Grateful for New Babies and People Who Help When Life Feels Harder than Necessary

So, I find myself at the confluence of some exciting events. Perhaps this experience rings true for you, too. First off, I've been witnessing a number of friends adding brand new babies to their lives. It's thrilling to see all the anticipation and support come to meet these new little people and the people who will care for them in the days, and weeks, and years to come. Welcome, welcome!

And second, now the holiday season is here where we Seattlites have already braved our first snow storm that snarled traffic for hours and brought commuter's to their wits' ends and even resulted in a few reports of fisticuffs.

Often, we don't realize that we've run out of coping muscle until we're face-to-face with our own unrecognizable selves. We do something or say something or think something that makes us wonder, "How did I get like this? This isn't me!"

Thankfully, help is available. Katherine Stone published on her Postpartum Progress blog a great list of resources for postpartum parents who need mental health care but may not be insured or may be underinsured.

Here in Seattle, the Seattle Crisis Directory publishes a great list of free or low-cost therapeutic groups and counselors who offer sliding-fee scale services.

Please take good care of yourselves, everyone, during this holiday season, no matter whether it's your first or your 100th!

Apologizing as Inoculation Against Bullying Behavior

The Committee for Children's mission is to end bullying and child abuse by giving kids and families the tools to communicate non-violently. I had never thought about the role of apologizing in combatting bullying, but this blog post really made sense to me. When we apologize without making excuses or getting defensive, we are demonstrating how to take responsibility for the consequences of our actions. Because feelings do matter.

The Self-Care Challenge

Making time for self-care is difficult even under the best of circumstances, but throw a baby (or two or three) into the mix, and self-care is often the first thing to be thrown out with the proverbial bath water. With that in mind, Ann Dunnewold and Diane Sanford started this new blog to create a new and sustaining self-care regimen in just 21 days. In three weeks, parents can develop the habits of mind and body to care for themselves as well as they do their little ones.

To Use or Not to Use Antipsychotic Drugs on Children

My friend Ruthie is getting her PhD in couples and family therapy, which is great because (A): she is super smart and hard-working, and (B): she shares her readings with me, so I don't have to go to the trouble of hunting down the latest research myself!

So, this recent article she shared piqued my interest because many families struggle with the question of whether to medicate a young child who has violent outbursts.

I've seen it both ways. Some kids are really helped by medication, but ONLY IF they are properly diagnosed and treated. Others are mis-diagnosed and over-medicated. By the time they reach 13 or 14 years-old, they realize they've been mistreated and are really, really angry and distrustful of the health system and the adults around them. And either way, it still leaves open the question of what the long-term effects are of antipsychotics on young children. We just don't have the long-term case studies to know with certainty what the outcome will be.

Kyle's family's story illustrates that when family's like his are given counseling and other social supports, children's behavior changes. And at least with counseling, we know there are no long-term biological effects. Long-term social-emotional effects, yes indeed, but physiological harm: no way!

Back to School Anxiety

Time once again to get out the backpacks, lunch boxes, pencils, and erasers. All over, students are getting ready to go back to the classroom. While some excitedly anticipate the first day of school, others look on that day with dread. Here are three strategies to help your nervous student (or yourself, all you adult learners out there!) face the first day:

1. Remember a time you faced a great anxiety-inducing task, and did it anyway.

A favorite personal example of mine was the time I jumped off the high-diving board. I was probably 8 or 9 years old, and I really wanted to jump off the high dive. I had climbed to the top of the stairs several times, each time getting a little farther down the board before turning back. After several attempts, I finally inched my way to the end of the board. It felt like my heart was beating in my stomach. The fear made me want to turn back, but I told myself: I've come this far, just jump. And I did. We can't feel brave without feeling fear first.

2. Find someone else to commisserate with.

Anxiety dislikes company. Talk to another friend or student about first-day jitters. Perhaps you'll find you're not alone. For some, hearing yourself say, "I feel anxious" actually takes away some of the anxiety's power.

3. Focus on a positive counterfactual.

I must give credit to Allison Gopnik's book, "The Philosophical Baby" for introducing me to the "counterfactual". The term "counterfactual" describes mental play where one imagines what could be or what might have been. Anxiety produces counterfactuals in which one experiences minor discomfort to horrible catastrophe. Consider other counterfactuals other than the ones anxiety would describe, such as: "This year I will make a new friend", or, "This year I will excel at math." Throughout the first day, focus on signs that your counterfactual is coming true.

Welcome back to school!

Northern Ireland Proves that Therapeutic Care--Not Incarceration--Keeps Juveniles from Re-offending

I was saying, "Hmm-hmm, yes, yes, amen!" while listening to this story from the BBC while driving home tonight. It--literally!--drove home that adolescents who commit crimes can lives free of criminal behavior. Incarceration and probation, however, do not have nearly the lasting effects of facing consequences as laid out by the victims in face-to-face meetings. There are no victim-less crimes, but too often, there are victim-absent judgments and sentencing. Talk about having to face the consequences!

The Moral Life of Babies

I loved this article in The New York Times that suggests that we are hard-wired to be fair and cooperative, even in infancy. Those "random acts of kindness" perhaps aren't so random after all...