Mark Bertin's Blog, page 6
January 3, 2017
Mental Meteorology & Mindfulness
Long past the time for problem solving or learning from experience, rumination and other patterns may amplify stress. Thinking can be the problem, not the solution sometimes.
October 17, 2016
An Overview of ADHD Care
ADHD affects far more than just attention, and affects not only children but their family and relationships. Here's what you need to know to manage it comprehensively.
July 6, 2016
Understanding Behavioral Therapy for Autism
Long-term planning for children with autism requires patience and diligence. Behavioral therapy, as time and labor-intensive as it seems, remains the foundation of skill building.
June 6, 2016
The ADHD Healthy Living Summer Challenge
Emphasizing healthy living may significantly improve ADHD symptoms
May 11, 2016
ADHD Goes to College
It's spring and senior year of high school is wrapping up. Many students are discovering where they are going to college. Planning for freshman year and what it means to live on their own with ADHD is probably the last thing a graduating senior wants to focus on right now. As a parent, though, worry about how your child with ADHD will fare in college may be already filling your mind.
Teens will be teens, even when leaving home. Summer first. They want to hit the ground running and define their (almost) adult lives. They don't want to feel different than their peers (except in the exact ways they choose), so they often avoid whatever they perceive may set them apart. But even as your relationship shifts to more long-distance guidance, your ongoing involvement can be vital.
ADHD undermines life management abilities called executive function, so the college transition creates unique challenges. When management skills lag, consistency and organization in any area of life becomes more challenging. Leaving home, dorm life is new, as is being fully responsible for daily life skills and academics. ADHD impacts how students manage time, prioritize, write, study, and coordinate projects. Research suggests college students with ADHD are less likely to use effective study habits and tend to seek academic support only after trouble sets in.
As with any choices affected by ADHD, we need to focus on actual skills and not chronological age. An eighteen-year-old with ADHD may be several years behind in anything related to executive function. So in anticipation of college, how can a parent best set a child up for academic success?
1. Recreate high school supports: "Accommodations have been found to significantly help college students with ADHD not only in improving grades, but also increasing the chances of overall college success," says Dr. Stephanie Sarkis, author of Making the Grade with ADD. Take a few minutes and brainstorm what was most useful academically through high school, on your own and with your child. Consider both the official academic plan and informal supports provided by you, teachers, or professionals outside of school. Some details, perhaps, can be dropped or are no longer possible at a university level. What might best continue moving forward?
2. Identify local resources: One of the greatest challenges to parenting ADHD is this: ADHD is a planning disorder. Because of that, expecting a teen to plan around ADHD on their own is rarely the best option right up until they've shown themselves ready to address it independently. Vital skills such as breaking down projects and studying into manageable pieces often aren't instinctual. Nor is knowing when to get extra help. As an aspiring star athlete needs a coach, an aspiring student with ADHD may rely on someone else to sustain and build academic skills. Before the year starts aim to connect your child with an academic center or ADHD professional, either on or off campus, to provide guidance.
3. Organize early: One significant change transitioning out of high school is the lack of structured time. College classes may only represent a small part of the week, with an expectation that academic hours are instead spent independently. Most likely, work will not be supervised as closely, creating a particular challenge around larger tests and long-term projects. It's hard enough for students with ADHD to stick to a plan when they have one, much less when they do not, so encourage a written strategy for juggling school and social life. Partnering with a peer or a professional helps ensure students stick to the blueprint and reinforce it into habit too.
4. Define clear academic expectations: Encourage your teen to consult with professors during the first weeks of any new class; students with ADHD cannot always see the best way to study and also easily fall behind. The goal is to confirm their expectations about class are on target, and to create a checklist of exactly what's required for each class. Continued visits through the semester, either to their professor or through an academic support center, will sustain their progress too.
5. Manage medication: The shift from high school to college lengthens the active part of the day for students, so adjustments may be required around ADHD medication. Some are logistical; whenever possible, study hours should fall during times when medication is effective. And of course, medication influences for the better eating habits, driving, and late-night decision making, so fine tuning can have a huge impact outside of academics too.
6. Monitor the big picture of ADHD: ADHD often bites its own tail - much of what helps manage ADHD is harder to do when you have ADHD. Exercise, quality sleep, and healthy eating habits impact life with ADHD, but require planning or scheduling to make it all happen. Mindfulness or similar approaches to stress management and self-care require sustained effort also. Prioritizing those routines starts before life gets too stressful - anticipating, planning, and then adapting to whatever happens in the real world. Again, through discussion and guided questions, encourage your child to lay out how they hope to take care of themselves in college.
A teen's push for independence is a healthy and appropriate developmental step. Collaboration is now the goal, often guided by listening first and then prompting a targeted discussion. Being too assertive can cause strain, but parents monitoring the plan often remains vital. As children become adults we can only do our best to offer advice and encourage healthy choices - while recognizing that with ADHD the continued involvement of adults may have benefit far longer than expected.
Of course, many college students are long past wanting to discuss school with their parents. For some, the easiest path forward is encouraging coordination with someone outside the family who understands ADHD. For others, a more direct negotiation may be required, potentially tied to any financial support you're providing - we'll help out, but you need to stay connected to an academic support center for now. In either case, encourage an actual plan, instead of a teen's choice to wait and see, whenever possible.
ADHD doesn't change who someone is, or how capable they are in life. It does affect behavior and academics in countless ways when under-addressed. Yet with the proper interventions, college students with ADHD can and should thrive.
Teens will be teens, even when leaving home. Summer first. They want to hit the ground running and define their (almost) adult lives. They don't want to feel different than their peers (except in the exact ways they choose), so they often avoid whatever they perceive may set them apart. But even as your relationship shifts to more long-distance guidance, your ongoing involvement can be vital.
ADHD undermines life management abilities called executive function, so the college transition creates unique challenges. When management skills lag, consistency and organization in any area of life becomes more challenging. Leaving home, dorm life is new, as is being fully responsible for daily life skills and academics. ADHD impacts how students manage time, prioritize, write, study, and coordinate projects. Research suggests college students with ADHD are less likely to use effective study habits and tend to seek academic support only after trouble sets in.
As with any choices affected by ADHD, we need to focus on actual skills and not chronological age. An eighteen-year-old with ADHD may be several years behind in anything related to executive function. So in anticipation of college, how can a parent best set a child up for academic success?
1. Recreate high school supports: "Accommodations have been found to significantly help college students with ADHD not only in improving grades, but also increasing the chances of overall college success," says Dr. Stephanie Sarkis, author of Making the Grade with ADD. Take a few minutes and brainstorm what was most useful academically through high school, on your own and with your child. Consider both the official academic plan and informal supports provided by you, teachers, or professionals outside of school. Some details, perhaps, can be dropped or are no longer possible at a university level. What might best continue moving forward?
2. Identify local resources: One of the greatest challenges to parenting ADHD is this: ADHD is a planning disorder. Because of that, expecting a teen to plan around ADHD on their own is rarely the best option right up until they've shown themselves ready to address it independently. Vital skills such as breaking down projects and studying into manageable pieces often aren't instinctual. Nor is knowing when to get extra help. As an aspiring star athlete needs a coach, an aspiring student with ADHD may rely on someone else to sustain and build academic skills. Before the year starts aim to connect your child with an academic center or ADHD professional, either on or off campus, to provide guidance.
3. Organize early: One significant change transitioning out of high school is the lack of structured time. College classes may only represent a small part of the week, with an expectation that academic hours are instead spent independently. Most likely, work will not be supervised as closely, creating a particular challenge around larger tests and long-term projects. It's hard enough for students with ADHD to stick to a plan when they have one, much less when they do not, so encourage a written strategy for juggling school and social life. Partnering with a peer or a professional helps ensure students stick to the blueprint and reinforce it into habit too.
4. Define clear academic expectations: Encourage your teen to consult with professors during the first weeks of any new class; students with ADHD cannot always see the best way to study and also easily fall behind. The goal is to confirm their expectations about class are on target, and to create a checklist of exactly what's required for each class. Continued visits through the semester, either to their professor or through an academic support center, will sustain their progress too.
5. Manage medication: The shift from high school to college lengthens the active part of the day for students, so adjustments may be required around ADHD medication. Some are logistical; whenever possible, study hours should fall during times when medication is effective. And of course, medication influences for the better eating habits, driving, and late-night decision making, so fine tuning can have a huge impact outside of academics too.
6. Monitor the big picture of ADHD: ADHD often bites its own tail - much of what helps manage ADHD is harder to do when you have ADHD. Exercise, quality sleep, and healthy eating habits impact life with ADHD, but require planning or scheduling to make it all happen. Mindfulness or similar approaches to stress management and self-care require sustained effort also. Prioritizing those routines starts before life gets too stressful - anticipating, planning, and then adapting to whatever happens in the real world. Again, through discussion and guided questions, encourage your child to lay out how they hope to take care of themselves in college.
A teen's push for independence is a healthy and appropriate developmental step. Collaboration is now the goal, often guided by listening first and then prompting a targeted discussion. Being too assertive can cause strain, but parents monitoring the plan often remains vital. As children become adults we can only do our best to offer advice and encourage healthy choices - while recognizing that with ADHD the continued involvement of adults may have benefit far longer than expected.
Of course, many college students are long past wanting to discuss school with their parents. For some, the easiest path forward is encouraging coordination with someone outside the family who understands ADHD. For others, a more direct negotiation may be required, potentially tied to any financial support you're providing - we'll help out, but you need to stay connected to an academic support center for now. In either case, encourage an actual plan, instead of a teen's choice to wait and see, whenever possible.
ADHD doesn't change who someone is, or how capable they are in life. It does affect behavior and academics in countless ways when under-addressed. Yet with the proper interventions, college students with ADHD can and should thrive.
ADHD Goes to College
Planning for freshman year and what it means to live on their own with ADHD is probably the last thing a graduating senior wants to focus on right now. As a parent, though, worry about how your child with ADHD will fare in college may be already filling your mind.
May 10, 2016
ADHD Goes to College
Planning for freshman year is probably the last thing a graduating senior with ADHD wants to focus on right now. As a parent, though, worry may already be filling your mind.
April 13, 2016
More to Happiness Than Momentary Moods: Minding Your Emotions
The idea of emotional awareness can seem almost mundane. Most of us recognize the benefits of being conscious of our emotions on some level. Yet, being skillful with our emotions is much more than recognizing when we feel happy, angry, or sad. Awareness means noticing all of our emotions, and then making active choices about whether we actually need to do something or best leave things alone.
As with body sensations, being mindful of emotions creates practical awareness of something that profoundly impacts our lives. It's not a cliché that bottling up emotions creates internal pressure, much like shaking a bottle of carbonated soda. It's not a platitude that simply describing and labeling how we feel can decrease emotions' negative impact. But those ideas only scratch the surface. Without greater awareness, unattended emotions may steer us away from longer term happiness and well-being.
Seeing Emotion as It Really Is
All emotions have a reason to exist, a point made resoundingly well in the hit movie Inside Out. There's no point suppressing or being annoyed at any in particular. Joy is great, but anger, sadness, fear, disgust, and more all have a role. A negative emotion shows up to signal something needs addressing. I'm sad because I'm grieving and need my friends. I'm fearful because this project is a challenge and I need to spend more time on it. Recognizing emotions and what they reflect in our lives has value in and of itself in keeping us on the right path for ourselves.
But not every mood shows up because of real life experience. We all have ups and downs. Some arrive driven by our own inner chemistry. Yet we often link outside causes to these haphazard states of mind. We attribute a mental downturn to our work, our partner, or some other external experience -- someone or something must be responsible. Needing comfort, we accidentally push aside people who might provide it. I haven't asked and I've been prickly like a cactus to him, but still, if he really cared he'd come sit with me. In our minds, someone has become part of the problem and then our behavior leads them to confirm our fears.
Sometimes our mood is just our mood. We may seek solace in a reactive habit, such as withdrawing from or lashing out at people; either can be useful when done intentionally, not so much when reflexive and without forethought. They often offer temporary relief without fixing an underlying cause, particularly when there isn't a fixable one to start. We also can get caught up in keeping everything the same, such as getting caught up in the end to an idyllic vacation while still on the beach.
Sometimes there's nothing more to notice but how we're feeling and, for a stretch, let life be. I'm rattled and there's nothing useful to do about it at the moment. A mood showed up and will leave of its own accord, awful or as wonderful as it feels, and the healthiest thing for us to do or think about it may be nothing at all.
You Can't Change What You Can't See
When we fail to pay attention to emotion, we tend to skew how we perceive the world, which magnifies unpleasantness even further. When angry, we are more likely see others as angry. When sad or anxious or whatever else, those states affect our perceptions. Our emotions then change how we think, and those thoughts in turn undermine our emotions again. Both thoughts and emotions affect how we physically feel, which in and of itself influences our emotional state. That cycle continues unabated if we don't take effort to steer it somewhere healthier.
Negative feelings in particular, more than the good times, grab our attention and won't let go. They trigger patterns that pull us further into mental rabbit holes. Oh no, here I go again, I'm not capable of taking caring of myself, or similar ideas exacerbate already challenging states of mind. What was going to be a short downturn becomes a crisis because of a mental cyclone triggered by fear, remorse, and self-doubt. That mental storm swamps us, and we end up avoiding activities, people and even ways of thinking we have at our disposal that would otherwise help us feel better.
When we build awareness, such as through the practice of mindfulness, we notice our emotions more clearly and with less resistance. We recognize our mental habits and actively choose to leave things alone for a moment instead. I'm in a bad mood, it's not my fault or anyone else's, and it will pass. Whatever our urge -- to ignore emotion or to react to it -- we work on something new. If something useful and healthy can relieve an intense emotion, we go for it... and for much of the rest we can observe, seek comfort when we can, and then define the next solid step forward on a stressful day.
Mindfulness Practice: Emotional Awareness
Awareness of emotions starts with just that -- paying attention more often to how we feel. From there, slowly and over time, we can set new intentions for ourselves. For the next few days, aim to*:
1. Recognize emotions more often as they arise. Label briefly, if you like, whatever emotion you notice.
2. Refrain, for a moment, from doing whatever you typically do with that emotion. Pause, take a few breaths, and let things alone before taking a next step.
3. Relax if you can, letting go of any sense of constriction or tension the emotion causes you. If you see something useful to be done about how you feel--go for it. If not, practice letting things be, instead of falling back on reactive, less productive habits.
4. Resolve to keep working on emotional awareness and reactivity. Old habits change slowly, not all at once.
* Adapted from the writings of Pema Chodron
As with body sensations, being mindful of emotions creates practical awareness of something that profoundly impacts our lives. It's not a cliché that bottling up emotions creates internal pressure, much like shaking a bottle of carbonated soda. It's not a platitude that simply describing and labeling how we feel can decrease emotions' negative impact. But those ideas only scratch the surface. Without greater awareness, unattended emotions may steer us away from longer term happiness and well-being.
Seeing Emotion as It Really Is
All emotions have a reason to exist, a point made resoundingly well in the hit movie Inside Out. There's no point suppressing or being annoyed at any in particular. Joy is great, but anger, sadness, fear, disgust, and more all have a role. A negative emotion shows up to signal something needs addressing. I'm sad because I'm grieving and need my friends. I'm fearful because this project is a challenge and I need to spend more time on it. Recognizing emotions and what they reflect in our lives has value in and of itself in keeping us on the right path for ourselves.
But not every mood shows up because of real life experience. We all have ups and downs. Some arrive driven by our own inner chemistry. Yet we often link outside causes to these haphazard states of mind. We attribute a mental downturn to our work, our partner, or some other external experience -- someone or something must be responsible. Needing comfort, we accidentally push aside people who might provide it. I haven't asked and I've been prickly like a cactus to him, but still, if he really cared he'd come sit with me. In our minds, someone has become part of the problem and then our behavior leads them to confirm our fears.
Sometimes our mood is just our mood. We may seek solace in a reactive habit, such as withdrawing from or lashing out at people; either can be useful when done intentionally, not so much when reflexive and without forethought. They often offer temporary relief without fixing an underlying cause, particularly when there isn't a fixable one to start. We also can get caught up in keeping everything the same, such as getting caught up in the end to an idyllic vacation while still on the beach.
Sometimes there's nothing more to notice but how we're feeling and, for a stretch, let life be. I'm rattled and there's nothing useful to do about it at the moment. A mood showed up and will leave of its own accord, awful or as wonderful as it feels, and the healthiest thing for us to do or think about it may be nothing at all.
You Can't Change What You Can't See
When we fail to pay attention to emotion, we tend to skew how we perceive the world, which magnifies unpleasantness even further. When angry, we are more likely see others as angry. When sad or anxious or whatever else, those states affect our perceptions. Our emotions then change how we think, and those thoughts in turn undermine our emotions again. Both thoughts and emotions affect how we physically feel, which in and of itself influences our emotional state. That cycle continues unabated if we don't take effort to steer it somewhere healthier.
Negative feelings in particular, more than the good times, grab our attention and won't let go. They trigger patterns that pull us further into mental rabbit holes. Oh no, here I go again, I'm not capable of taking caring of myself, or similar ideas exacerbate already challenging states of mind. What was going to be a short downturn becomes a crisis because of a mental cyclone triggered by fear, remorse, and self-doubt. That mental storm swamps us, and we end up avoiding activities, people and even ways of thinking we have at our disposal that would otherwise help us feel better.
When we build awareness, such as through the practice of mindfulness, we notice our emotions more clearly and with less resistance. We recognize our mental habits and actively choose to leave things alone for a moment instead. I'm in a bad mood, it's not my fault or anyone else's, and it will pass. Whatever our urge -- to ignore emotion or to react to it -- we work on something new. If something useful and healthy can relieve an intense emotion, we go for it... and for much of the rest we can observe, seek comfort when we can, and then define the next solid step forward on a stressful day.
Mindfulness Practice: Emotional Awareness
Awareness of emotions starts with just that -- paying attention more often to how we feel. From there, slowly and over time, we can set new intentions for ourselves. For the next few days, aim to*:
1. Recognize emotions more often as they arise. Label briefly, if you like, whatever emotion you notice.
2. Refrain, for a moment, from doing whatever you typically do with that emotion. Pause, take a few breaths, and let things alone before taking a next step.
3. Relax if you can, letting go of any sense of constriction or tension the emotion causes you. If you see something useful to be done about how you feel--go for it. If not, practice letting things be, instead of falling back on reactive, less productive habits.
4. Resolve to keep working on emotional awareness and reactivity. Old habits change slowly, not all at once.
* Adapted from the writings of Pema Chodron
More to Happiness Than Momentary Moods: Minding Your Emotions
The idea of emotional awareness can seem almost mundane. Most of us recognize the benefits of being conscious of our emotions on some level. Yet, being skillful with our emotions is much more than recognizing when we feel happy, angry, or sad.
