Emily Vujicic, Psychologist

​A life without worry is a dangerous thing. It would mean a lack of concern for consequences of our actions, a reduction in reflective thinking and a reduced drive to get things done by a deadline. It would mean we would step out in front of the busy road, or test if the iron is hot by using our finger.

Worry has been a safety mechanism for us throughout the evolutionary process, and has help ensure our survival. The point being, that a little bit of worry is a good thing.

The other end of the scale is a debilitating experience when we cannot think of anything but mistakes we have made or have a fear of the future that is enough to make us physically sick and interrupt our lives.

So how do we know when to worry about worry? How much is enough? And how to help foster a sense of safety without taking away our children’s ability to experience worry and instead learn to cope with it?

High anxiety can occur in approximately 1 in 10 young people, and the chances of being anxious increase significantly if they are already dealing with an ASD or ADHD diagnosis, or a learning disorder.

If compared to other children you see that your child gets worried more often, and more intensely than others, and things have persisted for some time, then it might be time to get some professional support.

Other signs to look out for include irritability, avoidance of things they might have previously enjoyed, physical complaints like a sore tummy, or comments like things being ‘boring’ or ‘stupid’, when they may in fact be difficult and your child is feeling afraid. Not wanting to go to school or see friends can be a red flag for a child experiencing anxiety.
 
As a parent, there are some things you can do at home to help foster a sense of resilience to things that may be worrying and help your child cope with those feelings.

Some possible ways include:

• Provide your child with a sense of control. Let them learn to make choices and deal with the consequences of that (within reason). This may mean selecting only a small number of friends to invite to a birthday party, when in the week they complete their homework, or how much to commit to after school activities.
• Allow your child to make (safe) risks that are age appropriate. For young children it may mean carrying breakable crockery or for older children it may be to walk the dog around the block by themselves.
• Help your child develop a vocabulary of emotions, and praise/encourage them to share them with you. Model the language to your children e.g. “mummy is frustrated that we are running late for school”.
• At the same time, model calming techniques for dealing with emotions. For example, show how you can take 3 big deep breaths or do some mindfulness techniques together.
• Let your child know that worry is a totally normal feeling, and together, you can cope with what comes.
• Praise the effort that your children apply, rather than the outcome. This is known to help build confidence and self-esteem rather then foster worries about under-achievement. If feedback is given, give it in a way that is constructive and has clear room for growth.

 
The relationship building that you do with your child will ultimately underpin these strategies. Being able to give them the confidence to believe what you say, to confide in you, and to give them the feeling of independence and competence to take on the world.

Don’t minimise the positive interactions that you have together in the big jigsaw puzzle of your child’s world. Plant the seeds of the relationship when they are 5, so they know when they are 15, that you are cheering them on.

Emily Vujicic, Psychologist

Last week I wrote about the 6 specific areas of life/work that have been identified as contributing to stress and burnout. This week, I'm exploring how to help bring your focus back to the positive aspects of your life. One way is to take regular time each day to appreciate the positive things that are happening. Write them down and reflect on them when you need the reminder. 

When we think of self-care, too often we think of bubble baths and date nights. While both of those things are enjoyable and relaxing, it does not have to be your visual when it comes to self-care.

Saying “no” to additional demands is self-care, as is going for a walk around the block for a quiet walk.

Eating a healthy meal, or an act of kindness towards another person can also be a form of self-care.

Trying something new or engaging in a hobby can also be self-care.

Often, we find ourselves saying that we do not have enough time to do some of these things, and our self-care can be one of the first things to drop when we experience stress. However, it is important to remember that taking care of yourself is not a selfish act, it is helping you be the best version of yourself in order to best care for your children.

​Having a consistent time in the day scheduled for self-care can increase the chance that it happens and can be for just 3 minutes per day to start with. Being energised and refreshed helps us parents with patience and compassion and helps us model to our children that it is ok to take time for ourselves, ask for help and deal with our stresses in healthy ways.
 
So, when you feel the stress and negativity creeping in, remember that it is ok to stop and ask for help. Giving 100% of yourself does not have to mean working until you fall apart. Having someone to talk things through can help give you some perspective, and often just getting things out of your head can be helpful. It may be helpful for you to consider services like Parentline (1300 30 1300), lifeline (13 11 14), your GP or even the ear of a friend.
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Emily Vujicic, Psychologist

Sometimes it’s incredible to think about what our body can take during times of stress. We can continue to ‘soldier on’ during busy and stressful life events, while juggling work, family, friends, finances, and the list continues. Being a parent can bring about some of the most stressful times of our lives. We can find that we become exhausted, and resentful, and while juggling all of those balls, it often feels like what we are doing is just not good enough.

Most of the time, we find that we can do this OK, but ‘burning the candle at both ends’ over a prolonged period of time can have a significant and detrimental effect on our health and well-being.

There are 6 specific areas of life/work that have been identified as contributing to stress and burnout.

A feeling of a lack of control, and not having a say in what is going on can be created by the uncertainty or ambiguity of a situation.

When your core values are in conflict with someone or with an event, this can be very stressful. This may be an increase in work demands that is impacting on family time.

Feeling taken for granted or feel like you are not being appreciated can be a common feeling for all parents and can be a contributor to those feelings of resentment.

With demands of home and work, it can often feel like it is impossible to prioritise. Everything seems like it is the most important task, and it can feel endless.

Feeling on top of things can be even harder if you feel like there is something that is unfair about what is in front of you.

Finally, if you feel like there is a breakdown of in the connection between your loved ones, it can feel incredibly stressful and isolating.

As the stress continues we find that we continue to get sick. This is because our immune system is being weakened, and we are more vulnerable to illness. It also takes us longer to feel better when we are stressed. We also feel a lack of energy or fatigued. It might mean coming home from work and being unable to muster up the energy to do extra things like exercise, or hobbies that you enjoy.
 
To help reduce the chance of burnout, it takes practise to remind ourselves to be “good enough” and not perfect. This is not always easy, and it much easier said than done, but it helps us to remember the good and positive things that we are doing and achieving, rather than the things we are not doing, or missing. The feelings of gratitude are a major contributor to happiness, while perfectionism can be linked to depression and anxiety. Read Part 2 of this blog post to learn how to help bring your focus back to the positive. 

Megan Mellington, Psychologist

As a parent, we will undoubtedly encounter moments of frustration towards our children. It could be awoken by the simplest of circumstances, such as needing to repeat ourselves like a broken record, intervening with siblings squabbling over a toy, or because we are stressed by other things and our tolerance for managing challenging behaviours is limited.

However, as many of you might already have experienced, when we respond with anger this often only escalates the situation with our child, and they too may then respond in a similar manner. While many of us have regrettably resorted to shouting, questioning or punishments out of anger, what is important to remember, first of all, is that you are human.

Anger is a normal part of the spectrum of human emotions. Anger isn’t bad, it reminds us that we are passionate about something like perhaps wishing to raise respectful, emotionally regulated and empathic little humans. So when less than desirable behaviours are observed in our children, we want to help them develop ways to self-manage, through teaching and implementing boundaries.

​Sometimes though, when we have been teaching and redirecting our children all day, our waning tolerance for their tantrums or perceived “defiance” can move us to anger. This article aims to outline some tips about how to tame our own “angries” so that you can engage with your children in a mindful and empathic way.

I've previously shared Dr Dan Siegal's video explanation of what happens in the brain when we get angry and how the thinking part gets shut down. So how do we get our “thinking brain” back online so that we can respond in a more helpful way for our children? The following are several brief tips I often use in parent consultations to support this process:

• When the breath is calm, the mind will follow: When we are in the throes of our own anger, the simplest and quickest way to re-engage the thinking brain is to take slow deep breaths. Once the “alarm system” part of the brain has been switched off through breath, we are better able to engage in rational thought processes, thus increasing our capacity to respond to our children in a more mindful manner.

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• Step away and come back to the situation. If anger is coming up for you, and as long as your child is safe, it is best to step away for a moment, regroup with a few deep breaths, and then ponder what you would like to teach in that moment. Getting your thinking brain back online before responding will help you engage more positively, and help you guide and offer redirection. It is important to inform your child about what you are doing. This will also help them understand that this is an adaptive way of managing anger.

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• Think about what kind of parent you want to be: Sometimes taking a pause before responding reactively to your child by pondering what kind of parent you want and how you would like your child to remember you, can help to shape your response. For example, if you’re prone to yelling, what will this teach your child about how to manage anger, and will this move you towards or away from the parent you want to be.

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• Rupture and repair: Dan Siegal states that ruptures in the relationships with our children are inevitable and can occur when we respond in highly emotional and reactive ways. But all is not lost, and repair can assist in creating a healing reconnection with our child. Repair also provides a space for letting your child know that you are human, we all experience anger and that if we say or do something that hurts another’s feelings, we can work through these experiences and reconnect.

     Repair involves:

1. Insight into your own emotional overreaction
2. Taking a moment to analyse what is really going on in the situation
3. Tuning in emotionally to what is happening for your child and naming it
4. Making efforts to let your child know that it was an overreaction, and providing recognition of our effect on them
5. Problem solving with your child about how you might manage this situation in future

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• Reframing: It may be the case when we have “flipped our lid” and we are feeling angry with our children that we have thoughts of “he is so defiant”, or “my child is manipulative”. But when we become fused with these ideas, this can often create further frustration. What if we were to instead reframe these thoughts so that we could then reduce our own distress and respond more empathically? For example, instead of thinking “she is deliberately trying to frustrate me”, try to reframe the observed behaviour by asking ourselves “what is my child trying to communicate to me?”

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• Focus on the desired behaviour: Instead of paying attention to what the child is doing “wrong”, try changing your language to help the child understand what it is you would like them to do. For example, instead of saying “Don’t spill it”, you could say “carry it with two hands”. This may take some conscious effort to re-word our initial response to our children but may assist in reducing frustration by way of giving our child direct instructions about what behaviour you would like to see. ​

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We can’t always be an emotionally regulated parent, and we shouldn’t expect this of ourselves. Even if we do take our anger out on our children, there are many things we can do to minimise the likelihood of this happening in future. If we can tame our “angries” by recognising our emotional state, taking a pause before responding, and regulating ourselves before attempting to regulate our child, we are modelling adaptive and healthy ways of managing anger. ​

​Paula Dadson, Occupational Therapist

Stella Franzese, Psychologist

With an estimated 90% of children and adolescents playing video games (Lenhart et al.2008), the impacts that video games have on users is a fierce and ongoing debate in academic literature. There is a wealth of literature that reveals that there are both positive and negative outcomes associated with gaming. 

Some academics hold the perspective that gaming is a modern form of play and should be considered as a contemporary means of psychosocial development. With the increasing social connectivity built into modern video games, playing online provides an opportunity to connect and cooperate with peers. Social connection is an often cited as a positive outcome for users. Yet, researchers have discovered various other benefits too. ​

Playing ‘shooter’ games has been shown to promote some specific cognitive skills. This is likely to do with the visually rich environments and rapid attentional demands within modern games. Recent literature has shown that ‘shooter’ video games have been associated with enhanced attention allocation and enhanced spatial abilities (Green & Bavelier, 2012; Uttal et al., 2013). These cognitive benefits remained over time and generalized to other contexts. Gamers that are strong in these cognitive skills are advantaged academically in the STEM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) (Wai, Lubinski, Benbow, & Steiger, 2010). ​

Another - admittedly more speculative - area of benefit relates to motivation. A recent study (Ventura et al., 2013) found that the extent of video game use significantly predicted how long participants would demonstrate persistence in attempting to solve difficult puzzles.

Many psychologists and educators are familiar with Carol Dweck’s seminal ‘Growth Mindset’ philosophy which posits that persistence and continual effort are key to success (Dweck & Molden, 2005). The finding by Ventura and colleagues (2013) links to the ideas purported by Dweck and is particularly interesting in light of the popularity of the recently released videogame, Fornite.

In Fortnite, success involves outlasting other players. With the likelihood of winning being small, a substantial amount of persistence and determination is required for players who seek to win. Some researchers speculate that players of video games, such as Fortnite, can develop a ‘persistent motivational style’ which may have beneficial generalized effects in school or work contexts. Though this relationship is merely correlational and needs further empirical evidence. ​

A day spent searching for research papers debating the negative impacts of gaming would yield dozens of papers with wide ranging and opposing findings. Thankfully, we have meta-analyses. Meta-analyses are a type of research review that combines the findings of many other studies. Further, we have great research bodies that do meta-analyses of other meta-analyses, combining the results of hundreds of individual studies.

​One such research body is the American Psychological Association who has recently released a major review of research into the impact of violent video games. To conduct their review, the APA contacted approximately 130 of the most frequently published researchers and experts in the field of gaming and requested nominations of the 10 strongest empirically based studies on this topic. This process yielded four meta-analyses which took into account more than 150 individual studies. ​

The review produced robust evidence that violent video game exposure was associated with increased aggressive behavior and increased aggressive thoughts. The review also clearly evidenced that video game exposure produced desensitization to violence and decreased empathy. The review concluded that violent video game use is a risk factor for adverse outcomes. ​

There are also factors that have been found to influence and interact with the development of aggression in gamers. Some researchers have suggested that it is the competitive features of certain games that produce the aggressive effects (Adachi & Willoughby, 2011). As mentioned above, this is contrary to cooperative games that can have prosocial benefits. ​

Past research has identified a number of risk factors that can moderate and influence the development of aggression, such as: pre-existing aggressive traits, low socioeconomic status, harsh parental discipline practices and experiences of peer rejection and bullying (Dodge, Coie, & Lynam, 2006; Herrenkohl et al., 2000). The APA review was able to determine that in the majority of studies, even after these factors were controlled for, violent video games still independently predicted aggression. Existing research suggests that higher amounts of exposure are associated with higher levels of aggression and other adverse outcomes. The conclusions of the APA review relate to children, adolescents and young adults. ​

This is far from an exhaustive list of outcomes that result from gaming. The intention of this paper is to inform the public of a range of valid findings from either side of the debate. ​

It is important to check-in with your child and explore the reasons your child may be experiencing eating-related challenges. Young children may be experiencing power struggles at home. Pre-teens might be preoccupied with their body or friendship groups as they develop and become exposed to unrealistic body goals. Children may also be preoccupied with screen time during meals or feeling stressed about upcoming tests or social events at school.

An alternative to constantly reminding your child to ‘just sit and eat’ or ‘finish everything on your plate’ is to take a skill building approach. A psychologist or paediatric dietitian can help the child build on the following skills that may be linked to eating-related challenges:

• Handling novelty
• Persisting on challenging tasks
• Maintaining focus
• Regulating emotions when feeling distressed
• Seeking attention in appropriate ways​

Speaking with a psychologist may help you to identify and support you through age-related challenges that your child may be experiencing, and which skill development areas can be considered in a treatment plan.

Children can learn to practice relaxation and eating new food mindfully in sessions with the psychologist or dietitian. Parents can also be provided with helpful resources around mealtimes and addressing challenging behaviours.

Infant mental health refers to how well an infant (newborns to the age of three) develops socially and emotionally. Specifically, this refers to: developing the ability to form close and secure adult and peer relationships experiencing, managing and expressing a full range of emotions exploring the environment and learning

How to promote Infant Mental Health

Infant mental health can be nurtured through a secure and stable relationship with their caregiver. This is done by what caregivers do, the things they say, as well as through the environment created at home.

​It includes even small things that caregivers may do without even noticing it, such as talking to your infant and spending time with them. In particular, noticing and responding to your infant’s cues can help to nurture your relationship with your infant as well as support their mental health.

Learning to understand your infant’s unique cues 
Cues refers to the sounds and movements infants make. These can include facial expressions, vocalisations, body movements and reactions. Cues can be as subtle as an opening hand or widening their eyes.

Cues let us know something about the infant’s needs, their emotional state and physical
state. In other words, cues are an infant’s way of communicating with us. Caregivers can
learn to understand what an infant is trying to communicate by:

• Observing and paying close attention to their facial expressions, body movements, and body reactions for cues about their needs.
• Observe and pay close attention to the types of sounds that your infant makes.
• Notice the type of touch that your child likes.
• Notice the environment that your baby enjoys, including the types of sounds and movements.

Each infant has their own cues and it takes time to learn these cues. You do not have to
understand your infants cues every time! However, become a curious observer of your
infant and their cues. Continue trying to understand what your infant is trying to
communicate.