- Hello and welcome to an Ohio Learns 360 family webinar.

I'm Amy Juravich from WOSU Public Media.

We're here today to discuss how to help children navigate stressful situations.

When our children are having a difficult time, all a parent or caregiver wants to do is help make it all go away to make it better.

You fix a skinned knee with a bandaid and a kiss, but when your child is truly struggling with something in their life, what can a parent do?

Joining us for our discussion is Janine Halloran, a licensed mental health counselor who has been working with children and their families for 20 years.

Welcome Janine.

- Thank you so much for having me, Amy.

I'm excited to be here.

- And helping children and their families navigate tough times is the major focus of your career.

So how do you recognize when a child is really stressed about something that is really serious?

How do you know when it's serious?

- So I would say when we're starting to notice different behaviors from our children that we hadn't seen before, there's a change in their sleeping or eating habits and/or sleeping or eating patterns.

If they're losing interest in things that they used to be very interested about, if you're seeing a lot more crying.

If there's a lot more stress after school when they get home from school, they're trying to do their homework and there's a lot of tears, or before school, there's a lot of stomach aches, headaches, difficulty getting to school, because of these physical things that are happening for them and there's no medical reason why they are having these stomach aches or headaches, then I would start to think about, is this stress related?

Are they experiencing more stress than they were having before?

And let's figure out what we can do to help sort of manage that stress and walk towards going through life in a more healthy way.

- Now, what does it mean to cope with stress in a healthy way?

What's a healthy way versus an unhealthy way to deal with the stress?

- So this is such an interesting question, because one of the things that I always talk about in my work is knowing the difference between a healthy coping skill and an unhealthy coping skill.

So if you're talking about, you know, somebody is building a Lego tower and, you know, somebody else knocks it down and you use your fists or you use your hands to let them know that you're mad about something, that's unhealthy.

But if you use your words, if you can say, that really made me mad, I didn't like when you did that, that's a healthier way of managing your stress and managing your frustration.

So the way I always think about it is, is it gonna be safe for me?

Is it gonna keep everybody around me safe?

And does it keep all the property safe?

That means no damage to property, I'm not hurting anybody else and I'm not hurting myself, then that's a way of dealing with an emotion, a feeling, overwhelming situations in a healthy way.

- And we're gonna talk about different tough times that children could be facing.

We'll get to, you know, there's tough times at school and then there's tough times at home, there's tough times in the world, but I did wanna ask you about, you know, the world is a tough place.

It can be a tough place, you know, we try to hide some of that from our children.

But are you seeing children worrying more now than you did maybe 10 or 15 years ago?

Is there more worry in their life?

- Absolutely.

Since the beginning of my career, I have noticed an increase of significance with stress and anxiety.

So I started working with kids over 20 years ago and I knew about anxiety and I had certain kids who I was working with who had anxiety, but it is nothing like I see today.

And it was ramping up before COVID and it just has increased exponentially since everything that happened with COVID.

So absolutely, I am seeing more stress, more worry, more anxiety with children.

- And are you seeing, do parents, do caregivers, do they know how to handle that?

Do we as the adults, do we know how to talk to our children about anxiety?

I feel like the subject is talked about more in recent years than it has been before.

But do parents know what to do?

- You know what?

what's interesting is that there are certain parents who do know what to do.

Those parents who have been exposed to mental health awareness, those parents who maybe are experiencing anxiety themselves, experiencing worry, and they know that it is clinically significant for them, like it's impacting their lives.

And so maybe they've seen a therapist or maybe they've started taking some medications to help them and then they start to see those same sort of things in their children.

And so they know, they have this awareness, because there is this genetic component to anxiety that, you know, I need to maybe get my my child some help, because they're also experiencing anxiety at this point.

So there are some parents that are absolutely right on it, but there are other parents who might not know.

They don't understand what's going on.

They may think that the child is trying to just be disruptive or avoid work, or avoid going to school without recognizing that there might be more to it.

There might be more underlying what's going on that you see on the surface, the misbehavior could be misconstrued as just, you know, they're giving me a hard time rather than they're having a hard time dealing with their anxiety.

And what's really neat is that now pediatricians' offices are screening for anxiety younger so that they can start having those conversations with families about, oh, we are noticing that your child could be flagged for some anxiety.

Let's talk through that.

Let's look at what that looks like and let's see if there are things that we can do to intervene.

- What age, you said they're screening younger, what age does that look like?

Are we screening not toddlers, preschoolers?

Can you screen that young?

- So, they're starting to screen around eight, eight up.

So before, I think, it wasn't as common that you would screen, actually, for anxiety at a pediatrician's office.

They have started screening for ADHD and for other things, but not necessarily anxiety.

And more recently, especially with all the things that are going on, the mental health crisis in children that has been declared.

So because of that, they are starting to screen children earlier.

So that eight years old where we're starting to see anxiety and it happens and I've seen preschoolers with anxiety that is above and beyond the typical preschool anxiety, separation anxiety that happens.

But it really is good to start screening when kids are in elementary school so we can catch those things earlier.

The earlier we catch them, the easier it is to help them learn strategies that they can take with them as they grow into teenagehood and adulthood.

- And when you say anxiety in maybe an eight-year-old, you're talking about they're worrying about things that you as their parent can't help them get past, they're not able to get past it, it keeps coming back up, that kind of thing?

- Yes.

So what happens is, you know, with something like generalized anxiety disorder, it sort of impacts everything.

It impacts school, it impacts after school activities, it impacts life at home.

And so when we're seeing that, we're trying to help them figure out some strategies or the things that we're trying and it's not really working and we're seeing this happen all across their environment.

So no matter where they are, they're experiencing it.

That is something that we would consider generalized anxiety disorder.

But then you also have kids who are afraid of certain particular things.

So you have kids who might be afraid of dogs or afraid of bees.

You also have kids who are socially anxious.

So when they're in social situations, it makes it harder for them to be able to participate, to be able to even enter a social situation.

So you have lots of different things that could be anxiety for kids, but keeping in mind that it is impacting no matter where they are, it impacts them.

- And you have a website and a business called Coping Skills for Children.

So why did you decide to make this resource?

- So I created Coping Skills for Kids because I've been working with kids for over two decades and one of the things that I always really wanted to focus on was helping kids learn those coping strategies, those skills that they could use.

Because what I was noticing is that when you can teach them the skills when they're younger and then they can figure out how to continue to build skills as they grow up and become teenagers and then they can continue to use those when they get to adulthood, it's incredible.

It's incredibly powerful for them to be able to know I can do something to help myself when I'm feeling a certain way, when something big and overwhelming and scary is happening, when I'm having challenging thoughts like I'm getting upset about certain things and to be able to deal with it when they're younger makes it so much easier for them to be able to deal with bigger things as they get older.

It's really just setting the groundwork for being able to cope with life.

When you can cope with things when you're younger, then that means that you can continue to cope with things as you grow older.

- And on your website Coping Skills for Kids, you list different coping styles.

And so, the relaxation, distraction, sensory, movement, and processing.

We can go through each of those, but is there one that you normally start with?

You know, I would say relaxation, but is there one that you start with?

- Yes, actually, relaxation.

(laughs) Look at that.

- Okay.

- So, and in particular in relaxation, I like to focus on deep breathing.

And the reason why I like to focus on deep breathing is because when your body gets into this fight, flight, or freeze mode, that can happen.

When you get into a state of panic or overwhelm, one of the things that we need to try and help kids do is to get out of that fight, flight, or freeze mode, back down to what is known as rest and digest.

And the best way to do that is by breathing.

So it's almost like telling your body, you know, it's time to get out of fight, flight, or freeze mode.

Let's get back down to rest and digest.

Because when you're normally just sitting around and relaxing, nothing is bothering you, your breathing is very deep, you know, you're taking nice deep breaths, you're relaxing.

If you get into that fight, flight, or freeze, people tend to start to do shallow breathing.

And so by taking deeper breaths, it helps our body know, okay, I need to get out of fight, flight, or freeze and back down to rest and digest.

So I love starting with deep breathing, but a lot of times what happens when you tell kids to take a deep breath, they will start to hyperventilate.

You know, they'll breathe in, breathe really fast, or they'll breathe in and not breathe out.

And so I like to give them lots of different ideas for things that they can do to take deep breaths or to take slow breaths.

Sometimes I change my language around it.

So take slow breaths with me, let's do this together.

Sometimes I will do something as simple as having them imagine a balloon and their balloon gets bigger when they breathe in and the balloon shrinks when they get smaller.

So to help them start taking those breaths from their belly, I think it's really important.

I love using different props so I even have a Hoberman's sphere that can expand and contract to help really visualize for kids what their belly should be doing when they are taking those deep breaths.

So I always start with deep breathing and trying to sort of get a hook into a kid to figure out a way that they're gonna enjoy deep breathing.

- Okay.

And we can go through some of those other coping styles that you talked about, you know, throughout our discussion.

But I did wanna ask you a question that families were able to submit questions in advance for our webinar guests.

So we do have a question from Angela.

Angela asks, "How much tough stuff do you keep from your children versus should you let them know when things are really tough?"

And Angela says, "When it's tough for the family."

So maybe it's an at home situation, something is happening at home, maybe the parents are having a problem or there's a financial situation.

What tough stuff at home do you talk to elementary school children about?

- So I would say, you know, the younger the child, the less information they need to necessarily have, but they're picking up on the energy in the home, whether you know it or not.

So to keep it as generalized as possible and saying, you know, things might be a little bit challenging right now, but these are the things that we're gonna do that are going to help us make sure that we are taking care of you.

Make sure that we are taking care of ourselves.

Know that some, you know, there might be something going on, you might notice that this is happening, you might notice that, that is happening.

But always reassuring, we love you, we care about you and let's talk about what you're feeling.

To be able to talk about how a child feels, that's actually a protective factor for them.

So to be able to say, you know, tell me what's going on, why don't you share your feelings with me?

Like, let's check in and do a feelings check-in and talk about, like, how are you feeling today.

Something even simpler that I like to do with younger kids, especially the elementary school age kids, is do a roses and thorns check-in.

So you check in about the good things that are going on, you check in about the roses and then you check in about the things that aren't so great, the thorns.

So you can have them do that right off the bus, you can have them do that at bedtime.

Those are some natural transition points, even at dinnertime if you're sitting all together to be able to hear what they have to say and understand what's going on for them.

Because then you'll be able to actually know how much they've picked up on and then you can respond from there.

I think sometimes parents will jump in and try and give too much information, whereas a child might just have a question that is actually not what we think that they're gonna have a question about.

So it's actually good to get information from them and then tailor your message to what their concerns are.

- And the different ages.

I mean, elementary school is five years old all the way up to 10 or 11 years old, depending on your fifth grader.

There is more that, you know, a fourth grader or a fifth grader can handle than a kindergartner, right?

So if there is something tough going on at home and there's multiple siblings in the household, can you talk to one about it in one way and another one in a different way?

Should you?

Can you tell the older sibling?

- Yes.

- You know, don't talk to your younger sibling about this or, like, that has to be hard too.

What would you recommend?

- It is.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, absolutely.

It is hard because you have to parent them each differently.

And that's the thing, when you have siblings of different ages, you are going to parent them differently.

If you have a teenager versus a fifth grader versus a kindergartner and say, your family is experiencing the start of a divorce or a separation, you're going to talk to those three different aged kids about it in a different way.

And that's okay, that's acceptable.

And you shouldn't feel bad about that.

You wouldn't say the same thing you would say to your kindergartner that you would say to your fifth grader that you would say to your ninth grader.

And that's okay.

So just know that you can also use that sibling bond to be able to help support the littler ones.

So yes, maybe your kindergarten brother/sister does not understand all the stuff that's going on, but what can you do to support your sibling as things are going on?

Let's make sure that you're playing or reading with them or watching TV with them.

So really working on helping the older kids support the younger kids in ways that are kid appropriate, in ways that are really based on play and fun and having a time where they can connect to each other to support each other.

- So does that lean into another one of the coping strategies?

The second one on your list was distraction.

Now can you explain distraction a little bit?

Because you don't want to ignore, you know, if there's a lot of fighting happening in the home and the parents aren't getting along or there's financial troubles and both parents are just trying to deal with it, you don't want to ignore it, right?

But can you explain distraction.

- Sure, absolutely.

So the thing I think about when I think about distraction is, it's playful, fun activities.

And it is not meant to suppress or ignore or deny what's going on around you.

That's not healthy.

That's gonna lead to problems.

It's gonna lead to difficulties in problem solving, difficulties managing your feelings when you are ignoring something or suppressing something or denying something, no, we need to acknowledge it, but sometimes what will happen is kids will get stuck in a loop.

This happens for adults too, but I've seen it mostly with kids, because that's who I work with.

So you get stuck in this loop of maybe you're anxious about somebody being sick and, you know, you've talked through it, you've figured it all out, like, as much as you can, and there's a point where there's actually not anything else you can do, but you sort of start at the top of the spiral again.

And to help kids break out of that spiral to give their brains a break, it's really helpful for them to be able to play and to have fun and play is actually a natural stress reliever for kids.

Open-ended play, having kids have play time, it's not frivolous and it's not like pointless time.

It's actually really re-energizing time, recharging time for them.

And you know, there's so many things that you can do in play.

So many ways that kids can express themselves through play, talk about their emotions through play, especially when working with kids.

I do a lot of playing when I'm working with kids.

We don't just sit and talk like I would talk to an adult or even a teenager.

I actually do play, like I bring out board games.

I bring out drawing materials.

That is a way that we can play and help work through the emotions that we have and to be able to give our brains a break.

- And here's another question that we have that was asked in advance.

Becky is asking, "When bad things happen and it's all over the news, like a school shooting, for example, how much detail should you give your child?

Should you avoid talking about it unless they ask about it?"

- So from my opinion, I think we don't need to talk as much about it.

And I don't like the idea of having to expose our kids over and over and over to the different traumas that are occurring.

I think there's a bigger issue happening, but I think I want to be as protective as I possibly can to my children and protect them so that they're not hearing about it constantly and worrying about it constantly.

Now here's the thing, they will have drills at school and so that can be kind of traumatic for them if they are hearing about the other shootings that are happening.

And, you know, I think it's really helpful to be as protective as we can and to tell them about the things that we can do, the things that we do have control over to be able to give them some locus of control back.

Because it's really, it's overwhelming and sometimes the news is too much, especially for our elementary school kids.

They're little and you don't necessarily need to be talking about it.

Middle school, high school kids, sometimes they will end up talking about it at school, but elementary school kids, we don't need to be continually talking about it.

That's something, that's an adult problem that we need to solve.

- So you can tell me if I've handled this properly.

So I have a fourth-grader and a kindergartner and we were driving home and my daughter asked me, "Why is the flag outside of the school at half staff?"

Right?

And I wasn't prepared to have the full-on conversation with her, especially because my five-year-old was in the car too, right?

So I said something very sad happened and they put the flag at half staff to show that we feel sorry for the sad thing that happened.

So did I handle that correctly?

- Perfect.

- Okay.

- Absolutely perfect.

And it's okay, here's the thing, kids will ask you questions and you are not prepared to answer them.

- I was not prepared at that moment.

We had 10 minutes to get to our next activity and I was like, "Oh yes, the flag is at half staff.

You were very observant."

(laughs) - Right.

Exactly, right.

- Yeah.

- So it's one of those things where, you know, you have to sort of, it's okay if you are unable to answer and you can just say something like, I don't think we should necessarily talk about that right now.

Let's come back to that.

You can always do that.

You know where they live, you can go back to them and I will say, like, for my own two children, so I have a middle-schooler and a high-schooler.

My high-schooler talked about it, because they were in high school.

Like, it's all over the news.

They all have phones, they're all, like, they're seeing it.

They're probably seeing it real time, because they're on their phones in school.

Whereas my middle-schooler, they didn't talk about it at all, which I was sort of surprised at.

But they actually did a one wonderful thing.

They were actually gonna do a lockdown drill and they postponed it for a week, because it was just too close and it wasn't necessarily for the kids.

I think it was more for the adults.

And I'm thankful for that.

I'm thankful for that.

But it's one of those things.

You don't have to answer the question right there and right then.

You can say, let's take a pause on this, let's come back to that so you can get your brain together about it, 'cause it's overwhelming for us.

It's stressful for us, it's traumatizing for us.

- So in that aspect, to come back to it later, can you connect it to those drills?

'Cause my kindergartner would know, like, we have these drills, but maybe he doesn't need to know exactly what happened.

But then my fourth grader who is a little more emotionally intelligent, you can tell her what happened maybe at a top level, what do you think?

- Yeah, at a top level, absolutely.

Like, this is something else that happened.

This is something that the adults really need to be paying attention to and figuring out, because this is not okay.

(laughs) - Right, right.

What about other stressful situations that they would see in the news that might cause some worry and stress?

Something like a tornado hitting somewhere or there being a really bad flood.

How do you help them understand and cope with that?

- You know, I would say one of the things that I always think about is, I think it was Mr. Rogers who always said, "Look for the helpers."

- [Amy] Yeah.

- Look for the people who are, you know, the firefighters, the EMTs, all the people who are going out there and supporting and helping and give them your good energy.

And if there's a way that we can help, you know, to be able to, if you can send supplies, if you can donate money, if you can draw cards, whatever way, if a child feels really drawn to a certain situation, like somebody is experiencing, you know, a hurricane or tornado, something like that.

Especially if it's, you know, close to you, to be able to do something about it, to be able to donate something, to be able to give your time, talent and energy to it, whatever it's gonna be, so that the child can feel like I do have a way that I can positively impact, even if it's tiny, even if it's small, I can have a positive impact in this and I can help and support them.

And I would hope that they would do the same for me if I were in this situation.

- Now, and talking about these heavy things.

You know, a tornado, a flood, a hurricane hitting somewhere, them seeing just glimpses of it, 'cause you know, hopefully younger kids aren't watching the news steadily.

But I'm trying to look at your list of coping styles, does that go into one of them?

Maybe the processing?

Can you explain the processing coping style?

- Yes, absolutely.

So processing is all about understanding your own feelings and making a plan for what to do the next time.

Identifying where you feel things in your body so you can get an idea of, you know, I'm starting to feel anxious, I'm starting to feel worried, what should I do when I have this emotion?

What should I do when I am experiencing this feeling?

Because one of the best things that you can do is once you are able to identify your emotion, it's immediately more easy to manage yourself, to be able to self-regulate, which is huge.

Something as simple as being able to say I'm scared makes it easier to deal with being scared.

Powerful.

That's really powerful and something super, super simple.

So yeah, absolutely, this is where we're, you know, drawing about things that might be scary that we wanna talk about, but maybe we don't have the language for that yet.

So drawing is a way that we can get it out.

Writing about it for the older elementary school kids is phenomenal.

Journaling is awesome.

I remember myself in fourth and fifth grade.

I was an avid journaler.

I filled like tons and tons of books and it really was so helpful to be able to just get my thoughts out, to get my emotions out and to be able to help me process what was going on for me.

And then being able to talk to a trusted adult.

That's the other thing that I would really want kids to be able to do, is to connect.

That connection is so powerful and so protective for them.

To be able to talk with your family about their feelings.

To be able to know that your family is a safe and loving environment for you.

Those are protective factors that can help manage and help bring on healthier mental health as they grow older into teenagehood and adulthood.

So absolutely, we can process it in lots of different ways by drawing, by writing, by singing, by making music, all those different things that kids can do to express what's going on for them.

- And you've mentioned drawing a couple of times.

So I would be remiss, WOSU Public Media, where I am now, has produced a wonderful resource for children to learn about their emotions.

It's called "Drawing with Mr.

J."

And each video teaches kids to talk about their feelings through a drawing prompt.

So it's at wosu.org/mrj.

Could you talk a little bit more about that idea of using art, you know, if you don't have, you know, the artistic ability?

Now I know Mr. J would say everyone can draw something.

So what do you do whenever you sit down with kids and you say, tell me about your picture?

Is that kind of thing?

- Yeah, absolutely.

So, for me, like, I am not a good artist at all.

Like, if you would, it's not like you could look at it and be like, that is what that is.

So I don't, you know what I mean?

Like I just, I recognize that about myself.

I'm comfortable with it.

So I do something different.

Whenever I am drawing with kids, I'm more of a doodler.

I'm more of a Zentangle pattern, that kind of thing.

And I encourage kids to figure out whatever way feels comfortable for them to draw.

I have a couple of kids who are incredible artists and I have others who are like, I can't do any, I can't do that, Janine.

I'm like, I'm gonna draw stick figures.

That's okay.

But then, you know, I'll say, let's pick a color and draw about being angry or like, here's several different colors, why don't you scribble about how, like, all the different feelings that you're feeling and we can make a little grid that shows, like, this color.

Like, yellow means sad and blue means angry and red means frustrated.

And so then we can talk about, okay, well, what was making you sad today?

What was making you frustrated today?

So it's really a jumping off point where they can start to talk about their feelings, but not necessarily needing to write it down all the time.

That drawing resource sounds incredible and he's right, anybody can draw, it just depends on what you wanna draw.

(laughs) - Well, right.

And you know, a kindergarten or first grader will have trouble writing, you know, the journaling that you were talking about is more for, you know, a little bit older once they can actually write the words into sentences and get their ideas out on paper.

So different ways to do that.

Your website, Coping Skills for Kids.

I also saw on there, at some point in my research, that you emphasize that being angry is okay, can you talk about, 'cause I would want to stop my child from being angry, right?

And lashing out, but being angry is okay sometimes.

- Oh yeah, absolutely.

Anger is an emotion.

Every emotion is okay.

It's what you do with the emotion that matters.

So it is okay to be angry.

It is okay to be furious, but if you fuel that anger and channel that into positive energy, that can be really powerful.

Sometimes change happens when people get angry and then they decide to do something about it in a positive, healthy way.

So that's where you can have the channeling of anger into something that is positive.

So for me, I always say, like, it's okay to be angry, it's okay to be mad.

It's okay to be frustrated.

It's okay to be sad.

It's what you do with that feeling that counts.

So as long as you are not hurting other people, as long as you are not hurting yourself and as long as you're not hurting property, you can be angry.

If you need to squish some play-doh, if you need to scribble about it, if you need to do jumping jacks, if you need to run a lap around your house, whatever it is, to get that anger out in a safe and healthy way, let's do it.

It's okay to be angry.

And then let's talk about what made you angry so we can sort of figure out what to do next.

Like what was it that caused it and let's make a plan for the next time.

- And we do have another question that was submitted in advance.

Jessica asks, "How do parents talk to children about a relative or a pet that passes away?"

- Oh this is so hard.

So I had two pets die when my kids were in elementary school.

And one of the things that I did was, you know, we talked about, you know, they lived a good life and now they've moved on.

Let's try and figure out some ways that we can recall good memories and good times we had with them.

So when our kids were in kindergarten and second grade, they had fish die.

And so we drew pictures and we had a little service about that and that's how we were able to sort of process through, like, all the emotions that were happening.

Those were their first pets.

So that was a really big deal.

So we did a lot of, like, talking and drawing, but we didn't have a lot of pictures of those pets 'cause they were still too little.

Then we had guinea pigs and one of them died.

And so what we did was we had more pictures and videos of the guinea pigs.

So we made like a little book.

We actually had his ashes.

So we had another little memorial service.

And it's a way that, you know, it's part of life and this is a way that we can grieve and it's okay to grieve and it's okay to be sad.

It's okay to be sad and to cry and to be upset and let's remember the good times that we had and it's okay, let's sit and let's cry together.

And then, you know, once that time has passed, let's try and do something that will help us feel a little bit better.

So maybe we'll have a cup of tea, maybe we'll go for a walk, maybe we'll look at some pictures and remember the things that they did that made us laugh and feel silly.

- And, you know, to go a little deeper, so you were referencing pets in that answer, but what if there was someone who they're really close to, a family member, maybe a grandparent who passes away.

How do you take that, what you just talked about to the level of, you know, this person that's not there anymore?

- Absolutely.

It's really similar in a way to that, because pets can feel, like, very close, like, their pets can be such an emotional bond for certain kids.

But for a family member, it would be very similar to what I just explained.

You know, you talk about the things that happened, you have a service if they are able to go to it and participate and that feels like it's gonna work out for everybody.

I think there's something to be said for being able to participate in that ritual, whatever the ritual is for your family and your culture to be able to have that sort of ending.

And seeing people being able to talk about the good times, to be sad and then to celebrate life.

And if it's somebody that they were very close to, absolutely, they should make a book, they should make a slideshow, they should have some sort of way that if they wanna be able to look back on those memories, they can do so.

So writing about it or having helped to create a book so they can maybe pick out the pictures and then have an adult write the words that they wanna say to be able to have those memories and to not stop talking about the person.

To be able to be okay with talking about, oh remember this funny memory or remember this situation or remember how that person made you feel, to be able to continue to talk about them.

You don't have to stop talking about them, they are still part of your life.

They were still part of your life.

So you don't have to forget them.

You can continue to have them live on through your stories.

- And we do have one more question that was submitted in advance.

Kim is asking, "What if you have done everything you can think of to help deal with the stress that your child has, but it doesn't seem to be helping, what is the next best strategy?"

So I think what Kim is getting at is maybe seeking outside help, right?

- Yeah, absolutely.

So I would say there are a few different places you can go when you want to get extra help.

So you can, first, I would start actually at the school and figure out what's happening and what they're seeing at the school and hopefully there should be a mental health professional in the building as well.

And you can talk with them as well.

And talking to see about how getting the child some support in school, whether that's through a group, whether that's through some individual meetings to get support there to understand what's happening at school, you wanna make sure that you understand all the aspects of what's going on in your child's life.

Not just what you're seeing at home, but what other adults are seeing.

So if they're super into participating in after-school activities, I'd check in with those leaders as well.

Like check in with the coaches, check in with anybody, dance instructors, whoever it is to see what they're noticing and they're seeing.

So checking in with the school, then I would check in with the pediatrician, making sure that you check in and see what they're noticing and to get their opinions about what might be a good next step to take.

And then other things that you can do.

I would also, you know, it sounds kind of weird, but you can actually also look at your insurance company if you have medical insurance to look and see what kind of supports you can get in terms of behavioral health so that you can get some support that is covered under your health insurance.

If not, there's other places that you can go.

There's lots of, actually, like, online support where you can go and get, you know, if your child's in crisis, you can call a crisis team and get some support and hear back from them to be able to search for finding a good, licensed therapist online, you can do that.

A lot of times I think elementary is a little bit too young necessarily to do online therapy, although I would say for like fourth, fifth, and sixth grade, they get to that point, especially if they're very emotionally aware, you can start to see and have online therapy with that age range of children.

So there's lots of things that you can do to get support and it's okay to look and ask for help.

That's the thing.

To find and build the community so that you're not the only one who is dealing with this so you have some support.

It's huge for families to be able to know there are other people in my life who care about my baby and are gonna help me.

- Yes.

And I would think for elementary age, the idea of getting, like, a behavioral health counselor or even a therapist would be where you start before you need to talk with your doctor about any sort of medication, 'cause there's lots of medications that adults have for generalized anxiety disorder, but is there a case for any medication intervention for children?

- There is, absolutely.

And I have worked with kids who have been on medication, but I think a lot of times the families were a little bit hesitant to start that route.

I think the best case scenario, the best practice is actually to have therapy in addition to medication support.

So the two work together very beautifully if that's a road that you wanna go down, but it's actually really helpful sometimes to just start and see where the therapy goes and see if you need to get more behavioral support via medicine over time, so you don't have to just jump into medicine.

You can start with getting some supports in trying to come up with some different strategies, 'cause that person, the mental health counselor or the therapist, whoever, may have some strategies that you didn't think of before.

So they might be able to help you and tweak some things that are happening at your house or at school and then you can work from there.

- And on your website as well, you talked about the idea of talking with your kids about adverse childhood experiences and positive childhood experiences.

Can you explain that?

Is that trying to help them focus on the positive or, like, what's the balance there?

- So it's interesting.

So adverse childhood experiences, these are things that could happen to kids in life that could negatively impact their mental health as they get older.

So these things are traumatic experiences like having a divorce or having a parent in jail, losing a parent, those sorts of things that could happen that would have a negative impact, could have a negative impact on their mental health.

So the positive childhood experiences, this is really interesting.

There's some research that talks about what are the things that sort of mitigate the negative childhood reactions, the adverse childhood experiences that kids have.

And there are, it's very simple, the things that we can do to create these positive childhood experiences.

And I've mentioned a couple of them already.

So feeling like you are supported and safe at home, that's a positive childhood experience.

Making sure that you're talking about your feelings with your family, that's a positive childhood experience.

Feeling connected, having a friend, at least one friend, that's a positive childhood experience.

Having at least two non-parent adults who care about you, who genuinely care.

Those are teachers, those are counselors, those are coaches.

Those are positive childhood experiences that we can give our children.

And what's phenomenal about these positive childhood experiences is that it's dose responsive.

So the more they get, the better it is.

So if they have an ability to talk about their feelings at home and they feel safe and they have a couple of other adults in their life who genuinely care about them, that's going to lead to better mental health outcomes as they grow into adulthood.

That's powerful.

- And before we completely run out of time, I wanted to talk about the idea of the small events versus the big events.

You know, you mentioned that some big events there, you know, if there's a divorce, you have a parent in jail, those are big events of your childhood, but there are small events that can impact your child.

You know, just having a fight with your best friend at recess can really ruin your whole week at school, right?

And can stick with you.

So how do parents know how to weigh, you know, how to balance those?

What a parent would say is like, oh, it was just a disagreement of recess, it'll be fine tomorrow.

How do you weigh that versus the big ones and the small ones?

- So I would actually say, pay attention to how your child is reacting to it.

Because one of the things that could happen is, you know, it's a big fight at recess, which I used to see all the time as a school counselor.

And it's sort of is blowing up this friendship that they've had since kindergarten and now they're in fifth grade and now they're not talking to each other and the parents are upset.

And so to be able to help them work through that and recognize this is a big deal.

My kid is having a big emotion about this, so how do we help process this?

How do we work through this?

What are the steps that we can take?

So take your cues from the child versus, you know, maybe it's a friendship that's new and you're not really sure if it's gonna work out and your child is not having as big a reaction to it.

Okay.

So then you don't have to worry about it as much.

Check in with them about it, talk about how they're feeling about it, and then move from there.

So really taking your cues from the child to see how big of a reaction that they are having and digging a little deeper to understand what's going on and let's figure out what we can do to walk through this together.

- And one last thing I wanted to ask you about is when there is something happening at home that is impactful on the child, when do you clue the teacher in?

When do you need to tell the teacher, you know, I just wanted you to know this is happening so that you can keep an eye on my child as well.

Is that an important part of it?

- I think it is.

I always err on the side of caution.

If something is happening, please let the teachers know.

I always appreciated as the school counselor when even when like siblings had a fight before school and it was really bad.

(laughs) When the mom would like, they emailed me and just be like, "Just be on the lookout, they're just not in great space today."

I appreciated that.

And for myself as a parent, you know, when I had my children going through some difficulties when they were in elementary school, I reached out to the teacher because I wanted to understand and get a picture from them about what they were noticing and what they were seeing.

I think it's always better to have as much information as possible and to share as much information as possible so that people can be on the same page and like keep an eye out for this kid, because they may not show it.

That's the thing.

If something big is happening at home or if even if they had like a really bad, like they are siblings and they're not getting along really well, we might not be able to necessarily see it.

But then a teacher, people at school can sort of keep an eye out and maybe they notice something that they wouldn't have necessarily noticed before.

So I always err on the side of give me more information and then let's talk about it and let's figure it out together.

- And you don't need to worry about bothering a very busy teacher?

I mean, even if it seems small, do you think that it's okay to reach out?

- For me, I, you know, you're not asking for them to, like, write a new plan.

You're not asking for them to make a new thing.

It's just like, can you just keep an eye out for my kid and it, you know, you can do it in a way that's like, I'm really thankful that you are this child's teacher, they really like you or they really enjoy this class.

I really wanted to just give you a heads up that this is happening and get any feedback that you have for me.

Teachers, if you are saying it in a nice way and if you are being super polite and you're being respectful, teachers absolutely are receptive to that.

Absolutely.

It's all about the messaging.

It's all about how you're approaching somebody and to be able to make sure that you're communicating that you're on the same team and that's really what it is.

We're all on the same team trying to help this child.

So let's be on the same team and help this child.

(laughs) - And we're down to our last minute, so I wanna just give you a minute to maybe recommend if you have any books or resources for parents regarding talking about the tough times with their children.

Is there anything in particular that you recommend.

- In terms of tough times that kids are having.

So I actually have my own book called "Coping Skills for Kids."

It's the "Coping Skills for Kids" workbook and it actually has a lot of different strategies that you can talk with kids about to give them ideas of things that they can do.

So I like to be able to offer that for people.

There are lots of other great books out there if your child is struggling with particular types of worries.

There's a great series by Don Huebner, Dr.

Dawn, she talks all about anxiety and worry.

She's got some great books for elementary school kids and that tween age as well, talking about anxiety.

So I love her work as well for elementary school kids.

- Okay, and tell us your website one more time.

- Sure, copingskillsforkids.com.

- Okay.

Well, wonderful.

And this has been an Ohio Learns 360 webinar.

Thank you for joining us and thank you to Janine Halloran, thank you for joining us for this event.

I really appreciate it.

- Thank you so much for having me.

This was fun.

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I'm Amy Juravich, thank you for joining us and we'll see you next time.