Author: Lisa Fernandez

Socializing in a Pandemic

People who are very engaged in social media must use caution to ensure that they don’t place more value on their virtual friends, or how many or few they have, versus their in-person relationships. We can all get distracted by the online world, believing that things are happening without us (FOMO: Fear of Missing Out) or feeling pressure to respond to posts immediately. This focus means that we may well struggle with interpersonal conversations, especially about difficult subjects, in real time, face-to-face with true friends. I recommend to all my clients, especially those with ADHD who can struggle socially, that sending messages or ‘talking’ online, where you don’t often see another person’s reaction, can possibly make you misinterpret their intentions. In relationship, we have to learn through interpersonal communication and time spent together in the same space to read each other’s emotional weather report and respond appropriately. When people spend more time engaged with each other rather than their screens, they perceive and understand social nuances and learn how to deal with positive and negative feelings with empathy and consideration. This enriches relationships and deepens connections. Read more:

ADHD and Screen Sanity: Why a digital break is good for everybody right now

Millennial Loneliness and Depression

What We Eat is Something We Can Control Now

During this pandemic, we all are experiencing heightened anxiety and there is so much we can’t control. What we eat is luckily something we can control now. Some foods are good for our physical, emotional well-being, and some are not.
Although I am not a medical doctor, I’ve observed that foods do have an impact on us:
Anxiety – Food that is especially sugary or those with a lot of caffeine can increase someone’s agitation and then make them more prone to anxiety. Sometimes ginseng can do this as well.
I think herbal teas such as chamomile or those with other calming properties can be extremely useful.
What amount of food should people eat? – Eating slowly and mindfully can help reduce intake. Often when people eat quickly or standing up, their bodies don’t have a chance to metabolize the food and recognized that they are sated. Often overeating happens with rushing, or when certain moods kick in. Some people eat when they feel anxious; others can’t eat. It’s really an individual response. Whether or not you have an anxiety disorder or ‘just feel anxious sometimes,’ the feeling of anxiety is the same. The difference is one of frequency and intensity.

How to Nurture Yourself When Preparing for Back to School

It’s essential for parents and caregivers to take care of themselves during these times because we’re talking about a marathon, not a sprint. When you listen to the talk on an airplane about oxygen masks, you’re told to put one on yourself first and then on a child. It’s the same principle here. Factoring in self-care to an already full life of work, family and now hybrid learning can be complicated. In fact, it’s usually the first thing to go out the window when people are stressed when it should be one of the last. You have to take care of yourself so you can take care of others. Exercise, nutrition and emotional support are key elements to helping you run this long, arduous race. Here are a few tips:

  1. Get some physical exercise:  Not only will your body and your brain benefit enormously from the endorphins that exercise produces but you will also feel less resentful because you’ve done something good for yourself in the midst of all of the stress in your list. Make a list of two types of activities you could actually do: one at home and one before or after school. For the first list, include taking the stairs or seated/wall yoga poses to do when you need a break. For the second list, identify times and activities of exercise that you ENJOY and want to do. Decide how often you can do something and put it on your calendar with a reminder alarm. The goal is to use your body to help you let go of stress, not to get into the best shape of your life.
  2. Eat well: Many parent are tired of cooking and shopping so you may have limited food selections or they’re not what you desire. You need fuel for this marathon so make a list of healthy snacks to purchase the next time you go to the grocery store. 
  3. Ask your friends for assistance: People who care about you often feel confused about how to help you so they’re happy to do lend an ear, or bring dinner. When I ask a friend how I could help, she asked me to go to Trader Joe’s and buy her a container of dark chocolate pecan candies. I was so happy to do this. For the next six months I bought her a package of the candies. My friend was very appreciative, and even though it was a small thing, I felt like I was easing her burden in some way. 
  4. Meditation: Take some each evening before bed or each morning as you awaken to be with yourself. Guided meditations on Apps such as Headspace, Mindful or Insight Timer can be a great way to start or end your day (or both) with a sense of personal calm, insight and hope. This internal spacial-ness will assist you as you deal with the chaos of caretaking. 

Read more on how to manage life during COVID    

Millennial Loneliness and Depression

Teen looking lonely and depressed on her bed by the window

It can be hard to make friends as adults:

People often feel like it’s hard to make friends as an adult because, quite frankly, it is. When we are in college or technical school, we have a community made for us and we share common goals and interests. We spend time each day or week together. You don’t have to look far for peers because they are all around you. Once young adults have transitioned to living on their and working full-time, the social networks are less obvious. You may have friends at work or you may not. In addition, you may be living in a new place where you lack historical connections to people or a familiar community. Be shy and/or suffering from social anxiety doesn’t help either. Millennial loneliness and depression is real and a challenge to cope with.

Social media increases millennial loneliness:

Women in particular are socialized to develop a sense of themselves based on their relationships. These interpersonal networks help define us and give us purpose. Social media increases loneliness: women have superficial contact with others, often based on short text exchanges, photos or quick responses. Girls and women are developing an inner notion of who they are based on the number of likes they have and how engaged they are online with others. Ultimately, these ways of relating with others are less satisfying than in-person conversations, time spent together and sharing real time experiences.

Aim for Balance:

To build a community, aim for balance between social media and real time interactions. Folks need a few friends, not an entire posse, to feel like they matter and make a difference. Meet up with friends and talk in person more than texting, Snapchat or Instagram conversations. Pursue what interests you and join a club, take a class or volunteer for an organization. By participating in these activities, you’ll make natural relationships, share experiences and build a stronger sense of self to feel less lonely and more fulfilled.

Watch Dr. Saline’s advice on depression, loneliness and teens and millennials.

Learn more:

Help! My Teen is So Unmotivated This Summer!

Teens experience a few types of academic burnout depending on their individual situations. For neurotypical kids, academic burnout usually arises towards the end of the semester when they are burdened with final tests, projects and paper in addition to their other commitments such as sports, music or theater or work. For high-achieving kids who are taking AP classes, preparing for AP tests can add to their stress. For juniors in high school who additionally have to take the SAT’s or ACT’s for college, it can be overwhelming. They can become exhausted with how much they have to do.

Neurotypical Kids:

As a parent of these types of teens, your primary job is helping them maintain balance and perspective in their lives. Work with them to create a study/life schedule that allows for some down time each day. Don’t orchestrate what they should do during that time though. Instead brainstorm some healthy options other than screens such as cooking, walking the dog, going for a run, listening to music or even watching a single show with you. If they want to mess around on their phone a bit to “chill”, keep it (like tv) time limited. Teen brains especially need some non-screen to decompress and integrate all of the information they are learning and processing during the day.

Neurodiverse Kids:

For kids with ADHD, learning disabilities or autism spectrum disorders, burnout  can occur more frequently and more intensely. Working hard to hold it together at school all day takes a lot of effort and concentration for these teens. They spend a lot of their time doing academic tasks that are hard, boring or unpleasant. By mid-semester, their efforts may not be panning out as they had hoped and they become discouraged and uninterested in doing the work.

While the recommendations above for neurotypical kids apply equally to these teens, teens who are outside-the-box thinkers benefit from additional parental support in creating shorter work periods with timed breaks, specific tasks to accomplish in those work periods and acknowledgement of their efforts towards working towards goals, even if they are not fully met. This validation encourages them to keep going. Family work time, when parents and kids work side-by-side on their stuff, also helps teens stay on track because adults can monitor them without being intrusive.

Learn more:

What’s a Normal Level of Anxiety?

Stress and anxiety are connected but also different. Stress is related to feeling overwhelmed and incapable of managing the things that you have to do. Productive stress motivates you to get stuff done; poisonous stress contributes to worry and anxiety. You can’t get things accomplished to feel a sense of satisfaction. Stress can also be related to life circumstances such as poverty, illness and racism that cause you distress but have not clear resolution in sight.

Anxiety is a natural physiological and psychological response related to fears and worries. Panic, irrational thinking, reactivity, increased heart rate, perspiration, shortness of breath or insomnia are all signs of anxiety. Anxiety is about safety and security. Anxiety arises because people want to make uncomfortable feelings and uncertainty go away immediately–whether these concerns are based in reality or distorted and based on negative expectancy. Anxiety disorders often have a negative impact on several areas of someone’s functioning simultaneously.

It’s common for people to experience some type of anxiety seen as worry, dread, fear or distress. Some nervousness in a new situation or worry about chronic stress is expected. If these concerns fail to go away once you’ve learned how to manage the worry or stress and you experience persistent anxiety that is interfering with daily living, healthy choices, mood stability, or functioning at work, anxiety has become problematic and needs treatment. If your anxiety is higher than normal, first consult with your doctor to rule out any medical causes. Then, you’ve got to learn some tools to manage it. Meditation, yoga, daily exercise, therapy and medication can be extremely useful in reducing anxiety. You’ll benefit from learning how to soothe yourself and confront anxious, distorted thoughts to reduce their intensity. Don’t try to remove anxiety from your life: it doesn’t work because we need some anxiety to function, protect and aid us in dangerous or challenging situations. Instead, focus on anxiety reduction so that you feel like you have more control over it. The goal is teaching yourself how to manage the volume button on your anxiety rather than having blast you at full volume with its fears and worries.

Read more about Anxiety, depression and more

Parenting Adult Children is Complicated

When young adults have lived independently, they are accustomed to making their own schedules and sleeping, eating, studying and socializing according to their own rhythm. In general,  they’re not that interested in free advice about what they could be doing better or differently. Instead, they want to be respected for the autonomy that they’ve developed and be seen in their developing maturity.

Coexisting peacefully means realizing that your job is to support them more than guide them. They need collaboration and compassion: their lives have been turned upside down and they’ve likely lost many events, activities and plans which really mattered to them. They want to have a sense of their independence by making whatever choices they can in their newly limited lives. Many young adults right now are both anxious and depressed. As parents, we’ve got to remember that they are more fragile than they’ve been.

It’s reasonable to establish ground rules that reflect creating a civil, honest and safe environment for your home. Take about how to share chores, respect each other’s boundaries and work together to solve issues. Make a list of who’s doing what and post it in the kitchen. Create a plan for what to do when people aren’t following through. By strategizing for success and setting up clear plans for daily living, you’ll reduce the frequency of any conflicts which will naturally arise during this time.

If your adult child is behaving irresponsibly (sleeping all day and up all night, not following social distancing recommendations or abusing substances), talk with them about their stated goals for themselves and their view on how they are progressing towards them. Offer neutral observations about their behaviors, ask them how you can help and consider assisting them with making online appointments with their physician, finding a therapist or following a daily routine that includes exercise. Ask questions and listen to their responses, reflecting back what you hear them say and without judging or dismissing their opinions.

Read more about Parenting and Families

Prepare Now to Transition to In-Person School

Online Schooling has relieved anxiety for some –

Learning from home has been a pleasant relief for many students who struggle socially at school or have extreme anxiety. The various triggers that going to school presents for them have been eliminated. Online school offers limited peer and adult contact with less pressure to perform in casual conversations. Plus, kids are able to regulate their connections with others–who, what, where and how–which further reduces social anxiety.

Transitioning to In-Person School –

When thinking about transitioning to in-person school, parents of kids who have been thriving at home need to consider this issue of control. Many kids who struggle socially feel forced to interact with peers or adults on terms that don’t work for them and at times that are more frequent than they would otherwise choose. They will feel heightened anxiety by the prospect of having to endure or perform in these situations again. As parents, you have to help them remember other times of success in their lives–times when they were able to overcome their nervousness and do something anyway. Anxiety creates amnesia about these successes so we’ve got to bring them into awareness. Brainstorm or review with your son or daughter previous experiences and how they can apply those skills to the current situation. Write these down so you can refer to them in the future.

Role-Play Now –

Practice a few phrases that your child or teen can say in common interactions with peers. Talk about their primary concerns and brainstorm responses. For example, if they are feeling overwhelmed to respond and don’t know how, identify a sentence or two they can use such as “I’m not sure. Let me think about it and get back to you.” Role-plays are very helpful for learning what to say, remembering those words and building confidence. The more general the response, the easier it will be for them to recall and use the phrases. Sometimes kids can overfocus on what to say exactly and when to say it. We want to give them a tool that’s appropriate in several situations so they don’t feel more anxiety about remembering which sentence they need to use.

Read more tips about reducing anxiety

Stressed Out and Overwhelmed: Managing Family Life During the COVID Crisis

FREE WEBINAR with Seth Perler and Dr. Sharon Saline May 6, 2020  8 pm EST Burned out on COVID-19?! We get it. Who would’ve thought that the world would change so dramatically? Schedules? What schedules? Kids are staying up late, sleeping to all hours, chores have gone by the wayside, parents are snippy with each other and the kids, and visa versa. Even the dog is unsure of what’s going on! Seth Perler, executive function and 2e coach and Sharon Saline, clinical psychologist, team up together to share the valuable insights they’ve gained during this pandemic. No crafts or meal-planning suggestions here, nor 5 simple steps to stay ahead of the school schedule. Instead, you’ll find in-the-trenches, boots-on-the-ground advice to take back the joy this pandemic has robbed your family of! We’re here to help you through the burn-out phase!

Register Here

Stressed out and overwhelmed: Managing family life during the COVID crisis In this 45 minute free webinar, with extended time for your questions, we’ll provide actionable advice on how to keep the peace and ensure fond, lasting memories once this pandemic is over. Themes we’ll discuss:

  • Stay connected: Prioritize the health of your relationships–to your kids, your partner and yourself.
    • Identify your feelings first – This is hard on you too. Accept your anxious feelings so you can meet your children and teens where they are.
    • Learn how to foster attunement and compassion – These skills are vital to maintaining secure parent-child attachments.
    • Empower yourself with the tools to deal with what’s coming at you – Learn how to be allies in creating good sleep, diet, exercise and meaningful contact with friends and family.
  • Manage ourselves first: Everyone has stress and concerns right now, but our own distress and anxiety must be managed first before we intervene with our children. otherwise, we can’t access our better selves in moments of upset and frustration.
    • Identify the bodily signs when your nervous system is becoming activated.
    • Learn effective, quick methods to self-regulate.
    • Own your feelings and be accountable: It’s okay to be upset but it’s not great to blow up about something or blame others and not take responsibility for it.
  • Reduce family reactivity: Acting out behaviors are messages that kids are overwhelmed and lack adequate coping skills
    • Understand your own patterns of dysregulation
    • Make different choices
    • Model alternative behaviors for your kids.
    • Improve how everybody interacts with each other.
    • Help your kids identify their body’s warning signs that they are triggered.
    • Create a plan for dealing with these inevitable moments when you are all calm that you can use later.
    • Be conscious of revving and call for a pause in the action.
    • Don’t judge and criticize others’ feelings, hold the space to let things be.
    • Use I statements, mirroring, reflective listening.
    • Put down electronics and pay attention.
  • Plan for work time and play periods:
    • Create a daily schedule that suits people’s needs and abilities.
    • Plan for quality time as much as study time.
    • Engage in family work time with planned breaks, distinct study periods and access to support.
    • Use incentives that matter to kids to improve their participation and buy-in.
    • Make sure you have daily fun time: have a daily activity that isn’t related to serious things such as playing board games, throwing a frisbee, shooting some hoops, riding a bike, baking, making music, etc.
    • Limit screens: screen-free dinners, digital sundowns, devices live in parents’ rooms.

Register Here

Coronavirus Anxiety

Q: What is situational anxiety? A: Situational anxiety occurs when someone is worried about certain environments or events and what will happen in these contexts. When people suffer from situational anxiety, they feel frightened by and unclear about how to manage the circumstances that concern them. Sometimes they may exaggerate perceived negative outcomes as well. Q: What are some of the most common fears, anxious thoughts individuals are having in response
to coronavirus? A: In terms of coronavirus, common fears revolve around infection, lack of treatment and untimely death. People are anxious about how to protect themselves and their loved ones from contamination and not knowing what to do to ensure their safety increases their worries. Inadequate or incorrect information from the government worsens their fears. Q: What are the best ways to manage your
anxiety, particularly in relation to COVID-19?   A: It’s not easy to manage your anxiety about COVID-19 but you can start by learning about the facts of the virus and practical tools for managing infection in your home and community. Follow the CDC recommendations about hand washing, avoiding touching your face and other factors related to spreading germs. Repeat key points of this information to yourself when your anxiety rears its ugly head. You want to reassure yourself about the things you can actually do to promote and protect your well-being instead of the risks you can’t control that feed your fears. Read more about how to manage anxiety