you all to the CCD 75 parent Outreach support group I we will go ahead and start this meeting at 6:36 p.m. I will start with the interpreters giving their instruction Spanish interpreters you have the floor please provide your
instructions good evening thank you thank you as well Mandarin interpreter you now have the floor to provide your instructions good evening thank you I'm done thank you so much bangler interpreters you now have the floor to
give give your instructions number thank you thank you so much I want to thank everyone for their time um and willingness to come out tonight for our three-part Series where we are being supported with family kind and Robin M
uh m don't get me with the butchering of your last name my apologies she has been a super um resource and partner um with us here they support parents and caregivers including those who are divorced those who are separated those who are going
through overwhelming spaces stresses and Transitions and it was really on our hearts to make sure that we provide a space that is for well-being for our parents so the first portion of our meeting tonight will be supporting emotional Wellness and calming your body
with stress relief and grounding with that being said I would like to hand over the floor to Robin Anne thank you again tonight for facilitating you now have the floor to give your presentation thank you so much thank you everyone welcome I'm so excited for all of you to be here um I'm very happy about this and
Christy you're fabulous so I really appreciate working with you um and we want family client exactly what Chris said we just our whole goal is to help families and to make life easier for you um so that's what we're planning on doing this evening so hopefully through this presentation um I can give you a little support and we know that it's not
easy it's not easy raising children it's not easy with all of our obligations but hopefully this can give you a little space and understanding that you deserve this you deserve to think about yourself and you deserve to have some type of self-care so we're going to talk about your emotional selfcare what that might
look like um and what um it overall Wellness would be so when we talk about parental emotional Wellness it is the ability to manage your own emotions and adapt to change and we know being parents Guardians it it changes all the time life in general changes a lot so
that emotional Wellness is something we're all striving for it enable us to be better support for our children emotional health and their development as well as our own emotional health and development and those of around us so again very important to just stabilize ourselves in this emotional Wellness
feeling so the benefits of Guardians having a parental emotional Wellness that is stable it reduces your stress which enables you to F be flexible and stressful situations it enables you to calm down and respond instead of react which is what we all aim to do it
reduces our burnout and depression levels so when we are able to emotionally regulate and calm our nervous system and calm ourselves down and have some type of common peace even if it's just for a few moments and I'm a parent myself so I know how difficult it is to have those moments um but it does
reduce our burnout so actually replenishing ourselves gives us more time to be healthier moving forward um it better relationships with our children and any significant others that are in our lives friends family um enables us to create a stronger nurturing relationship with our children
because we're calm so when our nervous systems are calm when we are emotionally regulated our children are emotionally regulated so that's something to really strive for which I know most of us strive for the next part for children so the benefit of us of the Guardians being
emotionally well and regulated better MO regulation for our children so they learn to identify and manage their own emotion they learn to regulate and look at the activators what's triggering their emotions and connecting their mind and their body together so by modeling this it helps the children to grow into
healthier adult stronger self-esteem for our children developing a healthy sense of self and self-confidence so when they can regulate their emotions and they feel in control and regulating those they're able to have interpersonal relationships they work better with others they feel like they're worthy to
be in relationships and that's something we really strive for for them so again stronger self-esteem when we are emotionally well our children are bed to cope um they're able to cooperate their behaviors are more manageable um they learn to deal with stress in a healthy
way they learn to deal with difficult emotions in a healthy way instead of these maladaptive behaviors these negative behaviors like drinking um um aggressive behavior violence this is the opposite of that just gives them a calm feeling that they know that they can get through these feelings and they can get
through the stress with our help stronger social skills it is proven from some research lots of research actually that children who have emotionally stable parents or Guardians will also be children who have empathy and they're curious and they have that social emotional IQ that is much higher so
they're more mindful of other people um which is something that really helps them in interpersonal relationships and better decision- making so when children are emotionally well because their parents are emotionally well it allows them to make better choices healthier choices for them so they just won't
follow the crowd they'll do what's best for them with our guidance so how can you improve your emotional Wellness lots of Guardians ask me this it's very difficult to do for a lot of us because we just don't have the time but I always tell Guardians that we're worth it we are worth the time all
of you deserve some time to yourself and to kind of get yourself together um so practicing healthy coping strategies try mindfulness which we're going to be talking about over the next few weeks breathing exercises singing anything that makes you feel calmer even if it's just for a few seconds even it's for a
few moments um that's what we're striving for um we're not asking you to sit there for an hour um and be calm because we know that's just not realistic um be kind to yourself I think this is the hardest part of a parental emotional wellness it's really difficult for Guardians not to judge themselves
not to have the parental guilt um about the way they parent about the way they don't parent um so really being kind and having Grace self- Grace and this is something CH and I talked about um just having that self- Grace and understanding that you are going to make mistakes we all make them we are going
to have ruptures and yell and scream and not have enough time but we can repair them and we have to have self-a um so again over the next few weeks um this miniseries is hopefully going to help you with that channel energy in healthy ways so find activities that make you feel good even if you can get it in few
moments a day um or every other day um if it's reading if it's taking a walk if it's just sitting on the couch and like you know hanging out with your family whatever that might be um ask for support talk to loved ones about how you're feeling um how does that how are
you feeling reach out to people who can support you those people who are really there for you who are going to listen where you know that they have your back that's really difficult I think sometimes to find so again I think this place this is a very safe place to do that which is wonderful Bonito you have
your hands up did you have a question um I just want to ask you please slow down a little bit for interpretation yes please slow down a little bit thank you I do so much of course I apologize I do speak quickly so
I will slow down okay all right so understanding stress and emotional regulation parental stress is a psychological response to the demands of parenting and your perception of your ability to meet those demands so really what that means is that how do you feel
you parent well how do you deal with your emotions how do you regulate them so that's really the big part here um when you're feeling very stressed out from just all the everyday parenting that is typical parenting stress but what happens is we start to
worry and worry about we didn't get that done or we didn't do that the right way or our children aren't doing what they're supposed to be doing and the stress heightens it gets quicker quicker more intense more frequent um and then our self-efficacy as starts to slide down and that's when anxiety and
depression and even some aggressors um aggressive behavior comes in um parental stress is a very distinct stress from any any other life stress um because we have all the other life stresses involved in us right so
Financial academic work everyday life um transportation um whatever it might be but now on top of all of that we have parental stress worrying about the well-being of our little ones the ones we love so very much um that comes with a heavy heavy weight a lot of pressure
that if you're not a guardian you won't really understand so I'm sure all of you understand that and Bonito I hope I'm going slow enough let me know okay okay so understanding your own stress and how to emotion regulate so a lot of Guardians will say to me well I have to
control my emotions or I have to ignore my emotions that's not how we do it so when we control our emotions we're really just putting a Band-Aid on it we're just kind of putting a POR in like a wine bottle and then if you shake it or a soda bottle and then you shake it what happens is it explodes and that's
the difference between controlling your emotions and regulating your emotions so when we talk about emotional regulation we talk about understanding the emotion that you're feeling as the guardian how are you feeling you're feeling angry you're feeling sad you're feeling frustrated dealing with that emotion
accepting it being aware of it and then working it through and how do you do that and who do you do that with that's really what motion regulation is and that's really also modeling for our children the best way to deal with their emotions to navigate their emotions not to ignore them or dismiss them in any
other way so when we talk about parental stress um it impacts our bodies so if some of you have headaches or body aches or chronic diseases or any digestive system um any of the body ailments majority of them could be due to your
stress yes of course get a doctor um to look at you how however a lot of research is showing that our minds and bodies are so connected so the more stress we have as parents the more difficult it really is for us to kind of reduce that stress but it does take a
toll on our bodies it also takes a toll on our mental health um we're more irritable possibilities of concentration issues mood swings um from sad to angry to depressed to happy um anxiety depression falls into that so anything
mental that's causing us to have a different our personality with all there often impacting parenting abilities and negative affecting children's development so again if you are not feeling calm enough to parent well then you might not parent well sometimes we
make choices that are not healthy for our children or we are a little bit aggressive with our children and then what happens is that vicious cycle so now we feel bad right that regret that shame that guilt that we treated our children that way or we didn't listen to our child or we didn't handle the situation well and that starts to
trickle down um what it does is it causes us more stress so recognizing our own triggers is really really important um so I like to use the word activators instead of triggers um I think triggers actually does trigger people and makes people
feel worse um activators makes you understand that there are things that our children are going to do um if we're just talking about parenting there is a sound your child may make or a million times you have to your child to do something over and over those will activate us we need to understand how do
they activate us our bodies are always going to give us a sign but a lot of times we ignore those signs especially as Guardians we're running around trying to do a million things at once and it's really really difficult to kind of tune in our own bodies but when we tune into our own bodies and we have that mindful
observation and understand well you know I'm feeling really tight in my chest or I'm really really feeling my stomach is overwhelmed feeling really just tense overall usually it's because is some stressor some activator um and we want to kind of tune into that and I could say you know what my daughter cries all
the time when it's time to go to school that activates me that makes my body really tense so if my body's telling me intense it's telling me that I have to take a moment I have to pause and that's the biggest thing we need to do is to pause so we have to note those times
when we're feeling angry frustrated or overwhelmed and try to tie it and identify what is the behavior that's happening so when I talk to Guardians about this I'm very strong about that we're not with the behavior for the child we all try to focus on the behavior because it's just right in
front of us but if we take a moment recognize our own body what our stressors are what are our activators take that moment and pause recognize them and be aware of them so my daughter's crying that activates me that makes me feel angry that makes me feel overwhelmed then I'm going to take
a moment calm myself down which we're going to talk about that again in the next few weeks of how to do that and then I can calm my daughter down and I can look behind that behavior and see that actually there's an emotion there there's something that she experienced that she needs help with that she's
feeling some way about that she's expressing in a behavior that I don't like that bothers me but she's trying to communicate to me so that's really the biggest reason why we have to activate um look for our activators the next one I have on there is keeping a journal this isn't as
realistic for most most Guardians it's really hard for us to sit down and write or type it into our phones or whatever you have um but if you can even just do this once in a while it does help um the idea of writing or typing really gets the ideas of the stress out and it's not stuck in your nervous system so that's
something we're going to be talking about the next few weeks about how all of this stress gets stuck in our nervous system and it does change the way that we parent so I ask all of you and none of you have to answer this question but um so think about this these are some kind of reflection questions for us as
Guardians what situations cause you the most stress so we're talking parental so we kind of know what the everyday stressors are um but as a parent as a guardian in your home what stressors hit you the most that you feel like with
your child is it morning trying to get them off to school and you're trying to get off for each to start your day is it meal times is it bedtime um is it some type of Developmental stage that they're going through something to think about um the next question to maybe think about and to kind of connect the two how
does stress show up in your body so I always when I work with guardians I always say where do you feel it in your body or around your body a lot of people feel it in their stomachs their back their head those are kind of the more common places I've had Guardians tell me that they feel it in their in their shoulder they feel it in their knee so
wherever it shows up in your body you want to recognize that because that's a warning sign that your stress level is here and we need to pause we need to deescalate and bring it down a moment so some stress management techniques to actually do that um number
one taking care of ourselves so most Guardians don't eat a healthy meal they don't eat enough um they don't they don't sleep enough they don't get enough movement in there now you don't have to go to the gym you don't have to go you know play a sport or anything like that when we talk about exercise um we talk
about movement just getting some movement in there that's different than your job a lot of people have a very job a job that moves them a lot and that's not what we're talking about here we're talking about maybe taking a walk in fresh air or maybe just taking a walk with your children um so eating eating
as healthy as possible getting enough rest which we know most of us don't have time to do or we feel like we don't have time to do that but those things are very very important because what they do is that's the foundation for our nervous system and that Foundation once it's healthy healthy enough then when stress
does come into play our nervous system is more adapt to help it through and deescalate us instead of escalate us um the self-care so when we talk about self-care a lot of parents will say well I took a shower today today or I was able to get dressed you know quietly without my children screaming and yelling um that's not really self-care
that's kind of things we have to do right we're supposed to do you keep her hygiene or or whatever get ready for the day um when we think about selfcare we would love for Guardians to really start thinking about what do you enjoy do you enjoy having coffee with a friend do you enjoy taking a walk do you enjoy
listening to music on your own um do you enjoy reading whatever that might look like for you it's different for everybody um but that's really the self-care so to try to get that in which is very very difficult I do realize that I have my own problems with that but that's something where we can have a community help and Friends help where
you know okay it's Jane's day today and then hero is going to tomorrow he'll take the children and then you know he'll have his self-care day on another day so it's really working kind of together in the community um which family kind does offer by the way we do offer that kind of um opportunity um and
playing with your children there's tons of research that shows and I know a lot of times parents don't feel like they want to play they don't have time time to play but play is one of the best stress relievers that you could actually have um because it does relieve oxytocin which is the connection chemical and
that chemical helps us calm down it helps relax our nervous system and it helps us want to be with around people and it soothes us um it's kind of that self- soothing and obviously endorphins which also helps relax our nervous system when we so motion
regulation um this is a very crucial role in our parenting overwhel wellbeing so when parents are very stressed um they cannot emotion regulate they cannot control or regulate their emotions um and then what happens usually is we react as parents a guardian might yell
at their child instead of calmly speaking to their child and asking them you know what's really going on how come you're not putting your shoes upstairs like I asked you um so that emotion regulation calms the nervous system um helps the parent whenever the guardian
is overstressed or there's a lot of Demands or things are not going well things are not going as planned as we know happens more often than not um so understanding to recognize be aware of that emotion accepting it as the big one
and not ignoring it actually reduces stress and it reduces the incidences of aggression or outbursts from um the Guardians it leads to a positive interactions with our children so when we're less stressed the children are
less stressed um they mirror us um whether Arts our Behavior but also the nervous system um scientifically biologically our nervous systems are mirrored by our children so the children around us whether you have your own children or you work with children they are mirroring that so um that's just how
humans are created and the the research is actually very interesting um your ability to regulate your emotions directly impacts how you provide and supportive and nurturing care so I'm sure you all can agree that when we're calm we parent better right we're calmer
with our children we're more understanding we're better to we're easy it's easier to make healthier choices for them and ourselves um and the connection is there there's just that wonderful wonderful warm connection it contributes significantly to the child's over wellbeing because now you're a safe
haven consistently it's not just when you're not stressed right even when you're stressed you're able to show your children that I can bring it down a little bit I'm stressed but I'm going to calm down a little bit so I can help you with what ever you need to help you need help within that moment which is really
important for um the children so they know that you're there for them there will be ruptures there will be times when we lose our stuff and we scream and we yell but we repair it we take a moment we show the children how we calm down how we emotionally regulate and we
explain to them you know what I got really angry and I'm really really sorry that I got angry I got angry because I was getting frustrated that your shoes are always in the walkway and then we talk about it and then you help them regulate and make them understand that it's okay to have emotions we just have to regulate them and express them and
work through them so grounding um grounding is a wonderful way to help our nervous system calm down and it's actually easier than most people think it is um there's lots of different ways to do it so grounding
your nervous system is a way to calm your body by using activities that strengthen our is the nervous system that kind of has the fight ORF flight nervous system right so if we're getting stressed we want to kind of our act we get activated
so we want to either move away from the situation ignore it or we kind of want to be aggressive and fight and kind of like deal with it um what we rather do is go to the what they call rest and digest system so that's what the par instead of having this initial reaction
this impulsive reaction um it helps you feel more centered and resilient and you'll know when you're in this this is when you're really tired and you're really relaxed maybe you're on the couch or you're in bed and you're kind of calmer that's usually when your that system is more activated which is a good thing because it calms you and it
regenerates you so how do you do this how does one ground themselves um calming this type of the nervous system exercises causes that fight or flight like I had said so we want to strengthen it so we want to get down to the bottom so grounding really is about really
hitting home with the Earth um or in the moment so there's lots of different grounding techniques that we'll be using and talking about over the next few weeks but in particularly for today um there's environmental grounding so um what environmental grounding does is it gets you to the hear in the moment
because what happens when we're stressed um especially from our parenting situations what happens usually is we get so overwhelmed it kind of of takes us out of the here and now and we're we're feeling like we can't do this it becomes way too overwhelming we don't have time for it we don't want to do it
whatever the case may be so the grounding brings us back into the moment and back back into the parent that we are the guardian that we are that can handle that and can handle this well so grounding your nervous system is crucial because it reclaims the common present
stressful parenting situations instead of reacting again like I had said we respond with care with understanding with patience Foster a more supportive and nurturing environment for your children overall so that grounding kind of keeps you in the moment so you're not
thinking about dinner later you're not thinking about what happened next last week you're not thinking about the meeting you have at work you're thinking about the task at hand which is attending to your child's needs and the research is showing and I can tell you um just from all the years I've done this over 30 that when we do attend to
our children actually spend we spend less time parenting right than all the Tantrums and all the fights and all the cohor of control and all of that we wind up spending more time um healthier time um with our children instead of all the wasted time and the
frustration promotes Mo positive emotional development for everybody but in particularly your child because you're grounded um you're calm in the moment then your child's experiencing you for that fabulous person that you are improves the overall parent child relationship by enabling better
emotional regulation and response to your child's needs so again it's not about reacting to the behavior it's about connecting everything about parenting is connecting how do we connect healthy in a healthy manner with our children um and that connection once we're connected we can figure out what's
really going on what is this Behavior teaching me what is this Behavior communicating to me as the parent why do they need this and when we can connect with our children that way our parenting actually becomes a lot easier yes this takes time I know that and a lot of you are probably like this is not going to
work but it does work um and we are there to guide you as well I'm there to support you any way that you need to get through that so some basic grounding activities deep breathing so inhale slowly through your nose expanding your abdomen and your chest then exhaling
completely through your mouth going to give put a little disclaimer here for the breathing this doesn't work for everyone right away um I usually ask Guardians to do something else first before you try breathing sometimes when we focus on our breathing it makes us more anxious it makes us a little bit
more frustrated so just something to think about um maybe this might not be the one for you that's why I give you a few choices um earthing touch your body to the Earth by walking in the Sands which is a little bit more difficult for some of us laying on the grass or putting our hands in water water is a
wonderful thing um you could turn on the foret you could jump in the shower um I love ice packs um just using that different kind of temperature as well um but water anything if you can touch the Earth it actually calms the nervous system and helps the nervous
system kind of is that helps the nervous system calm down a bit um so you can just use and you could use this for the children as well um but if you put your hands in ice cold water or use an ice pack it does help you ground yourself into your nervous system into the Here
and Now using your five senses um we call this five senses grounding which I'm going to talk about in a few moments I'm going to hold on for that one um progressive muscle relaxation so this one you can do as you're sitting there listening to this um presentation you can do this at work you can do this while you're you know sitting in the
class um with your children um Parent Teacher Night something along those lines or even if you're sitting watching TV with your children really what it is is if you tense your muscles so you tense your arm muscles hold it for five seconds then release tense your arm muscles again for five seconds then
release the idea about this and you go through all your body so from your head to your toe or toe to your head whichever you're comfortable with and you're tightening your muscles for 5 seconds or more if you choose to and you're releasing it um something simple that you can really do on the train you can do it on the subway on the bus um it
actually helps release the tension that's stuck in your nervous system for your parental stress so parental stress gets stuck in the nervous system more than any other stress because as parents we're on 247 we never really get a break from it so as Guardians we need to kind
of have something we can do at our desks right we can do on the PS we can do on the subway this is something that you can do um and it really only takes maybe 30 seconds if you choose to do it that way um but it does release the stress and you will find a difference in this I haven't met anybody unless any of you
want to try and tell me otherwise that has said that this hasn't really worked if you do it consistently um it does absolutely work body scans um is another thing you can do maybe sitting at your desk or on the subway just kind of check in with your own body and that's what's really
important about grounding um it helps us understand okay so I have a headache is the headache because the weather is it because I had a stressful meeting at work or is it because my parenting stress is just through the roof and I'm I'm kind of overwhelmed what really is it um so if it's not a medical condition
obviously see your doctors but if it's something that is some parental you can kind of check in and you can kind of body scan and say okay so I'm feeling it in my head so what can I do for my head maybe the next one you can get a cold compress put it on your forehead put on the back of your neck um we have to be
in tune with our bodies as Guardians because our bodies are communicating to us we need a break we need somebody to help us we need to figure something out and like I had said um if you don't have anybody if you feel like this supp this group is incredible on what city council
offers we also can help you um so moving up if you're really feeling stress and you do feel it in your head or you're feeling like you want to crawl out of your skin because a lot of times that's what stress makes us feel like we need to crawl out of our skin um temperature change is really important some people think the warm compress is really good
that's why I have it there I have found over the years that most of the families that I work with like the cold so my suggestions like I had said before running your hands under cold water ice cubes work really well drinking ice cold water if possible ice packs or anything cold sometimes I take someone just take
something from your freezer that's you know you can smash up like peas or something frozen vegetables and put it on the back of your neck um put on the back of your wrists back of your knees there are certain parts of us that called trigger Parts um those are the parts that actually will calm your
nervous system down in seconds when you change the temperature um the cold always changes the temperature now that it's freezing cold outside open a window take in some fresh air it does regulate the system really really well and again those grounding techniques you can get
them into your day um and if you're having trouble figuring out how to get them into your day I can absolutely help you with that because over the years I've come up with a few tricks this one you can get into your day pretty easily once you practice it um so this is called 54 3 2 1 sensory grounding um
it's one of my favorites and all of these again you can use with your children five things you see in the environment so if you're sitting at work you're sitting at home you're sitting out on the playground or you're with friends wherever and you're feeling a little anxious you're feeling a little stressed you look for five things in the
environment that you can name five things that you actually see um then you move on find four things that you can touch maybe your clothing Maybe the seat that you're you know sitting on maybe the window something along those lines then you move on to three things that
you can hear listen for different sounds and pick out th two things you can smell what do you smell in the environment um maybe you smell some somebody baking something maybe someone brought in food from the deli down the street something long L what are you smelling and then
one thing you can taste this one's a little trickier um sometimes you don't always have something you can taste that's why it's the one but um that works really well um the reason this works is because again it's bringing you back into the moment when we are stressed as parents in particular or just with our days in in life in general
we are not really in the moment we're we're in the stress we're in the turmoil This Tornado this hurricane of stress this will bring us back to the moment and kind of give us some type of Peace for a few moments so we can we can react right instead of you know actually just
screaming and yelling we can kind of think about okay what's my response going to be how am I going to calm myself down to be my best self the other thing there when we talk about taste if you do have um if you do get more stressed and the lot of stress a lot of times mints or sour candy something
along those lines actually reduces stress um again it's like a little jolt to the nervous system anything bitter can be also ad Galt to the nervous system so you don't really have time to do any of this but you're feeling stress you can try one of those tactics they usually work important points to
remember about grounding practice regularly which I know is really really difficult so we have to think about this in a really in a really realistic manner so practicing regularly might be that you know I'm brushing my teeth so I'm going to do practice my grounding I'm going to look for five things in the environment and where where I'm brushing
my teeth I'm going to look for four things that I hear um do it where you're doing something else um maybe every day for this week moving forward you practice one of these techniques while you're brushing your teeth um maybe you practice it while you're getting dressed walking to the subway um something to
just feel like it's part of your routine it should never feel like it is a burden or it's another thing added because you deserve it and we're trying at family kind we're trying to change the conversation where Guardians deserve time they deserve to be supported and
they deserve to have these moments of grounding and feeling less stressed um find what works for you so again if it's reading a book if it's you know asking a friend can we switch off every Tuesday you take the children I take the children um so then we have some time to ourselves and do what we we need to do
to kind of have our own self-care seek professional help um family kind offers we offer a sliding scale we offer you know I I will do things pro bono myself um you have this wonderful group um really reach out if you need referrals we have them as well um it's really
important to have that Village that Community to help us because it we deserve it and you deserve it um we're there to help you with um with anything that you need if it's referral or even just coming to see us um stress relief strategies um some of these you can do
pretty you know regularly if possible once you get um into a routine some of them you might have to kind of plan um but practice deep breathing again with that disclaimer that sometimes the breathing doesn't work for some people you might want to calm your nervous system down first and then try the breathing take short mindful breaks
throughout the day I know it's almost impossible to take breaks myself I I find it difficult but what I try to do is even if it's a 30 second break even if it's like I'm transitioning from one job to the other um if I'm transitioning to helping my children with something then I'm transitioning to do a report
for work um I take that 30 seconds to a minute to kind of just think about okay so how's my nervous system feeling um what am I thinking right now um maybe I just want to S Qui it for 30 seconds um 30 seconds can actually mean a lot to most of us engage in the physical
activity that movement that I had said before again if you can't get out and take a walk um just stretch stand up and stretch at your desk or if you're on the Subway and you're cramped you know just kind of stretch your legs roll your ankles out or something like that dancing I know a lot of families don't want to really do this but dancing is
one of the best movements that you can actually do for your nervous system um it releases all the wonderful chemicals that keep us healthy and keep us calm and regulated um and it's something that's a wonderful wonderful stress relever especially if you do with your children using the grounding techniques
that we talked about so even if you're feeling distress every day um grounding techniques work work for stress they work really well also for anxiety I use I'm I'm a um mental health counselor as well so um in my private practice I use this a lot um it helps my clients a lot
they really feel like you know they're feeling that that body therefore for they're going to crawl out the skin their breathing is getting heavy they're feeling disoriented or dizzy whatever the case may be they use one of the techniques we talked about tonight and they do calm down at least for those moments so they can kind of make a plan
okay what's my plan of action what made me so stressed do I need to reach out to somebody what what is my plan moving forward the Gratitude Journal um again I know it's really really hard to kind of make time for anything like this but even if you just before you close your eyes at night um even if you think about
one thing during the day that you had gratitude for um I like for Guardians to do this about themselves we we of course have gratitude for our children and the people around us but it's really important to have gratitude for yourself you're doing such a wonderful hard hard
task wonderful task task of being a parent but in this day and age it's really really hard to to parent um so maybe before you close your eyes before you go to sleep just have some gratitude for yourself and what you've done for that day and how wonderful you are as a parent um drink water always water is a
wonderful stress reliever um people don't realize it so I always tell Guardians have a bottle of water have your you know your hydr flast or whatever you want to have um that you can use all the time and always have it with you because when in doubt when you're feeling stressed the water even the idea of drinking removes some of the
stress from your nervous system so if you have a few sips of water when you're feeling stressed or anxious that definitely helps obviously eating healthy um boundaries this is a lot of times parents don't know how to do this Guardians don't know how to do this so well um set boundaries with yourself
learn how to say no gracefully and learn what works for you but also set boundaries for your children um you have to know what works for them um and what works for you it's great to have your children doing a lot of different things but if that's not working for you if it's causing you stress it's something you might want to think about um and
manage expectations um it's really hard not to have high expectations especially with social media communities um are great but sometimes it makes us feel pressured that we're not doing enough as Guardians um so just really understanding yourself and your family what works for you I and how to manage
those and surrounding yourself with people who can respect that and support you in those expectations and those boundaries any hobbies or enjoyable activities for self as well as for your family are really really important because the more you're having fun the
calmer moments you have those more playful moments that you have actually is a stress reliever in itself so that's why it's so important to make time for those um moments that you can do that and connect with supportive people um social media is wonderful but we all
know we have to be careful with that because we can connect with a group that kind of antagonizes right and escalates our stress and our frustrations and difficulties as as Guardians um we want to make sure we're we're we're meeting with people that are supportive and understanding that are listening to us
where there's reciprocity um where I'm here for you you're here for me and we're working through it together and we're moving forward we're not just sitting there kind of just venting and not helping one another um sometimes I've noticed over the years that that gets really damaging for Guardians and their self-esteem comes down and their
parenting just does change because of it so um I love this poem because I think a lot of Guardians feel this way so give yourself self Grace I'm doing the best I can with the resources I have at the time some days I get it right some days I not get out of the park and
some day sometimes it's just not happening we have to be able to accept that it's really hard for us to accept that we just didn't do a great job right I really messed up that situation with my son I I did everything wrong but if we stick to that and we stay stuck on
that we did everything wrong what happens is our stress level goes up our shame and guilts um parental shame is is escalating now um especially in our country so we have to be very very careful that we don't do that to ourselves um so I ask you all to please just have the grace um and the patience
with yourself um and that will definitely translate to your children so if you do need any more support um what we do offer at family kind um we offer multiple programs and services we offer parenting children with diverse needs so anyone on any type of special special
needs neurod Divergent physical challenges anything across the board we um have courses and classes and support groups and one-on-one sessions um Universal parenting so everything from emotion coaching to Tech issues to um problems with behavior we have tons and
tons of courses and support for you trauma informed parenting we also offer so any family who's been traumatized by anything children who've been traumatized um whatever that trauma might be we have professionals that can help um we also have for co-parents um a
certified co-parenting class so if there is any um couples that are divorcing or separating and co-parenting is becoming a little challenging we do offer a course in that to help you through that and um the individuals individual parent uh education that's one-on-one sessions
so if a support group or one of these classes is great but you really want something more personalized we also offer that so you you can meet with one of our Educators just you and that person and talking about what really works for you what do you need as a guardian to help you be your best self
we also offer divorce and Family Mediation if you choose if that is something your family is going through um we also run a Heart Group um this is relational trauma support group all of these are virtual but if you need anything in person we are willing to come in person um but these last few are
all support groups for helping people who um are in those situations so if you're an adult who experienced um any type of divorce we can help you with that um and here's our contact information I'm sure chrisy can give it to you or um she can also give you me my email if you want to just contact me personally if there's any questions you
have or any other support we can offer you does anybody have any questions I know I kind of I hope Bonito wasn't too fast a little bit sorry I'm sorry I tried to slow down Bonito um was there
anything any questions Chrissy was there anything in the chat that I missed um there is nothing in the chat so far what I will do now is thank you for this level of the presentation at this point I am going to end the recording so that
we may have space for parents to openly speak um in confidentiality thank you