5 Common "Whys" Of Substance Use
Today we're taking a brief look at a very important topic: Substance use. There's no way to do this justice in one letter, but I wanted to bring our attention to it and see if we can't prime the pump for further learning. I've included some additional resources at the bottom of this issue to support that.
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Your Teen & ADHD
I don't know if you already knew this, but unmanaged ADHD can lead to significant secondary mental health struggles like substance abuse, anxiety or depression. Management doesn't always mean medication, so if you were ready to click out of this email thinking that's what was coming for you, please pause - I promise you there are way more tips provided than that, to support your teen with their ADHD brains. Have a read and see what supports you, Karen
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Teen Executive Functioning Skills
Skill testing question for ya... When is your brain considered "fully developed"? I'll let you read today's newsletter to find out the answer to that. What I'll say here, is that one of the last brain parts to fully form is the area responsible for what we call "executive functioning". Executive functioning includes being able to regulate our emotions well, organize our thoughts, self-monitor and make good decisions, and so on. Have a look through today's note to consider how your teen's stage of brain development meets the expectations placed on them. Perhaps some adjustments are warranted, or some support is required. Happy reading, Karen
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Teens & Trauma Responses
When your teen gets stressed out big time, where does their body tend to go in reaction? Do they pick a fight, argue or lash out? Maybe they dodge you and anything deemed connected to the thing that's stressing them out. Or they freeze, struggling to find words, take any action or make decisions. Fawning is a less commonly understood stress response, but an important one to recognize - maybe your teen people pleases to feel safe and accepted. Today's newsletter will outline the 4 typical trauma or stress responses we all have in our wired toolkit.
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Managing Conflict With Your Teen
Is your teen in fight mode often? Are you tempted to put up your own dukes in defense? Well, welcome to the club of parents raising teens. But how do we survive it? Isn't that the golden question? Conflict isn't going away, and that's not our goal (even though that sounds awfully delightful). Our teens need to safely exercise their conflict resolution skills with trusted people in order to mature into adults who can manage conflict with care and skill. You get to be their teachers in this - not by lecturing, but by modeling.
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Healthy Teen Body Image
There's no simple formula to establishing a strong and healthy body image in your teen, so buckle up and get ready to think big. The wider lens on this topic is key. We, not just our kids, are and have been shaped by many influencing forces when it comes to our relationship with our physical selves and its appearance. Sometimes the most damaging messages happened to come during our most vulnerable stages of development and need considerable care to undo the impacts. In this newsletter we explore some principles that can help organize your approach around this and shape a culture within your family and close circles about how we think, talk and feel about ideas related to body image. Have a read and see what resonates with you. Here's to nurturing healthy hearts, minds and bodies, Karen
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Healthy Relationships with Teens
Don't you just hate that increasing sense of losing influence when your preteen or teen look more and more to their peers for validation than to you? It can have a sting to it, and some fear as you come to grips with the fact that you can't protect them from the hard social experiences you wish you could. You can try, but they'll have none of it (or very little, anyways). Deep breath. Not all hope is lost. There are still things you can do to support them in building healthy relationships during these years - you just can't be as obvious about it. It's time to honor letting your kid take the reins. They're more likely to let you provide some guidance if you take a more supportive role and slowly shed the more directive one. Have a read through this edition of the newsletter to see if any of these strategies could work for you and your teen.
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Impacts on Teens with Depression
If you're parenting a teen, you've probably learned to expect the moodiness, right? But how are you supposed to tell if it's the ups and downs of normal teen development or when it's something to be concerned about? Depression in teens can not just be tricky to detect, but also tricky to support and treat. Today's newsletter takes a look at what clinical Depression can look like during the teen years and the effects it can have. I don't want to leave you dangling there, though, so I'd strongly encourage parents and caregivers to take 45 min to listen to this conversation between myself and Victoria Keddis from FamilySmart, to learn more about the ins and outs of Depression in the teen years and some ways you can support them through it.
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Helping Your Anxious Teen
Here's a common question us parents of teens find ourselves floating frequently: "What the heck is going on right now?" We ask this when hormones take them on a rollercoaster, when suddenly their friends seem to matter way more than we do, when moods and opinions shape shift by the hour, and when they go into fight/flight mode and we have zero clue what triggered it. There's no denying this stage of our kids' development is all over the map and feels hard to parent. Chuck some crippling anxiety in the mix, and knowing how to support them feels impossible. You might not get a ton of direct positive feedback from your anxious teen about whether or not you're doing a good job supporting them, so let me give you a different measuring stick or set of guideposts so you feel some sense of direction.
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When Change Happens
As we all know, change is inevitable, welcomed or not. Many of these changes are small or incremental and while they feel significant, they also feel mostly manageable and sometimes even exciting. In today's newsletter we're tackling ways of supporting our kids through some of the bigger changes and specifically those that occur in our family structures. We'll explore what kids of different developmental phases might be thinking or feeling during changes like adding a new family member to the crew, parents separating or blending, and when there's a death or other significant loss in the family. Chances are, if your child is going through a big transition like this, so are you as another member of the family unit. Supporting your kids while you too are undergoing change can feel that much more overwhelming, and the last thing I want is for you to feel alone or unsupported. If you find your own story in this newsletter, consider reaching out to a therapist who can help walk you through the grief, loss and overall adjustment. Take a look through the additional resource links for other avenues of support too. With you, Karen
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Disordered Eating in Children 12 & Under
What we know is that roughly one quarter of our kids in Canada report dieting to lose weight. Body image struggles and disordered eating are not topics only relevant to our teenagers - in facts it almost always begins much sooner. This newsletter is written to help equip you with what the research shows are the early signs of disordered eating in children so that you, your child's biggest advocate and closest provider of care, can detect when something is amiss and take steps to intervene early.
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Changing Schools
For those of us with school aged kids, I sometimes think the "new year" should revolve around the first week of September rather than January. I even order my yearly planner based on Sept-Sept. Change is in the air every year for kids entering a new grade - who will their teacher be, what new challenges will they face, and who will their friends be? Tack on the transition of moving to a new campus or school, and the anxiety can grow exponentially. Sometimes our kids, young and old(er), need some added support in making these transitions go smoothly. Great news - there are concrete things you can do to help facilitate this and some of them are outlined in today's newsletter. Take a peek and pass it on to any parents you know who are needing some extra support in this area. Happy new year! Karen
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Creating a Family Culture of Belonging & Acceptance
Hey parents, Have you ever considered the idea that your family has a culture? Often times we limit our understanding of the concept of culture to ethnic backgrounds, but there are cultures created in workplaces, communities and yes, even families! Whether you realize it or not, you have already cultivated a culture for you and your kids. It's based on the values, spoken or unspoken, nurtured in your environment and the experiences you foster. Sometimes panning out to the bigger picture of your family's lifespan, helps you become more observant and intentional around the culture you are invested in creating. Read through today's newsletter and explore how child development intersects with the family culture they are raised in, and consider what infrastructure of belonging and acceptance is being built in your family. Meeting you where you're at, Karen
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The Magic of Mindfulness
Why all the fuss about "mindfulness", anyway? What's so magical about it? Why all the hype? This newsletter might be short and sweet, but it gives you a taste of what mindfulness can offer - perhaps enough of a teaser for you to want to check out the additional resources. You don't have to take anyone's word for it....try it for a week and find out what it does for YOU. Wishing you mindful moments, Karen
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