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Distraction

Distraction

by | May 24, 2021 | Parenting, Relationships

Wherever you are and whatever you’re doing, there are distractions. That’s obvious. What isn’t obvious is that they often don’t reveal themselves. In fact, you’re likely to be convinced that the things competing for your attention deserve top priority. Perhaps you’ve been conditioned to think so. Or sometimes it’s simply because of an irresistible environmental appeal to our senses: the brightest, the shiniest, the closest, the loudest, the most noxious. The result is that, in the moment, you don’t realize you’re being distracted. It just happens.

There are two ways distractions succeed in doing their jobs. They either flip on your central nervous system responses through a reward pathway, or they hijack your attention by lighting up the flight-fight-freeze system. In either case, they’ve succeeded in creating tunnel vision.

Some people – kids and adults alike – are naturally good at overriding this. They’re able to step back, take stock and assess what’s actually going on around them and how it’s making them feel. For the rest of us, it takes practice.

And as if it weren’t hard enough, parents and caregivers have to master double-duty with this skill. Whenever a situation is begging for a reset – your toddler isn’t listening, your grade-schooler can’t focus on schoolwork – there are inevitably two parts to the puzzle.

We first need to try to figure out what’s commanding the child’s attention and causing their behavior. That’s the clear one. Then we need to figure out which blinders we ourselves are wearing. Our own competing priorities always color our responses to our children’s needs. Of course, then we have to decide which distraction to manage first.

Is your to-do list weighing on you? Do you have a backlog of texts, emails and phone calls? Are you making unconscious yet frustrated comparisons to your neighbor who never seems to have any problems? Or maybe your own flight-fight-freeze system has been triggered by the noise, the frustration and the stress?

It might seem counterintuitive, but it’s always most effective to address our own distractions first. No one serves from an empty vessel. Those who take good care of themselves are always better equipped to take care of others.

 

 

About the Author

Kerry Galarza, MS OTR/L is the Clinical Director and a pediatric occupational therapist at Elmhurst Counseling. She provides specialized assessment and intervention with children of all ages and their families. Kerry engages clients with naturally occurring, meaningful home-based methods to empower autonomy and maximize functioning.

Nature vs. Nurture

Nature vs. Nurture

by | May 24, 2021 | Parenting

The nurture vs. nature debate has been raging for over a century. No matter which way we lean, most would agree there’s interaction between our natural wiring and the outside world. But how often does that knowledge actually enter into our parenting or the way we chose to talk to our kids or the way we teach them?

Use yourself as an example. How is the inner world/outer world interaction influencing you today? Maybe you indulged in some take-out last night because you didn’t have time to cook. (Excessive external demands on your time.) You then might have slept poorly as your body struggled to digest the meal. (Internal disruption.) The resulting tiredness means you have a hard time adjusting your body thermostat to the chilly winter air. This causes your muscles to stay tight, heightening your sense of fatigue. (Mismatch between internal needs and external conditions.) And so on and so on.

Your internal state and the external world are constantly dancing with each other in ways that are as basic as breathing. As adults, we can usually roll with this in our day-to-day lives. We’re able to make choices, and we have some control over our routines.

Now let’s think about the kids in our lives.

Many of them don’t have the same level of control over their world. Many of them don’t have the opportunity to make external adjustments to match internal messages. Many of them are still working on developing the self-awareness and communication skills to even let us know how we can help them.

This is challenging for kids even in ideal, predictable circumstances. Add in extra stressors – hours in front of a screen for remote learning, unrealistic performance demands, reduced peer interaction, limited outdoor time to burn off energy, illness, disrupted schedules, family hardship – and they’re forced to find new ways to cope. Many of these coping strategies are undesirable in the eyes of their parents (e.g. tantrums, defiance, inattention). They also end up reducing the child’s readiness for growth and learning.

What’s a well-meaning caregiver to do? Adults can strengthen each phase of a child’s development by first identifying key environmental influences and determining how well they match with the child.

This is a deliberate pause to take stock of:

  1. The clues the child is giving us about their internal workings (nature)
  2. The observable external influences acting upon them (nurture)

Strategies and modifications often present themselves when we remember to begin with this understanding of the fit between nurture & nature within the moment. So, the next time you feel lost about how to help your kid, just remind yourself to breathe and take a focused look at the unique dance happening between their inside and outside worlds.

About the Author

Kerry Galarza, MS OTR/L is the Clinical Director and a pediatric occupational therapist at Elmhurst Counseling. She provides specialized assessment and intervention with children of all ages and their families. Kerry engages clients with naturally occurring, meaningful home-based methods to empower autonomy and maximize functioning.

You Have Issues

You Have Issues

by | May 24, 2021 | Parenting, Relationships, Wellness

This might be tough to hear, but you have issues. It’s okay, though. We all do.

Our issues arise from our imperfect, very human, histories. Sometimes they come from singular events and traumas. Sometimes they build slowly over decades or they’re based in generational trends. They can be on the edge of our awareness or hidden in our blind spot. In any case, we carry them into every meaningful relationship in our lives.

Here are some things to roll around in your mind next time you find your issues floating to the surface:

  • Can you name them? You probably have at least a vague sense of the emotional trap doors that become activated in you on a regular basis. If you haven’t already, bring that fuzzy sense into sharper focus. Put some definition on your patterns.
  • Are they predictable? Our issues are triggered in the context of the historical events and relationships where they began. Recognizing their origins puts you in a better position to know when they’ll emerge so you can prepare for their impact. 
  • How are they impacting your family? That’s one of the hardest questions any of us face. The answer comes from allowing difficult observations to seep in. Consider how you might be making relationships harder and what you are teaching the next generation in the process.
  • How are you working on them? Chipping away at our issues is a lifelong project. Change has a way of slipping backwards. Continual progress only comes from being vulnerable, staying open-minded and moving knowledge into action – again and again. Learn, plan, execute, assess, repeat.
  • What happens when you work on your issues, but other people in your circle don’t? You can only do what you can do. Here’s the thing about families, though – the people in them tend to influence each other in powerful ways. Resolving to stay on an upward trend will create ripple effects, with you at the steady center.
  • What would it be like if they were resolved? Issues don’t form by accident – they serve functions. Letting go of them would result in the loss of the secondary gains they provide (escape, avoidance, etc.). But through making the unconscious conscious, you can turn them into strong footholds for your growth.

Our issues are what make us human. Striving toward simple understanding of them goes a long way to lessen their magnitude. At our best, our issues lend us genuine compassion and empathy for others – a sense of humble humanity that wouldn’t be possible without them.

About the Author

Kerry Galarza, MS OTR/L is the Clinical Director and a pediatric occupational therapist at Elmhurst Counseling. She provides specialized assessment and intervention with children of all ages and their families. Kerry engages clients with naturally occurring, meaningful home-based methods to empower autonomy and maximize functioning.

Invisible Selves

Invisible Selves

by | Apr 14, 2021 | Marriage & Family, Parenting, Relationships

Humans have a tendency to be pretty self-centered. It’s not a criticism, it’s biology. We’re actually wired to diminish the complexity of other people’s experience while staying immersed in our own reality. It’s a great way to ensure we’ll care sufficiently for ourselves. It’s also a stopgap to make our experience of life more manageable and less overwhelming. But, of course, there’s an undesirable side-effect to this when we forget to put it in check.

If recent history has (re)taught us anything, it’s that nobody is immune to struggle. Even if you consider yourself one of the lucky ones – maybe you usually bounce back quickly from unexpected challenges, or you tend to find ways to skirt them – eventually a time comes when you just can’t. Or when a loved one is suddenly knocked off their feet and you find yourself powerless to help. Circumstances have a way of conspiring to take us by surprise when we’re least prepared.

Simplifying our understanding of other people makes us forget that their struggles are as real as ours – even if they’re invisible. It’s usually hardest to keep our biases in check during moments when we’re caught unaware. That self-centered biology kicks in to help us find clarity in a comfortable black-and-white conclusion. However, clarity is not always accuracy.

Whenever we create narratives about the type of person someone is, or what their lives must be like, we’re missing a big opportunity that would help both parties. What would happen if we recognized the “invisible self” – the one with complicated struggles and vulnerabilities – existing inside each of our friends, acquaintances and even the strangers we pass on the street?

This is hard. We have to suspend reality and endure the anxiety of not knowing until we can position ourselves behind the other person’s eyes. But there’s a reward. Trying to see someone’s invisible self is a powerful gift for both the giver and the recipient. It’s the gift of humble connection, of mutual grace, and, if we’re lucky, healing compassion.

I’ll be the first to admit it’s a very difficult gift to give sometimes. It’s easier to work on something in a familiar environment. So I have a suggestion: let’s make an effort to give it more at home to help build the habit. As well as we think we know them, our kids and our partners probably have invisible selves, too.

About the Author

Kerry Galarza, MS OTR/L is the Clinical Director and a pediatric occupational therapist at Elmhurst Counseling. She provides specialized assessment and intervention with children of all ages and their families. Kerry engages clients with naturally occurring, meaningful home-based methods to empower autonomy and maximize functioning.

The Magic of Catching the Beat

The Magic of Catching the Beat

by | Mar 17, 2021 | Marriage & Family

Families lose their rhythm all the time. Each person in the house has a competing agenda, from the parent trying to keep up with work, down to the baby with a yo-yoing nap schedule. If it feels as though everyone is marching to a different drummer, it’s because everyone is.

Like a game of Candy Land or Chutes & Ladders, you might occasionally cross paths, keep pace together for a few strides, or spot one another on a bend on the path. You’ll get a temporary flush of satisfaction when this happens, but it’s only a matter of time before a split occurs again.

The emotional, physical and cognitive toll that comes from rhythmic discord in the family gets worse when it accumulates over time. Eventually, everyone needs to get back in sync. It’s not easy when so many tempos are playing at once. Luckily, one of the most valuable cures is 100% free and it can happen anywhere and at any time.

All it takes is pausing together to catch the same beat again. Sometimes, you have to give the process a little nudge. Reset the metronome to a cadence that works for the whole family. There are limitless ways to achieve this. And there’s only one rule: Do it together.

Put on your shoes and head out for a group walk. Have a family meeting to problem-solve a collective issue. Fix a bothersome household snafu as a team. Rearrange the playroom for fun. Play a game. Plan a family garden. Make art in unison.

Or very literally, put on some tunes when you’re together and let the beat seep into your family’s collective consciousness. Bonus points if you end up having a family dance party.

Your preferences will depend on your family. You can allocate 10 minutes or an entire day. The benefit is real no matter how you’re able to fit it in, but it works best when it happens with some regularity. So, go ahead and turn up that music every chance you get!

About the Author

Kerry Galarza, MS OTR/L is the Clinical Director and a pediatric occupational therapist at Elmhurst Counseling. She provides specialized assessment and intervention with children of all ages and their families. Kerry engages clients with naturally occurring, meaningful home-based methods to empower autonomy and maximize functioning.