Delight in Your Child Today

Delighting in your child sends the message of preciousness and intrinsic value just as they are. Delight is not based on performance or accomplishments but rather on enjoying the experience of being with your child or watching over your child and expressing the joy of that experience.

For example, watching your child play soccer, you might say, “I really enjoyed watching you out on the field kicking the ball and playing with your friends.” Much different than “great job kicking that goal or blocking the ball.”

Try “delighting in” what you see your child doing rather than focus on performance and see how powerful “delighting in” your child can be for you both.

— Carrie Ellis

Parent Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT)

Several play therapies for counseling children start with the goal of the therapist building a relationship with the child to create a safe place for the child to work through difficulties and heal in a healthy relationship.

In PCIT, the parent learns these skills to build a strong and healthy relationship with their child. Coaching the parent to succeed is the hallmark of PCIT and may be particularly useful to all parents, but especially children with behavioral issues. Designed for children 2 to 7, PCIT research reflects a strong bond between the parent and child and improves behavior and compliance. The principle underpinnings of PCIT aim to help parents achieve a good balance of responsiveness and nurture and clear communication, and firm boundaries. 

Struggling to manage your child’s behavior? Give us a call to see if PCIT is right for you.

— Carrie Ellis

Attention or Connection

“Every time you think a child’s behavior is “attention seeking” consider changing it to “connection seeking” and see how your perspective changes”.  - Jody Carrington

So how do you do that with annoying behaviors? Ignore the negative behavior and look for the minute your child does a positive behavior. Then swoop in and seek to connect with your child for positive behavior. Do this and watch the negative behavior drift away. Still having trouble? Please feel free to call us.

— Carrie Ellis, LMHC

Play More

According to research by Dr. Karyn Purvis, scientists have discovered that it takes approximately 400 repetitions to create a new synapse in the brain unless it is done in play, in which case it only takes 10 to 20 repetitions.

So, play more with your kids. You don’t know how to play? No problem! Join for a session or two and learn ways to play and engage with your children. Most likely you had them to enjoy them. So, play with them and reduce your stress and theirs. Still, finding it difficult? Please give us a call for some one-on-one coaching. 

— Carrie Ellis, LMHC

Designing your Child’s Relationship Blueprint

We are created by God to be in a relationship with both Him and the others He places in our lives. Our lives are a network of relationships with others near and far away. God designed into each and every person a process through our neural networks that are the blueprint for relationships and that program is strengthened and developed in early childhood through our experiences in relationships with our caregivers. The program that is written into our neural networks for relationships generally remains the blueprint for all our future relationships throughout life, with some exceptions.

So, what do you want your child’s relational blueprint to look like? Children decide about relationships in early childhood based on their experiences in relationships. Since parents are generally a child’s first relationship and since our relationship blueprint generally remains in place throughout our lives, it is an important time to spend writing into their hearts a balance of nurture and structure. Here are a few tips to get you started:

• Spend 5 minutes a day in uninterrupted play with your child in their world. Let them pull out a few of their favorite toys and play along. Get into it and enjoy your time.

• Watch what they do that is appropriate and follow along.

• Sprinkle in a few compliments of things they are doing well. For example, “I love how you use your imagination to build awesome towers.” Be sure to also compliment them on all the ways they use their manners, share, sit quietly, and play gently.

• Don’t ask a lot of questions or try to direct their play. Rather listen for them to speak and then repeat what they say. Questions generally shut down conversations but listening and repeating or paraphrasing back to a child increases communication, and their vocabulary and speech generally improve as an added benefit.

• Notice what they are doing with their hands and give words to their actions.  For example, “I see you are putting the egg in the pan.” “You are cooking on the stove and now you are putting the food on the plate” for a child who is engaged in play cooking.  It may seem like you are stating the obvious but there is great power in “noticing.” It sends a powerful message to your child, “I am seen by my caregiver.”  What do we watch as humans? That which we care about, value, and are interested in. When you notice your child and what they do with the verbal description, you say, “I care about you,” I am interested in what you are doing,” or “you are worth watching.” These are powerful messages each human longs to experience with their caregiver.

So, give it a try! Spend a few minutes a day engaged in one on one play with your child. Put into practice these few skills and see what happens. Each of these skills is specifically designed to build and enhance relationships. If you find it difficult to get started or there are obstacles blocking you, give us a call. We routinely work with parents and children to build stronger, healthier relationships. We’d love to help you too.

— Carrie C. Ellis, LMHC

Finding your True Worth

God created all people to be seen, heard, and valued. We are all worthy of experiencing these things from others around us.  But the truth is that in this world “we will have trouble” and often experience just the opposite from family, community, and friends.  When we are not seen, heard, and valued as God intended and experience the opposite, we often start to believe we are at fault and not worthy of love or not good enough or a failure — for example. These lies often lead us to depression, anxiety, substance abuse, and allowing others to abuse us.  

We provide a process to help our clients identify the experiences that led to the lies they believe. We help them reframe their experiences and release the pain and hurt. Clients who have processed past experiences with us in this manner have experienced freedom and healing that has eluded them for years. If you’re struggling with anxiety, depression, anger, substance abuse, or keep ending up in dead-end relationships, join us for a new journey and a fresh look at how you too can experience hope, healing, and freedom through the curriculum, “Making Sense of Your Worth.”

— Carrie Ellis, L.M.H.C.

What Adopted Kids Wish Their Parents Knew

We are adoptive parents and relative caregiving parents who have parented children along life’s journey. There are many books that contain valuable information to help parents connect with and parent the adopted child, but here are our favorite, Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wished Their Parents Knew by Sherrie Eldridge.

Sherrie is an adoptee herself. Adopted as an infant, she spent years into adulthood with a variety of behavioral and emotional struggles. She finally found a therapist in mid-life who helped her process her adoption experience. It made all the difference and she began writing books from the adoptee’s perspective. As adoptive parents, it is easy to feel the joy and love of welcoming home your child, who you have longed for and waited for so long. It is not so easy to grasp how a child experiences adoption.

Sherrie offers that perspective from someone who knows because she has lived it. She offers valuable insights that help parents to understand the adoption experience from the adoptee’s perspective. She offers ideas at the end of each chapter you can use to talk about with your child. If you are an adoptive parent or are planning to become one, this book should be at the top of your list to read!

— Book review by Carrie Ellis, L.M.H.C.

The “Magic” of Emotional Regulation for Children

Children having a tantrum are the best example of a lack of emotional regulation.  Children learn emotional regulation in relationship with a nurturing, attentive caregiver who helps them identify and verbalize their emotions and then provides empathy and connection. 

Parents often ask me how to help a child with emotional regulation.  Here are three simple steps. 

First, help the child identify with the emotion they are experiencing. For example, when your child is sad, you could say, “you’re really sad about this.”  

The next step is to empathize with the child. I often encourage parents to think of a time they had the same feeling and voice it. For example, your child is sad his friend can’t play. You can say, ”you’re really sad that you can’t play with Sam today.”  “I know when I don’t get to see my friends it makes me sad too.”  

The third step is to offer some comfort or support. A parent might say, “come here and let me give you a hug.”  Helping children identify all their feelings helps them become comfortable sharing feelings with others. Providing empathy about feelings helps a child know they are not alone in their feelings, and comfort or support helps them to feel better and more connected to you. They learn through this process, feelings can be shared, my feelings are important, and while I may have difficult feelings, I have someone who will be with me during difficult times.  

So why is it magic? Let me share a story with you about the benefits of helping your child with emotional regulation. I was working with a dad whose child had been through some very traumatic experiences and was quite often dysregulated and angry. I encouraged the dad to try the steps. He told me, “that’s not going to work!”  We had a session together with the dad and child. The child began to have a fit over something she wanted that she couldn’t have. I said, “you’re really mad you can’t have that cookie right now.”  “I know; I don’t like it when I can’t have what I want either.”  The child stopped the fit and looked at me quietly but still crying.  I said, “I know it is really hard when we don’t get what we want.”  “I bet your dad could help with that.”  How about a hug from dad. The child turned immediately to her father and he gave her a hug.  She looked up into his face and said, “I love you, daddy.”  I’ll never forget dad’s words. He said with a big smile on his face, “it’s magic.”  Well, it’s not really magic, but it does help children learn emotional regulation for a full range of emotions.  It is best done during early childhood and in a relationship with a nurturing caregiver. If your child is struggling to regulate their emotions or you are struggling to help them, don’t wait. Please call us. We love helping parents and children develop strong secure relationships that last a lifetime.

— Carrie Ellis is a LMHC with Spanish River Counseling Center in Boca Raton, Florida. She is a Trust Based Relational Intervention Practitioner, trained to implement Parent-Child Interaction Therapy, and a Circle of Security Facilitator. Carrie works together in team counseling with her husband Matt. They have a special focus on adoptive families. Both are adoption-competent therapists.