy, safeguarding his relationship with you; that is, of course, if his roots are firmly established. Just as a young plant with shallow roots is easily torn from the soil, so too is a boy made vulnerable to the pressures of his immediate world if he doesn’t have a solid relationship with his mom.”

* “Each of us mothers must help our sons find whatever it is in life that [ignites] passion in them… sure we can sign them up for extracurricular activities and summer camps and find the best schools but we can’t [merely focus there]. You must help them look beyond themselves and serve others because often it is in the serving in the context of a community where they begin to understand a deeper meaning to their lives.”

In summary, we spend so much time focused on success that we forget deeper, better, and more virtuous habits. That is where the moral arc of a mother or father can truly help shape the hearts of our little boys and sustain them to become young men.

Quoted bullet points taken from Chapter 4 of Strong Mothers, Strong Sons by pediatrician, Dr Meg Meeker.

Summer

Sometimes the summer loses us. Differing schedules, “off” routines, camp time away, and other summer happenings can really make it more difficult to do as Dr Gabor Mate suggests and “hold onto our kids.” How can you stay connected in the summer moments you have together?

* 3 minute wake up together and 3 minute good night together
* meal time togetherness
* as much as possible, try to reset the pace of your family and don’t always bend to the culture’s pace
* sacramental moments like witnessing a sunrise or a sunset together
* serving together as a family to help those in need can help children realize that fancy vacations aren’t the norm in this great big world of ours
* scrappy fun together: chess and ping pong tournaments, big jig saw puzzles
* working on a family project together? Make use of that extra room or garage and transform it
*fun, delights: ice cream sundae bar with special toppings

The key is a slow summer that goes to the pace of your family’s rhythm. 🍦