Schools closed due to a global pandemic. If that’s not enough to trigger you, what about having to stay home, having to go out, having to work, not working? And the cherry on top? You now need to oversee your child’s education, whatever that is right now. Speaking of your child, their schedules have been obliterated, the people who support them daily gone, and the people caring for them now (that’s you!) are spread so thin, quality time is nothing more than a mirage.

Terry D’Elisa, Psychologist, PsyD, NCSP, joins me today to talk about why the last few months have been traumatic to both children and you, how you can identify anxiety in your children, and what you can do to help!

Terry D’Elisa can be found at:
https://DrTerryDelisa.com/
[email protected]
203.966.9203

TRANSCRIPT (not proofread)

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

parents, anxiety, kids, families, children, home, worry, talking, kiddos, certainty, day, anxious, great, resiliency, situation, creating, hear, point, dana, telehealth

SPEAKERS

Terry D’Elisa, Psychologist, PsyD, NCSP, Dana Jonson

Dana Jonson  00:02

Hello, and welcome to need to know with Dana Jonson. I’m your host, Dana Jonson and I’m here to give you the information you need to know to best advocate for your child. I’m a special education attorney in private practice, a former special education teacher and administrator, a current mom to four children with IPS and I myself have ADHD and dyslexia. So I have approached the world of disability and special education from many angles. And I’ll provide straightforward information about your rights and your school’s obligations, information from other professionals on many topics, as well as tips and tricks for working with your school district. My goal is to empower you through your journey. So if there’s anything you want to hear, comment on, join our Facebook group, it’s aptly named need to know with Dana Jonson, or you can email me at Dana at special ed dot life. Okay, let’s get started.

01:02

Today we’re meeting with psychologist Terry deleasa. And hello, Terry, thank you for joining me.

Terry D’Elisa, Psychologist, PsyD, NCSP  01:08

No,

01:08

thank you. So Terry, I asked you to come join us today you are a psychologist in private practice. And you have a background in school psychology, do evaluations and psychotherapy, and I’m hearing a lot these days a lot of self care, self help make sure your kids are okay, make sure you’re okay. And all of that is true and valid. But I kind of wanted to get a little bit more into this concept that this event is traumatic. Everyone’s talking about the pandemic as it’s a traumatic event. It’s a traumatic event for us as adults. It’s a traumatic event for children. What does that mean? I think what I see a lot of is I’m seeing parents say Well, our situation isn’t that bad. We’re in a much better position than most people. We’re not upset. We’re not stressed, we’re not anything. But there’s no way to avoid the anxiety right now

Terry D’Elisa, Psychologist, PsyD, NCSP  02:01

is there and you bring up a really great point because we as adults can look at things from a bigger perspective most of the time, and we can say listen, fortunately, we still have jobs for those of us who do that’s wonderful. Fortunately, we still have food on the table, and we have a roof over our heads and all that. But for children who don’t have certainly have that perspective, things have changed drastically. And and we keep talking about this new normal and what things are going to look like in the future. And kids are really nervous about when I’m going to get back to school. What am I going to do this summer? Where am I going to spend my time I haven’t seen my friends, I can’t see grandma, I want to see grandma, but then I might make grandma sick. And so there’s just a lot of concern and worry. And parents will look at that and say oh, my child is so caring and Pathak which is wonderful. But we need to look at what that’s really doing to them in terms of their, you know, feeling grounded in the world because things their worlds were really ripped apart three months ago. For kids who have social anxiety for home school, they didn’t like it anyway. They’re like happiest little clams, many of them because they’re like I told us what was not great. And I’m glad to be home. But that’s really the minority of kiddos. But you know, but I do work with a lot of families and a lot of teams and a lot of discussion about how do we move forward, right. And so just to kind of set the stage a little bit, I want to talk about worrying anxiety, because it’s a hot topic. It’s a very significant mental disorder for many kids, even though individuals and teenagers especially will report anxiety, report depression, even if they don’t be clinical diagnosis. This is a thing in the US in our American culture these days.

03:38

I want to ask you about that because it quickly I don’t want to I don’t want to ruin your flow. But we minimize it too. I think that there’s a lot of minimizing of that, well, of course, this is stressful, but I’m handling the stress, they can handle the stress, everybody’s fine. Do you know what I’m saying? So I think that is a culture naturally minimize those components. And I think that as adults trying to get through this, it’s easier for us to minimize it, than to address it. Does that make sense?

04:04

Well, you know, it’s interesting, because when we even as parents, and when I talk with them, I will sort of have them tune into their own language and their own, you know, way of being and we sort of where I anxiety and our stress and our overwhelm and our overwork. And our overscheduling is a little bit of a badge of honor. Again, that’s not true everywhere. But sure, in our little community here in Fairfield County, there is a lot of that. So when should now we want to talk about our kids as being so resilient and so perfect, and so able to handle it all. And in all of those scenarios, we’re glossing right over the needs of a child, right for having that certainly that quiet time, that downtime, that reflective time, that creative time because we have very scheduled kids, we have high demands on our kids and now we’re placing another high demand that they should just kind of go with this and they’re sort of used to it right because like okay, this is this is you know, where we have these expectations. So when we look at worrying anxiety, we have worried That’s that’s useful work. Right? So useful worry is I have a test tomorrow, or I’m not doing well in math I need to study, right? So the worry that results in a behavioral change, that’s good worry, right? We need that, that should go away. We don’t ever want to take that away.

05:13

I think that’s the point. We don’t want to eliminate any and all stress or worry, we need some, right, we need a little bit of that to get through the day.

05:22

Right? And and anyone that like any one who says, Oh, we just want to get rid of the anxiety, we should get rid of the worry, that’s not valuable, okay, because we need some of that. So but where it becomes a problem is when we morph into the other lane, which is worried that requires certainty, and worry that requires reassurance and worry that requires needing to know every detail. And we know those kids, those kids who want to know, well, what happens if we get a flat tire? And what happens if the plane is late? And what happens if I substitute teacher? And what happens if I can’t find a seat in the cafeteria and we could go on with the what ifs, right? So here we are with COVID a brand new thing with is like, I mean, if we want to go to a place where there’s a lot of what ifs Here we are, right? We’re here. We’re in the land of the weather. So those kids for whom this was a vulnerability, and for those families, and I just want to say kids come by their anxiety, honestly, they watch it. And the inherited right. So we it’s rare that we have, you know, cool as cucumber parents and a couple of anxious kids, it’s usually there’s anxious kids and anxious parents to quote Lynn Lyons. Okay, that’s

06:24

her. That’s her parents have learned how to cope with their anxiety a little bit. So but we don’t recognize that the kids haven’t?

06:31

Well, this is true. But as I said before our parents we it’s kind of, you know, cool to sort of talk about this. And the other piece, right, that we this whole concept of helicopter parenting is really great for those parents who want reassurance seeking because now they’re labeled as really good parents. I mean, when they’re not called helicopter parents with digital concerned parents, and they’re called, you know, caring parents. And so they can do all their helicoptering and reassurance seeking and protective measures under the guise of being a good parent. But what we’re passing on to our children is like, Oh, I need to be completely certain if I’m going to move ahead. And and that’s a good thing, right? I’m being careful, right? I’m being thoughtful, I’m being certain. And that’s where we get into trouble. Because we can really create and exacerbate an already vulnerability in a kiddo because now said, they don’t want to do anything unless there’s certainty. And that’s sort of where we are as a society now around when do we open do we not open, and there’s parents who really want certainty to do that,

07:33

that’s fascinating. I hadn’t really even thought of it that way that that, that our desire to make this path a little easier for our kids might actually be contributing to how they are interpreting the situation as a whole. And I hear that because I know that we all talk, you know, with our partners or with our other children, and we talk around the house. And I don’t think we recognize what our words do to their interpretation. My first experience with that was when I got a call, my son was in kindergarten, and he’d started a fight with a kid on the playground, he was not a fighting kid over politics. And apparently, he said something to his friend that had come right out of my mouth,

Terry D’Elisa, Psychologist, PsyD, NCSP  08:15

in the kitchen.

08:18

We all gotten a little bit of trouble for that. So you know, but not realizing that I was, you know, putting my five year old in a position of taking a political stance, I had no idea it never even occurred to me. Right. Right.

08:30

Then they learn from us good and bad, right? And watch what we do. When they hear it. We say, listen, we’re not perfect. And we’re going to be ourselves at home and everything, but it is having that mindfulness. What is the message we want to give our kids age and want the message to be like, Don’t worry, honey, I’m going to protect you at all costs. And and you’re safe here with me and I will not let you out the door or with another person until I am certain that it’s safe. What we’re teaching kids is that Oh, certainty. Again, back to that certainty thing. I need certainty. What we want to give kids is a sense of resiliency. Okay? When we treat anxiety and worry, we don’t tell kids Oh, it’s going to go away. We say kids, nope, that anxiety and worry is going to be there, it’s going to show up and it’s predictable. Because everyone knows their vulnerabilities. When you go to stand up in front of the class to give a report, and you have anxiety like stage fright around that your insight is going to show up and start chirping in your ear. You know what’s coming, and you know what to say back to the anxiety and you turn and you move ahead anyway. And it’s the move ahead. Anyway, peace is how do we overcome anxiety, we actually retrain our brain, we create new pathways in our brain by moving ahead, despite the anxiety not waiting for to go away. So here we are in COVID. And we’re in this place of not necessarily moving ahead, and we have families that are ready to move ahead, right. And then we have families who are not ready to move ahead. And again, that certainty piece is driving the maybe some of the more anxious families to say Well, I think we need to be certain and I need to be certain so I must be right so if I must be right then you will be wrong, right? And it’s creating dichotomy, this black and white thinking of right and wrong, whether a dialectic of like, we can both be right, we can do what’s right for our family, some families, and we spoke about this have more medical needs or medical vulnerabilities, they may make some different choices, other families may not have those same vulnerabilities. And that is a different path for them. So we’re kind of having this difficulty of accepting where each other are, and then becoming really entrenched on one side of the other. But in the meanwhile, what we’re modeling for our kids is this need for in many families this need for certainty, yes, reality is that prior to this, we had to live with a lot of uncertainty, right? We get in the car, we were not certain we’re gonna get to our destination. That sounds horrible, right? We don’t talk about that. But that’s sort of inherent in our functioning, and so can’t be certain you know, that they’re going to have enough pizza on pizza day for us, we can’t be certain that we’re going to do well, on our math test, we can’t be certain that we’re going to have, you know, whatever thing I mean, it could we can go on, where now we’re sort of expecting that kind of certainty here. And it’s creating a lot of confusion. Because certainly when I work with kids, and we’re talking about moving head, despite uncertainty, there’s this whole big situation. Now, that’s the opposite of that. And you’re under the mindset of waiting for certainty.

11:21

But I think that’s fascinating, because I have, you know, one of my children, we spent a lot of time when they were younger, teaching them to roll with it. You know, it was that, you know, she had a really hard time adjusting. And that was years ago. And it’s an issue, and it will always be an issue for her. But it was, we had this conscious movement within our house to make sure that things weren’t certain, and that we could adjust. And I forgotten all of that until right now talking with you, that that we’d spent years doing that with one of our kids. And I’m thinking, Wow, it doesn’t even dawn on us right now. Right? Because we’re just telling them, you know, that we’re, you know, this is what we think or that we need to be certain or that we need to lighten up or that we need to be nervous, or that we need to not be so nervous. And I feel like all of that is coming out of us, you know, in my house. And so I can only imagine and we’re trying to be cognizant of that. But it sounds so simple, yet, it’s so hard to wrap your brain around that what we are doing to get through could be what’s contributing to ours and our children’s anxiety around all of this. What do we do? I mean, how do we? How do we know if we’re creating that stress? Or if that stress is building or, you know, I think a lot of us as parents are doing this unwillingly and unknowingly, no one’s consciously sitting around trying to stress their kids. What’s so how do we identify that within ourselves or within our children? How do we go about identifying those components?

12:50

And that’s, that’s a really great question. Because again, it is about trying to get to the next step, which is solve the problem or improve the situation. And for step one is really self awareness, you know, checking in with your own language, your own your own anxieties, your own fears. And when when I can work with families with kiddos who have anxiety in general, you know, we definitely go there. And I’ll say to a child, like, Who’s the anxious person in your family? And they’re very quick, it’s never Hmm, let me think about it. They know, it’s Mom, it’s Dad, it’s both it’s Grandma, you know, and parents, you know, it’s interesting, parents will point to their parents often or other family members and may have not really looked at themselves, or they’re really aware, like, Oh, my gosh, I’m a worrier. And so in order to help the child, we have to also help the parents because they have to model resiliency, they have to model moving forward in the face of uncertainty. So if you’re an anxious parent, assume you have an anxious child, because they have learned and watched you, you it may not be the case. Right? But that’s, you know, looking at it from that lens and just recognizing, hmm, do Am I fearful of moving forward? Am I really seeking that certainty that may not come or maybe an unrealistic thing? And do I really need to step back and think about moving forward despite the uncertainty and again, there are certain families with certain medical conditions and situations that may be different, but we’re talking about your general level of risk kind of a family. And so step one is prepared to have that self awareness and then start to use resiliency language using language of not reassurance seeking necessarily, but just general like, you know what, we can be nervous, and we can still move ahead. And I’ll give you an example. A team that I worked with, who has a history of anxiety has made great progress very independent now can do so many things. Anxiety was really not an issue for her. And then the first time going out of the house just to go to the grocery store and the sick kiddo can drive and have that level of independence before really started to cry and froze up and be and was refusing to go out of the house because they have been home for a few couple of months. hearing all of this fear length Which, and the parents realize like holy moly, like, Look what I’ve done and not that this parent was running around like the, you know, the sky is falling, but just the, you got to be careful. And we have to make sure we wash our hands. And we have to make sure that we don’t go anywhere, we’re having our groceries delivered and we’re not leaving the house. And so now when it was the first time for this kiddo to go out, she couldn’t up. And so we have to sort of go back and really talk about you know, remember, we have worried chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp, but we still move forward. All right, and had to really do that. And then the parent had to do more of self reflection. So you know, what, I really embraced this COVID thing, and I worried my brains out and I Pap, you know, reinfected our family basically, with anxiety, and they had to kind of step back and re inoculate themselves, choose that language, you know, against it, and do some different behaviors.

15:47

That’s such a good point, because we also try to be okay with it. So I think sometimes, for me, anyway, when I am trying to convince myself, it’s okay. or convince myself that I’m not so stressed out, I think it’s easy to either completely minimize and ignore something or to jump in 100% and hunker down. And, and I mean, let’s be candid, it’s a global pandemic, you know. So I think, I think there’s really valid reason for concern, the only valid reason to be careful and overly cautious, and it is creating a divide. And we can see that through the news through just in our own communities, that there are actual fights and some of the physical over whether we should be cautious or not right now, how do we guide our children through that when they’re seeing this, and they’re hearing this and you know, whether even if we turn off all the news, which we have done, but then I realize I’ve got I’ve six teenagers living in my house right now we have two foster children. So I’ve six total right now. And they’ve all got their phones, and they’re coming to me with means and stuff that is completely untrue. Some of it is some isn’t. And I find myself then sorting through that, because I’ve turned all the news off. So where do we find some balance with all of this,

17:05

I mean, we’re all being bombarded. And that’s a great point. And I think having those conversations about empathy and understanding that not everyone is in our same situation. So for example, if mom or dad are a salaried employees, and can work from home and are still getting their paycheck, and there’s still medical insurance and food on the table, that’s one set of situations, someone who owns a small business, you know, a barber shop, a hardware store, a restaurant, and they’re, you know, they’re not getting a paycheck, they’re not, you know, able to pay their bills, and there’s a lot more stress and anxiety, that that group of people may be like more on the leading edge saying, you know, what, I’m willing to go back, I’m willing, you know, in my foot, you know, are willing to go back, we’re willing to do what we need to do, because we need to do that, to keep our business afloat. And so, you know, even in my own family, we had a lot of discussion, because there was I observed a lot of rigidity, you know, like, No, we all have to stay home. And if someone’s out there, they’re there. They’re whisking the world. And it was a lot of extremist language. And I was really surprised to hear that. And so we were really talking about, you know, even if you don’t agree with someone, you could still empathize with their situation or their perspective. And again, that’s more of that dialectic, like, we can have different opinions. And we can both be right, we could both be wrong, but we can be okay. Right, we can accept each other. And as a society, I think we’ve gotten away with that a lot in the last several years. And this has brought it out a lot more, because there’s a lot of people in just one camp or the other. And recognizing that we can both be right, you know, business owner could barely be right and wanting to open his business up and try to make you know, have inclines you’re willing to come in right, having that freedom of option, while other people who are content to stay home can do that, too, when this began, and I think this is all part of it, you know, where the mind shift is, you know, we all sort of went home, we’re gonna be home for a few weeks at the medical community catch up, let’s flatten the curve, right? That was the big term, the curve, and and so everyone was in that mindset. And now, suddenly, what went from 234 weeks has gone on for nearly three months, you know, there’s going to be a lot of differing opinions on what was the necessary is definitely necessary. And then certainly Now, when we have writing, I think we were primed for this, and then this horrible death, and then all of the response to that, I think it’s like a kinlin. So it’s, it’s important to consider the additional outcomes,

19:29

right, and I think that’s a really good point is that we were already in a very stressful situation. And now we’ve had these, you know, either domestic or global events that are in addition to COVID that are disturbing and concerning and sad. And I think, you know, one of the things you touched on it a minute ago, which was there’s also this mindset that if I am right, somebody doing something different must be wrong. Those two I can be right And you can be right. Yes. And I can be right for my situation. And you can be right for your situation. But I think that we, as a society in our country are like that, you know, if you just look at working parents versus non working parents, there’s a tremendous divide for what I can see as no apparent reason. So, you know, but it’s what I chose to do it this way, as a parent, and you chose to do it differently than you must think I’m wrong.

20:26

Right, because, you know, as we live, we judge others. So, you know, that was my grandmother used to say that. And so if we think we’re sitting in judgment of others, we’re assuming other people are sitting in judgment of us. And like earlier point about being that helicopter over protective clearing all barriers for our kids type of parents, that’s like a, that culture is like an anxious parents dream, because now I get to be anxious, and do my worry. And I’m like, patted on the back for it, and called a great parent, and really want to want to say, that’s really not we all we kind of know, that’s really not the right way to be. But again, when we’re over protective, right, I’m keeping my kids home, they’re not going to summer camp, we’re not going anywhere, I’m having my groceries delivered. And that’s the end of that, and we’re not leaving the house until there’s a vaccine, there are some people who might they have great parents, how caring, you know, have protected, but what we’re really teaching our kids, and again, this is tricky, because it’s a medical thing and all that. But what we’re teaching our kids is that we don’t have resiliency, we don’t have ways to protect ourselves and be smart, that I can’t rely on you to hand sanitize and, and do the appropriate things that we need. I just need to lock you in the house and lock us on the house. And that is very frightening to kids, because then the message is, I don’t know how to protect myself, my parents don’t believe I can protect myself and they don’t believe they can protect themselves. That’s your message.

21:52

Well, and that that’s actually I love that you said that because it’s it’s not just that it’s scary out there. I think we’re sending the message sometimes to children that you can’t take care of yourself. And you’re not capable. I hear that a lot. Well, they’re not, you know, they’re teenagers, they’re dumb, or they’re elementary kids, and they don’t prioritize, right. But I think it is a deeper, stronger message we’re sending to them, that I don’t trust you. You’re not capable. And I don’t trust you. And so that message is also coming across, even if it’s a valid message, right? Even if it is so dangerous, that we can’t let kids out. And I’m not saying it is I’m just saying let’s, if we’re in that serious of a position, that doesn’t mean you’re not sending the message to the child that they’re not trustworthy. Well,

22:42

even with teenagers, right, as we’re raising kids up through teenagers to be independent adults, because that is the goal, by the way independent adulthood, that kids will have to earn privileges through demonstrating responsibility, we will give say, a child a cell phone, and they have to demonstrate certain responsibility, they need to use that to check in with us they can’t go to you know, use it in inappropriate ways. If they demonstrate that they’re not able to show that responsibility, then they lose the privilege. But there’s always this process of moving forward, right, there’s always this process of demonstrating and, and checking in. And I think with this, that piece is not part of it. Rachel, you have a child and again, kids will rise or fall to our expectations. And I’ll give you a quick example. I was in observing a kiddo in an elementary school and when the kids came in from the playground to go in into the cafeteria for lunch, there was a station where hand sanitizer right there was a couple of them. And kids like a good 90% hand was going right into the hand sanitizer. Now this was certainly pre COVID. Right. And and the point is that they were told that this is a good idea. So 90% of them were doing it your 10% of kids who just wanted to get to that front of the line who had anxieties about maybe no pizza being left for them. Right. That’s another group because, you know, we just race right by but I was impressed by that. And we’re talking like second graders, hands, hands hands, right. So there’s already that data in this one particular school. And I imagine there are others that could say, you know what, we already had some work around this already about hand washing, about hand sanitizing, and all of that. So we can just continue to build on that, which is not a bad thing. But we want to teach kids that you can move forward despite the threat, right? So you can you can come in and eat lunch despite having just played on the playground, we’re going to do a little hand sanitizer squirt, just to kind of, you know, help things. But the reality is you will be fine. And that’s the message we like to give kids because that will build resiliency. I can take steps and I can move forward. And if we’re stuck in this space of being home in our house locked away and no plan, then we’re not building resiliency, we’re undermining it. And we’re creating a lot of worry and doubt in hits.

24:52

So how can we build that resiliency while we’re stuck at home and some people are going I mean, you know, we’re semi open right now. And People are working. So some people are braving the elements. And I mean, actually, you know, we took into foster kids in the middle of all this. So you know, we’re also getting all getting tested for covid in an hour, do some other information that trickled in after the children. But you know,

25:17

that that’s the balance, right? So you take the right precautions, and then you move ahead. I mean, in your case, you’re doing a beautiful thing. These are two children who needed a home, and you had to weigh the cost and the balance and you chose let’s we’re going to take a little bit of a risk here, we can’t have certainty, but we’re still going to move forward. And that’s what we’re talking about. So we say to our kids, okay, the world is open. Now, to some degree we’re going to do, we’re going to take your questions, we’re going to hand wash, we’re going to use hand sanitizer, we’ll bring bring our mass so we can social distance, we’ll have our masks on. And and we’ll wipe down surfaces and you know, do basic things, but we want to make that part of our routine, and not the roadblock to moving ahead. And that’s the difference. So we’re going to have these new things alongside of us, but we don’t want it to stop us from living life. And it breaks my heart when I walk by playground. So to still closed up. And, and little kids, I couldn’t imagine doing this, my kids were little, although my kids, I have five of them. They said they’d be having a goal. And I believe that, but if I couldn’t bring them to a park, or if I couldn’t bring them somewhere, I think that would be a really hard thing to to explain to them. And I think that would build fear because they would sit there and think why? Why do you know playgrounds? like think about a three year old, why the playgrounds all wrapped up how there’s nothing that they can take from that is other than the world’s a scary place now, and I need to be scared and and we want to get away from that as quickly as we can.

26:42

And I do think to some degree, I have four children and two foster kids. So that’s six kids in my house, you have five kids, I do think there is a little bit of a luxury to having that many children because you literally can not worry about all those little things. You can’t you cannot physically worry about everything. So you are forced to let things go. And as a complete control freak, which I am, that was a really hard journey for me to realize I did not have full control when it came to all of my children. But I think it is I do see that it’s harder for parents who are able to maintain that control, then let it go. Let’s start with what about parents who aren’t seeing it? Who don’t think that there’s any stress or anxiety or or feel that they have it all under control? What sort of signs Could they be looking for, that they might not think are signs that their child or they themselves are under more stress than they recognize?

27:34

Well, when kids come and ask a lot of questions and are very reassurance seeking, that’s a big sign. And we as parents won’t even think twice a bit, but we’ll just provide that reassurance. And so even if we’re feeling good about things now, and we’re thinking, Okay, things are gonna start to get back to normal, when our kids are constantly coming and looking for that reassurance that is a big red bit of a red flag, that there is some anxiety that they’re looking to appease. And so sitting down and really talking to them say I’m noticing, and I love that word notice because it’s not a judgmental word. I’m noticing that you’re asking me a lot of questions about the pandemic or the riots or whatever is happening right now What’s up, and just opening up a conversation. And of course, that’s more appropriate for kids who are older who can really have that conversation, it’s not going to be necessarily preferred two or three year old, but with a younger child, you know, or any child getting some professional guidance. If you’re seeing that there’s a lot of reassurance seeking or a lot of fears or nighttime is becoming parents will come see me if there’s sleep issues if there’s school avoidance issues. And if there’s real significant meltdown, behavioral issues at home, those are the things that usually mobilize parents to say okay, we need some help when it goes beyond what they’ve been able to manage. So doing that kind of inventory as a family say, how much managing have we been doing about little Johnny’s a little Susie’s worries? And how much maybe are they getting worse? Because of this new information? Or how much are they happily staying home now because they can avoid all things that are making them anxious? So you know, things there may be some calm now. And somebody else might be Oh, thank goodness, we don’t have to deal with that school bus every day. Or thank goodness, we don’t have to deal with getting, you know, on the soccer field or whatever. But we need to go back there, right. And we’re going to have to go back to school and get back on the soccer field. So this may be the calm before the storm, as I talked about my teen who you know, wanted to go to the store and realize she was frozen and just had a meltdown and but was old enough and had enough therapy to realize oh my gosh, this is my anxiety and it’s just been percolating and fueling up for this moment to sabotage me like it had done before. So we want to equip parents to prepare for that and start having those conversations and being mindful of their own language in front of their kids. So they’re not inadvertently reinforcing it like When you spoke about being a control freak, right, we all sort of talked about that. And we kind of you know, that’s a little bit of a badge of honor. Oh, I like to be in charge. And I like to take care of everything. Kids will hear that. So what the the Carlyle is that, you know, it’s my tendency is to want to control everything. But I know that that’s really not a great way to be. I really work hard on being more letting things go, right, I work really hard on just accepting the way things are and not seeking the certainty. So we can live our lives out loud for our kids, and identify our vulnerabilities, right? Because we all have them, and then identify our coping strategies, too, right? And that’s where the learning happens. And you’ll say, Wow, yeah, mom does really like to control everything. But she’s really aware and really tries to kind of go with it. And, you know, that’s a good way to be. Yeah.

30:45

And I love what you said about, you know, that she had enough therapy to understand what was happening to her. And I said, because I know, at least in in our home forever, it’s always been everybody’s in therapy all the time. I’m a big fan of it. I think everyone should be in it, period, bn. But I know that’s not everybody’s perspective. And I think that a lot of times we go to therapy, because something’s wrong. That’s how we get there in the first place. Right? We’re not going because everything’s great. And I just want to make sure it stays Great. So I’m going to go make sure that I’m healthy, we say, okay, everything is falling apart. And now I have to go to therapy. So I also think that there’s this thought of, and I’ve heard myself, say it to my own children be like, have you talked to your therapist this week? You know, when something’s going on, and it really is almost like saying, You can’t handle this. Can you? And I and I don’t mean it to sound that way. But that’s how it’s up there with Have you taken your meds? Like, please, something’s going on here that makes me think you did not.

31:41

You know what, Dana, I love that. And that’s a great point. Because a way to rephrase that, because therapists may jump jump in your head, right? Because like, Oh, this is like delving into something I really, I don’t know what to say here. You know, but say, what, what strategies has your therapist shared with you to use right now? And you know, what, if I got my parents to do that as consistently as I want them to, I’d be thrilled because, you know, as a therapist, I’m with them once an hour week, right, and your as a parent with them the rest of the time. So when they’re starting to have anxiety or starting to worry, or starting to upset whatever the case is, there should be some skills and strategies that they were taught, or reminded us of what they need to do, like with the anxiety Oh, right, anxiety, you know, I tell my kiddos to name their anxiety, give it a name. And so there you are, Sam, Sam’s here, like I’m ignoring you, Sam, go chirp in somebody else’s ear, because I’m moving on with life. And sometimes I’m big on humor, I love humor. And being able to externalize the anxiety is great. So if you were new, what strategies your therapist was, was teaching your child to manage whatever it is, you can either cue them and say, what what’s what was the strategy that we were working on? We were talking about that might be effective here? Oh, right. You know, the other thing, I’ll have kids write these things down, or journal them down, and so forth, and keep notes of what it is that we’re working on. So they can go back. And usually there is at homework, and they should be practicing the strategies as well. So when they’re in a stressful moment, it becomes more automatic. We’re not good at trying something for the first time, we were already say anxious or worked up, we want to have practiced it, and then we can have it available to us when we need it.

33:22

I think that’s a good point, too, because sometimes it’s easy for us as parents to say, I know what you need, you need to go take a break, and you need to go read a book or do something. And we’re telling them what to do. And it feels I mean, I know I don’t like it when someone tells me what to do. Even if it’s 100% right, I walk away with Nah, not gonna do that. And I’m and I’m a 50 year old adult. I can only imagine how my teenagers respond to that. But I think we’re trying to help but we’re not allowing for maybe the child’s input. Or maybe they don’t want to read a book. Maybe that’s not how they break, you know, free easy for us as adults to say, Well, we know better because a lot of the time we do I think that’s a reality. And we do but that doesn’t mean we know how to fix it.

34:09

Great point. And we want to build independent resilient kids, we want them to say you know what, I can fix my I can handle my problem because mom and dad are not going to be there all the time. And that sort of goes right back to all that we’ve been talking about. I’m feeling anxious and I’m in school if your only strategy is call mom go home that’s a problem and we would know that like you would agree we would all agree Oh no, we can’t have been doing that but yet we set the stage because if they have to rely on us constantly to cue them and to prompt them so on big on having you know what my break list of activities on the refrigerator, having a calm down kit, a couple of them in the house and you can maybe queue you know, why don’t you go check your list and see what might be a good thing to do right now. Because you you know and then let them take take over. They may choose rebook, they may choose listen to Music, they may choose you to snuggle up in their blanket, they could choose a lot of things, but we’re not, we’re not there as the cure. And as you probably experienced, they’ll reject every idea, you’ll get frustrated. So and that creates another situation. So as much as you could sort of separate out and give them that autonomy, you certainly as it’s age, appropriate, developmentally appropriate, we want to do that. Because suddenly, when you’re in the kitchen, and they’re in the living room, and they’re having a moment, they’re like, Oh, I know what I need to do. And you don’t even have to be there. And that’s, that’s what we want. Because we want them to be able to take these skills on the road, wherever they are, and be able to know what they need, and be able to do it for themselves. How empowering is that? Mm hmm.

35:39

And I think to some degree, we have to be willing to allow mistakes and let them fail. And I think that’s hard. Because, you know, I hear people say, Well, yeah, but do I want them to fail in this. And I think that, that we have to remember that it’s not all or nothing grain, right? Being a mistake. And, quote, failing, does the COVID unit,

36:01

right, and you know, when I talk with parents, especially have middle schoolers, so think about middle schoolers. Now, they have different teachers and different demands. And that’s when some difficulties show up with executive functioning. And maybe kids with ADHD, they had a great elementary school teachers who kept it under control. And now they’re having a hard time. And parents are jumping in jumping in jumping in correcting homework, managing folders, doing all of that. And then my conversation is that time of middle school is the time to struggle through some of this doesn’t mean we don’t put supports in place for kids who need them and all that I’m not seeing that. But my point is that we can helicopter as much as we like, we need to let go a little because we want to prepare them for high school. Because if they haven’t had a chance to kind of struggle and fail a little bit in middle school and figure out what works, parents are going to be less likely to let them do it in high school when it counts, right. And I wanted to get into a good college, I can’t they can’t they can’t sell math, you have to change teachers, you know, they can’t fail math, I have to, you know, sit down with them every day and and correct their work with them. You’re not going to be there in college, right? So at some point, we have to let that little struggle happen, and help them figure it out and get some resiliency. I love it.

37:10

So what can parents do right now. I mean, we’re at home with them all the time, it is so hard to separate, it’s one thing to say, okay, you’re at school, and you might make a mistake over there. But we’re here we’re all together all day. It is for parents who are working or have their own struggles in this time, don’t have, I won’t say they don’t have something. But as parents we’re just trying to get through to, and we don’t have that natural separation from our children that we do when they go to school or we go to work. So you know, I At first, I found that my husband and I were so frustrated that we couldn’t get any work done. And then we realized we have four kids, we just shoved in a room and told to be quiet. Like what? What were we expecting to give them free rein of the house and hope for the best? But what can we be doing? Like? Do you have any tips that parents in general we can be doing to help us in this environment? That that helps us allow some autonomy for our children

38:10

to sing because now we’re transitioning from from school to summer, right? And, and so within the next couple of weeks, most kids will be finishing up School, which is going to be another transition. And again, as we made this transition from in school, learning to add home learning was only going to be a few weeks. And you know, so we never really kind of invested many of us in kind of creating that routine, right? Because we didn’t know how long this was going to go on. And once we sort of realized this was in we were in it for the long haul. It was like oh my gosh, like what am I going to do? So now we’re transitioning to summer, if we don’t if our kids are not going to be going to camp where they might normally go to camp, this is where some creative thinking will come in. And one of the things I was saying when I was doing I was on a webinar with another group of professionals and and families in neighborhoods may have to get together and say, Okay, we’re going to host our own little summer camp in you know, and this is for younger kids, right? We’re not talking to younger kids, our own little summer camp. So Mrs. Smith is going to have everybody over on Monday. And and Mrs. Smith is going to you know, host some backyard games and some craft activities and that sort of thing. And then Mrs. Jones is going to have the same little group of kiddos over on Tuesday. So at least you’re managing that, that interaction, right? You have like maybe five families that you’re working with versus going into a big wide camp when you have hundreds, right if you want to manage that exposure, and it’s going to require more neighborly cooperation or friendly cooperation and then maybe a hiring a teenager right to come over and maybe do that help facilitate that as well. Like imagine a high school boy in the backyard playing you know, lacrosse or basketball or kicking a soccer ball around with a bunch of, you know, elementary school or age boys. How cool would that be for them? So now we’re getting kids off screens, which is a whole nother issue we’ve all been dealing with getting them outside. Mom and Dad can you know get you know, Lisa Half day’s work in write in the morning, then come in have lunch, maybe then set up some other quiet activities, but it will require some cooperation I think among families to facilitate that because it’s we’re all isolated, having the same struggles, at least we could share some of the the work, I guess as to be done. And that’s just one way. But having a family meeting, really talking about expectations, getting everyone’s opinion, it’s not going to be good. If parents come in and impose something on the kids. This is how it’s going to be this summer, you know, like it are tough it and that’s it. We want our kids to say, you know, this is what I would like to have, maybe take one day off a week, say, okay, Friday is going to be or whatever weather day is the week, we’re going to do a family day, we’re going to go for a hike and go to the beach, we’re going to do something depending on what we’re allowed to do. And and being creative that way. But again, getting the whole family involved, not just parents deciding when they’re tired at the end of the day that they’re going to impose martial law. And it’s not going to really last, what happened then coming back and revisiting the plan as we sort of hone it along over the summer.

41:08

Wow, that’s great. I mean, that’s such so much great information. Thank you, I really appreciate this conversation, because I just feel like we have so many I’m hearing so many terms just thrown around whether it’s anxiety or trauma or, you know, get it together. And, and so I think it is really important for us to recognize it. Not everybody, we don’t all know how to address those things. You know, we may want to we may know they’re there. But that doesn’t mean we have all the answers. And this certainly is a weird time without certainty. And I mean, when I say without certainty, I mean, we’re all going to go back to school. At some point. We’re all back to work. At some point, we know that I think what’s fascinating about this is that even if by September one which we know it’s not going to happen, but let’s just say by September one, all schools were clean, and COVID was gone. We’ve all just learned we can live this way we can work this way. And we can learn this way. And that’s going to change our society. So even if we got rid of everything that’s scary right now our society has changed. And we have to, on some level adjust for that. And we also, by the way, have this global pandemic. Oh,

42:19

well, it’s that you know, and I guess, the thing I want to reinforce is that when we keep looking for certainty, we’re just going to be in an infinite loop, because it really doesn’t exist. And that’s a very hard thing. But if we all just kind of sit with that, and knowing whatever step we take, we’re going to have to make it with some level of uncertainty, then then we’re going to be able to move forward because other than that, we will not be able to move forward. And I do know some school districts are doing like, yes, why would the young ones like the preschoolers in person, because you can’t put a three year old in front of a screen to do social skills, and B, and speech and language, we all know, that’s crazy. It’s never gonna work. So there was so there, there are school districts who are starting to do that even over the summer with the little kiddos because we cannot ignore the needs of these children. And they’re doing it with you know, now you’re not gonna three year old mascot, you’re just not right, it’s not gonna happen. You just got to know that. So we have good sanitation practices, which hopefully we’ve always had in a preschool classrooms, right. And our parents, again, can make those personal choices, if there’s a heightened medical situation, they may choose something different. But if you have a child on the autism spectrum, as a two year old, three year old, they need services.

Dana Jonson  43:31

And, and

43:32

that’s a good point that is that, you know, there are different ways of doing it. Because I know that certain evaluators, for example, are coming back in either in person or pseudo in person. And I have different families that have different comfort levels with different evaluators. So one family might say, Oh, this guy’s doing it great. And someone else is like, no way. I’m not doing it that way. That’s okay. Neither of them are right or wrong.

Dana Jonson  43:53

It’s right.

43:54

This is what valuator created as an environment. And if you’re not comfortable with that, that’s okay. And if somebody else is comfortable with that, that’s okay, too. Yeah.

44:04

So I’m doing I’m just started back on doing some in office evaluations, not therapy is still on zoom. Because I won’t do psycho Ed or neuro psych evolves over zoom, it’s just not appropriate to do. And so each family has to make their own decision about getting certain information. And there was a number of vowels that were just kind of left in March, we couldn’t finish. And so families like I want to answer is my child on the spectrum does my child you know, so we were finishing those, unfortunately, because I’m a sole practitioner, I really have, like, you know, control over my domain so I can space things out and clean things, and you know, and we had to have a protocol in place. So, hopefully, we’re just gonna see how that goes and do the soft opening in that way, and then we’ll move forward from there.

44:49

That’s wonderful. That’s wonderful. Well, thank you, Terry. I really appreciate this conversation. Have I left anything out? Is there anything else that you think parents need to know or should No or anything I missed?

45:01

I think we covered it all day. No, I think so too. I

45:04

really appreciate this. This is, this is not an easy time. And as you said, we’re all adjusting. And you know what, but what I love the most about what you said is that we are always all adjusting that component isn’t actually new. We just aren’t able to convince ourselves right now that we know what’s happening next. I think maybe that’s what it is.

45:25

Well, again, it’s that certainty piece. And if we have to check in with ourselves, my waiting for certainty, Oh, right, that’s never gonna happen. You know, we have to have like a little mental flowchart, waiting for certain day, you’re gonna go into an infinite loop, like the little spinning thing on our computer knows, and we’re doing that to ourselves waiting for certainty. So we have to exit that loop and say, Okay, we have to move forward without certainty. And we do that every day in every other aspect of our lives. When we go to a restaurant, we can’t be certain we’re not going to get food poisoning, we go try to keep you certainly like we consider and lis disasters, right. But the point is, we do it all the time. So we have it, we’re capable of it, we just need to remind ourselves, Oh, right, I can move forward and not be certain. And we want to convey that to our kids. And that’s what we need to do. In my opinion, when

46:12

somebody right now in our current situation feels like this is out of my depth at whatever’s going on with my kids is beyond my skill set.

46:19

What can they do? Who should they call if you know, things are really getting out of control where you notice like anxiety, really ratcheting up, you’re having a lot of behavior and sleep issues definitely reach out to a psychologist, or clinical social worker, and just that specializes like in that anxiety, like I work with a lot of anxiety kids and a lot of families with anxiety and get some guidance, get some coaching. And it doesn’t have to be you know, therapy is not a lifelong, it doesn’t have to be it’s not considered to be a lifelong endeavor. It’s all about getting in getting, you know, strategies, understanding the ideology and putting some changes into practice and moving forward. So if you find yourself in that place, that’s when you really need to get some help.

47:03

Right. And it is available, you can you know, online, telehealth, and people are starting to work in person now, because I do know that the other thing I’ve noticed is that some people feel very strongly that things have to be in person because that’s what they’re used to. And some do some things do some assessments can’t be done over zoom. They just can’t period yet. But there is a lot that can be done from a distance.

47:26

And absolutely, I got three new I’ve gotten three new families since the pandemic, and then I’ve not met them in person. No, but we bet we’ve been fine, like and so I’m looking forward to meeting them in person. And I have started other other long distance with college kids. I’ve started in that way that they’re having a lot of anxiety in college, you know, parents help set that up. So I’ll see them, you know, this way telehealth in when they’re in college, and then we’ll meet in person when they’re home. So this is not that uncommon, certainly for me as a practitioner, having my entire practice go this route. It was new, but I definitely make it work with families doing the telehealth.

48:03

Yeah. And I think a lot of private practice practitioners were in your position where they have worked with kids in college, and that’s why like their students go to college. So they did have a really small distance component. But that made it easier to transition because you had that experience. You know, so if somebody is listening to this, and they say, Well, I actually I need to talk to Terry to Lisa, that’s who I have to talk to. How would they find you?

48:26

So my, my office number is 203-966-9203. My website is Dr. Dr. Terry T. Ri deleasa de l iisa. COMM. And my email is Terry, Dr. Lisa p. [email protected]. So like everybody, we have all the ways of of, you can find me just Google me and I’m there. So

48:52

great. Well, and I will put all that information in the show notes. So if anyone’s listening to this, and they want to go back to the show notes, all of that information will be there and you can find it there. Thank you so much for joining us. This was really helpful, and I think something parents really need to hear right now. So thank you.

Terry D’Elisa, Psychologist, PsyD, NCSP  49:07

I hope I was helpful. Thanks, Dana, for having me. Absolutely.

49:11

Thank you so much for joining me today. Please don’t forget to subscribe to this podcast so that you get notifications when new episodes come out. And I want to know what you want to know. So join our Facebook group also named need to know Dana Jonson, or you can email me, Dana at special ed dot life. But definitely reach out with your comments and questions and I’ll see you next time here on me to know with Dana Jonson have a fabulous day