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Archive for adolescents and children

Take a Stand Against Eating Disorders

Posted by Laura Cardella on
 May 18, 2017
  · No Comments

An eating disorder is a condition that keeps a person from eating food in a way that promotes good physical and emotional health. While more prevalent in Western nations, all races, cultures, genders, socio-economic groups and ages are susceptible to eating disorders. The general public became aware of eating disorders in 1983 following the death of a famous singer, Karen Carpenter, from anorexia nervosa.

Facts of Disordered Eating

As of 2011, 10 million men and 20 million women in the United States suffer from eating disorders at some point during their lifetime. Eating disorders often coexist with psychological and medical issues such as low self-esteem, depression, anxiety, trouble coping with emotions and substance abuse. Statistics showing girls under 10 years of age being worried about their body weight and shape are concerning. A variety of athletes are currently obsessed with having a perfect, thin and beautiful body.

What Causes Disordered Eating?

Dissatisfaction with one’s body or appearance is one main reason for disordered eating.   For some, a preoccupation with food becomes a way to gain control over at least one aspect of their lives.  Social media, television, movies and magazines present artificial and unhealthy ideals of beauty. This causes some young girls, teens, women, boys, men and their families to be preoccupied with dieting and thinness.

Kinds of Eating Disorders

Bulimia nervosa is an emotional disorder involving a distorted body image, eating large amounts of food and an obsessive desire to lose weight. These bouts of extreme overeating are followed by depression, guilt, shame and often self-induced vomiting, purging, or fasting or extreme exercising. It effects 3.5% of women, 2% of men, and up to 1.6% of adolescents in the U.S.  Bulimia nervosa has the highest rate of suicide of all eating disorders.

Anorexia nervosa is about extremely low body weight, but the patient sees themselves as overweight. Patients may actually die of starvation. Statistics show 10% of people with anorexia nervosa die within 10 years. Anorexia has the highest death rate of all psychiatric diagnosis.

Ways Society Makes it Worse

Sadly many adore superficial beauty in our sophisticated postmodern American society. Being a singular type – young, unblemished and thin is to be perfect. The media prefers a single body type and discourages tolerance of differences and varieties of physique. Additionally, we find attitudes and trends of unhealthy thin models in television and movies, magazines and social media on screens throughout the world. Those committed to encouraging their families’ healthy eating habits must battle the merciless influence of outside pressure. These social influences make it even more difficult to nurture and maintain healthy eating habits. So what is to be done to help people successfully nourish their families?

What Can you do? 

There are things you can do to prevent eating disorders even if you or someone you love is not struggling with an eating disorder. For example, you can spread awareness through education, be aware of the dangers and mindfully prevent the glamorizing of poor eating habits. In other words, take a stand!

  • Prepare, serve and eat in healthy ways so that you and your family maintain healthy, nourishing habits. If you enjoy apps, check out The Best Eating Disorder Apps of 2016 (These apps offer ways to track eating and exercise, use cognitive behavioral therapy or positive affirmations for promoting healthy eating styles.)
  • Do not shop at or buy products from stores that glorify overly thin models and starvation lifestyles.
  • Take a positive stand against the dieting trend. Speak with your sons and daughters about the harm of eating disorders. Help them use common sense to see how the media distorts overly thin body types.
  • Finally, speak up for and model healthy attitudes and eating practices wherever you find yourself: at work, with parenting groups, in programs for school children, athletics, scouting and church activities. Encourage a culture of accepting diversity of healthy body types and nurturing eating practices.

It Is Up To Me If It Is To Be

If we do not stop the swing toward rewarding faulty thinking and unhealthy choices, no one else will do it for us. So it is up to you and me. We must not accept the distortion that being too thin is best. Will you take a stand with me and reclaim healthy eating patterns for our families?

Laura L. Cardella, LPC Intern,

Supervised by Amy Fuller PhD, LMFT-S, LPC-S  

 

 

 

Fuller Life Family Therapy Institute,  invites you to comment on or share this blog.  Let this be a way of standing strong and joining the conversation to help families choose healthy eating habits!

 

Categories : Counseling, Eating Disorders, Lifestyle, Mental Health, Self-Awareness, Self-Esteem
Tags : abuse, adolescents, adolescents and children, eating disorders, self-awareness, self-esteem

The Shift We Need to Save Our Kids

Posted by Lesley Anne Mendonça on
 June 25, 2014

This article starts an ongoing series, titled “How To Save Our Kids”, in an attempt to support our teens and families more. Stay tuned-in to the Fuller Life Family Therapy Blog for more on this topic!  

At any given point in our human history, our culture keeps no secrets as to its ailments.  Rather, our culture mercifully shows us how it hurts through symptoms.  To face the sometimes ugly wounds of our culture is uncomfortable, to say the least.  However, if we are able to tolerate that discomfort long enough to listen, we can hear exactly where we are hurting in our societal family.  In the wake of the most recent U.S. school shooting, we are at a staggering 74 shootings since the tragic Sandy Hook shooting in December of 2012.  We, as a culture, are hurting; and our kids are taking the hit for us.

There is a rapidly growing body of literature on the shifting needs of a better state- and nation-wide mental health system, however the buck does not stop with policy makers and proper legislation.  If we trace this state of unrest and violence to the source – where do we truly find ourselves?  What drives a child or adolescent to become so angry, so alone, and so filled with fear?  A young person who is driven to an act of violence that implicates their entire school must not feel supported, encouraged or cared for.  The emotional and psychological needs of our children go by the wayside if our adults are unable to care for them.  So the issue we have on our hands is not limited to our young people, but rather implicates our entire society at large: We, as a culture, are being called to boldly reprioritize our value system and place mental health at the top.  Whether we are a parent, a relative, a teacher or simply a U.S. citizen – each of us comes into contact with adolescents and therefore bears a role.  Here are a few self-reflective questions to help us get started in reprioritizing, and responding lovingly – yet boldly – to the state of things:

How is my own mental health?  When is the last time I had a mental health check-up?  Dr. Amy Fuller, founder of Fuller Life Family Therapy, recommends routine mental health check-ups as frequent as every six months.  Every human person requires physical care, mental care and emotional care.  Can we properly support our young people if we, ourselves, are hurting?  Mental Health America (MHA) offers free initial screenings online for four of the most common pitfalls in mental health.   Check out the following ten tips from MHA on how to take care of ourselves holistically! [Click each tip for more information.]

  1. Connect with others
  2. Stay positive
  3. Get physically active
  4. Help others
  5. Get enough sleep
  6. Create joy and satisfaction
  7. Eat well
  8. Take care of your spirit
  9. Deal better with hard times
  10. Get professional help if you need it

Do I know what the typical teenager is struggling with in contemporary culture?  We, as adults, are working hard and doing what is necessary to provide for ourselves and our families.  It stands to reason that we might see this as top-priority!  However, our teenagers are busy waging wars in their social circles and within themselves.  They are learning new, and often troubling things, as they cross the bridge from childhood to adolescence.  It can be traumatic, scary and incredibly confusing.  We cannot forget to be there for our adolescents as they experience this jarring transition; this is our new priority. Issues like suicide, sex, drugs, alcohol, and social media concerns are bombarding our kid’s minds and hearts through every channel on a daily basis.  Our role as adults is to stay connected with our young people to help them feel supported and safe as they learn and grow.  Though we can only go so far to protect the minds and hearts of our young people, we can stay current with their culture and learn how it affects them.  If we are unfamiliar with what is out there – why not start boning up on pop culture and learning what is important to our kids?  The Center for Parent/Youth Understanding is a brilliant resource to begin familiarizing ourselves with what is trending in youth culture.  Though it is geared towards parents, this website has something for each of us to learn about youth culture.

How do I communicate with the young people I come into contact with?  If we want our young people to feel supported, we must learn to keep open lines of honest communication with adolescents.  Statistically speaking, roughly 20 to 40 percent of teens will experience more than one episode of depression, lasting an average of eight months within a period of two years; 70 percent of troubled teens will experience another episode before adulthood (Source: Parent Resources).  What this means to us is that – at any given time – our teens have at least one thing on their minds and hearts that has potential to bring them down.  Perhaps our teens desperately need to talk, but need the adults in their lives to be the ones to reach out.  So how do we reach out in a way that can truly reach our young ones?  We can start with these initial tips, borrowed from adolescent expert Dr. Michele Borba:

1.  Rather than multitask, give your full attention to teens when they speak to you.

2.  Practice empathy rather than advice-giving.

3.  Routinely ask if there is anything on a teens mind or heart.  If you get a wall, you can gently ask again.  Then simply let them know you are there for them.

4.  Empower teens by asking questions about their thoughts and opinions.

5.  Respect young people and the journey they are on.  Practice patient compassion for the developmental challenges teens are undergoing.

These things, though simple, can help a teen feel a sense of belonging, importance and worth – which naturally and effectively wards off lonely down-spirals of anger and frustration.  With the support of a loving and attentive adult, there is no issue that a teen cannot handle. We are living in a time when mental health needs can no longer be on the back burner, and our teens are reminding each of us of our role in helping to heal our culture.  Stay tuned into the Fuller Life Family Therapy Blog for more on how to show up for our teens!

 

Lesley Anne Mendonça

Lesley Anne Mendonça

M.A., LMFT-Associate, LPC-Intern

Supervised by Dr. Amy Fuller, LMFT-S, LPC-S

 

A Note on School Shootings:

For more information on school shootings and how to get involved, visit Stop The Shootings.  Looking for some tips on how to talk about school shootings with children?  Read up on what Dr. Gregory L. Jantz writes in Hope for Relationships for some great tools.   We, as a societal family, have an obligation to persevere in caring for one another – and that care must include emotional and psychological well-being.  We are called to make an ongoing commitment to lasting change.

 

 

Categories : Adolescents & Children, Communication, Parenting, Sticky
Tags : adolescents, adolescents and children, Empathy, parenting, self-care, teenagers

Parenthood: The Power of Breathing

Posted by JenniferChristian on
 April 7, 2014

Parenthood is an adventure. Each day brings new challenges and new surprises. We can feel exhilarated one moment and the very next minute we may feel overwhelmed. One of the most important things we can do is remember to breathe. A few deep breaths create a little cushion of space to think over how to best respond.

When we do not give ourselves a few moments to calm down, we cannot connect with the reasonable, logical part of our brain. Our parenting hopes and goals are stored in this area of the brain. It is difficult to think at all. This inability to think can create even more frustration and little options. We may end up yelling or reacting too harshly when we feel pressured to act right away. Acting while we are emotionally escalated is somewhat like shaking up a snow globe. It becomes more and more blizzard-like the more agitated it gets. We cannot see clearly.

In the following video, Dr. Daniel Siegel uses a simple model to show how the brain disconnects, or “flips it’s lid” when overstressed. 

Dr Daniel Siegel Presenting a Hand Model of the Brain

Take a Breath

Can we give ourselves permission pause for a moment and breathe? Deep breath connects us instantly to the calming mechanisms of our body. “As it turns out, deep breathing is not only relaxing, it’s been scientifically proven to affect the heart, the brain, digestion, and the immune system.” (Cuda, 2010) When we take a few deep breaths, we give a signal to the body that it is okay to calm down. Our brain reacts just like the snow globe. We set the snow globe down, the snow settles, and we can now see clearly. When we are able to pause and take a breath, we reconnect to the front part of our brain and lessen the pressure to have to act right away. This space opens up more options in how we want to respond to our children.

We can even share this little breathing space with our children. When we are upset, or our children are upset, practice breathing together. This practice can teach our children how to calm themselves, too. Here is a simple breathing exercise we can do anywhere:

Mother childTen Count Breathing

  1. Breathe in and say, “Breathe in, one.”
  2. Breathe out and say, “Breathe out, one.”
  3. Repeat with consecutive numbers (2,3,4,5, etc.) until 10.
  4. Notice any shift in the body’s stress level. Notice any shift in your child.

This breathing exercise can easily be used anytime, anywhere, and for any type of stressful situation such as work, traffic, and even relationship conflict. As we breath deeply, we calm ourselves and are able to see more clearly.  We open up the ability to respond with more care for ourselves and others.

For more great resources on parenting, check out Fuller Life’s on-line parenting magazine, Growing Kids and Teens. Also, check out our Counseling Kids and Counseling with Teens pages for more resources and support.

Cuda, Gretchen. (2010). Just Breathe: Body Has A Built-In Stress Reliever: http://www.npr.org/2010/12/06/131734718/just-breathe-body-has-a-built-in-stress-reliever

Contributed by:

Jennifer Christian, M.A., LPC

Categories : Adolescents & Children, Breath Work, Emotions and Relationships, Parenting, Self-Care Practices, Sticky, Stress Management
Tags : adolescents and children, breath work, emotions and relationships, mindfulness, parenting, self-care practices

Courage to Face Our Fears

Posted by JenniferChristian on
 August 13, 2013
  · 1 Comment

 CourageCourage

We all have fears. Many of us have experienced times when we feel stuck because we are afraid; scared to take a test, go to the doctor, share our worries, get a shot, make a certain phone call, go on that job interview, _______ (fill in the blank). The good news is that we can use tools that foster resilience and help us face our fears. These are acts of courage. Courage, as defined by Webster’s Dictionary, is “the mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty.” Courage does not imply doing something without fear.

“After interviewing hundreds of people about the truths of their lives – the strengths and the struggles – I realized that courage is one of the most important things that resilient people share in common.” Brené Brown

Resilience

The psychological definition of resilience is “an individual’s tendency to cope with stress and adversity.” A Houston therapist shared the following story recently of her daughter, Madison, a thirteen year old girl who faced her fears with courage as she used tools she has learned to help her become more resilient.

Girl on BicycleMadison went to the doctor with her mother for her annual wellness check. Madison told the doctor about a wart that had been on her leg for about six months. Her parents had used over-the-counter medications to treat the wart, but it did not seem to be helping. Madison admitted that she was terrified at the thought of getting the wart removed. She was scared of getting a shot, as well as the the pain she knew she would feel. The doctor told her that it would be best to remove it, but Madison said, “No.” Madison called her mother, Debbie, into the room, and Debbie explained that it was important to follow the doctor’s advice. Debbie knew that Madison was frightened, but she and Madison had talked on a number of occasions about tools that helped face her fears. Madison squeezed her mother’s hand with tears in her eyes. She said she was still scared, but gave the doctor permission.

These are some of the tools Madison practiced to build her courage:

  • Get the facts. Madison asked a number of questions about the procedure until she was satisfied that she knew exactly what to expect.
  • Seek out connection. Madison called her mother into the room for support and comfort. She did not have to face her fears alone.

“Courage is like—it’s a habitus, a habit, a virtue: You get it by courageous acts. It’s like you learn to swim by swimming. You learn courage by ‘couraging.’ The same is true for compassion and connection. We invite compassion into our lives when we act compassionately toward ourselves and others, and we feel connected in our lives when we reach out and connect.” Brené Brown

  • Laughter is good medicine. Madison and her mom told silly jokes to the doctor during the procedure. Debbie reminded Madison that laughter temporarily relieves pain and also calms anxiety.
  • Be creative. As Madison began to relax, she began to sing a silly song with a number of complicated verses. Her song made everyone laugh and the tension melted in the room. 

After the procedure was finished, Debbie asked Madison what she learned about herself. Madison replied, “I am braver than I thought I was.”

Face Our Fears

The next time something scary gets in the way, we can learn some tips from a young teenager on how to be brave. Here is a list of tools we can practice that build resilience and help us be courageous.

  1. Connect with others
  2. Laughter
  3. Gratitude
  4. Play
  5. Breathe
  6. Exercise

Brené Brown: The Gifts of Imperfection

Bron Roberts: 10 Top Tips for De-stressing and Building Resilience

 

Categories : Adolescents & Children, Anxiety & Panic, Anxiety Issues, Counseling, Emotional Intelligence, Gratitude, Mental Health, Parenting, Self-Care Practices, Self-Esteem, Sticky, Stress Management
Tags : adolescents and children, anxiety, gratitude, parenting, self-care, self-esteem, stress management
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    • Couples Counseling
    • Family Counseling
    • Counseling Kids
    • Counseling with Teens
    • Speaking Engagements
  • Team
    • Harold Gibson, Student Therapist
    • Lindsay Perry, Resident Therapist, Loop
    • Stephanie Jordan, Resident Therapist, Loop
    • Chantail Green, Resident Therapist
    • Dormetra Henry, Resident Therapist
    • Manet Castañeda,Resident Therapist
    • Dr. Amy Fuller, Clinical Director
  • Resources
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      • Depression
      • Anxiety
    • Local Houston Resources
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      • Self-Compassion
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