Carroll-Wray Psychological Services

🌍🇺🇸🍎🏘️🧠Especially this time of year, we are a part of so many plans. 👥all of those plans involve people whose thoughts and feelings will get caught up in your thoughts and feelings. 💨Deep breath in as you zoom out: self, family, school/work, city, country, planet....☮️Feel the immediate sense of grounding that comes from remembering: "I exist. I matter. I'm part of something bigger."

🎃 Happy Halloween and happy end to our spooky scavenger hunt this week!!! 💀 so very proud of all our families contributed this week. 👩🏾‍⚕️ if you find yourself feeling scared today, here are some tips: “think about your favorite thing to think about,” (age 7), “let it all slither out and talk about it” (age 8) and “touch something soft, like your cat”(age 10). 🐍 Wishing you a very spooky day!!!!

🦸🏻‍♀️ school social worker by day, C-W psych therapist by night (and weekends) 🧚🏾 specialized in kids, teens and young adults 🎨 superstar at arts, crafts and talking about big feelings
📱 DM or email us for more info on Rachel’s awesome-ness

😥For some reason in psychology, it seems like it's always the last category that's the hardest. ✨ Pay attention to all of the variables surrounding this child: school, friends, interests, family, etc. 🗣️ This is the child that was previously labeled "lazy" without much of a second glance. 💚Tip: glance again! 🙉When you feel ready, have big talks, and don't push this child to self-advocate before someone else has shown them they are worth advocating for...

😈AKA revenge! 🐶 These poor pups are working against their own interests, as it's really important to help these kids feel like they belong and like they matter. 🚰 Tip: don't be afraid of chores. 🍦Get creative with ways in which this child can a) be successful when contributing b) enjoy helping out, and c) increase their positive interactions with family members. 🍿One 9 year-old child in this office makes popcorn for his family every night. ✔️Authentic ✔️Helpful ✔️Very delicious

🎲Have you ever felt guilty because you wanted to beat a child at a board game so badly? 💪 That may be: a power struggle. 🏋️ The good thing is that kids who like power are often comfortable with self-advocacy, leadership and other culturally reinforced skills. 🚫 But power struggles are also super isolating, as it's not that fun to play games with bossy people, and it's really hard to develop positive self-esteem when no one wants to play with you. 🧑‍⚖️Tip: back awayyyyy, acknowledge what's happening, let go of the battle and show the other person how powerful chillness can be!

🤺Every single parenting trend stems from the same, very human question: what's the function of this behavior, and how do I best respond to that behavior? 🌐 Positive discipline offers the concept that our behaviors stem from the desire to connect with other people, and to contribute to our communities. 💕 Attention seeking behaviors often result in just the opposite, and we often feel irritated or worried. 🧠When used intentionally, attention is a super powerful tool for people who feel they're "doing a good job" when they have another person's attention.

📖 Book Recommendation & Cred: Positive Discipline by Dr. Jane Nelson.

🌱If you look closely, some of these plants are growing and some of them aren't. 🏡A lot of people suggested I spare disappointed feelings and switch out the pots with the plants that weren't doing so hot. 💚While so well intentioned, I won't be doing that (and I'm not sadistic 😈). 🚿Each child got the same pot, the same seeds, the same soil, and NONE of them did anything wrong! 👩‍🔬With support, even the tots can appreciate this hugely important concept - just because your plant didn't grow, doesn't mean there's anything wrong with you or there's something you could've done differently!!! 🗣️ Cue next slide for coping strategies to manage disappointment, failure, jealousy, injustice and other big feelings...

👴 Starting a new school year off right with the original family therapist, Dr. Alfred Adler! 📖 If you've ever read any parenting resources with the word "positive" in the title, you've no doubt encountered his incredible legacy. ✨Some other highlights include: the inferiority complex, birth order theories, and mostly...people behave better when they feel helpful/important to their communities 🌍!

🌿In addition to asking "how can my child with ADHD/anxiety/etc. learn skills to cope," let's ask: "where is his/her/their light source and what are they growing towards?" 💡Humanistic psychologist Dr. Carl Rogers talks about creating "conditions" for growth (aka the learning environment). 💚 It's truly amazing - even office plants with no windows can (sort of) grow under fluorescents. ✨Plants and people really struggle to grow in dark conditions, and while we can "grow towards the light," that light needs to exist. 🔆 Why not provide that light for your loved ones?

🌸 Want a pretty patch like this? ✂️Ya gotta be ruthless with deadheading - trimming off the old blooms, to encourage new growth - sometimes even in perfectly healthy looking plants. 🧠 The process mirrors neuroplasticity: the idea that new synapses branch off of our old pathways, to cope with new experiences. 💜 This growth can be awful, with big feelings, and ugly looking gaps on your flowers. 🌈 They're just temporary so be patient while those tough experiences happen and let biology do its thing.

🌱It's hard to get through an entire therapy experience without your therapist mentioning "planting the seeds" at some point. 💕We love this concept because gardening so beautifully mimics human development, and the gardeners' role in supporting growth. 🌻Some seeds take, some seeds don't: with all, we really have to have some grace, trust & patience. 👀 Be on the lookout for growth because these plants don't emerge out of nowhere. 📏There's incremental change happening ALL THE TIME if you watch closely.

💙 A super important aspect of processing (potentially) traumatic experiences involves recognizing that anything happened at all. ✨Your life may be really different or really similar this summer. 🍦One thing's for sure: change happened.

🤺In some super famous social psych experiments, we learned that humans really like conformity. 🤓That means when we are told to change in order to fit in, we usually modify our behavior. 💕While that can make life easier, we should take a moment to remember what we lose by making one another fit into little boxes. 🏋️ If you're interested in learning more about a superstar non-conformist in the mRNA world, check out Dr. Kariko. 🗣️Her persistence helped make these vaccines possible. 🎧Listen to her story here: http://ow.ly/kkV850FfoOr

🏳️‍🌈A lot of folks who identify as asexual tend to feel pretty invalidated. 💕Feedback like "you'll grow out of that," "that's just because of your trauma history" and "are you sure you just haven't met someone special?" isn't always helpful. 🌈 While it's certainly true that our sexuality constantly evolves, in relation to all kinds of variables (environmental, biological, etc.), that doesn't really give us the right to discount the asexual identity as a "phase." ✊ In the words of a wise 5th grade health teacher: "don't 'yuck' anybody else's 'yum.'"

***an

✍️Wouldn't it be awesome if medicine was perfect and doctors always got it right? 🏳️‍🌈 We can be oh so very wrong. 📏 Even the most "specialized" among us can only do our best with the information we have. 🌈 Hot tip: you most certainly know yourself, and your child much better than any doctor or any big, messy system like healthcare. 🤺Push back when you feel "missed" - it may be the most therapeutic part of your therapy. ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜

☘️ As a child I was convinced that my grandfather was secretly a leprechaun (as anyone could understand from this photo 😊). 🪦Among his most cherished experiences in late life included his time playing cards at the VA, his federally sponsored “Honor flight” to Washington for the WWII memorial and eating more ice cream than is typical for a 5’3” human. 🇺🇸 Grandpa Bob was atypical in many ways, but especially in his ability to share candidly about his experiences in war, including the bullet hole in his leg. 👂 While we cannot directly experience war with our vets, it is crucial to provide opportunities for processing. ❤️Sending reflective thoughts and love to you, your family’s vets and to all of those who could use a little more ice cream.

5️⃣ A very smart five year-old got this with minimal prompting.
😠😩 The dog likely felt: sad, scared, angry and guilty. 😱I felt similar emotions...

📖Book rec: Mindset by Dr. Carol Dweck. 📏Fixed mindsets are pretty concrete: I'm good at this, bad at that, always have been, always will be. 🏋️Some kids with dyslexia become English majors who graduate college with honors. 😔Sometimes we take huge pride-falls when we fail at something we took for granted. 🤸‍♂️Growth mindsets can be applied to aspects of our identity that are already strong as well as those works in progress. 🌱Happy growing!

🏀A little late to the game (pun intended) but I'm currently devouring The Last Dance on Netflix!

🐶🐈🌱😍

📏"I'm afraid of planes so I'm gonna make myself fly on a plane." 👍Sometimes it's that simple and this is A+ work on the avoidance scale. 👨‍🏫 But since the dawn of psychology, we've been asking the questions: "is it really about the plane?" 🗣️ Therapy is often about teasing apart what the plane represents, so that you know what it is you're avoiding and don't go trading planes for needles or spiders.

🧠 By nature, mental health diagnoses like anxiety and depression are ways in which our bodies "cope" with anything from immediate distress, continued stress, to just plain human existing. 🤯 "Skills" is an action word, implying that there are particular reactions we can make in order to end our suffering. 😢 While therapy often involves establishing new, intentional coping skills, over-responding to our body's natural coping patterns can lead to more experiences of "failure" (shame) when an approach to problem-solving didn't work out. 🔖 If you're gonna keep coping skills in your vocab, let's add understanding, mindfulness, acceptance and exposure to that list of skills.

✨Magic, right?

📜You are the product of generations of humans who came before you! ❣️That wisdom lives in your cells, constantly evolving to manage stressful situations to move your family forward. 👻 Borrow from that love and strength any time you need! 💚Plus, your coping strategies may have a larger role in your family's past, present and future!

🗯️Again: there are no bad emotions. 😶But one of our many gifts as human beings? 🗣️We have complicated relationships with every single one of them. 🐦 Especially "bad" ones, like anger, sadness and anxiety. 1️⃣Step one: get curious with yourself about your relationship to anger.

❓When you think of "anger" what comes up for you, what happened when you felt anger, how did others respond to your feelings, what about when others were angry around you?

📣 A little louder, for the seats in back! 🔮 (BTW, accepting yourself can be a big change).