In this episode we discuss how to approach and engage in a conversation with your child about self harming behavior.. The key is to be able to engage in the conversation in a productive way and engage our curiosity. I hope you find this episode helpful!

In this episode we talk specifically about how to start the conversation with your child about suicide. More episodes about this will follow!

In this episode we discuss your role in helping your child with depression. We first want to get a confirmed diagnosis from a clinician or physician. We also want to get a full blood panel to help discern if their is a physical cause.

Our primary role needs to be one of support an encouragement and I talk in this episode about what that looks like. I hope you find this helpful!

In this episode we focus on how to parent a child that has anxiety. These are good skills to develop since even if your child does not develop a disorder, they will have anxiety in general at some point or another.

Remember, if you have specific request for strategies for a specific mental health issue your child is facing, then please email me at Craig@lifecarecounselingstl.com. This will help me know which mental health issues to focus on!

In this episode we start to go through a general process of how to help a child that is struggling with their mental health. In this series we will get more specific when we go through various mental health related issues but this episode will set the framework!

Framework:

1. Deal with the emotion first by validating and using repetition
2. Comfort child in a way that is effective for them
3. allow them to make a decision about the situation now or at a later time.

If you have a specific situation you wish to hear me speak on, please email me at craig@lifecarecounselingstl.com

In this episode I give an overview and some final thoughts about how to use emotions. I hope you all find this helpful!

This episode continues with talking about anger and how to engage with it. The focus today is trying to understand and discern why anger may be coming up in someone else to help us know how to engage!

In this episode we focus on how to engage with someone that is very angry to help them in that emotional experience. As a warning, using these moves in an abusive relationship is not recommended, especially when alone with an angry abuser.

A secondary warning is that sometimes the anger response is a plea for space or for you (if the anger is due to conflict with you) to disengage. If that is a case, notice that pattern and consider giving space part of what you do after the validation attempts and making that known that you are giving space purposefully and we can re-engage on this later.

While a lot of anger can be engaged with in the moment, there are times where we have to recognize it needs to be addressed after everyone is in a more calm space. Then as we discuss the conflict, and the anger (protection) rises again we may be more able to use these techniques to help then when it is not as intense.

I hope this is helpful!