Hola!

To explore strategies to support your children during COVID-19 times, we will continue to explore the resource created by Dr Tamar Black, Educational & Developmental Psychologist called STAY HERE.

STAY HERE was developed by Dr Tamar Black to help parents assist their families to cope with being at home during COVID-19, and manage the stress, uncertainty and changes of not being able to attend school, work and social/leisure activities. It is based on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and compassion-based approaches.

The four first steps were described in greater detail in our past newsletter edition:

Select what matters to you
Take action to move towards what matters
Accept that you can’t control everything: focus on what you can control and let go of what you can’t
You are everything you need to get through this

For today I would like to explore with you the last 4 steps:

Here is where you need to be (not in the past or future)
Enjoy the small things and notice yourself doing so
Recognize when you/your family are being flexible and embracing change, and praise yourself/your family for doing so
Empathize with what you and your family are going through, and practise and model lots of self-compassion

Here is where you need to be (not in the past or future)

“If you are depressed you are living in the past. If you are anxious you are living in the future. If you are at peace you are living in the present.” Lao Tzu

When COVID-19 entered our shores, there were multiple breaking news broadcasts on tv about latest outbreaks, governmental responses, and food shortages. Our entire social media newsfeeds were dominated. Most of us were overcome by sheer panic, and found it difficult to stay here, in the present moment.

Our minds are really good at worrying: many of us have become experts at it. But there are less of us who are experts at really staying here. This is the time to stay here, without dwelling on the past, when we usually had independence and freedom to come and go as we pleased.

This also isn’t the time to be dwelling on “what if”, because we can’t predict or control the future. Each time your mind drifts to the past or future, try to:

Catch your mind doing so, and practise coming back, and staying here.

Try to notice your surroundings, with your feet on the floor/ground, being aware of what you can see, hear, smell, taste and feel.

You can also teach your family to stay here when you are sitting together

Suggest that everyone be silent, and try to really notice the smells and colours of the food, the tastes and textures, and encourage them to eat slowly, as if they were tasting the meal for the very first time (your partner and/or children may even express a new appreciation for the meal that has been prepared for them!)

Encourage them to notice when their minds drift away and they start thinking about what they are going to do after dinner/who they want to message etc, and suggest that they gently bring their attention back here, and try to stay here.

In your family, you might like to try taking turns each day where one person suggests an activity for the day for the family to practise staying here. For example: listening to music, listening to each other, brushing teeth, cooking, walking and reading. Each evening you could share your experiences of how you went trying to practise staying here.

Enjoy the small things and notice yourself doing so

Now is a great time to make some changes in your day to day life, to figure out how much time you have previously spent on ‘autopilot’, as a result of your very busy life: working and taking care of your family.

Many of us are busier now than we were prior to COVID-19: we may have been setting up how to work from home, figuring out how to best support our partners, as well as helping our children with online learning. This may have involved getting your children organised, making sure they remember to show up to their online classes, and helping them with homework.

Now is the perfect time to hit the pause button when you can, and try to enjoy the simple/small things that you might not have noticed before COVID-19, or might have stopped enjoying, because they either didn’t seem important, or you were too busy:

If your children are laughing when playing a boardgame together, or express great satisfaction that they have just completed a challenging jig saw puzzle, take the time to really listen, and enjoy the sound of their laughter/chatter.

Encourage your family to watch the evening sunset with you, noticing the shapes of the clouds, colours, and patterns in the sky.

If you have trouble falling asleep at night, and your mind races, or is filled with thoughts of what you need to do tomorrow:

Try to listen to the sounds outside the room, inside the room, and the sound of your breathing. You can also teach this to your partner and/or children.

If you are going for a walk, try to walk slower, taking the time to notice the colours of leaves, or a beautiful flower, bush, tree or butterfly. Take the time to smell the flower, and enjoy staying here, really looking at it, instead of hurriedly walking away. You might like to photograph it and show it to your family when you return home.

Try to notice yourself enjoying the small things, pointing them out to your family, and encouraging them to stop, slow down, and notice the small things too.

Recognize when you/your family are being flexible and embracing change, and praise yourself/your family for doing so

COVID-19 has forced us to make a lot of changes, really quickly. Many of us are creatures of habit and are used to doing things the same way for a long time. Some people find change scary and resist it, often because it’s unchartered territory, and we were happy with how things used to be.

Many of us have lost our jobs, or we have been forced to work from home for the first time. We might not have been tech savvy yet overnight many of us had to convert the way we did our face to face jobs, to working remotely, and using online platforms, in order to retain our jobs.

When you accept change (and in some situations you may be able to even embrace it, such as when you learn a new skill):

Really praise yourself, recognizing how scared you were, and how much flexibility you have demonstrated. Take them time to notice and praise your partner and/or children when they embrace change too.

Be your own cheerleader, being proud of yourself when you are coping well, and when you have done things differently.

You might be learning to do new things, such as cook new meals: your children might have researched low cost recipes, and cooked with you, creating a really healthy, tasty, and cost efficient meal, or you or your children might have found a very good use for something that you would have previously discarded or thrown out. Acknowledge to your family how great this is, and let your children know that you appreciate their help.

Don’t just praise yourself silently, but tell your family how proud you are of yourself, and when you notice your partner and/or children being flexible and embracing change (especially for things they might have tended to resist or reject in the past), tell them how proud you are, and why.

Empathize with what you and your family are going through, and practise and model lots of self-compassion

This is the time to carefully listen to your own self-talk, and that of your partner and children. This is a REALLY tough time, that most of us don’t have a precedent for, as there hasn’t been a pandemic for one hundred years. As a result, most of us can’t reflect on what we did last time, including what we did to cope and get through it.

We also might not know HOW speak to ourselves with kindness when we are distressed and/or overwhelmed. You can:

Try to speak to yourself in a very caring and loving way. If this is hard for you, think about someone in your life, in the present or past, who spoke to you with unconditional love and support (this might be/have been a family member or friend).

If there hasn’t been someone in your life who spoke to you like that, try to imagine the following:

What would such a person say to you right now?
What advice would they give you?
If they were to say something really helpful, that is different from how you speak to yourself, what would that be?
If that was hard to imagine, think about a very close friend:

If they were sitting next to you right now, telling you how much they are criticizing themselves, what would your response to them be?

What could you say to them that might be really kind and show how much you care?

If your partner and/or children are struggling with being kind to themselves, you might describe the activity above, and ask them if they would like to try it.

If they do try the activity, you could ask them afterwards if they would like to share their experience with you.

COVID-19 has impacted everyone, yet our partners and children may be impacted in ways that we aren’t, or we might not quite understand or relate to our child’s distress.

For example: whilst we might not think that our child not being able to attend their last school camp, or high school prom/graduation dinner face to face is a big deal, this might be devastating for your child, who might have been looking forward to it for months.

We can purposely bring a lot of empathy, love and kindness to our children, and let them know that we are available for them to talk to. We can also reassure them how much we understand and care, by acknowledging their pain, even if it isn’t our own pain.

It’s also important that we notice how we respond to our own self-talk:

We can notice if we default to giving ourselves a hard time about what we haven’t been able to do/achieve etc., and choose to be kinder to ourselves, instead of criticizing. When we notice our children and/or partner giving themselves a hard time, we can give them kindness and empathy.

We can acknowledge that we and our children are trying our absolute best, and doing well just to get through each day, in very uncertain times.

We can remind ourselves that this won’t last forever, and that we can help each other to get through this.

This is the perfect time to practice, model and teach our family self-care, self-compassion and kindness, to stay safe, and STAY HERE.

I hope this resource can be helpful through this time,

Aileen Guatache

Saltwater School Psychologist

Saltwater College Newsletter

We provide more than just an education, we prepare out students for success in an ever changing world.

September 18 Edition · 18 Sep 2021

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