Counseling Homework

From the counselor this week:

As far as what to work on...

1. Practice mindfulness calming exercises with her. On a simple level, this includes sitting and noticing or observing your surroundings. On a more complex level it would be you looking up some mindfulness exercises on pinterest or I can give you some. If you can pick a consistent time that would be great, but maybe once a day. All your kids can be involved. There is a great website called gonoodle that has some calming exercise but also self-regulation and confidence boosting activities. She gets trinkets for a little character for finishing challenges. 

2. Use of encouragement vs. praise. I notice she gives up easily on tasks and perhaps this is due to high anxiety. I was hoping you can use statements like you are working hard, you figured it out, you are trying to figure out how that works, you are determined, you've got it, you know how that works. That may boost her internal motivation vs. relying on external motivation. 

I do think the play therapy is helpful in the sense of her having complete power, and control. I see these themes in the play and that tells me she needs to have that experience to find balance. 

I hope this helps.

My reply:

Yes! Thank you for the things to work on. I have meant to work more on the mindful exercises that you showed us last time you were here. But, as it seems with some things, without direct orders and the need to report back, it slips. We'll do that this week. 

And encouraging words. Yes, that is do-able.

Giving more choices. This is definitely my weakness. For sure. I've been taking a love and logic class and while the first few sessions seemed redundant of PCIT (and I liked PCIT better) and some other things - we finally hit the section about choices and I think that has made it easier for me. Not perfect, but easier. I thought choices had to be very concrete and something that I could not all the way predict - breakfast (although she gets no choice here because she eats at head start), what to wear (Which is the absolute HARDEST thing for me to let go. I care too much about appearance. Not something I am willing to let go) but through the love and logic class I learned a trick. To just throw choices in all the time about every day stuff. Are you going to choose to wear your coat out the door or carry your coat out the door. Do you choose to wear your hair down or in a braid today. Do you choose to read books on the couch with me or in your room by yourself. Do you choose to put your things away now or in two minutes. (THIS one has been amazing. Because really - I used to always just say, "two minutes and it's time to put it away" and now I can say "You can choose to do it now or in two minutes" and she always chooses two minutes, which is what I am accustomed to and life doesn't change any - except for an added half sentence. And that counts as a choice, right? Should I be wording these differently, though? If PCIT taught me anything, it taught me the power of the right vocabulary and the change that one word can make in a sentence. Back to our days of, "The train is on the track." vs "You put the train on the track."

In other words:

We've had a pretty ok week. Nothing huge and earth shattering. We did go to Steven's grandparents' house and the three of them were running around like crazies. C has a tendency to take things 2 steps further and over-do it. She bumped into a wall a couple of times and got too rough with Talmage so she had to sit in a reclining chair for about a hour while we waited the visit out. I was just drained too much to do all the re-directing that I so often do. She did a really good job of keeping herself contained and complained a little bit but could understand when I told her that she was not controlling her body the way that she needed to and I was done talking about it. She can do these things that are expected to her, if the standards are there and held. She's an amazing girl.