Friday, August 26, 2016

After School Conversation Starters

“Hey sweetie! How was school today?” 

Good”….Silence. 

Sound familiar? Mid-August means that kids are returning to school once again, and the typical questions like, “How was your day at school?” are becoming a normal part of daily conversation. When asked that type of question, most kids respond with a one-word answer like “good” or “fine”. Did you have a good day today? “Yes/no.” Conversation over. You have reached a dead end. If you want to know about your child’s day, short answers like these can be quite frustrating. They provide little insight into how the day actually was for your child. They do not really allow for any shared understanding of what your child’s experience at school was like. 
Asking how was your day is not a bad question, but for some kids, this question is too vague. It is a question that allows for a simple and somewhat mechanical answer similar to when we ask someone about how they are doing. Some kids need prompts to engage in discussion. Other kids need to be given the space to talk. So instead of asking the typical how was your day question? What if you changed the wording? The goal is for you as a parent to gain a little bit of insight into your child’s world. Your child wants you to know about his or her day, but they need to be asked the right questions to open up. With the questions and prompts below, you are still essentially asking your child about the day, but you are providing a way into a deeper conversation. These questions open up the door for a child to talk about his or her day from a different angle. 

Give these prompts a try and see what happens! 

  • Tell me about the coolest thing that you learned today. 
  • What was the best part of your day today? 
  • What was the most frustrating part of your day? 
  • Who did you sit by during lunch? 
  • What did you play at recess today? Did any of your friends play the same thing? 
  • What was the funniest thing that happened at school? 
  • What are you learning about in ________________ class? 
  • What was the most boring part of your day? 
  • What made you most excited at school? 
  • What did your teacher spend the most time talking about today? 
  • What made you feel proud during your day? 
  • Tell me about something positive that happened today. 
  • Tell me about something negative that happened today. 
  • What kinds of things did you and your friends talk about or do today? 
  • What made today different from yesterday? 
By: Amanda Paben, LPC

Friday, August 19, 2016

When You Want to Fight, Go and Write!

Writing can be a great therapeutic tool, especially when things are confusing and/or overwhelming.  I have found that many different forms of writing can be helpful; journaling my thoughts and feelings, writing my prayers to God, writing a letter to a longtime friend, or writing a letter I’ll never send.  One other writing form that may be long forgotten from elementary school is poetry.  
Remember learning how to write a limerick or Haiku?  Maybe yes, maybe no, but putting words to rhyme and rhythm can be fun, creative and take one’s mind off of the seemingly hopeless problem in front of you.  Here is a sample poem to show that it doesn’t have to be as clever as that of Dr. Seuss or as moving as an Edgar Allen Poe.  It’s for your own enjoyment, catharsis and inspiration.  And you never know, a poem you write could bring hope to someone else if you share it with them.  Or it can just be kept for a rainy day to lift your own spirits and chase the blues away!

Finding Hope
When life is hard as it often might be
Take a break with the Lord instead of TV
Pour your heart out to Him
Read His Word to find hope
And pray that He’ll give you the power to cope.   

After taking some time to be quiet before Him
Rise up where you are 
Trust The Bright Morning Star
He will lead and will guide as you go through the day
You’ll have faith to believe that you’ll be okay.    

For time has a way of changing what is
Holding on is the key, if you wait you will see.
For our God is above and around us each day
Bringing light in the darkness
And making a way
To weather the storms of this life as it is
Knowing what is to come is much better than this!


By: Francine Costanza, LCPC                                                                                                                                                 

Sunday, August 7, 2016

Challenging The Negative Within

Everyone has experiences good and bad.  Everyone has trials and difficulties.  For some, these experiences, trials and difficulties shape them negatively.  Does this sound familiar?  Are you consistently down about the the negativity in your past that your experience of the present is tainted?  Or do you have anxiety about the future, making it difficult to stay in the present?

We do not have to be defined by our past mistakes but the negative voice within tends to make a compelling argument.  That argument our negative voice provides however, does not ever give a full picture of ourself.  In fact, it often times, taints and twists the truth.  It judges much more harshly than we would judge anyone else.  

The negative voice doesn’t just point back to mistakes in our past, it also makes us look ahead to future events and proceeds to tell us we will find a way to fail.  It tells us we’re not good enough, not smart enough, not worthy enough, etc.  Simply asking the question, “I am anxious about this because I fear I am ___(worthless, a failure, weak, etc.)__,” helps to get a better sense of the negative belief we are holding onto.  

Once you identify the negative (and more often than not, untrue) belief, you can then challenge it.  “I am not worthless… here are some reasons why.”  Many times our negative thoughts go unchallenged.  They pass through our mind and are quickly accepted as truth because that is what we have told ourselves for many years (or perhaps it was told to you by someone else.)

Identify the negative thought, challenge it, and minimize the negatively within!


By: Nicholas Smith, LCPC

Monday, August 1, 2016

The Most Effective Ways to Influence

Do you ever find yourself feeling unheard? Have you ever thought you provided great advice only for it to fall on seemingly deaf ears? Oftentimes the problem is due to a lack of influence on your part.  There are always going to be people in your life that will not be influenced by you no matter how impressive your advice is. In these cases, it’s best just to accept that that is the way THEY are.  For everybody else, there is still a significant challenge to be consistently heard when you share concerns or advice.  However, with this group of people, there are sound strategies that will help increase your ability to influence them when needed. Here are some components to think about when developing your strategies to be more influential. 

There are a few reasons people don’t hear or follow through on great advice. Perhaps the bigger ones have something to do with trust and/or safety.  A not-to-influenceable  person might simply have good boundaries and because of some already completed thought-work have made up his or her mind. Others might not trust you or believe you are a safe person to listen to.  This might not be due to what you have done but more because of that person’s past.  Because of certain experiences from our past we either raise a shield to keep people out or we are open to a variety of feedback from others. The higher a person’s defenses the less likely they will allow outside feedback. 

It is always a good idea to evaluate how defensive someone is. If a person seems defensive and you come along and accuse them of being defensive, the end result is probably going to be defensiveness about being defensive. The harder you push, the higher the walls. Save your energy. Find ways to ease the perceived threat. Escalating verbal arguments are not only going to be counterproductive but damaging to whatever trust/safety factor there was. When I sense someone is being defensive, I will in fact check with them by stating something like, ‘you seem a bit defensive with what I am saying, is that true?’  If they deny being defensive, it might be true. Be prepared to accept that your initial evaluation was off. If you are still convinced of this person’s defensiveness, it’s time for a different strategy. 

Don’t rush. Building trust and safety takes time. You can make progress in one conversation simply by showing respect and patience for a person. I encourage you to see building trust and safety as more of a long-term process however. Think of it like applying paint.  The thicker you apply it, the more likely the finish will be bad.  Spreading in thinner coats takes time. The first coat will look unfinished (because it is unfinished). Sometimes there is a need for primer with sanding and prep work before you get to the first or next coat.  Each patient application improves the finish but you might need several coats. My dad used to paint cars in his business and I remember some paints required more than eight separate coats of paint with fine sanding between them. Every time you provide an interaction that is safe and trustworthy, it is a coat of paint. Layer on many more until you have a solid (and shiny) covering of trust and safety. 

Trustworthiness requires consistency.  If you are patient, truthful and respectful 70 times in a row and then have one angry outburst or one critical and sarcastic moment, your trust will take a hit.  Here are some traits that will sabotage your trust and safety work: abrasiveness, dishonesty, shaming, accusing, rejecting, gossip or a loose tongue, excessive volume (they might think you are shouting even if you don’t think you are), etc.  I am sure you could add a few more traits to this list. As you evaluate someone you are trying to influence for defensiveness you will notice some of your own traits that promote defensiveness. Be willing to learn from these personal self-observations. It will help you develop influence with more and more people. 


On the flip side there are also certain traits that promote hearing. Here is a starter list for you to consider: caring, thoughtful, make people laugh, knowledgeable, strong and integral faith, empathy, gentle, passionate, consistent and present. These traits expressed consistently over months and years will undoubtedly grow your influence over that same span of time. Openness to your thoughts and expressions might not be possible with a particular person after a week or a month or even this year but again, consistently being safe and trustworthy raises your chances while lowering any person’s defenses at the same time (with time of course). 

By: Scott Hendrickson, LCPC