coming up next on being well today's show is for parents who may be experiencing some frustrations when it comes to communicating with their child psychologist dr. Angela Yoder will be my guest this week and she'll be addressing several ways to make communication more effective she's got some real life examples to share that will hopefully strengthen the bond between you and your child that's just ahead so don't go away production of being well is made possible in part by Sarah Bush Lincoln Health System supporting healthy lifestyles eating a heart healthy diet staying active managing stress and regular check-ups are ways of reducing your health risks proper health is important to all at Sarah Bush Lincoln Health System information available at sarahbush.org alphacare specializing in adult care services that range from those recovering from recent hospitalizations to someone attempting to remain independent while coping with a disability chronic illness or age-related infirmity alphacare compassionate professional home care additional funding by Jazzercise of Charleston thanks for joining us for today's edition of being well today we're all talking about communication with children and parents and I'm here with dr. Angela Yoder tell us a little bit about your background before we get started well thanks for having me first I want to thank you for that i have worked as a counselor and then later as a psychologist in three different community mental health agencies and i worked primarily with children with a specialization and play therapy so working with their families and now i'm very honored and privileged to be able to teach play therapy among some other classes for my graduate school and clinical counselor and which department are you here at Eastern which department are you in I'm in the Department of counseling and Student Development oh okay so you spent a part of your career as you said counseling parents and families and children looking back at that what was one of the most common communication frustration that parents would talk to you about I would say one would be having developmentally inappropriate expectations of their children so parents may come in and complain that their children weren't doing something when really they weren't capable of doing that so for example expecting a two-year-old to sit through a Disney movie while they got a bunch of work done and so a two-year-old really doesn't have that kind of attention span to sit through a movie and then secondly I would say limit setting that parents struggled to set limits in ways that children would both understand and follow through with and that was a real source of frustration programs before we really get started sounds like a lot of this communication this frustration starts because cognitively children and thoughts are very different and I think you need to explain that a little bit absolutely so the majority of delts are I'm sorry the majority of adults are capable of formal operational thought which allows them to think abstractly about concepts that are not in front of them so to reflect on motives to think about hypotheses why did I do this what should I have done differently that's what we as adults do but job solutely don't that's right so I'm children in the pre-operational developmental stage so approximately ages two to six and those concrete operations stage which would be approximately six to seven to eleven or twelve really are much more present focused and so they think about what's happening right now which is one of the joys of being with them and also can be a source of frustration so for example when parents say it's time to go that's why the child may throw a fit even if they're going to the Dairy Queen to get an ice cream afterwards or they are going to get to go to the park again the following day that children are really just thinking about how much fun I'm having right now and then also that children do best communicating in concrete ways or in the present with objects right in front of them so play really is their very first language in a way that they process things in a way that they work through problems that they're having whereas adults tend to talk about problems ya having kids don't sit and analyze problems and reflect upon what they did or didn't do that's right but we often expect them to yes we did right so so parents will say why did you do that and then they're often frustrated that the child structure shrug their shoulders and says I don't know so let's use as an example if a parent is frustrated because they they ask their child why did you do that they don't get this answer what might be a better way of approaching that subject with them to maybe kind of get what it is you're wanting right so typically i recommend what's called therapeutic limit setting and it's part of child-parent relationship therapy or you kind of back up and intervene earlier so in other words we're really good at telling kids what not to do but often what we fail to do as parents and caregivers and teachers is to tell them what they can do to meet the need or the feeling or the wish would I want that they were having in the first place so he thinks we say things like stop it quit doing that and we repeat ourselves and then understandably we get frustrated when children don't cooperate so first of all to think about how we are setting limits okay so instead of saying don't do that don't write on the wall what what's a better way to approach that then so we would start out with there's an acronym we'll help parents remember and it's called the a.c.t therapeutic limit setting models so a would be to acknowledge the child's feelings wishes or once and that really is an important part of parenting is to become a detective and try to figure out what need your child is meeting so for example your child may use a toy to hit someone else because they don't know how to use it because they're trying to get the other child's attention or because they're angry or for a variety of reasons so figuring out what the intent is will help you to target alternatives later okay so that's a what is si si would be to communicate clearly the limit so oftentimes we we set limits and ways in which we know what we're talking about but kids do not so we say things like I'm not sure if that would be a good idea and the child hears that may be a good idea if you can convince me and so kids will often respond by arguing or we say be careful which children really don't know what does that mean be careful and so to be very specific about the properties of maybe the object that's involved so for example and that sword is not for hitting your sister with or that flute is not for hitting the dog with mm-hmm so again it's that we want we use more abstract speaking and kids need concrete you when I was in your office the other day you talked about this example of writing on the wall yes and I want you to explain that because that kind of made a lot of sense to me yeah absolutely so rather than talking about um you know I don't know that you could do that in here or that might not be a good idea or Johnny you can't do that to say the wall is not for writing on so you're talking about the actual properties of the wall so it's not personal it's not that you are mad at the child and they're just not going to allow them to do that but you're talking about the properties of the wall and the tea would be to target appropriate alternatives so that you're able to say you know you could choose to write on the paper or you can choose to write on the chalkboard instead okay but if you say I brought this up to a friend of mine who has child and she says yes but my kid would say oh but this will might be okay so you really need to be very specific very specific absolutely not just that while but while they're not for riding on so you had talked about setting limits I want you to get a little bit more into that well i think i have a few tips and that i would give to parents I'm one would be to use the child's name so I'm you know and a lot of us can remember finally are not so finally our parents saying our first and middle name and we kind of knew we were in trouble but to not say it necessarily in that way but the younger the child the more likely saying their name is going to get their attention the other thing is when you target appropriate alternatives especially for younger children that you kind of use your pointer finger and that you point over where you would the other choice lies so for example if they're writing on the wall that you point over to where the paper is or where the chalkboard is and what that typically does especially for kids in pre-operational stage is that their little eyes follow your finger and so they're already kind of moving in the right direction and then lastly I would say to be patient so which is hard you've had a long day and maybe you're a single parent and you've got all this going on patience is hard it really is I think and I can really relate to that right that it's such a struggle but the word discipline actually comes from the Latin word disciple which means to teach and so if parents can keep that in mind that the way in which they resolve the conflicts that are happening in their home helps to teach the child how to resolve conflicts in their own life that helps them to slow it down a little bit and really that kind of extra attention and time pays off in the end so for example if you get into an altercation with your child and things go awry and you get very punitive with them chances are the rest of the evening is probably going to follow suit and so if you can take five extra minutes to address what's going on and allow the child to make the choice themselves then that really pays off so not intervening too quickly but to say Zachary I know that you really want to use that as a sword and hit your sister but that toy is not for hitting your sister with you could get her attention by giving her hug or you could give her a high five and then waiting and allowing the child to really work through their own struggle you brought up a keyword and that's attention and we all know that children love attention and you had given an example of how to deal with urim say you're on the phone talking to somebody you're in your child's like mom mom mom mom what's a better way of handling that to resolve that so you can do what you need to do yeah so typically young children have a tendency to do that then everything becoming fine I know my own kids do that the minute that you get on the phone that's really when they want to know are you going to pay attention to me am i important to you and so there are rarely phone calls they do exist but there are rarely phone calls that you can't take 30 seconds out of the phone call to address your child's needs and so you know one of the things that we don't do as a society is really pay a lot of attention to kids in a very present focused way we're kind of attending to them while we're doing other things or checking our text messages or facebooking and so what I would recommend is a technique used by Gary Landreth called a 30 second burst of attention where you tell your friend or your coworker or whoever you're speaking to on the phone I need 30 seconds to address my child is that alright with you and most people will say that's fine as 30 seconds is not very long and to actually put the phone down to get on the child's at eye level right and to look them in the face and say I I know that you need my attention right now so what is it that you need for me you have 30 seconds and most kids it will what kind of disarm though yeah a lot of kids forget what they wanted you for but to go ahead and remain there yo you still have 20 seconds left take your time and to really be present for the child and really that kind of meets the need that the child has and typically they stop you most parents don't have to do more than one 32nd birthday so what about those scenarios where you're at the grocery store and your child is out of control because they want something and you are in a hurry we don't have time for that and it's meltdown and so yes well first recommendation is that old adage an ounce of prevention is worth a pound you ER and so we know what our kids the hot spots are the behaviors that they have that drive us nuts and so making it playful I'm trying to figure out what need is being met so for example if they're bored that's different than them being tired and hungry and so making sure those needs are met and then talking with them about that behavior before you go in the store so I know that you like to ask for things and that's not okay and so finding something that will help fill their time or also offering them some time with you at the end if you choose to use your good behavior in the store and not ask for a toy then you choose to have ten minutes with mom on the down home and play what about you had we talked about appraising appropriate behavior yeah because often we tend to focus on the bad behavior make that the focus life is stressful and parents are stressed out they have a lot to deal with and so typically when kids are being good and quiet we kind of let sleeping dogs lie and we go and get some things done and so unfortunately sometimes kids learn that the way to get your attention is to engage a negative behavior because that that will engage you right and so I like to recommend catching them being good so and kids really enjoy a playful approach to the sneaking up on the couch and jumping out and saying I caught you and then following it by I got you being good and being very specific about what the child is doing that you appreciate and so that kind of prevention or you're noticing positive behaviors that your child engages in help keep that relationship healthy and so the the better the relationship is between you and your child the more internally motivated they are to comply with your request so what about and there's parents out that they probably use the timeout mm-hmm in your opinion your professional opinion is that effective or not timeout can be very effective but parents really need to think about again what the child what need the child has when there must be so for example a child who is hungry and tired it's probably not going to be super effective with but a child who's acting out to be a goofball and get attention or a child who's over stimulated may really benefit from a timeout but like timeouts effective timeouts not using eight of them through the day absolutely so any intervention you can / use and it loses its power and so it's really important to sit back as a parent and caregiver and kind of evaluate the situation if a child perpetually engages in the same behavior to kind of look at your strategy and see what is it that the child really needs from you and maybe you've misunderstood their intent mm-hmm you had also talked about you have to set you know if a child is misbehaving and you say we are leaving the party that are they can they figure out that well they're really not that's too extreme of a you know I'm pulling this car over as wasn't haratz really did pull that happening my mom said that all the time it the car was never pulled over right that that could be kind of ineffective absolutely so parents need to say what they mean and mean what they say and the more that they don't mean what they say the harder it is to break kids of bad behavior problems so in actuality intermittent reinforcement actually strengthens the behavior so if you attend to a behavior and follow through with a consequence say you do it five out of six times it's that one time that you don't follow through that the child kind of remembers and so it's sort of like if you go back to your psych 101 classes and the rats that push the lever to get the pellet they learn that they push it five times and get a pellet and and if you reward them consistently of course they learn the behavior but really what makes it the most strong as when you reinforce them intermittently so every once in a while you don't give them and they'll actually press the lever more and so that's why kids will that one time that you gave in at bedtime they push you so hard the next time so even though cognitively they don't they don't think abstractly and they're in the present they're smart muggers that I remember these things absolutely not it's not necessarily always a conscious thing right I'm trying to get back at mommy but it's it's just like classical conditioning really hmm so what about you know a lot of parents out there probably you know it's five o'clock everybody's home it's just this whole chaotic stew of things happening which is a very stressful time what advice do you have for parents on how to get through that you know five o'clock and why is the five o'clock or after work after school such a tenuous time it absolutely is a rough time and it's the heavy traffic behavioral problem time so it's a transition for everybody everybody's coming home from work maybe daycare blood sugar levels are low probably because it's time to eat and parents are coming from one environment to annex in which they have demands on them they need to get supper they have to get bath and so everybody's feeling a little stressed a little off and so creating rituals can be really helpful that kind of help the transition so keeping in mind your child's individual needs will help as well so for example some kids need a little quiet time just to themselves where you can give them a choice to color or read a book whereas other kids really need you and they need some interaction so carving out five minutes before you jump in to fixing supper can go a long way or looking preventive Lee may be the child needs a snack at four o'clock and they're not getting that so parents may say Angie I this sounds like great advice but I do not have time my day I'm a single parent I am dizzy I have three children I don't have time to sit there and do this one on one absolutely well I mean it's really a it's it's something that a lot of parents struggle with but that five minutes gives you more in the long run and frees you up and so I would say do whatever you have to do if you have to get up five minutes earlier if you have to come home five minutes sooner whatever you can do to look at your day try to fit in ways that you can spend quality time with your child it doesn't have to be long periods of time and what you find is that when you do give 5 or 15 minutes where you're really tuned in and present focus your child and you have a better relationship and so actually they act out less and having that strength that the bond of that relationship helps what about apologizing we're talking about parents apologizing to their children yeah one of my favorite play therapist has a rule of thumb and it goes what may be most important is not what you do but what you do after what you did and so we all make mistakes but the good news is that we can recover and so apologizing is so important I know that as a parent that I mess up and and it's hard I think parents a lot of times think if I apologize to my child I'll lose my authority and they won't respect me but really we don't do a great job in our society of teaching our children proper ways to apologize and parents and caregivers are the most important role model that their child will have and so if you can role model how to recover in a relationship when you've blown it that's a really powerful lesson for a child and again it helps that relationship if you can be vulnerable and admit that you've made some mistakes and it doesn't quote unquote week in your position that's here immediately it strengthens the position because it's ridiculous to think that we don't make mistakes everybody makes mistakes and kids know that so we have about three minutes left I want you to kind of give us some our parents out there that are watching some rules to thumb rules of thumb to maybe think about as they're going through their days and weeks and yours with their children yeah i love the rules of thumb because they kind of help us they help ground us and guide us when we don't know what to do and in parenting there's a lot of times that it's it's confusing and you don't know which way to go i would say to take your time so if you're not sure what to do then you can stall for time and tell your child i'm not sure how to respond to this mommy needs a little bit of time to think about it or if you're an auntie as a caregiver or dad or an uncle that you need a few minutes to think about it and that's okay Gary Landreth also has a rule of thumb and child-parent relationship therapy called focus on the donut not the hole and so in our busy stressed out world sometimes we have a tendency to focus on the negative about our child and its really really important to get back to what you love about your child and to tell your child whether you write them a note in their lunchbox pointing out a positive characteristic they have or you pull out some old photos and talk with them about that those are really really important things to remember the good about your child that the problem that they're having is one piece of them but there's a whole human being there mm-hmm so I love the focus on the donut not I get that right you did absolutely anything else as we as we leave today I think you've given some great advice for parents that you know in theory I'm not a parent so it's easy for me to say implement this but it sounds like just taking that little extra time in the long run can help absolutely I Gary always says that you can't give away that which you don't possess so as a parent if you're if you're looking and all of your interactions with your child seem negative take a step back and think about what it is that you need as a parent maybe you're not getting enough sleep maybe you need more connection in your life so if we're trying to train our children to be thoughtful considerate compassionate people then we have to have those qualities ourselves and that can be tough and I think lastly when you're not sure what to do always do the thing that helps preserve your relationship with your child and if you don't and you blow it be sure to apologize all right well dr. Yoder we'll have to have you back again we could talk about teenagers because that's a whole other set of things so thank you so much for coming by being well today we appreciate it to you acne it's a teenager thing right well it's an adult thing too especially for women a quarter of women in their 30s get it and it can plague people for decades experts at Mayo Clinic have tips on how to handle adult acne we see people who never had a comes with acne and their adolescence but developing it in their 20s and 30s and 40s Mayo Clinic dermatologist dr. Mark Davis says the medical world does not know exactly why adults get acne but they do know how to treat it we use all the same things that use for adolescent acne so we use topical treatments and then oral treatments if the topicals don't work by themselves dr. Davis says start with over-the-counter topical products that have benzoyl peroxide in them your doctor can also prescribe topical retinoids if after three or four months your acne is not improving the next method of attack is to add on prescription oral contraceptives or antibiotics if after a couple more months there's still no improvement there are a number of treatment options including what's called spirin electone in very rare cases your doctor could prescribe isotretinoin which is very effective but it comes with side effects such as birth defects and if you've got a big event coming up and you suddenly get a big pimple steroid injections can work very well but they're risky because I'm injecting a steroid can make that area of your skin become what we call atrophic in other words you might get a dimple in your skin instead of having the bump on your skin and that can and that can be permanent dr. Davis also says no matter how clean you keep your skin acne still happens very difficult to prevent acne he suggests using a gentle soap but when pimples do pop up most adults can blot out the blemishes within weeks to months went armed with the proper tools of treatment for the Mayo Clinic News Network I'm Vivien Williams that's all the time we have for this week thanks for watching we hope to see you again for the next edition of being well production of being well is made possible in part by Sarah Bush Lincoln Health System supporting healthy lifestyles eating a heart healthy diet staying active managing stress and regular check-ups are ways of reducing your health risks proper health is important to all at Sarah Bush Lincoln Health System information available at sarahbush.org alphacare specializing in adult care services that range from those recovering from recent hospitalizations to someone attempting to remain independent while coping with a disability chronic illness or age-related infirmity alphacare compassionate professional home care additional funding by Jazzercise of Charleston you