Susan-Elizabeth Littlefield
from babies to kids, it’s no secret that there’s been a lot going on in the world. And for a lot of us as adults, it’s just a lot to process. So how do we even begin to talk to our kids about everything, that’s where your snow bores us steps in with this week’s Sunday check in, you know, I something I want to talk to you about is your mother. Being a parent has been so tricky, especially over the past couple of years, there’s so much uncertainty, talk to me about that.

Jasna Burza
The pandemic, the last two years has affected the mental health of children due to disruptions in routine and just cancellation of activities and children thrive on routines. And not to add to that, but predominant influence to that has been the stress that we have been feeling as parents needing to manage all of that. And the studies are showing right now very, very alarming trends around the world, the children are really feeling a very effective increase the trips to the therapist is significantly increase. So it is something that is so worthy of talking about but I do believe there are things that we can do as parents and caregivers to support our children.

Susan-Elizabeth Littlefield
Okay, let’s go. Well, number

Jasna Burza
one is to model coping skills. You know, children observe, they emulate they, they they look at their parents deal with stressful situations, and they emulate the approach I see my children are doing that all the time. You know, all the parents are, you know, what great copycats children are. And I think one of the greatest things we can give our children is them watching us cope with stress. So example can be you know, mommy’s feeling very, very sad. I cried, because of the very unfortunate world event war happening in last weekend, my children watched me cry. And then I explained, and I tell them, mommy’s feeling very, very sad. But here’s how I’m going to make myself really feeling well, I watched her videos of children. And then I took deep breaths. And that’s really powerful. And a book that I highly recommend for parents, called the conscious parent by Dr. Shefali, Sabari, that talks about the, you know, the things that our children are going through may trigger things in us and incredibly important to manage our own emotions.

Susan-Elizabeth Littlefield
And I love this so much, guys now, because we’re not pretending like we’re not upset. And we don’t have emotions, but we’re showing that we’re doing something about it. And we’re facing it.

Jasna Burza
Yes, and not hiding about, there’s something called in parenting, emotion coaching, where we openly talk about emotions, and we’re really taking the time to listen to the children. So if they’re acting out, you know, addressing it saying, How are you feeling? And very often with children, we draw and asking them about it, we assume that if children aren’t presenting problematic circumstances, that everything is fine. Well, not necessarily children process things very differently. So you know, using the emotion coaching and asking them, validating their emotions, and just listening without needing to fix is such an incredible service we can do for our children.

Susan-Elizabeth Littlefield
I love that I love listening, and then something to hear. Lastly, that I’ve noticed with kids who have gone through terrible things, even in moments of great grief, it’s almost like the kids are the ones who calm us it seems like they’re resilient in a way

Jasna Burza
that children are so incredibly resilient if they’re given the especially if they’re given the support and the tools. And I think that if we continue to prioritize their validate their emotions and create incredibly safe structures for them, so maintaining the healthy routines for children, sleep, exercise, socializing. So really, like we mentioned, they thrive on routines, so if we can provide that they will feel a little bit more safe and feel like even though it seems like parents and the world is going through so much in that little, you know, confines of the house, they feel safe, and they feel like they’re going to be okay.

Susan-Elizabeth Littlefield
Great. Thank you so much wonderful advice. Such a pleasure.

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