If you’re a caregiver, you have probably thought about how to support your child’s emotional intelligence. This may look like asking your child to “use their words” to name how they are feeling, or maybe your child has a big meltdown when something they want doesn’t go as planned. Whatever the scenario, equipping children with the tools to understand their emotional world is essential for their well-being and ability to maneuver through life’s ups and downs.

Play therapy can seem like magic at times. Your child comes to our office for 45 minutes once a week to play and after an average of five months, they’ve completed their therapeutic goals! Their emotional regulation has improved, their anxiety has decreased, or maybe their self-esteem is higher.

Typically when someone thinks of therapy, images of a calm and quiet waiting room may appear in their mind. Maybe rain sounds are playing, and the office is filled with mid-century modern furniture and earth tones. As you can imagine, play therapy tends to be a bit different. Especially the sounds!

I recently came across a parenting article and I love it for so many reasons. It’s The Rise of Accidentally Permissive Parents by Elizabeth Passarella in The Cut. I think it speaks to so many issues parents are having… resulting in a difficult reality of not feeling like you’re parenting well. What a hard place to be! I highly recommend the read.

If you have a strong enough “why” you can endure any “how.” This is a paraphrased idea courtesy of Friedrich Nietzche that I find to be very true in life. But man! Constructing a “why” strong enough to do something difficult can be pretty tough in our adult lives (for example, I procrastinated on writing this blog post), let alone our children’s lives.

As play therapists, we often tell our caregivers to spend one-on-one time with their child for at least 30 minutes doing an activity of their child’s choosing or something they can enjoy together each week. We also know that finding that activity or free play can be a challenge for many caregivers. Have you ever wondered what toys and games we have in our rooms and why we use them? Keep on reading to understand more of the reason behind why we have chosen each specific toy in the play room and which ones might be worthwhile in adding to your collection at home!

There have been many tragic events that have impacted our world and local Austin community as of late. As I write this, our community has just experienced the loss of several individuals through gun violence. Some days are just hard and our hearts feel exceptionally heavy. More and more I have caregivers ask if they should be discussing tough topics in the news with their child -- and if so, how?

During the holiday season, we often find that children have more difficulty with emotional regulation. Excitement is abundant and routine falls to the wayside: two things that shrink the level of tolerance children have for dysregulating stimuli.

I feel like it’s safe to say every single person who reads this blog has experienced a sleepless night and can remember the side effects they suffered the next day: lethargy, low motivation, trouble concentrating, desperate for a cup of coffee or tea, and maybe even being just outright cranky. (For me, the coffee mug seems permanently glued to my hand in an effort to recover.)

During your formative years, you may or may not have been exposed to the developmental work of Erik Erikson. He was a developmental psychologist in the early 20th century who organized human development into eight stages with specific developmental tasks from birth to death. The idea of human and child development can be tricky because development is never a clear or linear path. Each child is unique and worthy and is growing at their own pace. Healthy development cannot be rushed but it can certainly be slowed. Children develop best in an environment of physical and emotional safety. We can embrace our children as humans who strive to be fulfilled, contributory, and in relationship with others. And they will struggle with this, will need guidance, and may look like they aren’t striving for these things but I promise, they are. In their own way. They will, by virtue of being human, encounter obstacles, challenges, and emotional struggles, but they are always developing and evolving. Even if it’s not on our schedule.

Does this happen in your house? When the caregiver who works more outside of the home – the one who doesn’t typically pick up from school, the one who still goes to work even when the kids are sick – comes home from work and the kids run to them, play with them, seem to have really sweet connected time with them? But then you’re the one enforcing all the tough transitions. Time to finish playing and eat, or do homework, or get in the bath, or whatever less preferred activity is necessary. 

Now you’ve learned the ACT method of limit setting (Landreth, 2012) and you may find yourself asking - what do I do if my child won’t make a choice? That’s called advanced limit setting. Let’s get into it! 

Is sugar REALLY that bad for your kid? What’s the harm?

Some years ago, as a Mom of two elementary - age kiddos & a new Human Nutrition student, I had to take a hard look at how sugar specifically was affecting my children. From their behavior to their sleep patterns to what seemed like an endless stream of roller-coaster emotions and consistent health issues, I had to explore what we were ingesting and how it may be affecting all of these things. But where should I start? The amount of information was overwhelming, to say the least, and I had only just begun my journey into the science of nutrition. It was like drinking from a water hose of information.  

The way self-care is portrayed in the media today is a double-edged sword; I am glad that the idea is widespread, but I’m afraid the way self-care is presented to folks these days is lacking substance. We hear things like “love yourself” but honestly, that’s pretty vague! What does that actually mean, and how do we go about doing that?

All children deserve the right to play. And furthermore, to play in a space that meets their needs and allows them to experience a feeling of safety to express themselves and grow.

You’re darn right it is! How do I know? Because I am a rock climber. I have been actively climbing rocks and rock-like features since 1999. I consider myself a lifetime beneficiary of the therapeutic properties of rock climbing. Through the sport of rock-climbing, I have developed self-confidence, mindfulness, resilience, and an ability to conquer many of my fears on the wall and off. All of which are tools that I use daily, to ensure a lifetime of positive growth, stability, and intrapersonal success. 

Caregivers often come to us because they are struggling with their kiddos’ “bad” behaviors. This is an area many caregivers struggle with and certainly need help during those trying moments. 

Exercise is good for everyone. In a world racked with uncertainty, this statement holds truer than most. Exercise looks different for everyone; you could be training for a marathon, or training to walk a 5k. You could play a few holes of golf on the weekend, or you could be doing a mile run followed by 100 push-ups, 100 sit-ups, and 200 squats, followed by another mile run. But no matter what and how much you are doing, you will very likely benefit from it.