The Power of Validation

Parents quite frequently come into my office wondering how they can best help their child face an obstacle in life. Whether a child is struggling with anxiety, being bullied at school, wrestling with depression, or facing some other difficult experience, my answer is typically the same: validate the emotions. Children want to be heard, and they want to know that what they feel matters. 

Every person feels several different emotions on a daily basis.  Children experience similar emotions to adults such as anger, sadness, fear, and frustration, but unlike adults, children have a hard time articulating and understanding their emotions. When this happens, they often express emotions physically or in other inappropriate ways. This means that strong emotions typically evoke strong responses in children. For example, when six-year-old Abigail gets frustrated riding her bike, she gets off and pushes it over into the grass and stomps off, or when nine-year-old Nate struggles with a math problem, he throws the pencil on the floor and slams the door to his room. 

5 Tips To Make Your Love Life Better

After being together a while, relationships can get mundane and routine if not difficult at times too!  Sometimes it's hard to let our minds focus on how to love a spouse or partner and how to connect in an emotionally fulfilling way.  We get caught up in our jobs, children, friends, activities and responsibilities that demand our attention.  It may take being intentional in order to refuel our most important human relationship, that with our significant other. 

The following suggestions are to help you start thinking, get motivated and consider giving some undivided attention to that special person in your life. If you are already setting time aside to connect, maybe you'll find an idea here that you haven't tried or haven't gotten around to doing. Either way there could be an opportunity for growth in your relationship.

Morning Reflection

The following is an excerpt from a book by Francine called Morning Reflections for Christians in Recovery. If you are interested in obtaining a copy, you can email her at fcostanza@heritagecounseling.com.

2 Corinthians 4:17-18:  For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen.  For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.

It may seem a bit crazy to “look at the things which are not seen.”   I mean, how can we see something that is not visible?  Especially if we are afflicted, confused, and barely hanging on!  

We often look for what we have lost so that we can see it, hold it and have it again. We search and wait and pray, hoping it will materialize to satisfy our longing, and bring us the fulfillment it once did. Sometimes we find it and sometimes we don’t.  When we find it we rejoice and thank God.  When we don’t we grieve, and question God’s love for us and His wisdom. If it is something vital to us we may ask, “How can a gracious God withhold what is so important,  or maybe even a basic need?  How can He take from us that which we love?  The cruelty of life seems to abound.  The more we love someone, the more we can fear losing them.  Especially when we see tragedy happening all around us.  What a frightening world we live in, where pain is inevitable and dying is right around the corner.  Is it all a bad dream?  An Alice in Wonderland fantasy?  How can a loving God take _______ from us?  We could fill in the blank with a any number of nouns, verbs and adjectives.  Rather than continuing down this path of hopelessness, we must push past these thoughts to find a greater truth, one that will take us to higher ground.  There the view becomes somewhat clearer as we begin to look at the things which are “unseen.”

I believe that this “higher ground” is found in the pages of God’s Word.  The unseen things which are eternal and of incredible value are found there.  Hope is found there and and a multitude of treasures from God:  faith in Jesus Christ who died for us so we can live forever with Him, courage to face every day, trust that God will make all things right in His time, perseverence through every trial, the fruit of the Spirit which is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control (Gal. 5:22). There is also comfort to be found there, mercy, grace, contentment, knowledge, salvation and transformation.  The list could go on and on of all the unseen jewels of life for us to live by that God provides in His Word.

As we wait for the day when Jesus returns and makes all things new and permanent, we can hold on to His invisible strength, knowing that our desires will materialize in God’s time.  Nothing that really matters is forever lost. Jesus proved that when He conquered death, and He encourages us to believe in His power and love with all things, both seen and unseen.