Parenting in the Trenches with Karen Peters: Recent Episodes
Karen Peters
Hey weary parent. Parenting is a tough gig, but we've got your back. Join child and family therapist, and mom-in-the-trenches, Karen Peters and learn about skills to support you in supporting your kids, while laughing and getting real about the crazy sticky messiness of life with kiddo's.
If you are a parent of a child in therapy or are considering it in the future, it may seem like a bit of a mystery what happens in that room when the door closes. Chris offers us a look into the process of therapy that is informational and comforting. As one who specializes in trauma therapies and serves a wide variety of clients, he helps to demystify some of the unknown.
Through this conversation, Chris gives us some insight into the practical aspects of what therapy might look like for our children. He also shares his trust in the wisdom and intuition of children working through trauma and explains how providing a safe, open environment and a strong connection is the most powerful tool that we have in helping children heal, not only in the therapist’s office but also in the family home.
I’m grateful to Chris for having this conversation and he provided us with some great resources which are linked below.
https://www.treehousetraumacentre.com/
The International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation https://www.isst-d.org/
https://drdansiegel.com/books/
https://www.complextrauma.ca/
And the earlier episode we mentioned of Parenting in the Trenches with Lisa Dion: https://www.my.thrive-life.ca/parenting-in-the-trenches-s8e3
Welcome to Part Two of this conversation!
In Part One, Dr. Lark and I set the stage with some discussion around the types and forms of Anxiety we are seeing in our kids and the clear need for us to help them so that they can learn to manage their Anxiety. If you missed Part One, please go back and listen - Lark helps us understand Anxiety in a way that honors its complexity and nuance while simplifying some of the more difficult concepts that we can find confusing as parents watching our children struggle.
Children are experiencing increasing rates of Anxiety and it is imperative that we provide them with help to stay connected and to work through their Anxiety. Unfortunately there’s no silver bullet to ease the worry and fears for our children, but there are many things we can offer them from connection and mindfulness to meeting their basic physiological needs that can bolster their ability to grow and build resilience. Dr. Lark and I offer some tools and strategies in this episode that are known to be helpful.
We also paint a no fault, no guilt picture of why we are where we are, with our children experiencing Anxiety that may at times stem from our own. In naming what is happening in this process we are not laying blame, but instead acknowledging the reality that we are all affected by stressors around us, and that the resulting Anxiety exists. It actually can’t be avoided, and none of us are immune. It’s part of the human experience.
Understanding the Anxiety we see in our Children is important so that we can support them and know when and how to reach out for additional help. You are not alone, watching your kiddo in this hard space.
Here with you,
Karen
In this episode Lark and I set the stage with some discussion around the types and forms of Anxiety we are seeing in our kids; the possible roots of it, the manifestations of it, and the differences between as well as the commonalities of situational anxiety and Generalized Anxiety.
This conversation offers insight into the current increasing overall state of Anxiety that we are seeing our kids experience on a massive scale due to the last few years of isolation, fear and stress that we have all lived through and continue to process as a global community. The picture is not pretty, with Anxiety and Addition rates skyrocketing. We’re making an effort to look honestly at the reality of the situation, which enables us to foresee the challenges and offer hope through strategies based on connection which promote resilience.
This episode is sure to inform and hopefully clarify some things around Anxiety for parents with children struggling in this area. For practical tools and common sense reminders, but sure to tune in next week to Part 2 when Lark and I dig into supporting our children through connection, co regulation and more.
If you'd like to explore Dr. Lark's work, you can check that out here:
https://www.larkeshleman.com
I’m really excited to share this episode with our community. We are looking at Anxiety, Our Kids and School. This is a topic so many of us have challenges around. For many, our child’s anxiety and how it relates to and shows up at school is troubling, baffling and oftentimes anxiety provoking for ourselves. If you are a parent of an anxious child or a professional who supports children in the classroom, this episode is very likely to resonate with you.
We are joined by Shannon Sullivan, a School Counselor who has worked with the entire span of school aged children and has a wealth of knowledge and experience observing and supporting children in school with many challenges, including Anxiety. Shannon insightfully explores with us anxiety in our kids and youth, how it shows up for them in their school environments, and what parents can do to support their children's mental health and collaborate effectively with educators.
We are seeing growing anxiety in school aged children and conversations like this one are becoming increasingly important to have as we navigate this in our families and with our children’s schools. The good news is that you are not alone in this, nor is your child. There is help available for you and for them. Some options you can explore include the listening ear of a parent who has been through something similar (peer support), school support staff, counselors, and other resources such as those listed below.
https://www.anxietycanada.com/
https://familysmart.ca/
https://www.my.thrive-life.ca/cbtforthefamily-course
And if you are an educator looking for supportive resources for the classroom, email karen@compasscounsellingservices.ca for more information about my custom made anxiety-reduction curriculum for grades 1 through 4. We'd love to support you in the incredible work you do with children and youth.
Best,
Karen
It’s difficult to put into words the depth of openness, vulnerability and realness with which our guest today shares his story - not just on this podcast episode, but in his work as an advocate for mental health and in his willingness to share his journey through grief and loss on a public platform.
I am joined on this episode by Dylan Benson, a father, adventurer and photographer.
Dylan generously shares with us his story of loss, grief, mental health challenges and road to healing. Through his experiences and journey toward wholeness, Dylan displays what we know to be true about processing grief and loss - that moving toward healing is done in safe spaces with safe others, and that integrating hardships into everyday life is what enables one to go on to live fully.
Dylan’s honest and insightful portrayal of his life’s circumstances intertwined with his choices along the way is hope-filled. His conviction that healing and moving forward require conversation and connection comes through loud and clear. Reaching out to others who may be able to support you or offering a lifeline to someone else who may need support weaves a web of connection that is invaluable.
I hope you’ll take the time to listen to Dylan’s story. I’m grateful to him for spending his time with us to share it. We can learn so much from the experiences of others. If you find it helpful or inspiring, please pass it along to someone you know who might benefit from hearing it. You can connect with Dylan on Instagram at
https://www.instagram.com/betterwithadventure/
Here are the resources he referred to:
https://gtf-outside.com/pages/about-us
https://campwidow.org/
Walking alongside you on your journey,
Karen
Supporting a child or youth who has experienced significant trauma in their life can feel overwhelming, complicated and sometimes impossible. Attachment struggles, intense emotions and behaviours, layers of diagnoses and constant appointments with professionals can leave parents, foster caregivers and teachers feeling helpless, despite their deep love for these deeply hurt kids. Dr. Geddes goes beyond describing the challenges and lays down a roadmap we can all use to cultivate long term healing as well as help us get through the hard moments. He's concrete, specific and practical - and it comes from experience of using these tools and strategies with hundreds of kids over the last decade.
If you listen to this episode and want to know more, please invest in a copy of his new book, Children and Complex Trauma: A Roadmap for Healing. This book will be an effective guide for social workers, physicians, coaches, teachers, parents, caregivers of all kinds, and counsellors dedicated to the heart-work of supporting kids along their healing journeys.
And if you want a compact 45 minute webinar on co-regulation strategies, you can find it HERE to get you started.
We're in this work to support you - the people who directly impact the lives of kids. THANK YOU for being there for them!
Dear New and Expecting Dads, (Mamas - get ready to send the link to this podcast episode to your male partner!)
I think we all recognize the disparity between the information and content available addressing the roles and needs of mothers in the perinatal arena and the same geared toward our male partners. My hope is that today we can open up the conversation and share some information and resources to start to close that gap.
In this episode we are hitting a topic that rarely gets put in the spotlight: the male partner's perspective on new parenting, supportive roles, shifting assumptions about involvement and contribution and more.
I’m grateful to be joined by Dr. Dan Singley to help us wade through these waters. Dr. Singley is a San Diego-based dad and board certified psychologist and Director of The Center for Men’s Excellence. His research and practice focus on men’s mental health with a particular emphasis on reproductive psychology and the transition to fatherhood. He conducts training and presentations around the country to assist individuals and organizations to enhance their level of father inclusiveness, and founded the grant-funded Basic Training for New Dads, Inc. nonprofit and Padre Cadre social networking application just for dads in order to give new fathers the tools they need to be highly engaged with their infants as well as their partners.
Listen along as we learn about truly partnering together in a way that will contribute to the health and wellbeing of ourselves, our partners and ultimately, our families.
If you are a couple who are soon to be or new parents, we are all rooting for your relationship to stay strong, feel connected and for you to thrive as an attuned family. Until the end of April/22, you can access my online course for couples When You & Me Become Three at 25% off when you enter the coupon code: BABYPROOF. Don't miss out on this deal - once you own a copy, it's yours to keep and work through when you're ready.
With you,
Karen
PS.
Dr. Singley offers a virtual Expectant Dads Class, available here: https://www.menexcel.com/parenting-classes-in-san-diego-for-dads/
Expectant fathers enjoy an informal, hands-on class that provides practical information and a real boost of confidence about handling the baby's impending arrival.
Participants connect with other expectant dads, and also have the opportunity to talk with a “veteran dad” who has been through the class and brings his infant with him to the class. Dads-to-be get to hear directly from the new dad about his experience—and practice diapering, swaddling, soothing, and burping the baby.
Because this is a learning course and not "therapy", you can join from anywhere around the world!
Also check out his book: Parental Mental Health: Factoring in Fathers
Website: Www.menexcel.com
And follow on:
FB @MenExcel
IG @Men.Excel
Twitter @MenExcel
Have you ever met a new parent who described themselves as “well rested”? Neither have I.
When Baby comes home, many of us are baffled and exhausted by the sleeping patterns of these new, tiny humans. Why do they sleep all day and stay up all night? Why don’t they stay asleep? Why do they cry like that? What should we do about it? How will I survive the next day if I’m up all night with them?
The stresses and complexity of adding a baby to your family are already challenging to navigate, and throwing on top of it the wonky sleep situation you’re in for only exacerbates the intensity of those things.
If there were a silver bullet for this challenging topic, this wouldn’t be a conversation we’d need to have. There is not a one size fits all manual for this. There are, however, people who are up on all the research and specialize in the sleep of babies! Our guest on this episode is one of them.
Johanna Snyder is the owner of Sleep Soundly Consulting in Westchester, NewYork. Johanna successfully helped countless friends and colleagues work through their children’s sleep struggles. She was inspired and ready to instill confidence in others regarding their children’s sleep. Johanna earned her certification as a Child Sleep Consultant through the Family Sleep Institute. This program gave her the opportunity to connect with, and learn from, the industry’s top sleep experts. The FSI program provides the most comprehensive, evidence-based child sleep education. Johanna is also a member of the International Association of Child Sleep Consultants.
Johanna’s experience and knowledge have helped many families and we’re grateful she’s sharing with us. The practical tips she offers are great tools for you to keep in your pocket.
Be encouraged, weary, bleary-eyed parent. It may feel like this stage of development will last forever. I promise you it won’t. But while you’re stuck in the mud of exhaustion, know that you’re not in it alone.
Been there - survived that (barely),
Karen
Johanna’s website:
https://sleepsoundlyconsulting.com/about/
Find her on instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/sleepsoundlyconsulting/
It’s an all too common experience: we bring baby home with the expectation- or at least the faint hope- that we’re going to be high functioning and capable only to find that we’re exhausted, scatter-brained, sore, overwhelmed, covered in vomit and frustrated by any number of factors. Oftentimes the part that’s not going to plan is how you are being supported (or not supported) by the village you counted on being there for you in this huge time of transition. You don’t want to decline the “help” offered to you, but it’s also not helping, and no one is offering what you need. If you can relate to this, or foresee this in your future as an expecting parent - you are normal and WE. SEE. YOU.
In this conversation we talk with Dr. Veronica Eyo, a therapist and mom who understands the many important facets of new parenting, perinatal mental health, relationship wellness and self care. Speaking from her professional experience and transparently sharing from her personal experience as well, Veronica helps us intentionally look at what it means for each of us to feel supported and gives us permission to be very honest with ourselves and others in order to make it through the initial stages of motherhood well.
“You are not meant to do this alone” Veronica says - and I could not agree more. It’s not an easy road, but addressing our expectations and allowing ourselves to change our minds about our needs and express them to those in our circles is crucial. It is worth having hard conversations and cultivating safe relationships for us to be real and vulnerable in. Veronica kindly helps walk us through very practical steps for identifying our own needs and sharing those needs with others so that they can support us in meaningful ways.
I hope this episode leaves you feeling seen and heard. You are certainly not alone if this has been your experience.
You can check out Veronica on instagram for uplifting and practical content.
And you can check out her website too.
If your couple relationship needs fortifying (or maybe don’t wait until it feels like a “need”), When You & Me Become Three will give you the skills you need to improve communication, clarify and express boundaries, plan the future together and refine your attunement to one another’s needs (including your baby’s). For the month of April, you can download this online, self-paced course for 25% off using the coupon code BABYPROOF.
We’ve got your back, folks.
Karen
If you are a new parent, soon to be parent, one day hoping to be a parent or if you love someone in the aforementioned categories,
Please join us for this episode on perinatal mental health. In it, we touch on the power of being understood and supported, the challenges of birthing and parenting in a pandemic which complicates an already complex life change, releasing ourselves from parental expectations and guilt, acknowledging the mental load of parenting, trusting and advocating for yourself, and much more.
Our guest this week is Candice Thomas. She is the Owner of the Evergreen Wellness Studio in downtown Barrie Ontario. She is a Registered Massage Therapist and Certified Athletic Therapist. Through her own journey with Anxiety, depression and postpartum, Candice has become a fierce and outspoken advocate for Mental health and Perinatal Mental Health reform in Canada. Candice has two beautiful daughters, Olivia and Ada. Motivated by the lack of resources for mothers struggling with postpartum, Candice founded The Liv Mohr Project, helping to raise awareness and funds for Mental Health Programs within her community.
Candice transparently and generously shares with us her personal experience with mental health and her birthing and mothering journey. She offers hope and direction to help us acknowledge a current system that doesn’t always support new parents well so that we can move toward a collaborative, partnership based, multi faceted approach of care and support. We know that families thrive when mothers are well cared for and that starts with us taking care of ourselves, building in relational supports and ideally having well functioning, accessible systems of care.
I’m so grateful for Candice bringing the subject of perinatal mental health to the forefront, raising awareness and change going forward - together. My hope is that this episode serves as a catalyst for more conversation and movement toward real and meaningful support for new parents. Please check Candice out on IG via @livmohrproject and @evergreen_rmt.
If you're wanting more support in terms of preparing your couple relationship for the intensity of the early parenting phase, we've set up a discount for you to access my online, self-paced course When You & Me Become Three, valid until Apr.30, 2022. Grab it now with coupon code EVERGREEN50 and journey through the 10 modules together whenever you're ready!
Got your back,
Karen
To all those who work with, parent and support our children,
Have you ever come across a child who is so agreeable, sweet and seems to read people so well? It can feel lovely and easy to relate to kids who present this way, but you might also find it's like pulling teeth to get them to say what they want, like and think. Kindness is not a problem, but "fawning" indicates the child doesn't actually feel safe enough to be themselves - they've learned somewhere along the way that if they don't please others and keep them happy and unagitated, that they might be abandoned emotionally. That their attachment depends on their good and easy behaviour, how compliant they can be.
Fawning is one of the 4 F responses to feeling unsafe or threatened, but it typically has a unique profile and function - it's an attempt to preserve safety in the context of relationships. I've had so many teachers and parents asking amazing questions about this type of trauma response, wanting to understand it better. Let's explore this further today. Join me?
Karen
PS. Here's some further reading if you're interested:
https://www.amazon.ca/What-Happened-You-Understanding-Resilience
https://www.pacesconnection.com/blog/the-trauma-response-of-fawning-aka-people-pleasing-part-one
https://drarielleschwartz.com/the-fawn-response-in-complex-ptsd-dr-arielle-schwartz/#.YjFCUXrMIT0
https://www.healthline.com/health/mental-health/unlearn-fawn-response
Dear adopting and fostering parents and those who support them,
I need you to know about my guest today, Dr. Julia Bledsoe. When we began our adoption journey, we did not know people like her existed, and I cannot tell you how profoundly helpful it would have been to have access to her expertise both during and after the adoption application process. Some of the most difficult questions we needed to tackle but felt hugely ill equipped to answer, were related to understanding the risks associated with in utero trauma and prenatal substance exposure. We had no clue how to compare the impacts of alcohol and drug use, the differences between types of drugs and the expected long term effects on development. We so desperately wanted to ensure we were signing up for something we could handle well, but that's a tough thing to do when you don't have the information required to articulate those boundaries.
If you're in a similar position, or want to know what adoption medicine all entails, this episode is going to be very enlightening!
Julia Bledsoe, M.D., is a board certified pediatrician at the Pediatric Care Center at UWMC-Roosevelt and the Center on Human Development and Disability at UWMC and a UW professor of General Pediatrics. She also works as a faculty pediatrician at the UW FAS (fetal alcohol syndrome) Clinic, the longest standing FAS center in the US. She earned her M.D. at the UW. She lectures and teaches on topics related to international and domestic adoption, especially as these overlap with fetal alcohol syndrome.
Dr. Bledsoe specializes in adoption medicine: the care of children and families touched by adoption. She strives to create active partnerships with her patients to achieve the best possible outcomes. Her work with the Center for Adoption Medicine includes: pre-adoption consultations, on-call travel support and pediatric care for fostered and adopted children. To learn more, check out their website or read more about Dr. Bledsoe's work here.
If you've subscribed to my podcast, you will have heard about my online course for couples who are in the process of adopting. You can access Adoption: What to do while you wait at 50% off for a limited time if you enter the coupon code ADOPTSTRONG.
If you haven't had the chance to listen to the rest of our adoption series on Parenting in the Trenches, please download those episodes into your listening list! We love it when our community of parents grows!
Follow me on FB or IG for more resources,
Karen
Dear adoptive parents and in particular those who adopted transracially,
I'm inviting you to come learn with me. We can never know it all, mitigate it all or avoid the reality that our transracially adopted children have experienced loss and trauma in so many ways, so what we need to do it learn as much as we can in continuous and humble ways. Our kids deserve it. The best perspectives we can glean from is those who have lived it.
My guest today is Lydia Faye, an adult adoptee adopted as a newborn and raised by white parents in essentially an all-white community. She had a pivotal, eye opening experience in college that shone a light on so many unexplained experiences she had throughout her life. She shares openly about her own experiences and also what she's learned through her work, mentorship and educating roles. In today's episode we hone in on loss and microaggressions and how white parents can support racial identity formation with their transracial adoptees. Please join us and share this episode with friends and family. Also check out the recommended resources below!
Check out Lydia's Becoming Lydia Faye website for more about her personal journey and her work as a mentor and educator, or follow her on IG.
Recommended reading:
I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness, by Austin Channing Brown
TIME article as food for thought: Realities of raising a kid of a different race.
If you are a couple in the process of adopting, I'd encourage you to take a look at the details of my online course which includes a module video on transracial adoption by adult adoptee and social worker, Angela Tucker. You can read all about it here.
And if you'd prefer to feel like you're in our living room for our conversation, you can tune in on YouTube for our video version!
Renae is back to show us P.A.C.E. in action! This bonus episode is in follow up to our conversation in S11E5 where we cover this model of parenting in the wake of kids having experienced developmental or relational trauma. If you want to know what it sounds and looks like to put Dr. Hughes' approach into motion with your kids, have a listen.
Dear caregivers of kids who have been through really messy and hard stuff,
We are so grateful for you - the way you show up for the kids in your lives even when you feel lost with how to best support them, when their behaviours look so overwhelming, and when you start to wonder if things can get better. Relationship trauma takes a long time to heal from, and when a young, vulnerable child is in an environment that for whatever complex reasons can't be present for and responsive to their innate needs for security, it can feel like the resulting wounds might be too hard to repair. When you are in a parenting role with a child who is relearning how to trust their adults, their expressions of their trauma, fear and mistrust can feel insulting, personal, and unsafe for YOU. We know this and we understand.
We're here to get real about the impacts of attachment trauma but also to provide models of understanding about what we can do to give our futures their best chance. Humans are shockingly resilient. Let's stay open to surprises, particularly when parts of us are convinced there's no way through to healing.
Renae is a Registered Clinical Counsellor and parent (both biological and adoptive) and she uses the P.A.C.E approach - a model developed by Dr. Daniel Hughes which Renae refers to as a "game changer" both personally and professionally. Today she'll walk us through what P.A.C.E. means, how and why it works, and she's even agreed to come back for a bonus episode in follow up to this conversation which will serve as a "lab" of sorts. I'll provide her with some situations and scenarios that come up with kids who have had relationship traumas in their past, and she'll demonstrate how the P.A.C.E. approach would sound like in response.
If you want to check out Renae's work, you can find her information HERE.
To read more about Dr. Daniel Hughes' approach, go to his website http://www.danielhughes.org/
And if you want to learn more about complex trauma and brain development, we'd encourage you to listen to our previous podcast episode {S8E6} with Dr. Chuck Geddes, which you can listen to HERE or wherever you listen to Parenting in the Trenches.
If ever there was a deep trench of mud, it's parenting kids who have a history of trauma. We want you to have support and resources to stay well and to help your child find healing.
Holding steady with you,
Karen
Parents, soon-to-be parents and hopeful parents,
Be honest - what thoughts, associations, pictures in your mind come up when you hear the diagnosis "Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder" or "FASD"? What have you been told about it, what are your assumptions, what are your worries? If you're parenting a child with FASD, what has your journey been in learning about it, supporting your child and adjusting your parenting approaches and expectations?
This week's episode is a discussion with parent-in-the-trenches, Natalie Vecchione. We talk about the misconceptions, the stigma, the need for person-centred parenting and resources, and what "interdependent" living can look like throughout development. She has lived experience home educating her two children (who joined their family through adoption)and advocating for resources, increased awareness and policy change for assessment and treatment support services around the 5 diagnoses that fall under the FASD umbrella. She's real, she's wise, and she's filled with hope and light.
Natalie left us with some amazing resources and I hope you'll check out her podcast and book!
CANFASD
natalie@fasdhope.com
https://www.fasdhope.com/
Instagram - @fasdhope
Facebook- @fasdhope1
Twitter - @fasdhope
Clubhouse - @natalievecc
FASD Hope Podcast on Apple or find it wherever you listen to your podcasts!
Blazing New Homeschool Trails: Educating and Launching Teens with Developmental Disabilities
Have you ever met someone and immediately felt safe? Like this person is trustworthy, warm, would see you through the hardest of things? Meet Dr. Eshleman - Lark, as she prefers to be called. She embodies the work she does by modeling safe relationships, bringing her deep knowledge and experience of attachment and trauma, and by demonstrating her life long passion for helping children heal from ruptured connections early in their life.
I don't know about you, but relationships and healthy attachments feel so foundational to all other wellness in our lives and also the most complicated to understand and repair when things have been severed. Lark brings so much understanding, grace, warmth and clarity around both the hardest of the experiences and the steps towards healing.
If you are parenting a child who has experienced ruptures in their early attachments, Lark wants you to know what you can be actively doing to facilitate healing in your families. So please tune in for this episode, you won't be disappointed.
If you want to read Dr. Lark Eshleman's book, you can find it here: Becoming a Family
To learn more about Dr. Lark's work and the resources she mentioned in our episode, check out these links:
https://www.larkeshleman.com/
https://www.facebook.com/AttachmentandTrauma/
Lark’s colouring book: https://forallseasonsinc.org/product/color-me-closer/
Other resources mentioned in the recording:
https://www.amazon.ca/Neurofeedback-Treatment-Developmental-Trauma-Fear-driven/dp/0393707865
https://drdansiegel.com/
Dr. Lark talks in this episode about the healing qualities of Coregulation. To learn more about how to do this effectively with your children, check out 10 Strategies for Coregulation.
And if you are a couple waiting to adopt, I'd encourage you to check out this self-paced online course: Adoption: What to do while you wait, available for the month of February at 50% off when you enter coupon code ADOPTSTRONG
With you in the trenches,
Karen
Adoptive and foster parents, you are in for a treat!
In my practice, I frequently get asked about how to help current children in the family unit adjust well to folding in a newly adopted sibling - understandably - it's not straightforward. We want everyone involved to transition well! I wanted to know more about the transitions experienced by the adoptive triad directly from people who have walked the journey.
Low and behold, we found the amazing Jeanette Yoffe! She shares her experience as a child in foster care and what her transition was like into her forever adoptive family. We're learning today about the stickiness and the incredible importance of establishing permanency for children who have had attachment disruptions and what we need to know about the transitions adoptees and adoptive parents/sibs often experience. As a psychotherapist supporting adoption processes in the US, she has witnessed and been intimately part of many transitions, including reunification, and has generously shared her wisdom through a number of resources including YouTube videos and books she's written. I wanted you to know about them ALL, so please take some time to check out the following links, spread the word with adoptive and foster parents you know, and soak in the knowledge so we can all do better in our family relationships and in our mental health.
https://yoffetherapy.com/
Jeanette Yoffe's YouTube Channel
Follow Jeanette on Facebook
What is Adoption: Just for Kids
And here are some of the resources Jeanette talks about in the podcast, in case you want to learn more!
https://www.attachmenttraumanetwork.org/
https://www.pactadopt.org/home.asp
https://celiacenter.org/
https://postinstitute.com/
https://nacac.org/
https://affcny.org/
https://www.infant-parent.com/
https://adoptionsupport.org/
For all the couples out there preparing to adopt, we want to equip you with the tools to do this well TOGETHER. To know ways of partnering well, managing conflict, finding ways to attune to one another's needs and to the needs of your child, learning about openness, transracial adoption, attachment trauma, post adoption planning and SO MUCH MORE! I've combined what we know to help adoptive families thrive into my online course, Adoption: What to do while you wait. And until the end of February, 2022, you can register for this at 50% off using the coupon code YOFFE50. Invest in your family - it's soooooo worth it!
Truly with you on your journey,
Karen
Are you an adoptive or foster parent or someone interested or in the process of waiting to adopt? Rita has years of leadership experience in agencies and foundations that strive to create permanence for vulnerable children and youth. The Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption and specifically the Wendy's Wonderful Kids program are resources you should know about.
When I was in the process of adopting our girls, I remember how completely nebulous and complicated it felt to try and decide (and then explain to our social worker and adoption agency) what we thought we could parent well, who we could envision folding into our family and how we would see ourselves navigate family life, connections with birth families, and so much more.
If you're curious about the process of adopting from government systems of care, if you have questions or concerns about what that would look like, or want to think through the ins and outs of advocating for a really strong match, I hope you'll spend this 30 minutes with us. I found our conversation so helpful and I hope you will too.
To learn more about the work and programs Rita is connected to, check out these links:
Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption
DTFA on IG
DTFA on FB
Wendy's Wonderful Kids
Let's stay informed, connected and supported through our fostering and adoptive journeys!
And if you are a couple waiting to adopt or early in the growth of your adoptive family, we want to provide you with the resources to be at your best. If you're interested in cementing your couple relationship and learn about crucial adoption and parenting related topics to prepare you well, please check out the online course Adoption: What to do while you wait. You can use coupon code DTFA50 to access it at half price for the month of February! Once you have it, you can use it at your own pace!
Wishing you connection and fortitude,
Karen
Dear parents,
I will not be delivering the 12 days of Christmas - who has time for that?! What I WAS able to do, was spend some time with my amazing friend and fellow parent in the trenches, Kim, to explore 12 tips for the holidays, particularly applicable if you have neurodivergent kids.
If you approach the holidays with apprehension, feeling the stress begin to build as you imagine all the ways in which you will need to carefully construct the Christmas landscape for your neurodivergent kiddos, we get it - wholeheartedly. And today we'll be sharing some of the strategies, adjustments and tips we've collected (and done ourselves) over the years that help our families address the social dynamics and expectations, the sensory overload, the varying thresholds for tolerating change, and so much more that comes with the holiday season. We know the importance of the tribe when it comes to parenting, and exchanging tips and tricks is one way we can be there for one another. No formula is the same for every family, and that's especially true for neurodiverse ones, so Kim and I will not pretend to be Christmas elves with perfectly wrapped gifts of peace here. What we do know though, is that there are things we tend to encounter that feel extra daunting, complicated and nuanced, and that there are helpful themes to pay attention to and give ourselves permission to adapt around. Today we'll highlight those in an effort to partner up with you this Christmas, sharing both the joys and the trials of the holidays with you.
May you experience connection and meaning this December break. Happy Holidays from us at Parenting in the Trenches! See you in the new year!
{P.S.}
If you find some quiet time in the weeks ahead, we'd invite you to scroll through the previous episodes and if you'd like to do some reading, check out our Living Room Learning resources page. Several of our online courses are currently being offered at reduced rates until the end of 2021, and there's a whole library of free articles and videos you can soak in at your leisure.
If you are a parent, please take a second to forward this to all the educators in your world who have the important responsibility of providing education to kids and youth about their sexual health, their body health and their physical and sexual development.
Wherever you're at in your knowledge about how to educate kids about sex, this is not a static topic - it is hugely dynamic and changing. Similar to keeping up with fast changes in the digital world, knowing how to keep current with appropriate and inclusive languaging around reproductive health, gender and how kids are communicating with one another about sex, is a topic that in the last decade has many of us educators and parents scrambling to know how to keep current.
Please listen carefully to this conversation and notice what happens for you as you soak it in. Does it empower you, make you uncomfortable, challenge your assumptions, prepare you better for what kids are bringing to you? Whatever reactions you have, my hope is it moves you in a direction that offers kids and youth more safety, more inclusion and more understanding.
This episode is the last one in our 4-part series on Our Kids & Sexual Health. In the previous episode show notes we share some resources for further learning that you might want to take a moment to check out. We've included books and websites appropriate for your kids of all ages, for specific topics like sex education with people with disabilities, and information for you to explore that might help you shift your own understanding how you were taught about sexual health by parents, educators, media, and peers.
Thank you for learning with us!
Karen
Parents and educators (and if you are one of these, please share with the other in your life - we're all contributors to our kids' learning),
This is an episode near and dear to me. It's also really special to Ashten because of her work with and friendships with people with disabilities. If you are raising or supporting a child or youth with a disability (either physical or mental), you'll know how much more complicated it feels to talk with them about their sexual health and development. It causes us to consider HOW they learn information, what's going to be relevant for them, and when to bring the information up. We discuss the vulnerabilities that come with interacting with systems of health care and/or education that make assumptions, aren't sure what questions to ask or how to provide answers that meet their needs, and inadvertently leave gaps for those who need more from care providers.
This conversation with Ashten made me think through so many important factors - things I'll know to bring up with families I'm supporting and also safe guards I can put in place for my own kids. Here are a couple of specific resources we thought you might want to know about after you listen to our conversation:
respectability.org/resources/sexual-education-resources for young adults with developmental and intellectual disabilities
www.shift-education.com (Jessy Wollen) is a local sex educator in BC's lower mainland who has great resources for diverse learners.
Learning alongside you,
Karen
Ok parents,
Let's take a moment to reflect. What messaging did you receive about your body and about sex growing up? Where did those messages come from? Were they all super obvious and explicit or were they sort of slippery and normalized? Do any of those messages now seem harmful or shame-filled to you?
Now let's consider the messaging around consent. How would you define that concept and how would you go about explaining that to your kids? Of course the depth in which we talk to our kids about this looks different as they grow, but our approach or beliefs about consent matter all along the way.
Today we're unpacking some of the old metaphors we use that might be setting up unhealthy messaging about what our kids should and shouldn't be okay with in terms of physical and sexual interactions, how to go about asking for someone's consent, and some of the gendered factors that need some overhaul.
This topic is one of Ashten and my favorites, so I hope you'll join us and share this with your parenting friends. It's just too important for us to keep to ourselves.
If you haven't yet listened to the previous 2 episodes in this series, I'd really encourage you to do that and to take a look at those show notes for further reading/learning suggestions Ashten has provided us with. I've already ordered a few new books to read with my kids...just waiting for the delivery to arrive!
Glad you've joined us,
Karen & Ashten
Dear parents,
Does this topic make you a little nervous? Unsure where to begin? Let's tackle this together and maybe it'll feel a little less scary on the other side of it. Ashten Black is a sexual health educator who removes shame from the equation, recognizes the stickiness of this topic and aims to reassure parents of both the invaluable role they play in educating their kids/teens about sexual development, health and relationships, and that what parents bring to the table is intimate knowledge about who their kids are and what they hope to foster with them through open communication when equipped to do so. She's here to help us out with that.
As a parent of two girls at very different stages of development and also kids with hugely differing personalities, like and dislikes, I get how trying to figure out what to bring up, when to bring it up and more importantly the "how" of bringing it up throughout their years, feels complicated. It also comes with my own worries, background of understanding (both what I do and don't know), and what values I was taught surrounding my body, my sexuality, my boundaries and my interactions in relationships. If we want to really create a platform for having open, honest, supportive and shame-free conversations about sex with our kids, we need to wade through all these things and find within ourselves the "readiness" to both set that up well and keep it going.
Like in any episode, we can only cover so much and we know this topic is oh so loaded, so Ashten was kind enough to leave us with these amazing resource suggestions for further learning:
"Sex Positive Talks to Have with Kids" by Melissa Pintor Carnagey. This book also includes a very comprehensive resource list.
Websites to explore:
www.amaze.org
www.kidshealth.org
Joining you in this trench,
Karen
About 6 months ago I invited those in couple relationships who were either waiting to adopt or who had already adopted a child (or more than one), to share the unique stressors of the process, the impacts on their relationship at different points of the journey, and the stages those dynamics set for their family.
As an adoptive parent in a couple relationship, I have a special soft spot for people walking this path and the subtle and not so subtle impacts this particular path of creating family has on our bonds with one another. The reality is that adoption is more often than not fraught with grief, loss, extreme highs and lows, unpredictability, feeling a lack of control, packed with both excitement and worry, and demands the very heart in us every step of the way. Knowing how to truly be there for each other is no easy feat when you're overwhelmed, caught off guard, and so much is on the line.
In today's episode I package up and deliver to you the experiences, wisdom and advice of couples who are walking this path with the desire to support YOU in YOUR journey better. We want couples and families to thrive through the inevitable tenuous process of growing your family through adoption.
I want to acknowledge that this is not meant to ignore the single adoptive parents out there going this alone in many ways. That holds its own very uniquely intense experiences worthy of our awareness as well. I don't want to pretend, however, that we can do either of these deep dives justice if we attempted to pack them into the same conversation, so today's focus is on those challenges and strengths that arise specifically for partners trying to navigate this in tandem, well.
I also need to acknowledge that this episode highlights for us how important it is that we attend to our couple relationship throughout raising our families and that there's no shame in naming that massive events in our lives have a real impact on us and put more importance the ways in which we've got one another's back in life.
In that, this episode isn't the comprehensive support I wish to leave you with. For that level of support, I custom created an evidence-based, 10 module online course for couples who are waiting or who have adopted and want to scaffold their relationship throughout the journey. This course is available to you during the month of November/21 at 50% off when you register HERE using the coupon code: ADOPTAWARE. And don't worry if you're in the thick of life right now and don't have time to walk through the videos and module guides and activities - once you download it, it's your's to keep and learn from in your own time.
PS. I've written blog articles on the topic of adoption as well, which you can find in my free resources library, if that's helpful to you.
PPS. We're planning an entire series on topics that will support all things adoption in 2022 (which is just around the corner - yikes!), so please take a second to subscribe to Parenting in the Trenches so you don't miss those episodes when they drop. AND...if there's a topic you want us to dive into, shoot me a message and let me know about it!
With you,
Karen
As we near the end of our special series on neurodiverse families, we're talking about a role caregivers often need to assume when raising kids who aren't neurotypical - the role of "external brainers". While it's a phase for most parents, this role can be more intensive and longer lasting when your child has ADHD, Autism, FASD, or other diagnoses that have executive functioning struggles attached to them.
Have a listen to Lori and Sheila, both parents who have and continue to walk this journey personally, and also come alongside parents in the thick of supporting their child with mental health challenges in their work with FamilySmart. If you are a parent who feels overwhelmed, confused, misunderstood, or under supported and you live in BC, Canada or access supports through CASA in Alberta, please consider reaching out to FamilySmart and see what lifelines they have to offer you. The parents who work for FamilySmart bring their lived experience, their compassion and their resources to the table so you are less alone as you navigate parenting kids with complex mental health and developmental needs. They have no waitlist, are available in every community across BC and their services are free.
If you want discounted access to my 10 Strategies for CoRegulation course, just enter the code COREG2021 before the end of 2021 and you'll receive 20% off. It'll provide you with a toolkit to help you and your child regulate intense emotions and meltdowns in ways that serve them well.
Standing in the mud with you,
Karen, Lori & Sheila
Dear parents, caregivers and support people of kids who have lived through traumatic experiences,
We know how hard parenting in healing ways really is. We also know more now about how best to go about it than we did just 10 years ago. Dr. Chuck Geddes shares his own findings after serving over 300 families through his Complex Care Intervention program, and brings his authentic and compassionate lens to the conversation. He's absolutely passionate about and dedicated to helping kids in BC's foster care system and in adoptive families thrive past their trauma.
Kids who have come from hard places need such unique care. Their output can be harsh, confusing and seem counter intuitive to building healthy attachments with adults, making it such a true labour of love for parents who go about regulating their child's nervous system over and over....and over....yes, and over again. It's slow healing, but thanks to wise people in the field of trauma-informed care, we have a much better sense about what's possible and what direction we need to head in to get there.
After you listen to today's episode, you might feel like you want more support. Chuck and I agreed to honour that ongoing learning with discounted access to our online courses. We've got your back.
If you want tried and true strategies for coregulating, my 45 min webinar is available to you at 20% off during this ND Families series - just enter coupon code COREG2021 on the purchase page and watch it whenever you're ready, or re-watch it as often as you like!
Use promo code CTRPARENTING for 20% off any of the online courses offered by my guest until the end of 2021. For all course details and for registration, go to Complextrauma.ca.
To all you brilliant and brave caregivers out there, we see the love you pour in and thank you for how dedicated you are to this healing parenting gig,
Karen
Dear parents, standing in the confusing, slippery mud of neurodivergence....we're here for ya.
Does your child cover their ears for sounds that others aren't seemingly bothered by? Do they rock or bite their hands to soothe themselves? Do they struggle with the textures of certain clothing or strongly resist wearing things like socks or coats? The range of our sensory experiences and how we're able to synthesize those in the brain result in very different levels of distress.
If it feels impossible to figure out what is going on or how to help your child cope with that felt distress (or if it's sending you as a parent to grab the white flag of helpless defeat), please join today's conversation exploring the ins and outs of sensory processing.
Kim Barthel is world-renowned for her intuitive approach to climbing inside the worlds of those who are neurodiverse. She speaks extensively on topics such as emotional regulation, trauma, neurobiological shaping and more, looking to provide opportunities for healing, which she describes as being understood and accepted, not "fixed".
Let's find out how to both accept our individual capacities while striving for ways to support and improve functioning so our connections with our kids can grow and their unique gifts to the world can shine.
If you haven't heard Kim speak before, spoiler alert....you're in for a real treat!
Oh, and WAIT! Almost forgot. We wanted to leave you with a gift - both Kim and I have online courses supporting those in the trenches which you can access at 20% off with these coupon codes:
10 Strategies for CoRegulation, with Karen Peters {code COREG2021} - offer expires end of 2021
CBT for the Family: Tools for Life, with Karen Peters {code CBT2021} - offer expires end of 2021
Autism Matters, Relationship Matters, with Kim Barthel {code TRENCHES20AM} - offer available until Nov. 8, 2021
Trauma-Sensitive Practice, with Kim Barthel {code TRENCHES20} - offer available until Dec. 6, 2021
Just click on the course link and use the code when you purchase it!
In the trenches with you,
Karen & Kim
Dear parents,
Do you regularly find yourselves puzzled when you step back and watch your child struggle with things like packing their bags, initiating tasks, managing time, transitioning well from one thing to the next, seem to lose focus super easily, or can't get a project done and handed in? Do you fill in the gaps by making charts and lists for them, giving them warnings about when something will end, or set timers or alarms to cue them to brush their teeth, set the table or leave for school?
You aren't alone. There are many functions tethered to the part of the brain that incidentally, develops last. We all know that our kids aren't born with executive functioning and that they learn it through being taught and by practicing it. However, many kids who are considered "neurodivergent" instead of "neurotypical", experience a different track of development and the learning pace of those skills, often making parents confused about why they can't seem to tackle the same tasks as their peers in the same ways.
We're talking today about how to take a pulse on what our kids are currently capable of, how to nurture the development of their executive functioning effectively, and when we need to manage our own expectations and shape our parenting strategies to fit their way of processing or learning.
Let's dive in together. As the parent of a child who is neurodivergent and as someone who loves supporting parents in the thickness of this particular trench, I'm truly with you.
Have a listen!
And if you haven't heard yet, my 10 Strategies for Coregulation webinar is up for grabs until the end of 2021 at a discount in case you want to get super practical about helping your strong-feeling child through those overload meltdowns. Just use this Coupon Code: COREG2021.
Wishing you true regulation,
Karen
Dear parents,
You've probably heard me talk about coregulation before - that's because it was a game changer for me as a mom of a regularly dysregulated kiddo and there was no way I was going to keep that gold a secret! In today's episode, I surprise my guest Lisa Dion, with a story about the time I showed up at one of her conferences on the heels of taking my daughter to the hospital. Tune in to hear the details and to dive deep with us into those pits us parents tend to panic in - the ones that feel so dark and so deep, that we're scared - scared of what these overload episodes mean for our kids and for us. If you've been there, you get it, and this episode is for you.
This will be a safe space to learn about how to use the emotional data from our kids and from within us, to mirror and model a shift back to connection and to safety. The goal isn't to be calm or not to feel, it's to be safe while the feelings all happen. That goes for you too, parents!
If you feel overwhelmed and lost, I've been there. And when Lisa held a light at the top of the pit for me, I was led down a much better path - one I could actually translate into real life and would take my authentic emotional experience into account. I took 10 of those coregulation strategies and put them in an online webinar so that other parents could grab the Coles notes and start feeling a sense of hope right away. Throughout this series and until the end of 2021, you can purchase this at a discount here with this code: COREG2021. I sincerely hope it brings you some of the tools you've been hungry for.
To read more about Lisa's resources for parents, check her stuff out HERE. And if you're someone in a professional position supporting kids, check out her Synergetic Play Therapy site and related resources!
Bringing our full connected, authentic selves to this conversation,
Karen
Dear parents,
I'm not going to say much about today's episode other than to say I am here to learn and to facilitate a conversation that is meant to be transformative in your perspectives on what it means to parent or support Autistic children and youth. Today's guest will blow your mind. Trust me. Nuff said. Just join us and spread the word in the neurodivergent community.
Let's do this! Together.
Karen
P.S. We are continuing to offer the 10 Strategies for Co-Regulation online intensive webinar for 20% off until the end of 2021. If you are finding this series on neurodiverse families meaningful, and are struggling with supporting regulation for your child, register for the webinar here using coupon code COREG2021.
Please follow Kristy and the amazing work she's doing to support neurodivergent families. You can find her on Facebook, or on IG @_kristyforbes, or on her inTune Pathways site.
Sometimes I just want to crawl inside my kid's ADHD brain and wade through all the things going on in there. To my neurotypical brain, hers seems very busy, chaotic, chronically hungry, and sort of like a 24/7 fireworks show. Like other parents of neuro-diverse kids, we work overtime to keep up with them, to stay ahead of the curve, to keep them safe, to figure out what motivates them and what helps them navigate a world built to suit neurotypical ones. The journey (thus far) has been full of extreme highs and lows for both of us. She has taught me over the years to appreciate the gifts that come with having ADHD and to constantly stay curious about what's going to work and what won't.
After months of discussing with her what parts of her story she wanted to share and why, we landed at today's conversation where I ask her questions that lead the rest of us a little bit closer to being able to crawl inside that spectacular and complex ADHD brain. I'm beyond proud of her for how carefully she thought her intentions for participating and for all the learning she's done in her 10.5 years.
What we don't talk about today, is how much of her lived out ADHDness has affected us as parents - that's an interview for another day. What I can share here for context, with her permission, is that you might find what she shares to feel not that difficult, but where we've come from has not been easy. ADHD in her earlier, undiagnosed years, looked more like daily 4 hour full-on dysregulated meltdowns, attempting to jump out of moving vehicles when she was 2, bystanders calling security about the toddler in the swimming pool changeroom, and a epically long sleep disorder with night terrors to boot. She rarely responded to soothing attempts, was predictably unpredictable, and too fast and risky to stay ahead of. She made our hearts race on the regular. And we love her just as passionately as we struggled to find effective ways to parent her. In the struggle, it can be hard to feel like we're effective and that we're on the same team as our kids. I'm grateful to be on a leg of the journey now where I can see there was no easier way to get to where we're at and I'm so proud of her.
If you're a parent whose child has those intense meltdowns where their emotions have literally hijacked their thinking brains, you aren't alone and there are some practical things you can do to help them regulate and get their (and your) feet back on the ground. I've compiled them in this 45 min webinar so you don't have to do weeks of research to figure out what works. AND....during our series on Neurodiverse Families, you can access this webinar here at 20% off with this Coupon Code: COREG2021
My daughter and I wish you and your kids strong connection building and ways of navigating the bumps and bruises together,
Karen
Letter from the Trenches
Dear parents & grandparents,
Some of the more "regular" relationships in our lives get overlooked, under-appreciated or just not reflected upon out loud. I don't know about you, but when a child offers their heartfelt impressions about their relationships with parents, sibs or grandparents, it melts me instantly.
As with all relationships, there are healthy parts and unhealthy ones, conflicted ones and absent ones. Those can bring about real hurt and tender aching, longing for something more. Today we're honouring the parts that work - those dynamics between grandkids and grandparents that are nurturing, present and meaningful. The ones that bring smiles, good memories and form traditions. I hope it brings light to what is and what can be. Enjoy!
Karen
Dear Parents,
Holy noodles, you ask some great questions! I'm so grateful to all the listeners out there who sent in their mental health and family life related questions. Today we get into the struggles surrounding emotional dysregulation, family dynamics and rejection sensitivity. It's been fun to reflect on these and share some of my thoughts. If you missed part 1, you can go back and catch {S7.E1}, and today we tackle part 2.
I've built some tools for your toolkit that apply to some of the questions submitted, so if you think those might be helpful for you, you can find them HERE. Check them out and pass them along!
If the topics I cover inspire you to throw yours in the mix, it's not too late. I love hearing from parents and carer of kids about questions they want covered in the podcast. You can email me at karenpeters@thrive-life.ca or shoot me a PM on SM @karen peters, rcc.
Hope you're having a great week!
Karen
Hey parents,
So I was planning to take the summer months off in terms of podcast episodes, but then got a little carried away with topics I wanted to cover. I quickly filled up most of the summer weeks but had 2 vacant ones and thought, wouldn't it be great to get YOU to tell me what I should cover? And "ask me anything" was born. So....today is part 1 of 2 and I'm going to speak to the questions parents have thrown my way over the past 2 months - spoiler alert - there are some amazingly crafted questions from listeners you don't wanna miss. I ended up with so many good ones that I need both this and next episode to cover them all. Have a listen and don't forget to come back for part 2 next week.
Here are some resources I think would help you out further if the question topics covered today resonate:
If you are blending your family, check out Rules & Boundaries in your Blended Family and Bond with your Stepchild.
If you are adoptive or waiting parents, and you want some help along your journey, check out Adoption: What to do while you wait, an online course for couples, or related blog articles in our resource library. Also, stay tuned for adoption related episodes in Parenting in the Trenches coming out this fall!
In the mud with you,
Karen
Dear parents,
When children and youth grieve, they can express loss in ways that aren't always so clear to adults, making it challenging to know how to identify when they are processing loss and how to support them through it. Elsje Hannah is an experienced grief and loss therapist who has joined us today to offer some insight into what our kids might be experiencing after a significant loss.
It's so hard to watch our babies hurt, no matter what age they are. If you have a child who has lost a loved one, a pet, or has walked through a significant life loss such as divorce, a change in communities or schools, or anything else that meant the world to them, we see you and want to offer some support. I hope you find our conversation helpful.
For further resources, you can check out the Canadian Virtual Hospice or read more about Elsje's counselling and retreat services in Salt Spring, Cloverdale and Fort Langley, BC here.
If you haven't already subscribed to the podcast page, I'd encourage you to do so - it will allow me to send along relevant resources connected to our discussions in the episodes. In particular, this episode's resources include a pdf list of grief related books recommended by our guest. You won't want to miss out on these valuable, vetted tools. Subscribe here.
Dear Parents,
Words for when you've lost your baby? Your tiny one or your grown one? There are none, so you won't find me trying to offer you any. What we can do, is witness your pain, your own meaning-making and your journey through unimaginable grief. My heart is with you, wherever you're at in this moment and regardless of how many years or anniversaries have passed.
Today's conversation is happening with a therapist who specializes in grief and loss processing, who understands trauma and who has walked in the trenches of having lost her own child. Join us today in the quiet spaces of honoring loss & love, grappling with the heartache and finding our own anchors for growing life around the devastating holes left behind.
Beside you,
Karen
Dear Parents who have lost or are losing their own parents,
I've been there and am still there. I want you to have permission to grieve the way you need to, and to have a safe witness to your pain, your memories, your love and every single emotion that flows through you in the wake of your loss.
The conversation between Jill and I meant so much to me - I value her approach so much and the tender but real work she does with clients who have experienced trauma and loss. She's gold and if you have a listen today, I believe you'll find her that way too. If you missed last week's episode, consider adding that to your listen-list because we talk about some foundational ideas connected to everyday losses and the grieving that comes with it.
May you feel understood and valued. May you feel your own permission to grieve come through.
In this together,
Karen
Dear Parents, and in this case, all fellow humans,
This trench applies to us all. With life, comes loss. And while that can be tough to face or accept, life losses demand things of us. They demand that we feel a reaction to them, that we stretch ourselves to find meaning in them, and learn to adapt or grow around them in ways we hadn't anticipated needing to grow. Today Jill and I talk about the layers of grief, the mess of the process, the ways of witnessing and how to support one another well. I truly hope you'll join us because it's a lived experience we've all had, and for many of us, we've experienced more life losses in this past year, requiring us to pivot and face unexpected change.
Jillian Hart is a therapist at ThriveLife Counselling & Wellness. She also is the co-founder and supervisor for Soul Matters Counselling, a not-for-profit agency offering reduced-cost counselling to remove barriers to accessing support for better mental health.
Jill shared this list of books for further reading and support through our grief. The last three are great for both kids and adults alike:
A Grief Observed- C. S. Lewis
Tear Soup - Pat Schiebert & Chuck DeKlyen
Grief is Like a Snowflake - Julia Cook
The Invisible String - Patrice Karst
Sit with us and let's witness one another's grief in the face of loss,
Karen
Letter from the Trenches
Dear Parents,
HOLY CONVERSATION, BATMAN! Michelle's got the goods on what it truly looks like to raise a family with the village mentality. I really hope you'll join us for this beautiful window into community care - its ups and downs, its challenges and strengths. How does one even create this in a culture that is so individualistic and self-dependent? Is it all worth the effort?
I'm not even going to attempt to summarize this - just click 'play' and you'll see why. All I can say is it'll be well worth your time.
Coffee in hand, pen to paper, soaking it all in with you,
Karen
Letter from the Trenches
Dear Parents,
Because you are parents, I know 100% that you've gone through some huge transitions and changes in your life. Some of them you may have surprised yourself in how you breezed through, and others not to much. The bumps felt more like mountains and the pond felt more like the deep ocean. You can get lost along the way, feel derailed from your goals, purpose or how you imagined things would go. Massive turning points can come unexpectedly and have real impacts on your relationships - the question becomes how do you best manage those, stay on the same page and walk through time together.
This is no small topic. Transitions can look like so many things - having a child, experiencing a tragedy, getting married, getting divorced, losing a parent, friend, sibling or child. The way we move through those intense and often abrupt changes, changes us. There's no two ways about it. Today I want to explore the impacts on our relationships and some of the ways we can get through those storms while still being connected with one another. Hope you'll have a listen to my conversation with Raina Dutchyn, a couples therapist, and see what new insights you might have on hard transitions you're working through.
If you're in the process of adding to your family, biologically or through adoption, and you want to insulate your couple relationship from this massive, wonderful and stressful transition in your lives, check out the courses I created to support you through that...
Adoption: What to do while you wait
When You & Me Become Three
Staring at the fork in the road with you,
Karen
Letter from the Trenches
Dear parents,
Today's episode is all about reflecting on kids' relationships with their dads. Kids of all ages share their thoughts about what makes their dad special in their eyes - something they likely haven't volunteered without having been asked. So, I did the asking for you and it was such an honour to hear what they had to say. Props to you, Pops!
I hope the dads out there can take some time this week to soak in the love, to accept the warmth offered up by these awesome kids, and to recognize the vital role they play in their lives.
Happy Father's Day
Letter from the Trenches
Dearest parents who struggle trying to find balance between work and the rest of life, who know that when demands ramp up self care is the first to fall off our priority list, and for those of you who desperately want to find a way to avoid burnout, have a listen to what my brilliant and practical friend and colleague has to say about the topic.
Before I joined the ThriveLife Counselling & Wellness team, I was so depleted. Work eroded me and the demands at home were overwhelming. The combo left me so stressed out, irritable, judgey and just "done". After years of hanging on by my fingernails, I called it. I named the state I was in and why I found myself there, and acknowledged that something had to change. I called my husband on the way home from a conference, sobbing, needing to say the words out loud...."I need another role, another place to do my work. I need to feel purpose, to be able to use what I know helps people, and to escape the bureaucratic cage." I think I may have scared him a little, but that's okay. He was supportive and knew it was time. We'd figure it out.
Having integrity and aligned purpose in my work makes me come alive - it gives me energy. THAT was a pretty huge act of self care. Not all self care looks like career changes, but rather small methods of reflecting, recharging and restabilizing. And not all work types leave the same wear and tear. Lindsay and I talk about what some of those are, how to practice them in our day to day lives and reclaim what true self care is, both for ourselves and for our families.
Wanna bring your A-game to life? Start with self care.
P.S.
Lindsay's online course on self care and burnout prevention for first responders and frontline workers, is INCREDIBLE. If you want to get a grip on this whole "burnout prevention" thing, reach out to her: BEATING THE BREAKING POINT
Karen
Letter from the Trenches
Dear parents,
Let me start with this. Your mental load goes unseen everyday - the invisible factors you carry with concern associated with the most seemly mundane tasks like cooking a meal. In this episode we dive into seeing the unseen, understanding why the burden feels heavy, and what we can do to activate antidotes to shame - an all too common experience for parents.
If you're the mom who sobs on your child's bedroom floor, spent at the end of the day, but your kid won't "turn off", I feel you. As always, we're getting real in our conversation and addressing some of the factors around your highly needed but ever-illusive self care. We'll talk about how perceived failure quickly can turn to shame tapes on a broken record player, how true self care doesn't aim to "fix" things, and what you can learn to do for yourselves in the thick of it. Let's learn to love ourselves together.
PS. If you aren't yet following me on FB & IG, please do....I'm posting self care challenges throughout this podcast series and I'd love for you to join in! {Karen Peters, RCC or @karenpeters_rcc}
With you,
Me
Letter from the Trenches
Parents,
This episode brings you and your kids some amazing wisdom on self care - straight from kids in grade 4 who know what they're talkin' about. As parents, I know how much you do for your kids to help predict what they need, intervene when they aren't safe, try to manage sibling conflict or peer arguments, feed them well, take them to appointments, on and on and on goes the list of things you do to take care of them.
Transferring that knowledge, awareness and sense of "I'm worthy of taking care of me" to your kids is going to be a huge part of growing them up to be adults who understand they are valuable, deserve wellness and care, and that they have options about how to effectively provide that for themselves. Learn together what kids have found to be helpful for them when they get upset, feel stuck, become overwhelmed or just want to stay on top of being their best selves.
And by the way, listening to kids' ideas never ceases to amaze me - blows my mind every time. Have a listen!
P.S.
Follow me on FB & IG to find a printable self care bingo chart for kids.
Letter from the Trenches
Dear Parents,
You burnt out by any chance? Sick and tired of hearing people throw the "self care" term around as though you have time to kick off for 3 days at the spa? I feel you. In the thick of parenting kids with big challenges and a work role that set me up for vicarious trauma on a daily basis, I felt suffocated, depleted and burnt out. It was in the pit that I was forced to redefine my understanding of true self care. If you live feeling a sense of overwhelm on a regular basis, shifting your beliefs around the value and methods of self care that will truly offer you sanity, relief and a way of life that honours your needs, could be life-changing.
Have a listen to friend and colleague, Elizabeth Chan, who supports clients through overwhelming traumas, addictions and complex relational dynamics, as she shares her ideas about TRUE and meaningful self care. Perhaps you'll walk away with a little more agency, and a little more self compassion and inner understanding.
Here's a book I'd strongly recommend if you're wanting to explore the topic further and find it's application in your life. Burnout does some real damage - let's address it before it takes you down. Burnout: Unlocking the Stress Cycle
Liz references Running on Empty, and recommends for us an article which you can find HERE for further reading.
If you don't already, follow me on FB & IG (karen peters, rcc & @karenpeters_rcc) to join our weekly self care challenge and to stay in touch with new resources.
With you in the pit,
Karen
Letter from the Trenches
Dear Parents,
Not sure if you already know this, but every May we surge our efforts to create awareness about mental health, help eliminate the stigma attached, and increase our knowledge about support and resources available to families.
If you or your kids are struggling, you might assume there must be help out there, but have no clue where to find it. Or maybe the thought of the search for trusted resources feels too overwhelming in the midst of managing the day to day stuff that struggles are made of. I'm talking with Bryn from BC Children's Kelty Mental Health Resource Centre about their fantastic hub of knowledge, info and help for parents just like you. Getting the support you need shouldn't be filled with barriers, so we're aiming to remove some of those for you today. In addition to what she's sharing in today's episode, check out the links she's provided below.
- BC Children’s Kelty Mental Health Resource Centre - https://keltymentalhealth.ca/
- Ask Kelty Mental Health Tool - https://keltymentalhealth.ca/ask-kelty
- Kelty Podcast - Where You Are – https://keltymentalhealth.ca/podcast
- Foundry - https://foundrybc.ca/
- FamilySmart - https://familysmart.ca/
- Rolling With ADHD - https://healthymindslearning.ca/rollingwith-adhd/
- ADHD Webinar Series For Parents and Caregivers - https://keltymentalhealth.ca/ADHDWebinarSeries
With you on your family mental health journey,
Karen
Dear Moms, this one's for you.
Momming is one of the most invisible jobs on the planet, and often you struggle to see the positive outcome of all your investment until years and sometimes decades later. Well, today I invited kids of all ages to speak to what they see in you but may not have mentioned in passing. May it bring warmth to your Mother's day as we honor your mud-wading, your determined hope-holding and your grace.
If your child participated in this special episode, listen for their voice to show up and gush about you, then share it with all your friends ;) If you are hearing the voices of kids you don't know, may their messages affirm your importance as a mom. And if you need to listen to this weekly to remind yourself you are seen, loved and appreciated, please do.
From one momma to another, wishing you connection and love this Mother's day,
Karen
Dear Parents,
Yes, I'm a little nervous. I've agreed to pass the hosting mic to a colleague, friend and fellow momma who plans to chuck a bunch of personal questions my way. I've committed to answering from the heart in honour of the guests I've interviewed who have done just that for me. Seems only fair, I guess!
If you're wondering about who the heck I am, why I do the work I do and whatever else Lindsay thinks you should know about me, tune in for this mystery conversation! (Lindsay, go easy on me, please!)
Truly in this with you,
Karen
It can feel so much better, or easier when you're in the phase of expecting a baby, to just assume things will all "work out" between you and your partner as you transition from a couple to a family. The reality is that 2 out of 3 couples experiences a sharp increase in conflict and a sharp decrease in relationship satisfaction. It also has a huge impact on the relationships you have with your extended families and with your close friends. Boundary setting is inevitable as you grow and craft your new family unit to align with your values and your needs, because how YOU want to see that cultivated, likely won't be how others think it should happen. And even if they wanted to support your different ways, unless you articulate them clearly, they won't be able to read your mind and honour them.
The road from two to three is bumpy, my friend. I will not fool you. That might seem cruel, but actually I've got your back. When you deal with boundary setting and express potential concerns before things hit the fan, you'll dodge the relationship-erosion that happens when resentment show up. No one expects you to have zero tension or conflict, but if you catch the differences of expectations early and deal with them proactively and respectfully, you'll get through those conflicts without the significant damage that can otherwise happen.
Today's episode will give you the run down, and if you listen and go, "THIS IS US!", then dive deeper with me in my course for couples, When You & Me Become Three. If you're adopting, I'm not leaving you out of this important equation - I've made a specifically adoption-tailored version of this course, just for you - Adoption, What to do while you wait.
Happy boundary-setting folks!!!
Karen
Dear new mommas and poppas,
One of the first trenches you can find yourself standing in is the scary mess of postpartum mental health worries. We don't want you going that alone or without the detection tools to feel it coming on.
Rita Girn, a Perinatal Mental Health Clinician, experienced counsellor and mom is joining us for conversation #2 so we can explore and address the topic of your mental health and wellbeing after the birth of your baby. Postpartum Depression & Anxiety can be common experiences and early intervention is key to mitigating its severity and how long it lasts. But you can't treat what you can't identify, so join us today let's get educated! If you missed last week's conversation about Birth Trauma, head to {S4E1}.
A huge bonus for subscribing to my podcast is that you get access to Rita's custom-made guide to postpartum care. If you haven't yet subscribed, you can do so here.
Oh, and did I mention how Rita crafted a resource library for you!? Check this out, folks!
Websites to help guide you:
Rita Girn: https://thrive-life.ca/rita-girn-counsellor/
Pacific Post Partum Support Society: https://postpartum.org/
Postpartum Support International: https://www.postpartum.net/
Mind.org.uk: Perinatal and postnatal mental health
Recommended IG Accounts:
@rkmggroup
@psychedmommy
@she.found.mother.hood
@_happyasamother
@motherhoodunderstood
@the.mom.room
@mother.ly
Check out Rita's recommended reading:
This Isn’t What I Expected
Tokens of Affection
Therapy and Postpartum Woman
Dropping the Baby and Other Scary Thoughts
The Art of Holding
The Postpartum Husband
Mistaken Identity
Good Moms Have Scary Thoughts
What Am I Thinking Having A Baby After Postpartum Depression
One last thing - we don't like hoarding helpful info, so if you know of a family member, coworker or friend who's in this brand new parenting boat too....share the wealth and spread the word. It can literally save lives.
From a couple of moms who've got your back,
Karen & Rita.
Parents, if you have experienced any form of trauma leading up to, during or in follow up to giving birth, we're going to be discussing how to care for your mental health. What a lonely and intense experience it can be, and Rita is going to help us all understand what birth trauma experiences are like, reassure you that not only are you not alone, but there are real ways through the pain.
As an adoptive parent who has never given birth, I can't even imagine what you brave parents have experienced. It seems so vulnerable, fraught with risks and variables, and there's so much at stake. I wish for you all, the best possible outcomes and ongoing mental health and wellbeing, and if you've gone through traumatic experiences, may you find true relief and healing from the real pain you've been living with.
If this topic hits home for you, please practice self-care before, while and after listening to this episode. Notice what comes up for you in your body, thoughts you might have and fears that linger in your bones. Know that there's help available to you if you need it, and that your lived experience is legitimate, however it was imprinted on you. If you know someone who might find themselves in the stories told in today's episode, please consider sharing this with them.
Rita created a custom postpartum care guide for you, which you will receive in your inbox by subscribing here. And spoiler alert - she'll be back for a second conversation next episode on Postpartum Depression & Anxiety.
Here to hold space for you on your journey,
Karen
P.S.
If you'd like to learn more about our guest, you can follow Rita Girn on Instagram @rkmggroup and find her profile on Psychology Today here, or in the Postpartum Support Directory here. We'll promote this episode again during Birth Trauma Awareness Week from July 19-25, 2021.
If you'd like to do more reading or access further support, check out these resources:
Postpartum Support and birth trauma resources out of Vancouver, BC.
Healing after traumatic birth or prevention/treatment or birth trauma association.
If you'd like to access the printable resources out of Australia, go here for the guides. Birth trauma recovery resources can also be found here.
And here are some suggested reading materials on the subject:
Traumatic Childbirth by Cheryl Tatano Beck(2013)
The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk M.D. (2015)
The Body Remembers: The Psychophysiology of Trauma and Trauma Treatment: Norton Professional Books (Hardcover) by Babbette Rothschild (2000)
I have a little story to tell you (and yes, I have my child's consent to share it here). When my outgoing and energy-filled 3 year old daughter heard the doorbell ring and the tall stranger on the other side handed over boxes of delicious-smelling pizza, she rushed towards him, arms open wide, hugged his knees and asked him if he wanted to stay for a sleep over. This all happened before I could intervene, and my heart started to race even with the awkward smile across my face as I pried her off his legs and got her to occupy her hands with the pizza boxes. Needless to say, this signaled the need for some learning around healthy boundaries. Her innocence was beautiful, but also crossed the boundaries of the pizza delivery dude and if she had done this elsewhere and out of eyesight, could have been a risky situation for her. We learn about boundaries and consent in stages and based on what we're modeled and told about what's okay and not okay.
I want to ask you an important question. Ok, more than one question... How did you learn about "consent" when you were going up? What did you learn about healthy boundaries and who did you learn it from? When someone crossed a line with you, how was it handled by your people, and more broadly, society? How did the media influence your idea of consent?
We can't be passive about consent - we need to intentionally educate our kids about what this means for them so it isn't shaped at the hands of others.
Today we're tackling what consent is and how to empower our kids to have healthy boundaries at every age - from infancy up. We'll look at all aspects of consent - not just consent around sexual touch, which is the one most of us have had some education about or was cued to teach our kids about. It'll be a launching point for you to think about how you want to educate your kids, so sit with the conversation and personalize it. Translate it into real conversations with your kids, no matter how old they are.
Together in this,
Karen
Ok brave parents....if you've joined me for E1&2 for S3, you know what you're in for. Stay in it and you will feel much more equipped to know how to handle these aspects of growing our kids into whole and healthy humans.
Today's episode is about body image - tricky mess, that is. Thankfully we have 2 guests who know what they're talking about in this area; Chelsea and Renae bring a wealth of info to our conversation to help us frame body image in a larger context.
We're so impacted by so many things as we slow develop our sense of Self. It starts in infancy and never really stops. As adults we continue to grapple with some challenging and damaging messages that stuck with us from early on, about our worth, our value and our beauty. And how we're shaped drips into how we contribute in the shaping of others - our friends, our partners, and our kids. Like most complex topics, this one begs us to look at the bigger picture of our personal relationships with our bodies and what we hope to foster in our children as they take in messages about their worth and beauty from media, peers, culture and yes, from us parents. Learn to nurture healthy development from point A, notice when warning flags are raised, and go into those areas of concern with warmth, curiosity and understanding. Let's collectively learn to support our kids to be humans living fully in their bodies.
Ready? Let's do this!
At the end of our conversation, Renae and Chelsea share some incredible resources for further learning, which I'd encourage you to check out and share with others:
Free to Be resources from our guest, Renae
Intuitive Eating with Evelyn Tribole
Dr. Kristin Neff's resources on self-compassion
If there's a topic about parenting and mental health you'd like me to cover, shoot me a message! You can find me on Facebook and Instagram @karenpeters_rcc.
Hey Parents! Unless you're living off the grid (which you aren't if you got this email) you're NOT going to want to miss this episode on digital wellbeing. HOLY smokes - you'll never guess who my guest is! Dr. Kristy Goodwin! For realz.
I'm sure our parents felt the same way - absolutely behind the times and unable to keep up with digital advancements that our kids are immersed in. The rate of change is insane and while we know there are risks, it feels impossible to know how to beat them to the punch. Tired of being reactive to your kids' screen use, both the amount and what they're engaging in? Let's explore the cultivation of a positive framework for raising digitally wise and mentally healthy kids and at the same time learn what red flags to watch for.
Dr. Kristy shares practical tips to use across the developmental stages of your child and gives us helpful principles to remember when we're teaching our kids to have healthy relationships with screens, such as:
Boundaries - both in amount and type of use, be the co-pilot
Basic needs - don't allow screen use to supersede the basic needs your child has for nourishment, movement and connection
Boredom opportunities - if always able to plug-in, your child never has the chance to experience boredom. Boredom is the gate to developing a sense of self and nurtures creativity.
"Plan, don't ban" - a great principle to guide you.
It's another one of this hard topics that need to be addressed proactively as we parent across our kids' developmental stages. Have a listen!
If you'd like to see a video recording of today's conversation, you can find it here!
For more on Dr. Kristy's work and resources, visit here
Dear parents,
In S3 of Parenting in the Trenches, we're taking a look at tough but important conversations we need to be having with our kids - both for their own welfare and in support of the wellbeing of our relationships with others. It's tempting to shy away from topics that we don't feel fully educated about and have a big impact, for fear we'll get it wrong. This is the very reason I'm including this series. I want to invite you to get it wrong with me and not stay stuck there. I want you to bravely step into what can feel like dangerous territory, and know your tribe is with you. Let's ask ourselves some hard questions, trusting that it's in the best interest of our kids to do so. In the end, it'll better equip us for raising kids who think critically and love themselves and others fiercely.
E1 tackles how we raise kids with a strong awareness of racial injustice and engage in the work ourselves - both in our homes and in our communities. For lasting change to happen, we must have ongoing conversations with our kids about what racism looks like, the impact it has, and how to change it - in ourselves and in our systems. You can't start too young. If you feel stuck about where to begin, listen to Parker Johnson's wisdom in today's episode and check out these resources:
Recommended online courses:
Intentional Activism by Ivirlei Brookes, for those who are non-BIPOC
Learning to have uncomfortable conversations about race (Canada-based) with Salem Debs
Check out Parker Johnson's This is Table Talk site to learn more about his incredible work.
Recommended podcasts: Parenting Decolonized
Good Ancestor
and podcasts for kids, A Kids Book About...
Recommended reading:
So You Want To Talk About Race, by Ijeoma Oluo
White Fragility, by Robert Diangelo
How to be an Anti-racist, by Ibram X. Kendi
Me & White Supremacy, by Layla F. Saad
The Skin We're In, by Desmond Cole
Reading for Youth/YA:
The Hate U Give, by Angie Thomas
All American Boys, by Jason Reynolds & Brendan Kiely
Reading for kids:
Race Cars: a children's book about white privilege, by Jenny Devenny
A Kid's Book About Racism, by Jelani Memory
Anti-Racist Baby picture book, by Ibram X. Kendi & Ashley Lukashevsky
May WE learn to do better. Every. Single. Day.
Thank you for showing up,
Karen
Letter from the trenches
Dear couples,
I’m stoked to share my current obsession, probably because it applies to the stage of life our family is in right now. Our culture has some skewed expectations about the spark or heat in our love relationships after we have kids. People feel all sorts of pressure to keep up with these expectations, and if anything’s gonna kill the love buzz, it’s pressure. Esther Perel is a Psychotherapist known around the world for her transformational work with couples, and recently she’s released a course for couples wanting to rekindle their desire for one another. I took this course so I can share some of her key nuggets of wisdom with the clients I work with. Her approach can literally revive connections between partners who have lost that “lovin’ feelin’” after having children or after falling into patterns that leave them feeling disconnected, bored, and flat. If you want to rediscover your passion for one another and don’t know how, have a listen to this episode to get a taste of what can happen if you invest in reconstructing your relationship, and ways to go about it.
Join me and let the passion re-ignite!
Here's a sample of some of the questions Esther invites us to answer in her Rekindling Desire course, which you can find here
- Every morning this week, take 5 minutes to write down something you appreciate about your partner, 1 thing you’ll do today to convey attention to your relationship, and 1 think you will do today to connect with your personal sensuality. Share your responses with one another.
- What messages did I receive from family/community growing up about sex and sexuality? What about relationships?
- Write down one request from one another under the following verbs:
- ASK - one think you want to ask your partner for
- TAKE - one thing you want to take/receive from your partner that gives you pleasure
- GIVE - one this you want to give your partner that brings them pleasure
- RECEIVE - one thing you will allow yourself to receive from what your partner offers you
- REFUSE - one thing you want to refuse
- SHARE - one thing you would like to share with your partner, emotionally or physically.
I'd also encourage you to spend 10 min listening to this TEDtalk by Emily Nagoski, the author of a book I mentioned in an earlier episode on burnout. You can find it here
Letter from the trenchesDear Couples,The quest for strong, healthy and meaningful couples relationships continues today with our 3rd episode of this mini series, where we look at how best to prepare and solidify your couples relationship when your new baby is about to, or has recently arrived on the scene! When you announce to family and friends the exciting news that you’re expecting, you’re likely to hear things like, “I have so many hand me downs you can have!” or, “that’s so fun! Make sure you invest in the best stroller - you won’t regret it”, or “that’s incredible! I can’t wait to host your baby shower”, or “what colors will you use in the nursery?!”. I have yet to hear anyone say, “it’s such an exciting time when 2 becomes 3 - and it’s also super challenging because everything changes and it’s all new territory. Have you talked with one another about how your relationship with one another will be shaped and stay strong when the sleep has vanished, the house-based roles shift and the finances need a review?” I get it. It’s not the most hyped up and sparkly reaction one can have when you share this glorious news. But while it’s not the popular thing to say, it’s certainly packed with wisdom and it doesn’t have to kill the joy of the moment. It’s about owning the process and being intentional so you don’t have to struggle as hard when the Real of parenting a newborn who changes EVERYTHING, hits. It’s building scaffolding for your love relationship when it’s under renovation. The results can mean having a stronger structure, and even improved decor! Couples who prepare well for this journey do better and today I want to share with you some evidence-based tips that will help you weather the reality of bringing your baby home.
As a therapist who supports new parents, I wanted to make sure that I had the best knowledge and skills out there to boost and strengthen couples relationships when they are at one of their most significant reconstruction points, so I was trained through the Gottman Institute and became a certified Bringing Baby Home educator. If you listened to the last 2 episodes in this series, you heard about some of the ideas and strategies for strengthening your relationship from the renowned Gottman method. Today I plan to share some of that with you. As the evidence shows, couples who have these conversations before their little one is born or shortly after, do better down the road. Sounds worth investing in, right? Just like the ideal stroller, you won’t regret it!
If you want to learn more about my own uniquely designed online courses for expecting or newly parenting couples, you can find the details here:
When You & Me Become Three and
Adoption: What to do while you wait
To receive your free printable "Turning Towards" guide, subscribe to my podcast here, and it'll show up in your inbox.
Subscribe for the guide
Been there and with you,
Karen
Letter from the trenches
Okay, partners in crime,
Because I cannot get enough of last week’s fabulous guest and Registered Clinical Counsellor, Michelle Gruenhage, I’ve asked her to come back to discuss dynamics new couples should be aware of and work on to set their commitment for something long-term up for success. She’s a trained Gottman therapist (if you don’t know about Gottman, he’s the guru on couples research and skills that help partners have connected, healthy relationships for the long haul), and she’s an awesome human being with a tonne of experience. I am thrilled she was willing to come back for this conversation and I truly hope you learn something new and helpful that will strengthen your relationship with your partner as you move towards increased commitment with that special someone. We’re even going to brave the conversation about what happens when affairs and big betrayals occur and what navigating that in therapy can look like.
Welcome to part 2 of this conversation!
If you'd like to connect with Michele and learn more about her work with couples, here's how you can reach her: Michele's profile
Check out blog articles on the Gottman approach for couples and parents, here
In it with ya,
Karen
Letter from the trenches,
Happy V-day!
Here we go, couples in the trenches! Mini series 2 starts today and I’m excited to be addressing couples relationships. After all, it’s Valentine’s Day this month, so what better time of year to target that unique relationship in your life. If you have a partner, this series is for you - whether or not you are currently parenting. We’re taking a close look at healthy and problematic communication patterns, how to best prep yourselves for gettin’ hitched (legally or figuratively), how to grow your relationship around having a new baby, and ways to reconstruct your relationship as you mature and change individually and as a pair. Please join me and my guest, Michele Gruenhage (the most amazingly skilled couples therapist who specializes in internationally recognized Gottman therapy) exploring how couples counselling can be helpful for improving couples relationships at every stage of the relationship.
If you'd like to connect with Michele and learn more about her work with couples, here's how you can reach her: https://bc-counsellors.org/counsellors/michele-gruenhage/
I'd also really recommend you check out these Gottman Institute resources to help strengthen your relationship:
The free Gottman Card Deck app from your preferred app store
The book "8 Dates" : https://www.amazon.ca/Eight-Dates-Essential-Conversations-Lifetime/dp/1523504463/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=8+dates&qid=1610931742&sr=8-1
In the trenches alongside you,
Karen
When the pandemic first hit, families put on their best armour and hunkered down. We were "in this together", determined and mostly unified. But then it wore on and on...and on, leaving us depleted, having to make complicated decisions about healthy limits and boundaries, and forcing us to see what we were capable of adjusting to. Parents have had to think about the differing needs of their kids and how to weigh the cost of social distancing with their mental wellbeing. They've had to navigate really challenging and personal-feeling debates with loved ones about how to respect one another's judgement calls about what was going to be ok and not ok to participate in, in some cases causing significant ruptures in family ties. Working from home and in some cases schooling from home has become a reality, and for others, there's been major financial restructuring just to get through this year. We're all up in each others faces now, with little space to collect ourselves or wear just one hat at a time.
In today's episode we want to honor the challenges and hear from families first hand about what they've found has made the difference for them in terms of carrying forward and adjusting. Resilience doesn't come easy, folks....it's worked at. I find that it helps to hear ourselves in the stories of others, experience closeness through witnessing stories that may not yet resonate, and have the opportunity to share resources - the strategies and supports that have helped us wind our way through the mess of this first-time pandemic experience we're all in the midst of. So that's what we're going to do - sit in the mess together and offer one another some hope.
And if a little side reading is helpful for you, check out a couple of articles I wrote back in March and May when this crazy virus first hit us. It includes some practical tips for helping your family cope and thrive during this time.
https://thrive-life.ca/coping-in-the-midst-of-covid-19-mental-health-scaffolding-for-the-family/
https://thrive-life.ca/paying-it-forwardwisdom-from-clients-during-the-pandemic/
You can find me on Facebook: Karen Peters, RCC
Or on Instagram: @karenpeters_rcc
You can also subscribe for updates at https://www.my.thrive-life.ca/parenting-in-the-trenches
Treading water with you,
Karen
You know how tricky it is to parent an anxious child at home and you know that kids with overwhelming fears and worries do not just feel them at home. For nearly half their waking hours, kids are in the care of teachers and school or daycare supports and in the midst of a tonne of social dynamics that can poke at anxiety and make it grow. And one thing we know about helping our kids cope with anxiety, is that they need consistent, steady messaging from grounded adults around them. What better partnership than caregivers and teachers to offer your child a solid base from which to learn to feel safe and calm. Today we're talking with school counsellors, Megan Beyer and Dave McVety, about how educators and parents can help children and youth cope better both in the classroom and on the playground.
As promised, here's the link to check out tools associated with the therapeutic approach both our guests align with. https://www.emotionfocusedfamilytherapy.org
Anxiety begs us to change our environments so we can avoid the things we're anxious about. And the relief payoff when we do it is huge. No wonder it's just easier to keep moving things around so we can cope. But at what point does this just perpetuate the problem? As caregivers, we're having to assess and make moment to moment decisions about when to make things easier for our kids and when to help them face the challenge, even when it's hard. When we decide to make things easier for them, it often comes with this niggling background thought of "if I keep doing this, how will they ever learn to manage it?". The truth is, anxious kids need some purposeful accommodations but they also need to learn to face things by going through it. We're going to talk about that fine line and how to know where it sits for your kiddo.
Skill-building is key. When you have the tools and you have opportunities to try them out, you start believing in yourself and your ability to face and manage hard situations. As parents you are in a prime position to teach your kids these skills for life. I've built a family-based course with this in mind, so if it's helpful to have someone guide you through the skill-building process and see results for your whole family, give this a try. I want you to walk away with hope that this can and will get better if you dedicate the time and energy into skill building, so I've invited a fellow mom to the conversation who has walked the walk, and has seen amazing outcomes for her now grown kids. Cindy Thompson is holding a light at the end of our tunnels, so don't stop the journey. It can get much better, we promise.
Here's a link to my online course for families called "CBT for the Family: Tools for life". It's a 9 week course designed to build your anxiety-reduction tool kit and you can do it at your own pace from the comfort of your own home. https://www.my.thrive-life.ca/cbtforthefamily-course
If you'd like access to the free worksheet that helps you break down anxiety-provoking problems into manageable steps, sign up here and we'll email it to you: https://www.my.thrive-life.ca/parenting-in-the-trenches
If your child's anxiety presents in the form of anger, check out this talk I did with FamilySmart - you may find this conversation helpful for you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sk7b45uMxn0
If you'd like to hear more from our guest, Cindy Thompson, she has her own podcast on resilience that I'd highly recommend checking out: https://www.aresilienceproject.com/
I often have the saying, "Anxiety is contagious, but so is courage" on my office whiteboard because I think it's a great counter message to how clients with overwhelming anxiety think about it. Anxiety can spillover and cause otherwise calm and grounded caregivers to become hypervigilant and always ready for their kids to be overtaken by their fears and worries. Naturally, their chronic readiness for perceived danger becomes our mode as well. It's important to remember that the antidote is courage and it's just as contagious. Let's talk about how to detect the spillover, manage our own anxiety, and use courage to demonstrate to our kids that anxiety can be shrunk down to size.
I'd encourage you to check out a couple of resources that you might find helpful in managing anxiety, either as individuals or as a family.
Want to learn practical ways to coregulate with your dysregulated kids? This online course will provide that for you in 45 min, rewatchable on demand. https://www.my.thrive-life.ca/coregulation-course
The MindShift App - https://www.anxietycanada.com/resources/mindshift-cbt/
An online course for families teaching anxiety reduction skills that will serve you life long - CBT for the Family: Tools for Life - https://www.my.thrive-life.ca/cbtforthefamily-course
If you're feeling burnt out, consider this incredible book by Emily and Amelia Nagoski:Burnout, The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle.
The tween and teen years are a bit of a mystery in terms of knowing how to connect with them, how to support them, and how to communicate without pushing hot buttons that cause a blow up or retreat. There are reasons for this, but that doesn't make it any less tricky to parent effectively. I've got some inside info for you from years of working with clients in this age group who were able to open up about the underlying factors that fed their anxiety.
If you want to find The Kissing Hand book I referenced today, check it out here: https://www.amazon.ca/Kissing-Hand-Audrey-Penn/dp/1933718102/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&gclid=Cj0KCQiAlsv_BRDtARIsAHMGVSZHY0ws-nPDNtvvxEtFy_VdsQQpaAPMLsAkDxSqlRjFvz3avJL0AncaAlVoEALw_wcB&hvadid=229987936493&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9060809&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=e&hvrand=5105440855996452246&hvtargid=kwd-301158690642&hydadcr=16516_10238834&keywords=the+kissing+hand+book&qid=1609805981&sr=8-2&tag=googcana-20
Like most things that interfere with life, the best time to catch Anxiety, that unwanted house guest, is to nip it in the bud. Great plan, but it takes some tools to spot it, name it and address it well. That's what we're tackling today in our first episode in this series on anxiety. And if you hear this and think, "oh crumbs, I missed the early detection boat and Anxiety no longer feels like a brief visitor but more like a semi-permanent squatter or a firmly established family member", don't worry...we'll get to that in the coming episodes, as well as talking about how you can partner up with your kids' teachers to support them in the classroom and on the playground.
A Letter from the Trenches
Dear Parent,
I’m having one of those surreal moments, where something I was slowly creating over the last number of months and seemed like a just a dream, has become Real! Kinda like when the Velveteen Rabbit became Real after the love sank in. Ya know?
I’m so excited to be sharing with you my new, weekly podcast for 2021 called “Parenting in the Trenches”. Why the trenches, you ask? When I think of the trenches, I think about noble, dedicated people who are tasked with making both intentional and split-second decisions that could change the course of their lives and the lives of those they love. I think about people in the trenches representing others ‘back home’ and wanting something better for them as a result of what they’re doing and how it’s often a thankless role. Trenches are freakin’ messy - full of mud, sweat, tears and re-worn clothes. Parenting with purpose doesn’t happen without being willing to get dirty, sticky and Real.
I created this because I’m a mom and I’m a Registered Clinical Counsellor who works with kids, teens, couples and families and after 20 years of gathering experiences, knowledge and wisdom from my spouse, kids and clients, I feel selfish for holding on to the goods. I simply want to share them and a podcast seemed like my best way of getting it out to you. My mission is to offer a window into reality and a door to hope.
So what do I have in store for you? I have some incredibly wise and insightful guests lined up and we’re going to stand together in the messiness of Real parenting, Real relationships, and Real mental health struggles. We’re gonna talk about transitions like how to adjust after your baby is born, how to navigate significant changes in your couples relationship, how to be the best empty nesters you can be, and everything parenting-related in between. We’ll address mental health struggles, adoption experiences, epic tantrums, communication patterns and coping skills. If it’s Real, we’re gonna unpack it. Because when we look at what troubles and intimidates us, we feel less alone and find better ways to deal with it.
If you want to hear more about what we’ll cover, please take a listen to the special Intro episode and if it leaves you intrigued, please make a weekly date with me and join in on these honest, vulnerable and informing conversations.
You can follow me on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/Karen-Peters-RCC-102091961735086 and Instagram @KarenPeters_RCC
With you in the parenting trenches,
Karen