Yes, Roma Wines taste better because only Roma selects from the world's greatest reserves for your pleasure. And now, Roma Wines, R-O-M-A, Roma Wines, present. Suspense. Tonight Roma Wines bring you the MGM star, Miss Susan Peters. And they call me Patrice, a suspense play produced, edited and directed for Roma Wines by William Spear. Suspense. Radio's outstanding theatre of thrills is presented for your enjoyment by Roma Wines. That's R-O-M-A. Roma Wines. Those better tasting California wines enjoyed by more Americans than any other wine. For friendly entertaining, for delightful dining. Yes, right now a glass full would be very pleasant as Roma Wines bring you Susan Peters in a remarkable tale of... Suspense. It was on the train that I first met Patrice. It was all over and done with. I was on my way back to San Francisco. Not that I cared much just then where I was going. At least I had friends in San Francisco. It would be easier there as long as I had to start out from scratch again anyway. She was one of those friendly, trusting, wide-eyed girls who give you their life history at the drop of a hat. Besides, she was happy. She wanted to talk. She was a bride. My dad was a good dinner. Do you think I'll ever be able to cook a meal like that, Hugh? You can't do better than that. It's the divorce courts for you, young lady. Oh, I'm Mr. Hazard. I thought it was a wonderful dinner. And thank you. Oh, forget it. Nice to have you with us. Hugh, I think I'll step into the ladies' lounge here and do a little primping. I always feel so messy on these trains. Okay.  Want to come with me, Helen? All right, yes. Well, tomorrow with the bride, we'll still be open. Hugh says I'm silly, but I can't help being nervous. Nervous? About meeting his people. His brother and his mother, that is. And dad is dead. They're terribly wealthy, I guess. I suppose I'm a snob. That shouldn't make any difference, should it? It's nice, though.  But sometimes I'm afraid they'll expect that nothing less than our raving beauty is good enough for their Hugh. And I know I'm not that. Don't they even know what you look like? Not even a picture. Isn't that awful? But you see, we were married in Europe. We were both working for Unrod. And then we had a chance to get a boat back home the next day. And all we had time to do was send them a cable. And now I'm scared to death. Does your own family live in California? I don't have any family. Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, that's all right. It was a long time ago. Oh, would you mind holding my ring while I wash? I have such a horror of losing it. It slipped on a drain in Paris once and they had to take the whole pipe out to get it back. Oh, it's a lovely ring. Isn't it? I told Hugh he shouldn't spend so much money on a ring, but you know how men are sometimes. See what it says on the inside? Hugh and Patrice. That's nice. Try it on if you want to. Isn't it supposed to be bad luck? I mean to take your ring off. Bad luck? I couldn't have any bad luck. Oh, my, this road is rough. First it just seems as though everything was white. White ceiling and white porcelain things around me.  My hands lying there pale and white too. And then I saw a ring on the third finger of my left hand. I brought it up before my eyes. Things began to come back then. Well, how are you feeling now? How long have I been here? Almost two days. What happened? What happened to? To who? There was another girl. I was talking to another girl and then... Is she all right? Did you know her very well? Just on the train. Is she all right? No. She's dead? Yes. Oh. Is there anyone else you want to ask about? What happened to? To him? Yes. You're going to have to be a very brave girl. Can you be? Yes. Your husband wasn't saved either, Patrice. For a long while I just lay there thinking. I hadn't decided yet. I was just thinking. The things that she had told me echoing around in my head. They're terribly wealthy. Never seen me not even in a picture. No family of my own. They're terribly wealthy.  Well, we're looking lots better today. I feel better. Where did those come from? Do you think you feel well enough to have visitors? Visitors? Of course you don't have to. Who? Can't you guess, honey? Oh, but... But I don't think that I've... No, honey, it'll do you a world of good. A lot. I'm frightened. Frightened? But I've never seen them before. You haven't? I declare.  They're just the nicest folks who'd ever meet anywhere. I know they think an awful lot of you. Do they? I'll bring them in. Just have it. You can come in now. Only just a minute or two, though. Yes, I understand. Patrice, I'm Hugh's mother. How do you do? And this is my other son, Bill. Hello, Patrice. Hello. My dear, you know we can only stay a minute. But I... Well, I don't want to talk about anything that's painful to you. It's... All right. I just want you to know that your loss, our loss, is something I hope we can overcome together. We both feel that, Patrice. Thank you. Now, as soon as you're well, in a few days, we're going to take you home with us to Caulfield. And we want you to know that our home will be your home. Always. Oh, I... I don't see how... Now, you let us do the planning for a while, Patrice. I'm afraid you're not in very good shape for it just yet. Patrice, from everything we both know of Hugh. We know he'd want it that way, don't we? It's hard to lose a son.  I know. But it'll be easier now. Now that I have a daughter, and you have a mother. You see? I don't know what to say, Mrs. Hazard. Not Mrs. Hazard, dear. From now on, it's mother. I... You see, I... Come on, my dear. Say it. Yes. Mother. And tonight, in Radio's Outstanding Theatre of Thrills... Suspense. Between the acts of suspense, this is Ken Niles for Roma Wines. Ten more shopping days till Christmas. And if your shopping isn't done, why not solve both your gift-giving and entertaining problems this easy, gracious way? Buy an assorted case of Grand Estate Wines. Use several bottles for gifts of outstanding distinction. Use the remaining Grand Estate Wines to serve your every holiday, dining, and entertaining need. Grand Estate Wines, the crowning achievement of Vintner Skill, are presented by Roma, America's greatest winemaker. You can give or serve Grand Estate Wines proudly to anyone. For the taste excellence of Grand Estate Wines bespeaks your desire to offer only the finest. Distinguish your Christmas giving and hospitality with all five Grand Estate California Wines. For gracious entertaining, medium sherry, ruby port, and golden muscatel. For distinctive dining, burgundy, and so turn. This year, say Merry Christmas smartly with Grand Estate Wines. And now Roma Wines bring back to our Hollywood soundstage Susan Peters. And they call me Patrice. A pale, well-calculated to keep you in... suspense. What would you have done? Don't judge me unless you've worked in a hash house or behind the counter of a third-rate department store and scrimped and starved to keep up appearances. Don't judge me unless you've been through that. And suddenly had a chance to trade it all in for security and wealth and all. Just because somebody somewhere made a little mistake.  What would you have done?  Bill was my brother-in-law. The brother-in-law of Patrice. Because I wasn't Helen Georgetown anymore. I wasn't the poor bedrag of the little girl who'd been divorced two months ago by a rotten breach of a husband. I was for two months. And then everything seemed to happen at once. In just one day. Today. I began at breakfast this morning. More coffee, Bill? No, thanks. I have to run in a minute. You knew Patrice I was in Paris once as a girl many years ago. Tell me, has it changed much since those days? Changed? How can she answer that, Mother? She wasn't there when you were, so how could she know if it's different than it was then? Oh, you knew what I mean. Don't be so technical. Why? Yes, it has changed, I suppose. You and you were married there, weren't you? No, Mother London. Don't you remember the letter with some London letterhead? You mean the cable? No, dear. I remember the cable, of course. I mean the letter. And I'm positive it had a Paris postmark fill. I have it right upstairs somewhere I can show you. Where do you hardly have to do that? Patrice certainly knows where she was married. All right, Smartie. We'll see. Which was it, Patrice? London or Paris? It was London. Well, I could have sworn. But we left right away for Paris, you see. I think what happened was that he wrote the letter in London and he didn't get a chance to mail it until we got to Paris. Well, that probably was it. Funny, I don't remember anything about London, though. But, Mrs. Hazard, the morning mail. Just put it right down here. Yes, ma'am. Bills, bills, bills. And circulars. Oh, here's one for you, Bill. Fred Ellis, I guess. Oh, thanks. Why, Patrice, here's one for you. For me? Uh-huh. That's a local postmark, too. I wonder who it could be from. Wow. I don't know. Patrice, where are you going? I just remembered I think I let the bathwater running. The letter was typewritten. It was unsigned. All it said was, I know who you are. It was in the afternoon that I got the phone call. And the hours in between were almost worse than anything else that happened. Wondering who it was who knew who I was. It was just by luck that I was downstairs when it rang. Hello? I'd like to speak to Mrs. Hazard, please. Mrs. Hazard. This is she. This is Steve. Steve. But you remember me. I was afraid that under the circumstances you might have forgotten. What do you want? I want to see you.  Oh, but I must. I want to hear all about it. The train wreck and everything. It can't be done. Now, Helen, I simply won't take no for an answer. You'll drive out of town along the lake road and you'd better come. In fact, I know you'd better come. I went, of course. He hadn't changed. A little more rundown at the heel. A little more cynical and sardonic than usual, perhaps. But he hadn't changed. Oh, no. He hadn't changed. And after I heard about the train wreck, it was comparatively simple. Oh, by the way, I identified your body. You owe me something for that, at least. Oh, you something? Don't you think so? What are you doing? Mental arithmetic? I'm wondering how I could have ever married a man who'd stooped a black male. Come, come, Helen. Let's not be emotional about this. You have a very nice thing here. I don't have a thing. They have the money. But you do have your own bank account, don't you? How much do you want? I'm going to be very fair with you, Helen. The truth is I need just enough for a little business venture in Mexico. How much? Only a thousand dollars. If you have neglected to bring your checkbook with you, I have one here. A check? I said I was going to be fair. Don't you see, Helen, when the check goes through the bank and comes back to you with my signature on it, you will have evidence against me. I think you called it the black male. Do you know another name for it? I think you're being a little unkind considering that when you get your check back, you'll have permanent insurance and then make the check out to me, Helen. Not to cash. And the name is Stephen Jortsen, if you remember. I remember. Thank you, dear. I have an idea that I shall make a very handsome profit on this little investment. I hope you do. And when I do, darling, I promise that you will be the first to know. That should have been enough. Enough for one day. But I might have known that it wouldn't be. I might have known if I'd stopped to think that I was only getting in deeper and deeper. There was a strange car in front of the house when I got back. I tried to come in quietly to fear someone would ask where I'd been. The family was in the library and they couldn't help but see me. Oh, Patrice! Yes, Mother. Patrice, do you know Mr. Winthrop? I don't believe I do. Mr. Winthrop is our attorney. How do you do? Sit down, Patrice. Join the party. I think I've just about done my part. The rest of it is up to you two now. All right. Shall I sign now? Well, I think you'd better tell Patrice first. Don't you think she ought to know? I'll tell her if you like. Perhaps I can explain it a little easier. You see, Mrs. Hazard is changing her will. Her will? Yes. Previously, her estate had been equally divided between her two sons. But now, since there is only one remaining heir, that is Bill, she's adding a cortisol providing that one of her estate shall now go to you. Well, don't look that way about it. You're not doing anybody out of anything, Patrice. I have the business dad left for me. No. No, you mustn't do it. It was Bill's own suggestion, my dear. I don't want any particle. Don't you see, she feels that way on account of Hugh. Oh, I know, Mother, but... Patrice! You better go after her and try to talk to her. All right, Patrice. Wait a minute. Listen to me. Patrice, what in the world? I... Father, I've been so wonderful to you. Why not? You're one of the family now. I don't deserve it, that's all. Listen, Patrice, there's something I want to tell you very seriously. I'll admit that at first, I wondered if you're coming to us, if the money had anything to do with it. I wondered about one or two other little things, but now I know. Because I know you, Patrice. And changing the will won't really make any difference now, because I... No. No, wait, Bill. Don't. You know, don't you? Bill, please not yet. This isn't the time. I know it hasn't been very long, but I've got to tell you.  Oh, Bill... Yes, it is bad as all that. I know I didn't say it right, but I see you every day, Patrice. I'm with you every day. I just... Why couldn't you just have given me a few more days? Well then, there is some hope, Patrice. I don't know. Patrice, is it the past? Oh, no, I've never really been in luck. I've got to go now, Bill. Are you afraid I'll kiss you? I'm afraid. I'll want you to. It wasn't just the money, the security anymore. I'd have loved him if he'd been a pauper. This is it, he said. This was it, all right. At first, I hadn't wanted to go to the dance at the country club and be stared at and asked tactful questions about you. Now I was glad. Now it was pure escape from the turmoil of my thoughts and the guilt and indecision. Pure escape. I thought. Well, if I'd known you danced this well... Do I? Hasn't anybody ever told you that before? Then I'll continue. That you're by far the most beautiful girl here. Am I? You know quite well you're perfectly aware of all this. And if you weren't, one look at that stag line would tell you. Patrice, what's the matter? I must have stumbled. Oh, not you. I beg your pardon. Do you mind if I cut in? Oh, Mrs. Hazard, Mr. Georgeson. Oh, this is a very great pleasure, Mrs. Hazard. I'll see you later. Right, Patrice. What are you doing here? Oh, I've been moving in quite the best circles. Didn't you know, dear? You shouldn't be dancing with me. You know why not. It's not safe. Is there anything that is for someone in your position? Leave me alone, can't you? I want to talk to you about that. No, no, not here. Yes, I guess you're right. Come on, let's go out on the veranda. What I have to say won't take very long, dear. All right, Steve, what about the check? Oh, yes, indeed. It's quite the nicest check I've ever had. In fact, I've still got it. Aren't you going to cash it? I'm afraid you weren't picking very clearly this afternoon, Helen. You remember, I told you that once that check passed through the bank and came back to you with my signature on it, you would be holding evidence against me. Yes. But, of course, if I don't catch it, if I just hang on to it, then I'm holding evidence against you, dear. Damaging evidence. Don't you see it? What do you want now? Helen, I'm afraid I'm not interested in a mere thousand dollars. Then give it back to me and I'll give you more, whatever I can. Oh, no, no, no, Helen, I have no intention of giving this check back to you. But do you see this envelope? Yes. You'll notice that it's addressed to William Hazard at his office so that you can't intercept it. It contains that check and it's going into the mail tonight. You wouldn't do that, Steve. Oh, yes, I would, unless...  Oh, it's not far just to Hastings, but it's over the state line and there's a justice of the peace there. Justice of the peace? Mm-hmm. And he's going to make us man and wife all over again. Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Johnson. Steve. No. Then I'll mail the check tonight. Why? Why do you have to do this? Mrs.  And when she goes, of course, she's been made about $200,000. Under the law, your husband a third of that is mine. And for that kind of money, darling, I can afford to win. How could you? How could you? You're the bride. I'll let you choose the time that it must be tonight. Oh, Steve, there must be some way. There isn't. It's tonight, or I'll mail the check. All right. But late. It's got to be late. Three o'clock. All right. I'll meet you at your house. Three o'clock. And then be on time, Helen, because the United States mail is always on time. Oh, there you are, Patrice. Oh, excuse me. Good night, Mrs. Hazard. I've been looking for you. I wasn't too long, was I? Oh, no. Do you know that fellow, Jortson? No, I... Well, I'm glad you don't. He's no good. He's a professional gambler. I wasn't sure until tonight, but he's done some of our members out of quite a little money, including me. Bill, would you take me home? I'm terribly tired. Of course, of course I will. Thanks. Patrice. Yes, Bill? Have you... thought about what I said this afternoon? Yes, Bill. Well... soon? Yes, Bill. Soon. There was nothing else to do now. I waited until a house was dark and I was sure everyone was asleep. And then I slipped out and got the gun that I'd found one day in a cupboard in the garage. And I drove out to meet Steve. He didn't need to worry about my being on time. I was right there on schedule. Well, well, well, well. Come in, come in. Anything you'd like to have before we start? Yes. I'd like to see the check. Why? Oh, I just want to be sure you still have it. Oh. All right. Here it is, right in my coat... Helen. Helen, put down that gun. You deserve this. You deserve every bit of it. I took the check out of his pocket and burned it there on the fireplace. I threw the gun as far as I could into the lake. And then I drove home and let myself into the dark, quiet house. And although I just killed a man, I slept like an innocent child. Wake up to trees. What time is it? This morning. I'm sorry to wake you, but they'd only give me a few minutes. Bill, what's the matter? I've just been arrested for murder. Murder? I just wanted you to know from me first of all and tell you I didn't do it. No matter how bad it looks, I didn't do it. I threatened him publicly about the money he cheated me out of and the bullets were the same as those for a German Mauser I got in the Far East and people around town knew I had, although they haven't found the gun yet. And then they found me out there. I'd gone out to have a showdown with him. The farmer that delivered his milk came in just after I got there. Bill, who? Georgeson. Stephen Georgeson. Oh, Bill. All right. You'll have to come along now, Mr. Hazard. Darling, don't worry. But you know I didn't do it, don't you? Yes, Bill. I know you didn't do it. That's why I've written this. It's one of those things you read about in the papers. A signed confession. Oh, they've been terribly nice to me. Hired the best lawyers. They say maybe I won't get too bad a sentence. And Bill says that no matter how long it is, he'll still be waiting. But I wonder. I wonder. Suspense. Presented by Roma Wines, R-O-M-A. Selected for your pleasure from the world's greatest reserves of fine wines. And now we bring back to our suspense microphone the star of tonight's play, one of Hollywood's finest young actresses, Miss Susan Peters. Thank you, Mr. Niles. I didn't know you cared. Why, Susan, you know very well that your suspense is mad about you. But with that devoted and very husky husband of yours hanging around, I'm afraid we'll have to remain just friends. Friends it is then, Ken. And Susan, when some of your many friends drop in, so you can entertain them in the grand manner, Roma presents you with this gift basket of Grand Estate California wines. Wonderful. Your Grand Estate wines will be just the thing for the holidays. Right, Susan. There's nothing finer than Grand Estate on any occasion. And Grand Estate Ruby Port or Golden Muscatel are perfect with dessert. Delightful with nuts or cake later in the evening. And I get all those? More besides. Your Roma basket includes Grand Estate Burgundy and Sautern. Proud wines that add dining pleasure and distinction to any meal. Yes, Susan, every Grand Estate wine is a distinguished, limited bottling by Roma, America's greatest vendor. Every Grand Estate wine is born of choicest grapes, then guided to mellow, rich perfection of taste by the unmatched skills and resources of Roma master vintners. When you serve Grand Estate wines, you enjoy the crowning achievement of vintner skill. That's good enough for me, Ken. I hear that you're going to have Joe Cotton on to be your star next Thursday on Suspense. That's right, and the play will be something rather special, if we think. The Thing in the Window. The very newest thriller to come from the pen of Lucille Fletcher, who has written some of our finest suspense plays, including the one which is probably the most famous of them all, Sorry Wrong Number. Well, that I'll certainly have to mark off as a red letter day on my calendar next week. And now, good night. I've certainly enjoyed being with you all this evening. Well, thank you, Susan Peters. And thanks to Metro-Goldwyn Mayor, producers of the yearling, for arranging for you to be with us this evening. At the same time, you will hear Mr. Joseph Cotton as star of... Suspense. Produced and directed by William Spear for the Roma Wine Company of Fresno, California. In the coming weeks, suspense will present such stars as Olivia de Havilland, Lily Palmer, Mark Stevens, and others. Make it a point to listen each Thursday to Suspense, Radio's outstanding Theatre of Thrills. This is CBS, the Columbia Broadcasting System.


This episode was prerecorded as part of a live continuing education webinar. On-demand CEUs are still available for this presentation through all CEUs. Register at allceus.com slash counselor toolbox. So, let's see, everything's good to go. Welcome to today's presentation, Child Development 101, The Toddler. Dun, dun, dun. We're going to examine how the child is starting to develop self-esteem through initiative and independence and explore what can go wrong in this stage and what can be done to repair damages now. And when I say now, I mean, if you have a client who comes in when they're in their teens, 20s, 30s, 60s, what can we do retroactively to repair any of those damages? Because I really believe that humans are quite resilient. And once we understand what's causing the anxiety, the stress, the anger, the fears of abandonment, whatever it is, we really can address them and help people go on to live much happier lives that aren't so filled with angst. So back to Maslow, you know I love the guy. In addition to the biological and safety needs that we talked about with the infant, of course a toddler needs to be fed and needs to be changed and need sleep and they need a safe environment. But now we're also starting to talk even more about cognitive safety. The infant, and we'll get to it with PSJA, is still thinking in, or not infant, but toddler is still thinking in all or nothing and egocentric terms. So when we're talking about this, remember that everything that happens, the toddler is going to sort of file in terms of it's a yes or a no. There's no such thing as a maybe or sort of. It's a yes or a no and how is it about me? What does it say about me? If it's something bad that happens, a lot of times they will internalize that as something bad about them. Not always, but it's important to understand how their minds work because their minds, they are not little adults. They are far from it. So it's important that we interact with them and communicate with them on a way that's meaningful to them. The toddler is starting to develop self-esteem. They're learning, I'm lovable for who I am and I'm lovable even when I make a mistake. So think about your toddler and this is the child that's starting to crawl, learn to walk. They start to learn to walk, they let go of the sofa and all of a sudden they fall on their butt.  And parents usually run over, move over, give them a hug and go, that's okay, let's try again. This is the time parents really need to be that cheering squad and go, you know what, it's okay if you make a mistake. It's okay if you fail. Just try again and I'm here to help literally pick you up and help you try again. In families where the parent doesn't have the skills to know that they need to be attentive, to understand what the child is going through, or if the caregiver is emotionally or physically unavailable, the child may not get this. So when they make a mistake, they fall down and hurt themselves, there's nobody to pick them up. Now the person may be sitting on the couch, but just completely disengaged from what's going on. Again, I want to say, and I'll say it throughout the presentation because I think it's really important that you hear me when I say I'm not blaming the parents for being bad parents. I think they're doing the best they can with the tools they have. However, you know, sometimes our tools just aren't good enough. I was trying to make some shelves the other day and I was using pressure treated wood and the drill that I have was just not powerful enough to, you know, get the screw through the wood. So, you know, how does that relate? Well, my point being, you know, I was doing the best I could with the tools I had and I just couldn't cut it. Some parents are doing the best they can. They were never taught how to be parents or they are so depressed that they're doing good just to get up and feed the child, change the child, meet their basic, basic needs. And you know, that's awesome that they're trying and they're doing the best they can. So off my soapbox there, we do need to understand though that if parents aren't on, the child may fail to get some needs met. They may fail to get that comfort, that assistance in picking themselves up and trying again. They may fail to get that assistance in learning how to do it differently. I remember one time Sean was playing with one of those little, it was a box and you put the pegs in and they're like stars and circles and obels. And he was trying to put a star in a circle place and he couldn't do it.  And he tried a different shape and that didn't work and he's very stubborn. He kept trying to put that he wanted to put something in that hole. I'm like, okay. So I took that away from my like, why don't you try something else?  Now. And I handed him another piece and I said, now that we filled that hole, let's see where this one might go. And then we started talking about problem solving. So instead of being critical and saying, no, it doesn't go there, it goes over here. I encouraged him to sort of explore and try to figure out where it went. But when he didn't do it right, you know, no harm, no foul. He, children need to learn problem solving skills. They need to learn that, okay, when something doesn't work the first time, you know, maybe it's not going to work. So maybe we need to try a different approach. Children, I mean, an 18 month old, a 20 month old, a two year old isn't thinking like that. So we need to help them start moving along and starting to explore the possibility that there may be alternate solutions. And they need to understand that they're lovable even when they make a mistake. If they fall down, if they're out trying to learn how to ride their big wheel or whatever they ride now because, you know, we had big wheels when I was little.  Okay, you know, it's tough. It can be replaced, you know, I'm more concerned that you're okay. And this is what the children need to hear to hear that, you know, I'm lovable, I'm going to make mistakes and that's okay. That's how I learn. They're also developing self-efficacy. They're learning I'm capable of trying new things.  They just kind of sit right next to their caregiver or kind of stand behind their, behind their leg. I mean, this isn't in a scary situation. This is like at your house or their house. But they're afraid to try anything because if they fail, they're afraid they might get in trouble or if they make a mistake and do something wrong. It's, you know, they're just terrified. Children really want parental approval. And my daughter comes to mind with this one because with her and I think part of it she learned how to work the system. But if my husband would look at her with even the slightest cross look, she would well up in these big alligator tears and the lip would come out.  And he'd comfort her and all that kind of stuff. But she wanted his approval. So it was really important that he was able to provide comfort if she did something wrong. I mean, we had to provide correction, but also letting her know that. All right, so let's learn. What can we learn from this? And then we moved on with all that. If I make a mistake, my caregiver is there to help me because sometimes you do.  And yeah, there may be the initial reaction from the caregiver that goes, uh, but once we rain that in and go, okay, you know, that's unfortunate. But you know what? Let's move on. You're fine. We can replace stuff. It is what it is. Uh, it helps the child learn that. All right. You know, I can try things because ultimately when they get into middle school and high school and adulthood, we want them to feel comfortable pushing outside their safety zone. Pushing enough outside where they can grow, not so much that they're going to take a header off the edge of the cliff, but enough that they can feel like, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to stretch myself a little bit here. And if I fail, no harm, no foul, I can learn something from it. Psychosocial development. You live my little potty here. The child is developing autonomy versus shame and doubt, according to Erickson. This is your two and three year olds. And I find that while we call it the terrible twos, the three year olds tend to be a lot more demonstrative and set in how they think things should be, and they're more willing to say no. But I digress. They're trying to figure out, can I do things myself or do I have to rely on other people? So things that can interfere with this development is overly permissive or overly strict parents. Potty training is your key developmental activity at this point. So think about potty training a child. And a lot of us have a lot of horror stories or funny stories, depending on how you want to look at it, that we can tell about when we potty trained our children, which I will spare my children those anecdotes. But if parents are overly permissive, you know, just do what you want.  Well, that may be good in some ways. If they are in preschool, where all of their peers are potty trained, what impact is that having on them? What messages are they getting from preschool teachers if they are the only one that still needs to be in a diaper and still needs to be changed? Likewise, overly strict parents that start potty training and freak out if the child misses the potty or has an accident in their pants. Even if they've been potty training for six months, sometimes it happens, you know. All right, what did we miss? And sometimes, a lot of times, what we missed was the we in the parents. The child may have been given all the cues that they needed to go to the bathroom, maybe not verbal, but all the cues and we missed it. So we need to look at encouraging children. Okay, this is a new skill. You're trying to learn how to do this. So we need to help you learn how to be attentive to your own internal cues and be able to verbalize that when I feel this way, it means I need to go potty. And I will turn you back to mindfulness at this point. This is teaching children mindfulness, teaching children that when I start to feel this way, I need to go potty. And this is how I need to get this need met. Basic mindfulness. Now, you may be thinking, well, that's, you know, what does that have to do with, you know, depression and anxiety later in life? Well, you know, starting to become aware of your physical sensations, because some of us, well, anytime you get angry, scared, happy, any of the, you know, major emotions, there are not only things that we feel that we label happy, sad, mad, glad, scared and afraid. But we also have physical components to that. When I get scared, my heart rate starts to go faster. My breathing starts to go faster. My palms start to get sweaty. And I've learned to label that fear or anger. But I've learned to differentiate that over the years. What we're teaching children is what they're feeling and to be aware of that so they can label it before it becomes an oopsie. We also want to look at lack of praise for exploration and experimentation. The parents that are always going, you can't touch that. Don't touch it. Don't go there. You've got to wash your hands. I may have been a little bit too permissive.  But I wasn't a freak about letting them go outside and explore and getting get their hands muddy. We live on a farm. I let them pick up the chickens and that kind of stuff. Yes, we washed our hands when we came inside. But it wasn't like as soon as you put down the chickens, you need to douse from head to toe in antibacterial. I want them to explore and to not be afraid of the world because if they're constantly being told, don't do that. It's not safe. They either learn that the world is a scary place or they're not capable or both. And we don't want them to learn that. So again, taking this to your adult clients, how many adult clients do we have that are afraid to push past their comfort zone because they're afraid of failure? How many adult clients do we have that perceive the world as a really unpredictable, scary place and they feel like a fish kind of out of water all abandoned by themselves? As clinicians, we can encourage them to start taking small steps and we can be there to give them kudos when they do something that was a little bit uncomfortable and succeeded or failed. You know, and if they fail, we can say, all right, so it didn't work out. What do we need to do now? Do we need to? Do you want to approach it again? And we do this a lot with clients in addictions who come back after they relapse or after they slip. And we say, okay, you slipped. You were doing really good. Now let's take a look at what happened. What cues did you miss that you were getting yourself set up for a relapse? And let's make some changes. It's a very welcoming environment. We're not going to be critical and going, well, you should have known better.  But, you know, generally, you're going to be more concerned about taking care of them at that point. And then we talk about what not to do. Manifestations later in life of not fulfilling this developmental crisis are low self-esteem and a need for external validation, needing somebody else to tell you you're okay. Because the overly permissive parent was so disengaged that they weren't there to go, hey, good job. They weren't there to criticize, but they weren't there to give praise either most of the time. And the overly strict parents, you know, were very critical all the time. So the child is going, what am I good at? What am I worth? What am I lovable for? And they may have a lack of motivation because they were never praised for exploration and experimentation. In our brains, you know, we learn that if we try something and there's praise for it or there's a success, then our brain secretes dopamine and norepinephrine. And it's like a woohoo experience. So we remember this is something I want to do again. If we push outside of our comfort zone and it's punished, those same chemicals aren't secreted and our brain goes, let's not do that again. So exploration and experimentation for that person becomes scary and becomes unpleasant. So we want to change that. We want to encourage clients to start taking small steps and they may be really small steps such as in group participating, maybe even just saying their name or doing the check in. Not all clients are willing to do that at first. And as they start becoming more comfortable, we want to reward that we want to reward when they try a new skill, even if it didn't work. You know, we can say, all right. Let's talk about it. Maybe it wasn't the right skill for you to use.  That's not on you. That just means it's a bad fit. So establishment and reestablishment. Encourage establishment and encourage your child to explore and experiment. Ask them, you know, what would happen if or give them puzzles and let them try. As a parent, it was always hard for me. Even back when Sean was really young and playing with the little blocks and pegs and stuff. It was hard for me not to just jump in and help him so he would succeed. But I knew I had to let him do it on his own. I had to let him try things and learn things without feeling that he couldn't do it. So I would always have to take over. We're talking to an adult. We want to say explore and experiment. What is it that you like to do? What is it that you're good at? As I've gotten older, I had, you know, gotten into a kind of a rut. And, you know, I was talking to my clients one day about what is it that you enjoy doing? What are your hobbies? And I thought about that for myself and I'm like, you know what? I don't know.  So once I finally graduated, I started making a list of all the things I wanted to try. And lo and behold, I found that there are a lot of things I like to do. There are some things I like to do that I'm not really good at, but it doesn't mean I don't like to do them. So encourage your clients to explore and experiment. What things sound interesting? Try them. If they don't fit, if it doesn't feel like it's something fun to do, you know, you don't necessarily have to keep doing it, but at least you tried. And now you know one thing you don't like to do. Praise children for trying even if they fail.  And sometimes it's just painful to watch because they've got to break boards and they don't always break the boards. You know, sometimes they just, they go up and they do the kick they're supposed to do. They don't hit it right. They don't break the board the first time or the second or the third or the fourth. And it's all the parents in the room. You can see us just kind of hurting for this child who needs to break these boards in order to get to the next level. But it's important. And the grandmaster that's in charge of their dojo is very encouraging of the children. And when after they don't break the boards the first couple of times, he will hold the boards.  Maybe this person wasn't holding them right. And a lot of times you see a sense of relief come over the child. It's like, okay, grandmasters got this. I can do this now. And oftentimes within one or two more tries, they are able to succeed, but he doesn't criticize them. He points out later what they might do better or what they could have done better to get it on the right, get it right the first time. And then they practice it. And he goes, okay, you still need to work on this skill. So they have some skill remediation, but there's no criticism, nasty criticism for failing. It's all constructive. It's like, you know what? Great. And I remember there was this one little child. He's so adorable. He's four. And he was supposed to break a board. And he tried so many times. He finally did it.  That was a big kick for a very little boy.  He was just like, okay, I'm not in trouble. It was okay that I made a mistake. We want to reassure ourselves, even if we fail. Because you know what? Sometimes we will go into session and we'll walk out of session. We've all had these days. We walk out of session and we're like, oh, I was not on the mark today. I don't feel like we had a good connection. I mean, it wasn't that we were incapable of providing services, but sometimes there are some days where we just don't feel like we hit the mark. So what do we do? Do we beat ourselves up all day? We review in our mind, what happened? What went on in this session? What could I have done better? You know, I did and then try to think of some good things that we did in the session. When I work with supervisees, I always have them start their supervision session with, tell me three things that went really well this week. And then I want to know one or two things that you think we need to talk about that didn't go as well as you had hoped. I always want the good to outweigh the bad, but I don't want them to overlook the bad. I want them to be able to look at that and go, what can I learn from it?   And okay, this may not be for you, but reassure them that they are loved as is and reassure yourself. If you try something, you make a mistake or even if you don't make a mistake periodically reassure yourself that you're good enough for just being you. You don't have to be any particular something. You don't have to be a CEO. You don't have to be a millionaire. You don't have to be a fill in the blank. You are good enough just for you. And that's really hard for a lot of people to wrap their heads around. Another stage that they're going through is initiative versus guilt. This is your preschool, kindergarten, some kids first grade. Children are beginning to assert control and power. Interferences with this again are overly strict and enmeshed parents that don't want children to get hurt. Don't want children to become more independent or are really just very, very involved in controlling every area of the child's existence. And, you know, we've seen this, we've seen disengaged parents as well. Children want to be able to assert power.  Creates a whole other set of issues, but with regard to initiative versus guilt and feeling like they have personal power. Overly strict parents are the ones that are telling them which lessons they will go to what they will do every minute of their day is controlled. And they're told how they should feel and what they should think. Now, with four and six year olds, obviously they're not the arising on the level of Plato or something. So we're having, it's more like on the level of Plato, but sorry, couldn't resist. We do want to talk with them about what they're thinking and why they're thinking that way to help them understand their thought processes. So we do want to encourage them to take risks still. Encourage them to assert control and say, I want to X, Y and Z. Encourage them to start telling us what their preferences are, what their needs are. When this doesn't happen, they may, again, develop low self-esteem and a need for external validation, because the overly strict and enmeshed parents said, Okay, and you're going to be in trouble unless you do exactly what I tell you to do all the time. So the child just kind of sits there kind of paralyzed going, okay, I need to be a robot and anything I think feel or need is irrelevant unless my parent says it's okay. So they grow up into adults that don't pay attention to what their feelings are emotional, physical, otherwise they start mindless living kind of at this age. They just rely on other people to tell them when it's nap time, when it's time for them to eat, when it's time for them to do whatever. We want to encourage children to learn how to live a healthy life and stay in tune with themselves, obviously.    And they may need to sit at the table with the rest of the family in order to not reward skipping meals. That's going to depend on the family and their parenting style and their preferences, but it's important that children start to be able to assert what they want and need. In preschool and kindergarten, things are a lot looser. When they get to first grade, all of a sudden it goes from nap time and playground time and all kinds of cool stuff to sitting at a table and preparing for your state achievement test. So there's a huge, huge change for children between kindergarten and first grade. That's hard not only for teachers, but for children and for parents because it's not an easy segue. They go from loosey goosey to rigid. And this is what I've seen to be true in most public schools. Private schools have a little bit more latitude, but I tend to see the same thing in a lot of the private schools that I've been exposed to. We want to encourage people to reach out and make friends. Part of asserting control and power is not asserting control and power over people, but asserting control and power over themselves and going, hey, I'd like to be your friend. And you know if it works out great, but also being able to handle rejection. They start learning compromise because when two people, two kids are friends, a lot of times there's not a lot of tact and it's like, well I want to be on the swing. No, I want to be on the swing. They need to learn how to assert control, but also to learn to compromise. And this is beginning in this stage. If we encourage the child to be in tune with what he or she likes, wants and feels, then they will be able to articulate that not only now, which helps parents and caregivers, but later, which helps them. So they're like, okay, I know I'm stressed out. I know I didn't sleep well. I know that, you know what, I'm feeling a little disorganized today. It's a word we use around our house. When any of us start to feel disorganized, we have difficulty focusing, we're kind of sleepy, just not on our game. A lot of times it indicates we're getting ready to get sick. So, you know, I can pay attention to that in my kids and in myself, but they've learned to pay attention to that in themselves too. They, you know, I think I need to take a nap and I will do my lessons on Saturday. And, you know, that's fine with me. As long as the lessons get done, I'm happy. And they may have guilt for having their own needs.  The child may start to feel guilty. They may start to feel like they're in imposition for having needs and having wants. By the same token, I see in a lot of families where the parents will have periods where they're more emotionally and physically available, and they can encourage the child to assert their own needs. And the parent goes into this period where he or she is not really able to deal with much more than just living. And they can't meet the child's needs. So then when the child asserts their needs and caregiver is not able to handle it, then the child gets punished. They become hyper aware of other people's emotions and how they're doing. And they become hyper vigilant because they're afraid that when they assert their wants and needs and that kind of stuff, they're going to get in trouble. So that causes a whole lot of other issues with relationships later in life. If as a child, they always walked on eggshells wondering when or what was going to set the caregiver off. Children begin to start in control and power when they explore and experiment and we can love this. And we can also lament this at the same time. I'll give you an example.  I wouldn't have let him use the stove, but they still do occasionally when they're teenagers. My son decided he was going to try to make oatmeal by himself. And I think he was 14. He was old enough and he wanted to see what would happen if oatmeal actually got on the stove. So instead of asking after he made his oatmeal, he flopped some right on the stove and he watched it and he watched it smoke. Because he just wanted to see if it would catch fire and I'm like, oh my gosh. And his, at the time, 10 year old sister was like, Sean, that was really not a smart move. You know, boys will be boys, but they explored and experimented. So we talked about what are some other ways you could have figured that out without risking catching something on fire. We want to praise children for trying even if they failed. You know, I'm glad you're curious, but let's not do that.  You know, again, this goes back to that unconditional positive regard. I love you for you. I may not like this particular behavior you did, but I love you as a person. You're a good person just made a bad choice. Encourage children to develop friendships with a variety of people. This allows them to start knowing where their limits are, where their boundaries are. And again, it talks about balancing this assertion of control and power and them realizing that they are not king or queen. They're going to have to compromise and they learn to compromise and accept trading power. Reestablishment when we're working with our adult clients, pretty much the same. Encourage them to explore and experiment and give themselves credit for trying even if they don't succeed. Remind themselves why they are lovable for who they are and develop effective goal-setting skills. Why does goal-setting all of a sudden come up? Well, four- and six-year-olds not real cognitively able to set long-term goals. So we're not going to talk about that during the establishment period. But during the re-establishment period, if this person wants to assert control and power, if they want to start getting control of their life again, what is that going to look like? What feels out of control or what's making them feel powerless right now? We know with depression, we're talking about feelings of hopelessness and helplessness. So we're talking about issues of personal power. So what is it that needs to change and how can we help you? How can we work together to help you figure out how to change that? Piaget. You know, we're switching gears now. Psychosocial we're moving out of. But all the while that they're developing these psychosocial skills, they're learning about control and power. They're trying to get their basic needs met. They're still in this pre-operational stage where inanimate objects can be alive and dreams are real. I remember we went through this whole period with Sean where he would talk about poof-up powers. And, you know, he was reeling to Star Wars at the time. And he would talk about poofing up X-wings and, you know, I could poof up Alderaan and poof up this and poof up that. And part of me every time wanted to confront him with reality versus fantasy. But that was also kind of a downer. So, you know, we would talk about what he was talking about and I would join him in his fantasy. And then we would talk about reality versus fiction. We would talk about, you know, what's really capable. But I wouldn't dash it all the time and go, well, there's no such thing as poof-up powers, so quit talking about that. They also had difficulty differentiating between creativity and reality. You know, in their mind, they may come up with this grand plan and this grand scheme, but it may not actually work out quite so much. The preschoolers love to build forts. They love to play pretend. They love to be princesses and kings and cops and robbers and try on different hats, if you will. Try on different roles. And, you know, that is awesome. They realize they're not actually a cop or a robber, but they're trying on different roles. So we want to encourage that. But we also want to help them distinguish between what's safe and what's dangerous and what's truth and what's fiction. So occasionally we may need to kind of pop that little bubble and go, all right, you realize that you can't really poof anything up, right? And every parent knows or tries to figure out when the appropriate time to do that is because we don't want to dash our children's creativity. But we also want them to be fundamentally aware of what's possible. Children at this age typically love to play make-believe, so we need to find our make-believe. And what do I mean by that? I mean, you know, get back into it and kind of try to remember what it was like to be four or five and play make-believe. You know, my grandmother used to be amazing at it and my son's first preschool teacher was amazing at it.  And she would join them almost seamlessly and she would be able to contribute to the storyline in a way that I really struggled with at first. And I remember one time I had her come over and I'm like, Jessica, he doesn't like playing with me. She said, okay, you know, fine. So she came over and she observed us play for a little while and she stopped us after about 10 minutes. And she looked at me and very bluntly said, he doesn't want to play with you because you're boring. I said, excuse me. But she was right. I wasn't getting into it. I was following his lead. I was kind of an observer, but I wasn't involved in it. She's like, there's too much structure. You're trying to control too much or you're not involved enough. So, you know, try to get in and remember what it was like to be a four-year-old. And that helped me a lot because, you know, I was trying to play with him as a parent instead of as an imaginary other four-year-old. So find your make-believe, build that fort, crawl into it, make grilled cheese sandwiches and watch cartoons all day if that's what you want to do. Understand what they're communicating through their play. Sometimes it's fantasy. Most of the time it's probably fantasy. But if they start communicating something that makes you go, hmm, ask them. It doesn't, your interpretation of what they are acting out may not be on point at all. So if they have a drawing that, you know, where one bedroom of the house is completely blacked out, ask them what that means. You know, maybe daddy works night shift and it's dark in his room all day long because he's sleeping and that's why the window is blacked out versus whoever in that room needs to go away and die. You know, there are vastly different interpretations of what's going on. So just ask the child, you know, what does that mean? Or if they represent a family member in a certain way, like with a particular animal, you could start inferring what they may have tried to mean by making mama giraffe. Or you could ask them, what do you mean mama giraffe? What does that mean to you? You'll get a lot more from the child by asking because we have so many more experiences. We put a lot more thought into it, but we put a lot more interpretation into it than most of the time children do. So ask them. Children focus on one aspect of a situation. They call this centration and struggle to see other vantage points. Remember basic egocentrism where what they can see is what everybody else sees. So if you're looking at two different sides of a pyramid, what they see is what they assume you see. Same thing with social interactions. What they perceive, they assume you perceive. And I will take, have you stop right now and think about clients you've worked with who have difficulty imagining that anybody else saw a situation differently than how they saw it. And it causes problems because sometimes, most of the time, everybody sees situations a little bit differently. So effective interpersonal skills means being able to take all the different viewpoints and kind of mush them all together and come up with some cohesive unified story or explanation. As a parent, when you're working with the children, we want to help them find their voice versus being a bully. Yes, this is what they saw. And yes, it's important to be able to assert what you saw, what you feel, what you think what you need. However, what is, what might this other person's perspective be? And Jessica did a great job with this. When the children would get into an argument about something and maybe one would take the other's toy, she would get them together and go, well, that probably wasn't very nice. When you took Tommy's toy, how did he feel? And a lot of times the little kid would go, I don't know. So she would say, when, if Tommy took your toy, how would you feel? Now the kid knows that and he's able to articulate that. And then she would follow up and go, so if Tommy took your toy and you would feel angry, when you took Tommy's toy, how do you think he felt angry? Okay. So she helped them assert their own needs, help them get their own power, but also help them learn how to take other people's perspective and find their voice. I told you, she was just a genius with kids. We want to help them learn to make good choices because sometimes what we see in our own perception and our own perspective isn't the whole picture. We want to help them learn to look and try to explore the whole picture before making decisions, before making assumptions. We want to have them accept their part versus taking total responsibility because that goes back to that egocentrism. When parents come home and, you know, we all come home and we've had a bad day occasionally. Maybe you were driving home and you got a flat tire and it was just, well, man, it was a bad day. You were home and you're in a grumpy old mood. Little children often take that personally and they're like, mommy's angry. She must be angry at something I did. And they're going through all those things that they're hoping you don't know they did. When in actuality, it was nothing to do with them. So one tool that I give a lot of parents that they don't really think about because they're not taking into consideration that children are so egocentric is if you had a bad day. Sometimes you need to come home and go, hey, buddy, I'm glad to see you. Mommy had a really rough day at the office, so I'm kind of grumpy. I'm going to go to my room for a few minutes. Now that's perfectly cognitively understandable. The kid goes, okay, you know, maybe he or she follows you and wants to make it better.  You know, there's a whole realm of possibilities after that. But the parent is modeling taking responsibility for how they feel while also letting the child know, you know what? It may seem like I'm angry at you, but I'm not. I just had a really bad day. We want to help the child accept that everything isn't necessarily their fault or they're doing. And a lot of this comes with misinterpretation of other people's nonverbal cues. You know, sometimes if they knock a vase on the floor, sometimes it was 100% their fault. But a lot of times there was some other stuff that went with it. You know, maybe the vase shouldn't have been down so low or, you know, who knows. But helping the child understand that what their part is and take responsibility for that, but also understand what their part isn't. Interventions, we want to teach effective communication skills and effective perspective taking. In American society, so often we're so concerned with responding and keeping the power in the discussion that as soon as we quit talking, we start formulating our rebuttal to whatever that person's saying. And we're not even listening. We're just assuming we know what's going to come out of their mouth. So communication skills is paramount. Exploring the notion of responsibility. When I work with adults and children, we talk about the three finger rule. When you do something and, you know, I shake, wag my finger, I say two fingers are pointing out at somebody else. So they may have had a part in it. But three fingers are pointing back at me. So what was my part in this? How did I make it worse? What part did I cause? What could I have done differently? And then we want to encourage people, children as well as adults to remember to explore all aspects of the situation, including other vantage points. If your spouse comes home from work and is just in a foul mood, do you automatically assume it's your fault and that you're responsible for fixing it? Or do you think, well, you know, they may be angry at me for something or they may have been caught in bad traffic and they may have had a rough day at the office.  It's not necessarily just about me. So how do I figure out what that is if I want to try to help that person? You know, sometimes it's somebody walking down the hallway and they just give you a very dismissive look.  Now that person whose name you don't even know, you're probably not going to follow up and try to figure out how to make their day better.  You want to talk about what's going on. The same thing we can do with children, if they are, we can read their nonverbals.  I want to talk about what's going on. And that gives them the opportunity to use their communication skills and talk about what's wrong. And then together we can explore what's their responsibility, what's not their responsibility and how can they change how they feel right now. Children often have difficulty putting into words how they feel or what's going on inside. So they have high levels of anxiety or acting out. Perfect example is after school. Children hold it together because they know they need to hold it together at school. Most children and think back to when your children were little or if you've got grandchildren, even if they don't go to school all day long. It's almost like their circadian rhythms are set up to melt down at 430. My kids would come home when Sean was in public school. He would come home even from kindergarten and he would be okay for the first 30 minutes or so. But then come about three o'clock, four o'clock, he would just start hitting the wall and losing his mind. He'd be running around carrying on getting into trouble and I'm like, okay, little dude, what's going on here? Because he had so much energy pent up from being still when he had to be. That's just part of being a kid. So we want to help them learn that. When children are around adults who are upset and they perceive that their caregiver is upset, a lot of times those children will act out. So you're like, you know, add that on top of the fact that I'm already stressed or you can look at it as thank you child. This isn't your responsibility to fix what's going on with me, but the child is actually trying to protect the caregiver. The child is saying you're really upset right now. So look at me. I'll be a distraction. Look at me. Helping parents understand that generally acting out is to get structure or because they're overstimulated or because they have some other need that they don't know how to articulate. That's important, which takes us to our next thing. A lot of this happens because children have difficulty self soothing. They don't know how they don't have those skills. We want to make sure that we teach children to be aware of when they're getting overstimulated or too tired so they can go take a time out. Time out wasn't a negative term in our house necessarily. There was time out for punishment, if you will. But then there was also just time out. I need some quiet time. And when my son would start feeling overwhelmed, he would put himself in time out. He's like mommy, I'm going to go take a time out. Or he would say I'm overstimulated. And that was all I needed to hear. And he would go into his room and when he was ready to come out, he would. So the parenting challenge at this point is to pay attention to nonverbal and verbal cues to help children label their feelings early before they lose all control and their hysterical just like we talked about with the infants. We want to help them identify sensations, urges and feelings associated with emotion. So what does angry feel like? You don't have to do this when the child is angry. You can have a talk about it sometime. You know, when you're angry, what does that feel like? When you're sad, what does that feel like? And what do you want to do when you're sad?  Some children want to go in their bedroom. They want to learn what your child wants to do so you can help them identify when you start feeling this way. This is what you may call sad. Teach children to check in with themselves periodically. As parents, we generally do a pretty good job of this. Checking in with them when they get up in the morning. Hey honey, how did you sleep? How are you feeling? And when they get home from school and hopefully again before they go to bed. How are you feeling? Is there anything you need? Are you doing okay? But it's important to help them start checking in on themselves during the day too, just so they can start getting used to it. Just ask themselves, how am I doing? Am I feeling stressed? Is there something I need? Create a validating environment. If the child tends to be one who is highly emotional, that doesn't mean they're wrong. That doesn't mean they shouldn't feel that way. Again, a throwback to or transfer over to DBT skills. We want to create an environment that says how you feel is how you feel and that's okay. Now let's figure out how to deal with it. But how you feel is how you feel and not tell them that they're wrong for being upset or they're overly dramatic or drama queens when they get upset. We want to say, all right, I can tell this is really hitting you hard. Let's talk about what you can do. This helps the child learn to tolerate emotions. They may be very emotional. It doesn't mean they can't learn to tolerate and regulate them. The earlier kids start learning how to do this, especially ones that tend to be more emotionally reactive, the better off they'll be later and the fewer problems they'll have with emotional self-control and anxiety and depression and hopelessness and hopelessness and so on later in life. Children use everyday objects in conventional and unconventional purposes, so we want to honor their creativity in the right time and place. We don't want them to just be walking through the museum and all of a sudden pick up a display and start hypothesizing about what to do with it. But we do want to encourage them to be creative, encourage them to solve problems, encourage them to get outside the box. One of my favorite activities that I used to do with my classes at UF, I would break them into groups and each group would get a different thing and they would have to hypothesize 10 ways they could use it. We would use bubblegum, the duct tape, a wire coat hanger, paperclip, rubber band, and then I would usually figure out one other thing, so there were six groups and they would rotate through the stations and try to figure out what to do with these things. It just encouraged their creativity to not get stuck in the box and then we would move on to exploring, all right, you were creative with this thing. Now, when you have a problem, how can you get outside the box? How did you figure out all the different ways you could use duct tape? All right, when you have a problem or when your client has a problem, how can you figure out how to help them?  Preschoolers love to ask questions, both to learn facts as well as to learn how to interact with others. We've all been through that phase. Mommy, why is the sky blue? Mommy, why is the dog barking? Mommy, why? Okay, sweetheart. I love you dearly, but Mommy doesn't know all the answers. Thankfully now we've got Google. No, I'm kidding. Do not make Alexa answer all the questions. But we don't want to get impatient with them. We want to applaud them for their curiosity. Another thing we can do during this phase is also learn how to tell them, I don't know. You know, we can look it up. Let's figure out how to look that up. But it's amazing how far it goes when you teach children how to assert that, you know, I don't know something and that's okay to not know everything. We want to help them learn how to answer their own questions, whether that's going on the internet for older children or asking a parent for younger children. We want to help them learn how to self-regulate in mutual conversations. So if they're asking a lot of questions, that's great. But we also want to encourage them to hear what the parent says or what the responding person says and engage in a dialogue instead of just a barrage of questions. We want to encourage children to figure out their own answers. They may not find the answer somewhere. Maybe it's something they've got to dream up, but encourage them to be creative. We want to do this with our adult clients too. We want to help them learn how to answer their own questions. When I start feeling depressed, what are some things I can do? Now, of course, I can give them a laundry list of things, but I'm also going to encourage them to explore different things on the internet and in self-help books and bring them into therapy so we can talk about them and go, okay, why might this work or not work for you? They're little scientists trying to see what happens. What will happen if I drop my ball of play-doh in the aquarium? Let's check it out. In the same way, they test rules and boundaries to make sure everything's the same. The parenting challenge is first and foremost in the situation cleaning the aquarium, but also being consistent and trying to understand the child's motivation. 95% of the time, the child is not trying to be malicious. Every once in a while, they get a streak and they're just acting out. But 95% of the time, the child was trying to either get your attention or they were trying to figure out an answer to a question or a problem. So then we want to talk to them about why did you do that and how else could you have gotten that need met? Children at this age crave structure. So we need, as parents, we need to be consistent and steadfast and not let them sneak away, get away with something once every seven or eight times because that just teaches them that, you know, I just have to wait it out. Same thing is true for our adult clients. We need to teach them to be consistent with themselves and not let themselves get away with having that one drink or, okay, maybe this weekend I can just stay up and party all night long. They need to be consistent with their self-care and steadfast in working toward their goals. Children begin to use strategies for remembering but often use inappropriate and effective strategies. So we want to help them again differentiate truth from fiction, identify intentional lying from an ineffective recall. And sometimes that's difficult, especially with children this age and help them start learning to be more mindful and aware so they can remember what happened, remember what they said and remember what they were told to do. Toddlers in preschool age children are learning that it is okay to have their own wants and needs to communicate those wants and needs and try new things even if they fail. While they're doing all this, they're learning all this stuff. They're also developing emotional regulation skills. So when they fail, it may hurt a lot. So we need to help them figure out how to deal with frustration and anger and fear and all that stuff that happens when we try things and they fail. Children are learning that they're lovable for who they are, reducing the need for external validation and fears of rejection, isolation, failure, the unknown, and loss of control which we'll talk about more next week. Adults who received excessive criticism or who weren't provided sufficient emotional support can enhance their self-esteem by identifying what have you been successful at and what do you want to learn or what do you want to achieve and let's learn how to set smart goals which will increase their self-efficacy. And we can help them deal with grief and resentment issues that may surface regarding parents who failed to meet their needs. As adults, they can look at that middle ground and go, okay, maybe it wasn't because they hated me. Maybe it was because they were barely surviving themselves but it takes a while to get to that point. And they can develop the ability to identify and regulate their emotions but first they have to be able to identify them. So we want to help people start learning to be more mindful. Ultimately, children who are raised in ineffective environments are not doomed to a life of misery. They can reparent themselves but if you're working with parents, helping them identify some of the things they can do and some of the reasons their children may be doing what they're doing helps them get a more successful resolution a lot faster. If you enjoy this podcast, please like and subscribe either in your podcast player or on YouTube. You can attend and participate in our live webinars with Dr. Snipes by subscribing at allceus.com slash counselor toolbox. This episode has been brought to you in part by allceus.com providing 24-7 multimedia continuing education and pre-certification training to counselors, therapists and nurses since 2006.


So, do you and your family have any Purdue traditions that you participated in? Well, I think probably one Purdue tradition that we participate in is, of course, here you get a little bit more snow than the average place, and when you do, you know, our first time at Slater Hill was a lot of fun, slaying down the hill, and the crowd was great, you know, the enthusiasm of, you know, slitting down a big hill and never knowing where you're going to end, and the traffic that you get because it's a ton of students and people over there was a lot of fun. So we like to do that when the weather starts to get snow on the ground and that's always enjoyable for the family. Yeah, that's fun.  Well, we really have tried to be a big part of the Purdue community and that's, you know, like I said, we live right across the street of campus, so we're able to come over here whenever we want. We bought a golf cart a couple years ago just to be able to come over here and drive around and see everything and tour the campus, and my son likes to, any visitors we have here, give them a tour of campus and use the golf cart, which I hope is legal to do that, and that's been a whole lot of fun. It's just kind of, you know, from the Catholic Church of St. Thomas Aquinas over there, which we attend and all the beautiful buildings, the engineering building, the business building, you know, the president's office, you know, going to Mackie and the baseball and softball fields and soccer fields, tennis center, we've kind of tried to do all of it, you know, the beautiful golf courses. Really, it's just a nice big campus with a lot of academically driven individuals that want to get a degree and move forward in life and have success, and, you know, being able to throw football in there has been fun, and it's a safe place to live with a lot of really special, blue-collar people, and that's kind of what we're about, is we don't need any extra pizzazz or, you know, ribbon on top of anything.  When you say you're a normal person, do people come up to you on campus and talk to you? Is Brady kind of the gatekeeper there? Well, probably not as much as you think. I think everybody relates well with everyone, and, you know, you can go around the community and run into some people that want to talk, but for the most part, it's been great, and, you know, we enjoy getting out and doing a lot of different activities. I think Brady needs a paycheck from Purdue. He would like that. Trust me, he's taking care of it very well right now. Do you see him wanting to go to Purdue in the future? Well, that probably is a go at his. I told him you need to get those grades up if you want to go to Purdue. This isn't just an easy place to get in, so he's got a little work to do there, but he loves the people here, and he, you know, spends as much time as he's building his ID, which is a lot, really just as a people person, so I'm hopeful that, you know, he'll figure out the exact path that he wants and without question, Purdue can help get up there. Is there anything else you want to tell him? No, you got it all. You did a good job. Thank you so much.


Hi and welcome back. Today's video is about eating disorders and I'm specifically looking at the fact that there's no right or wrong way to suffer from an eating disorder and there's also no right or wrong way to recover from an eating disorder. Eating disorders are very very complicated illnesses. They are mental health disorders which are a culmination of a mix of biological, psychological and sort of psychosocial environmental factors lots and lots of stuff going into the melting pot basically to create these very very dangerous disorders and so no one's experience is truly typical. We need to be a bit more broad minded in our thinking about what an eating disorder might look like. I think first of all it's important to remember that eating disorders they don't discriminate. They don't care if you're tall or short or fat or thin or able or disabled or of an ethnic minority or of a particular religion or from a certain place in the world. Eating disorders can affect literally anyone and sure there are groups who are at higher risk either because of biological or environmental factors and there are some groups who are at less risk but actually eating disorders have been found to be pervasive so it's never an impossibility. So they don't discriminate very very up for their diversity are the eating disorders, evil evil eating disorders and so things that might be different about people who are suffering from an eating disorder. So the number one thing is their weight. So somebody could be suffering from a serious eating disorder and be very very emaciated. Someone could be suffering from a serious eating disorder and be very overweight. They might be gaining weight. They might be losing weight. They might look really really healthy. So they could be any weight. Eating disorders and weight are tied together and it's one of the things that we might be looking for. We might be looking for weight fluctuation, weight gain, weight loss but you could be any weight and suffering from an eating disorder. You cannot look at someone until they have an eating disorder. You cannot look at someone who is obese and think right they must have some form of eating disorder. Equally you cannot look at someone who's very underweight and make an assumption about an eating disorder. There are other things that can cause those things but equally as I say someone could look really really healthy and be suffering horribly with an eating disorder. Increasingly we find that people get very very controlled by their food and their eating things like cleaning eating and very very tied to fitness and they might look like an absolute paragon of health but actually they are completely controlled by their thoughts and their feelings and their actions and behaviours around food and exercise every day. So any weight. The next thing that can really very massively is about body image. So we tend to have this assumption that people who are suffering with an eating disorder will want to be thinner, will consider themselves fat and that that's the only form that these disorders can take regardless of what weight someone is at and that again is just not true. So it's really really common for people who have an eating disorder of whatever type and whatever weight they're at to loathe the way that they look to have a distorted view of the way that they look and we certainly do have lots and lots of cases where you will find someone who is very underweight who will still consider themselves for example to be too fat but when it comes to body image it's not just about wanting to be thinner it's not just about wanting to be beautiful. Some people their eating disorder will specifically be in order to try and make themselves less desirable. So people who've suffered abuse for example may look less desirable to their abuser or potential future abusers by becoming very thin or very fat this can go with self-harm sometimes too. Other people just want to disappear and so that that that strive for thinness is about wanting to take up as little space as possible just not wanting to be here anymore and it's nothing to do with you know wanting to be the kind of thin ideal or anything like that it's just literally about wanting to take up as little space in the world as possible and for those kinds of people often this can be like a very very slow sort of form of suicide really just gradually gradually disappearing not being able to manage with being here. For some people it's not about getting thinner at all for some people it gets tied into wanting to be very toned and muscular and very fit and it can go it can go that way so typically this is something that we tend to see in our boys more but it can happen again any gender and someone who is driven very very driven by the needs to eat incredibly healthily or healthily and to build muscle all the time and this is their driving force and they can't manage without it and it's kind of controlling them rather than they're controlling it that's a problem too. So body image can be very very different across the different eating disorders and different people's experiences and at different points for some you know for one person our kind of motivations and our thinking and things like that can change. The body in the background is slightly distracting me it's snowing today and he's a little thrown by the snow he keeps barking at it it's quite funny. Okay next is about feelings towards food so this can vary hugely and again it can vary for the individual over time or it can vary between individuals so someone who has an eating disorder there are many types and shapes of eating disorder some people who have an eating disorder will turn to food for comfort they will eat food in order to kind of reach a temporary oblivion like you might reach for drugs or alcohol for some people it's food other people will purposefully deny themselves food as a kind of form of self-punishment or as a form of control some people will deny themselves food but really really crave it really want to eat feel great feelings of hunger and desire and love the control of not giving into those feelings. There's lots and lots of different ways that that people might approach it and again there's not one size fits all here and so you won't necessarily see one really big typical thing for someone who is very emaciated and eating very little if anything it's not unusual for them to do things like pour over cookbooks or do very extravagant cooking for other people and maybe even really want to join in with that but not absolutely like reneging in the control of not doing it and on the other hand you might get people who are very very overweight who say they get no enjoyment from food at all but they feel absolutely compelled to eat and aren't in control of their behavior on food so lots of different feelings towards food. Another thing that varies massively is the motivation so what do we get out of our behaviors around food so for some people it's about control for some people it's about kind of meeting an unmet kind of emotional need so it might bring comfort of some kind for some it's about self-punishment so again lots and lots of different reasons and the only way that we really learn is to talk to the particular person who we are concerned about. Another thing that will vary massively between different people with different eating disorders and different experiences and maybe at different times is how they look so we talked about weight before but this is also true of how healthy you might look so you could look very healthy with an eating disorder or you could look very unhealthy and that might be to do with the pallor of your skin your hair thinning or additional hair growing might be brittle nails there's all sorts of different things that can come with an eating disorder that might make you look otherwise unhealthy but again as I say for some people and maybe in the earlier stages actually you might look really healthy in the beginning so a not atypical path for some sufferers is to start off relatively overweight and to take really positive steps to try and take control of their eating their exercise and to pass through a period of actually being really healthy and getting great encouragement from everyone around you going well done this is really brilliant to see you looking healthy and well and then sometimes actually though that then carries on and it then passes down into unhealthy and so that's not a typical path but the person with the disorder might have been just as unwell and just as tormented and distressed and emotionally turbulent at the point at which they look really healthy as they were passing down this trajectory basically you might look healthy on the outside and still have a very very I guess unhealthy mind and that's true in recovery to so one of the really difficult things about recovery from an eating disorder is that one of the first things we tend to address is weight we try and stabilize weight whether that's bringing it down or bringing it up and we try to get to a healthy weight and then you'll find that somebody looks so much better than you've seen them looking for ages and you think great we're there and actually we're not there we're just right at the beginning of a really long journey that's gonna likely involve lots of ups and downs and so how healthy we look can vary massively and then finally alongside that I guess is how well we seem now some people are amazing at hiding how distressed they are as a result of their eating disorder and that might be physical distress as a result of their eating behaviors it might be emotional distress that kind of underlies that or maybe somewhat tied in with those behaviors some people are really good at hiding that perhaps they've been doing it for weeks months years and it comes a second nature maybe they're really really motivated to hide what's going on other people not so good at hiding that or don't try to hide it and so you might come across someone who seems very very distressed seems very unwell is evidently poorly with their eating disorder and you might come across someone else who doesn't even acknowledge that there's a problem who seems to be able to manage just fine and their grades aren't slipping or their work performance isn't slipping and they seem okay those two people might equally be suffering from an eating disorder and it's just presenting in very very different ways so yeah eating disorders they take many shapes and sizes they do not discriminate there is no right way and no wrong way to suffer from an eating disorder there is no right way or wrong way to recover from an eating disorder what the eating disorders kind of all have in common is that they are very serious mental health issues that it is very difficult to recover from without professional input and support and they also have in common that they tend to have quite a long lifespan and that that recovery period is something that needs to be supported over quite a period of time even well after things appear okay and that's so important so if you know someone who is in the process of recovering from an eating disorder even if they seem very well and healthy and happy that doesn't mean to say that they don't still need ongoing support and you absolutely need to remain vigilant of the possibility of relapse and thinking about how we would manage difficult times as and when they arose okay that felt quite long I hope it was kind of helpful and I hope it just opened hearts and minds a little bit to the idea that eating disorders they vary massively they vary massively the most helpful most important thing you can do if you are worried about someone you think they might have an eating disorder is to reach out to them to stop to listen to show them that you care and then to take the next step to help them access appropriate support now depending on their age and the stage of their illness then that might mean supporting them to go visit their GP it might be supporting them to talk to someone at school but essentially taking those next steps a really good place to find out what support is available to you locally and to learn a bit more about the different eating disorders is the beat charities and they have a great helpline they have lots of forums lots and lots of information and don't despair eating disorders are very serious but it absolutely is possible to live with an eating disorder and to ultimately go on to recover from it okay thank you so much if you found this helpful please leave a comment below please like it if you liked it and also take a moment to hit subscribe and you'll find out when I release new videos okay goodbye for now