Search Results for: kessler/2009/11/nerf-guns-–-what-are-we-afraid-of/2009/11/nerf-guns-–-what-are-we-afraid-of/2009/11/your-role-in-your-childs-development/2009/06/communicating-with-children

Violence, youth violence, PTSD

7 Ways to Stop Violence at Every Age

…ts, uncles, teachers, counselors, and family friends can serve as positive role models to our kids. Parents can hurt themselves and their children by creating an isolated environment around them. Encourage kind, compassionate, and ethical people to be involved in your child’s lives from the get go. For both children and adults who show violent tendencies, it is important to help them form attachments. Attaching to someone, whether from their famil…

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7 Ways to Stop Your Child from Becoming Violent

…nts, uncles, teachers, counselors and family friends can serve as positive role models to our kids. Parents can hurt themselves and their children by creating an isolated environment around them. Encourage kind, compassionate and ethical people to be involved in your child’s lives from the get go. Developing a Conscience Help your children develop a conscience by A) Being attuned to them, B) Not being violent toward or in front of them, C) Providi…

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A Horrific Event – What Can We Learn From the Sandy Hook Shooting

…ames are addicting. As a parent, we must start looking more closely at the role of video games in our children’s lives. Does my child threaten self-harm or aggression if you take them away? Can my child tolerate limits on play? Does my child sneak playing? Does thinking about games preoccupy his/her thoughts? How does my child handle his/her anger? The Newtown massacre is a tragic event. We are all in shock and horror. What would make it more egre…

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Sibling Rivalry, brothers and sisters

Siblings: Retaliation or Sadistic Pleasure

…ther to get him in trouble. Finally, some parents get overwhelmed by their children’s strong feelings and respond by sending both children to their rooms. Without a good road map on how to navigate sibling conflicts children may take matters into their own hands with less constructive results. Another factor that may feed the sadistic and retaliatory behavior between siblings is when one of the siblings is very impulsive, demanding and intense and…

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The Critical Inner Voice Defined

…or loss in their past, these feelings will impact their reactions to their children. A lot of times children embody unresolved issues from their parents’ past into their own current day lives without even recognizing it. We can stop this cycle by addressing unresolved issues in our own past and allowing ourselves not only to fully feel the pain of childhood trauma, but also understand it. BOYT: Is it hard to get rid of our critical inner voice? If…

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An Overview of Separation Theory

…psychoanalysis fails to deal effectively with death anxiety (the important role that death plays in life) and its impact on the future development of the individual. Existential psychology focuses on the significance of death awareness and dying on the personality, as well as other issues of being, such as autonomy, individuation, transcendent goals etc, but tends to neglect the “down and dirty” psychoanalytic concepts of defense mechanisms, compe…

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fear of abandonment

Fear of Abandonment

…ccur at a much subtler level, in everyday interactions between parents and children. In order to feel secure, children have to feel safe, seen, and soothed when they’re upset. However, it’s been said that even the best of parents are only fully attuned to their children around 30 percent of the time. Exploring their early attachment patterns can offer individuals’ insight into their fears around abandonment and rejection. Understanding how their p…

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If a tree falls in a forest, should I get out of the way?

…As a clinical psychologist, this raises many questions/concerns about how children experience the events in their lives. Are children aware of how these experiences make them feel? What, if any, meaning do these events hold for them? Or is it all simply reduced to objective data? This leads to questions about the different forms of input. Hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting and touching are the senses that quickly come to mind as they help us take…

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Facing Into the Rough Winds of a Challenging Time

…ugh their lives. Here are some specific suggestions to support you in this role: Check in with your children about information they are hearing or seeing (magazines, newspapers, social media, TV, etc.) Be curious, explore with they what they understand. Share honestly what you know (facts) and what you are doing that is supporting their safety. Assure your children that you are watching out for them; it is your responsibility to take care of them,…

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Why Are People Afraid to Grow Up?

…ne’s works, through the accumulation of power and wealth, or through one’s children. However, children are capable of relieving their parents’ death anxiety only if they make similar choices, entertain the same political and religious beliefs, and exhibit similar personality traits. Many parents attempt to defend themselves by molding a child in their image, insisting on sameness and discouraging their child’s unique interests and goals. Vanity: P…

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