Signe Whitson

Hi all,

Since we’ve been under stay-at-home orders in our state and school has turned into “virtual school” for the last few weeks, I’ve been making short daily, themed videos for my students.  The theme for Tuesdays has to do with the character traits of perseverance and persistence, or, as I like to call it, Tenacity Tuesday!

This week, I made a short video for PS-Gr 5 students about changing automatic negative thoughts (e.g. “I can’t do it” or “It’s too hard!”) into more positive, realistic, tenacious ones (e.g. “I can’t do it yet,” and “With practice, I’ll figure this out!”) This video features classic CBT skill building, helping kids understand the connection between thoughts, feelings & behaviors.

Find more of my Tenacity Tuesday videos on YouTube here or using the link below:

https://studio.youtube.com/channel/UCgXRBdVzC4bxaThTp4qPxoQ/videos/upload?filter=%5B%5D&sort=%7B%22columnType%22%3A%22date%22%2C%22sortOrder%22%3A%22DESCENDING%22%7D

At this morning’s Coffee with the Counselor, we talked about ways to cultivate resilience in young people–at any time–but especially as we all adjust to a new normal. We talked about things like:

1. The importance of CONNECTION with family members and loved ones. Kids who feel safe, supported, and connected to others are best positioned to cope with stress.

2. Though the spread of a pandemic virus is largely out of an individual person’s hands, young people benefit from feeling a realistic sense of CONTROL over their lives. Encourage kids to control what they can–thorough hand-washing, staying at home, managing their school work, and being kind to others.

3. Instilling COMPETENCE & CONFIDENCE. As kids encounter new online learning methods, caregivers should allow them to figure some things out on their own. Experiencing manageable struggles builds a child’s sense of competence that they have what it takes to handle stress and confidence in their independent problem-solving. Parents, stand back instead of jumping in to help right away! Affirm kids with statements like, “It was great to see how you figured that out!”

4. I’m a big fan of kids developing responsibility through chores; as luck would have it, giving kids the sense that they CONTRIBUTE to a household and/or to a cause greater than themselves is a great way to build resilience. Create opportunities for kids to contribute to the household in meaningful ways to give them greater purpose.

5. I’m running out of words that begin with the letter “C” but I still want to mention that resilience is also cultivated by helping kids develop healthy thought patterns.  While our brains tend to jump toward “worst case scenarios” and negative ways of thinking about things like pandemics and stay-at-home orders, parents have a huge role to play in reality checking their kids’ way of thinking.  So, for example, if you hear your child say something like, “We’re stuck at home,” you can gently re-frame this negative thought into a positive one by saying something like, “I’m grateful that we’re safe at home together.”  Likewise, if a young person hears on the news that over one million people have contracted COVID-19, it can be helpful to add, “Did you know that over 100,000 people worldwide have already made a complete recovery from the virus?”  Kids who have the ability to keep their thoughts realistic (rather than catastrophic) and optimistic (instead of pessimistic) show greater resilience in the face of stress.

Stay healthy, safe & well, everyone!

Although I just got my copy of Happy Campers, by Audrey Monke, you would think I had owned it for years already given the multitude of dog-eared pages, the massive amount of notes in the margins, and the number of parents I’ve already lent the book to, urging them to read specific sections.  Happy Campers is the brand-new, but already well-worn book I wish I had had twenty years ago when I first started my career working with children and families.  It is full of practical, realistic, easy-to-implement, no-cost, research-based, transformational strategies that will help parents and caregivers bring the magic of summer camp into daily home interactions.

Happy Campers shines a light on nine overall positive practices used in quality summer camps and offers readers dozens (and dozens!) of ways to use these strategies to help kids and families thrive year-round.  Starting with ideas for building nurturing connections between family members and then exploring critical topics such as the importance of optimism in interactions, how to nurture grit and determination, helping kids experience independence and grow their individual identities, making kindness cool, building healthy friendship skills, and cultivating the kind of self-confidence that makes kids unstoppable, Monke’s book is as realistic and readable as it is invaluable.

As a School Counselor, therapist, and parent, Happy Campers is everything I could hope for in a book and more!  I highly recommend it for anyone living or working with young people!”

Interested in learning more about how to understand and manage your child’s moods, outbursts, misperceptions, social skill problems, anxiety, friendship problems, lack of empathy, and more?

Tune in to this podcast from Sunshine Parenting where host Audrey Monke and I talk about my newest book, Parenting The Challenging Child: The Four-Step Way To Turn Problem Situations Into Learning Opportunities, based on my work with the Life Space Crisis Intervention Institute.