Dr. Simone’s Mind Space

Parent coaching focus: How to help your child learn to cooperate

To get our young children and toddlers to cooperate, we need to help them understand how our requests and rules are good for everyone.

 

Cooperation is the ability to balance one’s own needs with someone else’s. We often think of cooperation as children doing what adults want. That is compliance. True cooperation means a joint effort—a give and take that is mutually satisfying. To develop a cooperative spirit in children, we need to help them understand how our requests and rules are good for everyone.

 

How to go about?

Take turns

Between 6 and 9 months, babies can begin to engage in back-and-forth interactions. They also learn to imitate. Give your child time to copy you.

Explain your reasons for limits and requests

At three years old, most children use and understand language well enough to handle simple explanations.

Take time to problem-solve

You can help your older two- and three-year-olds come up with solutions to everyday dilemmas and encourage cooperation at the same time.

Do chores together starting at an early age

Let your child grow up experiencing the benefits of cooperation.

Give specific praise for cooperative efforts

Point out why and how their contribution was important.

Give your child choices while maintaining the rules

Offering choices shows your child respect, and respect creates a sense of collaboration.

 

Resources

https://www.zerotothree.org/

@drschwank

@unesurcent

Coaching and Engaging Families in Early Intervention Services

Families need to play an important role in early intervention services in order to support their child’s goals and development. Although there is no “magic wand” to ensure family engagement, there are a variety of evidence-based strategies designed to support greater family involvement in early intervention services.

 

Services

• Parent coaching model offers a means to build parents’ confidence and competence in the context of home visits.
• Supervisors, coaches and mentors offer onsite sessions, webinars, keynotes and presentations at parent school conferences.
• Visits can involve parenting tips, role play
• Listen to the separate podcast on: 1. Tips on helping your child learn to cooperate; 2. Learning ways to support your child’s social-emotional development from birth to age three.

 

@drschwank

@unesurcent

Pregnancy life journey part 3: What makes the early years so crucial for the future trajectory of life?

The first three years of life are a period of major growth in all areas of an infant’s development. The earliest relationships with caregivers can promote healthy brain development, young children build social and emotional skills, and ways you can support language and literacy development starting already pre-birth. Talking to your infant during pregnancy and reading stories to them when their born really helps their growth. Loving relationships give young children a sense of comfort, safety, confidence, and encouragement. They teach young children how to form friendships, communicate emotions, and to deal with challenges. Strong, positive relationships also help children develop trust, empathy, compassion, and a sense of right and wrong. 

 

Prevention

Support of pregnant women at risk to develop or having ongoing metal health problems. 

 

Early intervention

For children at significant risk, early intervention can serve as a protective buffer against the multiple adverse influences that may hinder their developmental progress. 

 

Brain development

As parents, your interaction with your child play a crucial role in building a baby’s brain. Play; everyday way to help babies and toddlers learn important concepts. Through play, children learn to be good problem-solvers, and to get along with others.

 

Resources

https://www.zerotothree.org/

@drschwank

@unesurcent

Pregnancy and preparation to early childhood part 2

How do we mentally prepare parents-to-be for their transition to a new life? A life with new routines, less time for the couple, the individual parent themselves. Discussions related to values of parenting are often lacking prior to childbirth and can cause tension and unmet expectations once the baby’s born. Topics such as anxieties, uncertainties related to becoming a parent are often also not shared among the couple.

Uncomfortable topics are often not brought up, or life dreams of career-family compatibility not communicating among each other. 

How to parent is vastly influenced by our own childhood experience. Often it’s intuitive and we don’t even imagine our partner thinking or acting differently. That’s why a pre-baby discussion on parenting and values can be so crucial. 

 

Family coaching can be an effective way to discuss values with each other. Open up one’s backpack of one’s one childhood experiences, believes, and dreams. So often we believe the other knows exactly how to do about the night routine, since we so naturally turn to our own experience, but they don’t know. 

 

@drschwank

@unesurcent

Pregnancy life journey part 1

Pregnancy and the entire perinatal time is one of the most vulnerable times in a woman’s life. Such tremendous responsibility lying on her shoulders. How can one master this time in the best possible way? What do we know from science that can support us in navigating the jungle of recommendations of does and don’ts in pregnancy?

Intergenerational transmission is scientifically proven to appear and exist in holocaust survivors, 9/11 survivors, as well as people experiencing other traumatic situations. 

Intergenerational transmission manifests in epigenetic changes, due to environmental factors, such as famines, wars, trauma, maternal chronic stress, mental health problems/disorders, and living in impoverished, low socioeconomic environments.

Prevention and early intervention already during pregnancy are crustal to improve the outcome of the next generation. This is an urgent public health call to reduce to rising burden of disease globally, related to mental health. 

 

@drschwank

@unesurcent

Narcissism from the inside out

Narcissism is a common phenomenon, yet people exposed to it feel often isolated and alone. When reaching out to experts, many don’t have the expertise and get disguised by the narcissist’s manipulations.

It is a phenomenon that occurs way too often at work or in romantic relationships. Until the person exposed to narcissism is aware of her/his situation, quite some damage on the person’s sense of self has already been done. It is therefore, as well as due to the manipulative behavior in public, social, and legal situations, essential to educate both social workers, child protective services, and lawyers. In order for them to understand and interpret a narcissistic situation early, to support rather than jeopardise the exposed person’s situation. This can be situations related to child custody, separation, divorce or domestic violence.

 

But what are the characteristics of a narcissistic personality?

 

First of all, narcissism is an essential component of mature self-esteem and basic self-worth. Yet, if this self-affection is only healthy to a degree and if it is the primary motivation in interpersonal relationships to protect one’s sense of self, the unhealthy narcissistic personality disorder starts. Manipulation, devaluation of others, lying, and the use of white crimes, are only a couple of examples.

 

#femaleempowerment #womeninbusiness #femaleentrepreneur #mentalhealth #narcissism #drschwankinsights #unesurcent #podcast #itsawomensworld

 

@drschwank

@

 

There’s no mountain high enough for women to climb

Growing up in one of the most conservative countries in the world, with only 50 years of women’s right to vote and the right to open a bank account without husband approval, only since the 1990ies!!

The entire society is structured around one bred-winner and 99% of all women with children work part-time. Especially, the part-time work is what causes a huge career disadvantage for Swiss women. When they work part-time to make work and family life compatible, the male counterparts boost their careers. Free from any female concurrency. Once the women return to work after parental leave and initiate in part-time work, they’re often stuck in an intellectually not very stimulating job. Often having a male and far too often less qualified person above them.

 

An incredibly unfulfilling situation, leading many women quit work or work on a low percentage, reducing their chances for a career even more. The burden on Swiss women is extraordinarily high, since the school system, beside the work environment. It’s built upon the ideal housewife, staying at home and cooking 3 meals a day, including lunch!! Since Swiss kids up to 9th grade come home for lunch. It’s looked down upon, and women are seen as bad mothers, if they don’t provide lunch for their child.  A child that doesn’t eat at home, but rather at at a lunch place, i.e. organised by the church or other none-profit organisations, is called a “Schlüsselkind” or “key chain kid”.

Yet, these lunch services, that have such a negative association, yet aren’t free and require additional organisation and coordination. These factors complicate the combination of work and family life. These particular reasons, make it extraordinary challenging for Swiss women to  return to work smoothly.

 

What to do?

• Reduce the fees for daycare, in order not to use the entire salary just to cover the childcare costs.
• Increase number of public schools providing lunch at school.
• Urgent need for change in work culture.
• Provide greater flexibility at work places, working from home, choice of working hours.
• Job sharing in senior positions.
• Maybe maybe in Switzerland it’s necessary to initiate a quota, to increase the number of women in executive position from 0% to a utopia 50%.
• Men need to be more involved and able to be part-time workers.
• Provide access to more generous parental leave.
• Anonymous hiring process, to reduce gender and racial discrimination.
• Provide resources to women, such as mentorship, access to women’s networks to find role models and like-minded women.

@drschwank

@unesurcent 

Youth well-being: what can parents do to support?

Adolescence is a phase in life, probably no adult wants to return to. A place where we felt insecure, super dependent on our friends, felt excluded, uncool, debating of going to this party or not, like this music or not, and yet under massive academic pressure. Thinking of what to study, what career to persuade, and distancing oneself from the parents. Parents that sense the distancing and often struggle to accept that children are growing up and becoming independent young people. 

The more we give young people space, to figure out their identity by themselves, the more willing they are to share, and the more open the conversations will be. Needless to say, this is incredibly difficult and requires a lot of patience and trust from the parents, that their emerging adult will succeed in life, even without their hands on involvement. This negotiation of freedom is crucial for a successful identity development. Young people need to make their own experiences, even if that means they get hurt. We can’t protect them from everything. If we do, we limit their capacity to be ready for the world around them. 

 

Yet, what if a young person is struggling more than the normal feelings of anxiety, low mood, and depressive feelings that accompany identity development?

How can we support adolescents that find it harder to cut the cord to their parents and leave the nest, in order to try to fly in the real world?

1. Be there as a non-judgmental listener. 
2. Don’t provide advice, but share helpful resources. 
3. Give your adolescent space, don’t ask too many questions. Let them come to you with questions.
4. Trust your adolescent and let them make their own experience, easier said than done.
5. Recognize your limitations and seek professional help.

@drschwank

@unesurcent

What’s it about identity development in adolescence?

Identity development is a major topic in adolescence. Transitions are often inspired by disequilibrium in identity. This imbalance comes with lots of confusion, feelings of depression, low mood, anxiety, and lots of peer comparison, pressure, and identification challenges.

 

Social Media adds another layer of complexity to the crucial stage of development. During adolescence we all struggle with self-confidence to some degree. Social Media accelerates the constant comparison and identification with others. Some countries, such as Denmark released a law for mandatory disclosure if filters or modification are done run photos, in order to prevent the spread of false realities. These false realities can cause distress in young people‘s sense of self, body image, and identity development.

 

The four identity statuses according to Marcia are distinguished as: foreclosure, identity diffusion, moratorium, and identity achievement.

In adolescence to early adulthood, the identity status change is most often a progressive transition from diffusion to moratorium to identity achievement.

 

What teachers can do:

A) As teachers, being aware of the identity developmental changes is important, in order to interpret the adolescents‘ behaviors appropriately.

 

B) The states of identity development can be fundamentally important in understanding the youth and provide adequate support.

 

C) Undergoing identity exploration is exhausting and accompanied by feelings of inadequacy, lack of belonging, searching for meaning in life, and a sense of purpose.

@drschwank

@unesurcent

Sustainable global citizen lifestyle

How can one be traveling internationally on a frequent basis, yet maintain a sustainable lifestyle?

It’s the small things that make a difference: sharing a taxi with a fellow passenger, something I’ve done multiple times. Bike, walk the place you’re about to explore, rather than taking a taxi or tourist bus. Order only as must as you can eat or bring it home as doggy bag. As pescatarian that loves yoghurt and parmigiano, I’m not part of the meat eaters, but do encourage people to enjoy a great piece of high quality meat. Which is often times a way more sustainable way of eating meat too. Small actions make a huge difference.

 

@drschwank

@unesurcent