Parent Involvement in Therapy

Tomorrow I'm presenting at the Utah Adoption Council's annual conference (see here for more details).  Lat week I attended a conference featuring Dr. Bruce Perry's work with trauma and attachment from a neurological perspective.  (For more about Dr. Perry's work, see here.)  Needless to say, trauma. attachment, and brain function are on my mind a lot lately.  

Human beings are attachment beings.  We're hard wired that way.  In fact, an infant's early development is dependent on attachment relationships with loving adults.  As the infant is busy eating, sleeping, squawking, pooping, and gurgling, their right brain is firing along with the adult attachment figure's right brain, and the end result is the formation and firing of unlimited numbers of neural pathways, growing into one of the most complex systems known to mankind. Fascinating!  

For that reason, most interventions I use in my practice are relationship based interventions.  Quite honestly, children, families and couples can heal faster when working within the context of human attachment relationships than any other way.  Hebb's law, or Hebb's axiom is true:  Neurons that fire together, wire together.

So what am I telling other therapists when I'm presenting tomorrow?  The take-home should be that relationships work, and that their greatest tool is parents when it comes to working with children in therapy.

And what am I telling parents?  To take care of themselves and to nurture their support systems so they can nurture their children...and to get involved in therapy.  If you're one of those parents waiting in the waiting room while your child has therapy with a therapist, ask about getting involved.  Ask what you can do at home.  Parents, you are the expert on your own child, and that expertise, combined with the therapist's knowledge of clinical issues has the potential for great outcomes.

If you want to watch a fascinating video on brain plasticity and the brain's ability to heal itself see here.  The fact that human beings are resilient gives me hope, and is the drive behind what I do.  

Beat Summer Boredom

If you're a parent you've heard the words, "I'm bo-ored!"

Summer can be a difficult time to come up with ideas to keep kids busy (and certainly most of us don't want electronics to be the only option on the summer boredom buster list).  The list is amazing.  Read on.

I work with an 8-10 year old group of girls in church, and recently we had a party to kick off summer.  As part of the activity, the girls all brought ideas of things they could do when they're bored during the summer.  Smart girls!

I was careful to make sure that (for the most part) electronics and screen time didn't make the list.  Kids who are active and continue to be engaged in learning during the summer avoid the dreaded "summer brain drain".  I was surprised how excited the girls were about the list
One little girl even called it, "my summer schedule."

Adult involvement in engaging children in meaningful activity is also important.  As relational beings, our human brains create more excitability when neurons fire in the context of attachment relationships.  This increased activity increases the strength of neural pathways that are formed during these interactions.  Summer activity isn't just a way to kill time, it also plays a huge role in  brain development.

So if you're already hearing, "I'm bo-ored," consider getting some of those neurons firing with ideas from this list.  Feel free to borrow and copy.  The ideas certainly aren't original.  Also feel free to add ideas.  Enjoy summer!

• Draw a picture
• Read a book
• Play dress up
• Write a funny story
• Put on a play
• Build an indoor tent with blankets
• Send someone a card or letter
• Make your own movie
• Have a dance off
• Sing with your favorite music
• Go on a nature hunt
• Make hand puppets and put on a show
• Make a necklace of things with holes in them (noodles, beads, buttons)
• Decorate a box for your summer treasures
• Do an art project
• Go to the library
• Look up craft projects online to make with things you have at home
• Make up a treasure hunt for a friends or younger kids
• You and your friends pretend like you just met on a vacation
• Do service for someone
• Cook or bake something
• Ask your mom or dad what you can do to help
• Play 20 questions
• Paint fingernails, toenails, or do make-overs
• Go on a walk and see how many items of a certain color you can find.
• Sports, sports, sports!  They never get old!  Any sport!
• Make up a new sport.
• Invent a sport or game with common objects
• Have someone teach you an old fashioned game like jacks or marbles
• Make a list of things you like about a friend, or family, or school...anything!
• Make a pet rock
• Care for someone’s pet.
• Go on a gnome hunt in your neighborhood.
• Make up a song on the piano or singing with friends
• Splash in the puddles on a warm, rainy day.  See how wet you can get.
• Run through sprinklers
• You and friends try to go 15 minutes without speaking...just make up signs.
• Make up a new alphabet and language.
• Find categories of things around the neighborhood (wet things, hot things, orange things, soft things, etc.)
• Make up a story about someone you see walking down the street.
• Make toothpick snacks with marshmallows, cheese, fruit, or anything that will go on a toothpick.
• How many times can you run up and down your stairs?
• Can you catch cereal or popcorn in your mouth?
• Have a chalk art festival
• Have a tea party
• Make a backyard picnic
• Have a pudding fight followed by a water fight to wash off (outside of course)
• Learn a magic trick
• Make hair dye out of kool aid (outside of course)
• Make a foil sculpture
• Become a kitchen scientist (with supervision).  What happens when you mix things?
• Is there a world record you can break with friends?
• Gather used clothing to donate to a shelter or charity
• Start a summer collection:  rocks, dried flowers, water balloon scraps...anything!  How much can you collect by the end of summer?
• Count how many times you can make someone laugh in a single day
• Learn sign language or Morse Code
• Try a new food every Wednesday (or any day) all summer.
• Start with “A” and find items for every letter of the alphabet around your neighborhood...even “Q” and “X”.
• Play outside
• Make a bracelet
• Get in the shower
• Dance
• Jump on the trampoline
• Jump on a pogo stick
• Do Gymnastics
• Take a nap
• Camp outside
• Make bread
• Play on the playground
• Go on a hike
• Paper airplane flying contest
• Plant a garden, flower or tree.
• Roast marshmallows
• Collect popsicle sticks and see what you can make out of them
• Water fight!!!
• Cook out or party
• Make windmills
• Make paper hats
• Organize your room (your mom will be shocked)
• Learn how to sew, knit or crochet
• Write a list of all the things you can do when you’re bored!

(Admittedly, the list was created by girls, for girls...ask your boys to come up with their own list!  And sorry we missed the teen crowd on this one...certainly "hang out with friends" and "night games" would make that list.)