Call Us: 630-832-6155
The Kid In The Mirror

The Kid In The Mirror

by | Aug 15, 2023 | Counseling, Parenting, Relationships, Wellness

Whenever we catch our reflection in a mirror, we hope to see good stuff reflected back. If we’re ok with what we find, we might sneak an extra peek. It feels great to experience affirmation about the best of ourselves. It’s not really vanity or narcissism. Just an innocent and normal desire for reassurance.

In fact, that desire goes well beyond physical appearance. We all want to know that our ideas and opinions are valid, so we seek out places they’re reflected back to us positively. Technically, it’s called confirmation bias. When other people feel what we feel and think what we think, we can breathe a sigh of relief. Phew, we got it right!

Whether with politics, ethics, status (money, degrees, job title), or culture (music, art, literature, diet, fashion), we often look around us to find out if we’re on the right track with our decisions. When we’re feeling disordered inside, it’s especially appealing to find reflections of our understanding that can help settle us down.

With kids, however, this process is largely unconscious and nonstop – babies all the way up through teens are in a constant state of refining their core understanding of themselves. It’s like living in a room full of mirrors.

When I was young, the validation I sought out wasn’t always reliable or available, so I found it wherever I could. I had an idea about what relationships should be like, and I attached myself to shows and movies that confirmed my expectations. I was a deep thinker and sensitive kid (in other words, I often felt like a weirdo), so I became drawn to books with characters who fought solitary inner battles and prevailed with quiet cunning and wit.

I crafted my own self-perceptions without an official roadmap and few personal guides. Most of my reflections came from self-selected books and media, which was fairly limited in the 1980s. Today, our kids are drowning in social apps and pop culture influences, whether they ask for them or not. Algorithms lure them down numerous questionable paths that feed them endless material.

While I could curate my own influences and strategically shape my identity through gradual developmental stages, kids these days are at risk for having their sense-of-self engineered at an addictive level. Taking away their screens doesn’t scratch the surface.

It’s normal for parents and educators to want to steer the media narrative, but it’s usually a losing battle. The onslaught is becoming too big and insidious. This is where the mirror concept becomes useful. Because kids typically seek reflections that match what they feel about themselves, caregivers can lay the groundwork early to help them see themselves as responsible, grounded, and thoughtful people. In this way, they’re empowered to act as their own best filter.

Here are some ways to guide them:

  • Name and support their natural strengths – particularly the ones that aren’t always noticed by others.
  • Help them to notice and highlight the natural strengths in everyone else around them.
  • Model optimism and proactive problem-solving, even when the odds are stacked up.
  • Create ways to let them use their unique gifts to make other people’s lives a little bit better.
  • Teach them to think of mistakes as opportunities for learning, rather than a cause for shut-down.
  • Normalize, describe, and let them sit with big feelings – especially the uncomfortable ones.
  • Provide them with chances to apologize, repair, and grow from any damage they may cause.
  • Encourage them to forgive others and seek to understand why other people behave the way they do.

Our kids develop their self-image based upon the reflections that are around them. Luckily, the most powerful ones will always come from the adults in their lives they love and who love them back.

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.

A Day in the Life of a Pediatric Occupational Therapist

A Day in the Life of a Pediatric Occupational Therapist

by | May 25, 2023 | Counseling, Parenting

Think about the minute-by-minute unfolding of a therapy session. The child arrives and anticipates the greeting from their therapist. Countless developments have occurred between visits. The twosome is not just picking up from where they left off, but processing how the learnings of the previous session have played out during the week. So much to discuss. So many new skills to share.

The session begins. A brief exchange of small talk softens the vibe. The therapist has an agenda based on practiced methods and treatment planning. Yet, the conversation explodes without adherence to the agenda. The kid grabs a fidget from the bucket on the shelf. The reading cube beckons to provide pseudo-privacy. The robot they built last week needs reengineering.

Tension rises. The tasks and tools are slightly beyond the capacity of the kiddo. Chaos threatens, except the constancy of the clinical atmosphere contains. The therapist reads the signals and selects an intervention.

Biofeedback. Belly breathing. Smell the flower, blow out the candle. Name the feeling.

Rinse and repeat.

Coping skills are taught and modeled. Situations are anticipated and role-played. Safe space is created for vulnerability. Failure leads to problem-solving. Play morphs into learning. Healthy doses of dancing, singing, joke-telling, silliness, and laughter are sprinkled throughout.

The session ends. Trials are designed and shared with caregivers. Treatment goals are recalibrated and put to the test for the following week. Life inside and outside of the therapy space comes together. Parents, grandparents, teachers, and professionals unite on behalf of the child.

The child who reunites with their adult outside the therapy space is slightly different. Their skills have evolved, ever so incrementally. The goodbye is as valuable as the hello exchanged 60 minutes earlier. What happens in the next 167 hours then shapes the agenda of the next session.

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.

Think Globally Act Locally

Think Globally Act Locally

by | May 11, 2023 | Counseling, Marriage & Family, Parenting, Wellness

A trusted friend recently reminded us that sometimes the problem is bigger than the solution. “One finger does not lift 1,000 people,” he said, quoting an adage from his country of origin. There, he shared, the depth of national crisis leaves most leaders at a loss for how to make even a tiny dent. So you lift what one finger is able to lift.

Our country is currently in the throws of a mental health crisis. It has two prongs. First, the acuity level struggle among children and teens is at unprecedented levels. Second, there is a shortage of available resources. A shrinking pool of therapists is either backed up with untenable waiting lists or burned out from the long hours and the clinical intensity of the work. Often, it’s both.

So, what can you do if your kiddos are struggling and you can’t find a local resource? In our practice, we field numerous requests with limited clinician availability. We match client needs with therapist skills to the best of our ability and refer out to trusted colleagues when we are unable to provide the needed service. For most families, unless you are lucky enough to snag one of our limited hours, that doesn’t help much.

While you can’t control the availability of community resources, you can influence the wellness of your home. And although you can’t alter the choices of everyone who impacts your family, you are in charge of your home ecosystem. Start there. Your need for outside resources may be less urgent if you are able to stabilize the rhythm and buttress the structure of the crew that makes up your home.

Often, this is precisely the guidance that paid professionals provide:

  • Ensure that everyone is honoring the basics of respect, trust, health, and safety.
  • Call time-out when a crisis alters the family norm, so there’s time to process the change.
  • Attend to little problems before they have a chance to take root and get big.
  • Allow stress to activate coping skills before solving the challenge prematurely.

If you performed an informal check-up on your family’s well-being, you would probably discover some opportunities to put these in play. Are respect, trust, health, and safety your priorities? Are you slowing down enough to discuss transitions? Are you practicing early detection/early intervention to the best of your ability? Are you allowing adaptability to develop rather than jumping in to solve problems too quickly?

You might not need a therapist. Or maybe a session or two gets things on track. Think globally, act locally.

About the Author

Steve Ritter, LCSW is the Founder and Executive Director of Elmhurst Counseling. He has served as a teacher, author, consultant, human resources director, health care administrator, and licensed clinical social worker since 1977. A fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives, Steve has provided coaching, therapy and team development services to thriving schools, businesses and organizations.

Squeeze the Sponge

Squeeze the Sponge

by | Apr 8, 2023 | Marriage & Family, Parenting

Imagine your child as a sponge. Imagine all the things you model as a parent in a puddle. Now squeeze the sponge and place it at the edge of the puddle. Release your grip on the sponge. Let it fill with whatever is in the puddle. The earliest lessons our children learn in life are the result of modeling.  

These lessons are not communicated verbally. They are absorbed in the day-to-day observations our kids inhale around the clock. Their five senses are locked in and depending on their developmental maturity at the moment of the lesson, realities are shaped. The older the kid, the better their ability to discern inconsistency. The younger the kid, the more likely the observation will be infused into their identity unchecked.

It is imperative that parents choose the ingredients of the puddle.

  • Whether you are more attentive to your child or your laptop when they recount their day.
  • The mood that fills the home when you arrive home from a challenging work day.
  • How you manage the stress of balancing domestic responsibilities with your career.
  • The way you respond to an unfair call from a referee when your kid’s goal is disallowed.
  • How you prioritize attendance to school conferences, sporting events, and music performances.
  • The way one parent steps up and covers logistics when the other parent is traveling.

You get it. The ethics we teach are rarely in the lectures we deliver. They are almost always acted out in the way we live. Our kids are watching attentively and are almost certain to carry their learnings into their adult relationships. They’ll either replicate the values they’ve seen practiced by their most important role models, or they’ll pursue the opposite once they discover that words and actions don’t match. 

Try the ‘minivan rule’ (quietly observing the conversations between your kids and their friends on the way home from an event). Your kids will say things reflecting the views and language they’ve witnessed in the home. At first it seems uncanny until you realize you’ve shaped mini-adults in your minivan.

Everything counts. Because we’re human and because raising kids doesn’t come with an instruction manual, you’re allowed to screw up. It’s the most consistent experience that imprints. They are the sponge and you are the puddle.

About the Author

Steve Ritter, LCSW is the Founder and Executive Director of Elmhurst Counseling. He has served as a teacher, author, consultant, human resources director, health care administrator, and licensed clinical social worker since 1977. A fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives, Steve has provided coaching, therapy and team development services to thriving schools, businesses and organizations.

You Have This Moment

You Have This Moment

by | Apr 1, 2023 | Marriage & Family, Parenting, Wellness

What’s in front of you at any given moment is your life, quite literally. Here’s the dictionary definition of life (n.): “the animate, immediate existence of an individual.” Let’s stop here. The picture is too big. The present is sacred and it’s the only time we really have.

Taking things for granted is a common trap. If we fail to take advantage of the present moment, the odds are good we will also fail to do so at some hypothetical moment in the future. Keeping ourselves in a constant mode of preparation for the next thing means we’re always keeping our gaze on something that doesn’t exist.

Stakes are higher when we have rapidly growing kids. Blink, and your baby starts kindergarten. Blink again, and your kindergartener has the car keys. Children don’t wait around for us to start paying attention. Time marches on and takes childhood right along with it.

Stressful, right?

The big problem is that parenting requires tons of planning and a near-constant juggling act. How can we possibly balance everyone’s needs while fully appreciating our kids during the short time we have them around? It’s a puzzle I’ve struggled with personally since the moment my oldest son was born.

I’m sorry to report that I haven’t discovered the universal secret sauce to staying present and keeping all the balls in the air, but I have stumbled upon something that makes it easier. It’s the same thing I teach even my youngest clients when they come to me overwhelmed by life.

Breathe.

It seems foolishly simple, I know. But when we simply attend to our breathing we refocus on what’s real. Not yesterday’s memories. Not tomorrow’s projections. Right now. In doing so, we surrender the stressors that are out of our immediate control – if even for a moment.

Yes, there’s a high-stakes assignment due this weekend. Yes, that bully at school will need to be dealt with on Monday. Right now, you have a moment to breathe and see clearly. Inhale deeply. Exhale slowly.

Preparing for what’s to come is easier when you have presence of mind. By some miracle, staying in the present makes it more possible to manage your future with clarity and grace. Breathing in the moment keeps you grounded and lifts the weight of uncertainty. It narrows your focus while broadening your perspective.

It just feels a whole lot better, too – because deep down, we all understand that each new moment is the only thing we truly possess.

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.

When Struggle is Good News

When Struggle is Good News

by | Mar 14, 2023 | Parenting

When our clinicians participate in an intake discussion with a parent, one of the level-of-care thresholds is whether the struggle is healthy and normal. Every developmental stage includes a variation of struggle by its very nature. New skills only develop when the environmental conditions necessitate them.

In the beginning, the child lacks the coping ability to manage the situation. That mismatch sparks the need for a skill that hasn’t yet formed. Game on.

The most common parenting mistake is to soothe the struggle. Fixing the issue for the child might calm the household, but it short-circuits the kid’s movement toward solving their own problem. The well-intended parent just solved it for them. Unfortunately, the struggle must happen again and, hopefully, the parent will, this time, endure the discomfort long enough to let the emerging bud burst into a flower.

It’s hard to see your child in a state of discomfort. They, in turn, experience their parents’ anxiety and a contagious exchange is then ignited. Instinct clamors for stress reduction. The wise parent embraces the trouble as a growth opportunity.

Here’s the mantra: “I know this is hard and I’m confident in your ability to handle it.” Parents need to communicate this mantra at a time when they AREN’T confident in their child’s ability to manage the situation. This is what enables the struggle to become a coping skill.

Try it. Delay your gratification. Rather than expecting immediate maturation, observe how the struggle unfolds. Savor your kid’s new acquisition. The struggle always precedes the growth.

About the Author

Steve Ritter, LCSW is the Founder and Executive Director of Elmhurst Counseling. He has served as a teacher, author, consultant, human resources director, health care administrator, and licensed clinical social worker since 1977. A fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives, Steve has provided coaching, therapy and team development services to thriving schools, businesses and organizations.