Learn more about Susie’s approach to counseling kids, teens, and college students struggling with anxiety here in St. Louis!

Here we are, a month into the new school year, and you're going through the homework struggle. Again.

You were hoping this year would be different. You worked so hard, collaborating with your child's teacher, and finally had a good system... by April. But now it seems like it's back tracked. And it kind of feels hopeless. You wonder if your kid is every going to get their act together when it comes to doing their homework.

What do you do?

Nobody enjoys having a panic attack…

But they're particularly awful when they happen at school. On top of experiencing all of those physical symptoms - shortness of breath, tense muscles, pounding heart - you're worried about how other people will respond to you. 

Relaxation techniques are a huge part of anxiety therapy.

Kids and teens need to be able to calm down in order to move to the deeper, important work of therapy, whether that therapy is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, like ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy), or if that is a more trauma-informed therapy, like TF-CBT or EMDR.

As anxiety specialists in St. Louis, we understand there is more than just one way to help your child work through challenges and process emotions.

Here at Compassionate Counseling St. Louis we help angry, anxious kids and teens work on building strategies to cope with their difficult emotions. Sometimes, that means processing trauma, grief or anxiety in more ways than just talk-therapy. Utilizing different strategies to tailor our approach to your child, is the most important part of creating that lasting change.

That’s why we are thrilled that our therapist, Allegra Grawer, is basic level 1 and 2 trained in EMDR, and is currently receiving EMDRIA certification supervision. But, we also know that sometimes schedules don’t always align or allow for you to work with us and it’s just as important for us to help you find other awesome therapists in the area!

St. Louis is full of amazing resources and we are so happy to feature one of those amazing therapists in our interview series this month! Laura Ranalletta, MSW, LCSW discusses below how she uses EMDR with her clients and brings her expertise to the field.

College is already stressful but this year with the added stress of Covid, you might be feeling even more overwhelmed.

It’s hard to believe we are now a full year into this pandemic. The initial fear of the unknown might have subsided but now you might be noticing anxiety coming up in different ways. This lasting pandemic stress is becoming more common, especially among college students. It’s important to understand how to cope and when you should reach out for extra help.

As college students, the pressure to have life “figured out” after graduating can be really overwhelming. Add a pandemic on top of that, and your level of overwhelm has gotten even bigger.

You might also be feeling anxiety around virtual learning, worry about the job market, and anger about missing out on all of the fun you expected to have during college. All of these feelings are normal and valid! Remember that you aren’t alone in feeling this way.

Winter Break Tip #10 - Let It Go

Hey, parents? You get to choose your battles. Which means that sometimes, you choose not to go to battle. You know what's great about letting something go? You still get to be in charge.

When faced with a problem, we want to teach our kids and teens to evaluate if it's really a big deal. And even if it is a big deal, you still get to decide: do I want to work this out, or do I want to just let it go? Letting it go doesn't mean holding a grudge, or holding it against someone later. It really and truly means that you're moving past it.

Try it out over winter break (we're sure you'll have several opportunities to do so with your kids, your in-laws, or the holiday lines at the grocery store!) See how much more power you feel when you decide to just let something go. It's huge.

Winter Break Tip #7 - Attune and Connect

How many times has someone asked you ”How are you?” and you’ve replied, “Good!” and that’s the whole conversation? Good isn’t a feeling! And, our guess is that you’re feeling a lot more than just “good.”

It’s so easy to gloss past emotions without really taking the time to attune to what’s going on emotionally. This is especially important for your role as a parent. You have to teach your children how to correctly identify their emotions and move forward with them.

Rather than a quick check in with your kids before moving on, take some time to really attune to their emotional state and connect with them, Help them normalize their emotions, and never label a thought or a feeling as good or bad. Even when you or your child are feeling angry or sad or overwhelmed, these emotions give us very important information!

Winter Break Tip #4 - Identify and Empathize

How many of us take the time to really figure out how we're feeling from moment to moment? It can be so easy to gloss over what we're feeling, and then, before we know it, an emotion has built and built until we feel like we're going to explode.

Our first step to helping our kids identify their emotions? You want to help them clue in to what you're noticing on the outside, and what they might be feeling on the inside. Try "You seem stressed," or "I'm wondering if you feel angry." Give them space to correct you. Help them build up their emotional language far beyond "I feel good/bad/fine."

There’s no such thing as a bad emotion. And, honestly, there’s no such thing as a good emotion. Emotions just are, and all emotions are healthy and helpful. We just need to figure out what to do about them.

It’s okay to feel worried and anxious.

Our therapists at Compassionate Counseling St. Louis have a lot of experience working with anxious kids, teens and college students and we wanted to take the time to really showcase the work that we do! Our interview series is a great way to get to know other therapists in the area but we also want you to get to know the therapists here at our office too! Each of our therapists tailor their approach to your child so you get the most out of your sessions and your kid feels supported the whole time.

This week, we spoke to Allegra Grawer on how her experience, what it’s like working at Compassionate Counseling St. Louis and when it might be a good idea to get therapy for anxiety. We’re so lucky to have her at our office!

Supporting your child with social anxiety

It can be overwhelming for a child experiencing social anxiety while not understanding what it is or how to cope. It can also be frustrating for you, as the parent, to deal with the many challenges of social anxiety. Since social anxiety can manifest in a lot of different ways, it’s important to learn what it is and how it looks, so that you can best support your child in dealing with it.

Is family therapy the right choice for me?

When things seem overwhelming or you find yourself facing communication struggles in your home, it can be helpful to seek a therapist who can work with the whole family. Sometimes, it’s even helpful to seek family therapy in addition to individual therapy. But how do you know if your family would benefit from family therapy?

When we work with anxiety and anger management with our kids, teens and college students, we sometimes connect families to family therapists even if everything feels like it’s going well. A family therapist can offer their perspective on the entire family dynamic and work on issues together in a way that is different from the work we do individually.

The kids are at home (still), summer camps are closed, and all the ways you normally fill your summer time look a lot different, thanks to Coronavirus.

So, what’s a parent to do?

This week, we put together a list of some ways to fill up summer - while still building skills for anxiety management, frustration tolerance, and relationship building (kind of the three big things we most care about here at Compassionate Counseling St. Louis!)

What do you actually do this summer? We have 10 ideas right below!

Welcome to week 2 of our 12 tips for winter break series! We’re here giving you our top tips for managing winter break at home with the kids. This week is all about emotional support - what to do and how to do it so that you don’t feel 100% overwhelmed.

Here’s your recap of all of our instagram posts for this week, all tidied up for you in one easy to find spot (and if you want to see this on insta, follow us over there @CounselingWithKelsey!)

Tip 4: Create Some Space to Chill Out

Relaxing is kind of hard to do as a parent - you need to be on top of everything. But over winter break, there are so many great opportunities to just take it down a notch and chill out. And when you take the time to relax (and take care of yourself), you’ll feel so much more ready to be calm for your kids.

As a parent you have a million things on your to do list already, so I hate to add one more… But maybe it helps to view this more as an opportunity instead of a demand! When we’re calm, our kids are easier to calm.

Even better - if you are stressed, and you take the time to acknowledge that to your children and demonstrate how you're planning to calm down, you are DIRECTLY SHOWING THEM what to do when they feel overwhelmed, too. Model what you want them to do! It'll be a huge help - we promise.

Tip 5: Relax

Ok, ok, you hear all the time from us that you need to relax. But how do you do it? Come up with your own totally customizable relaxation plan! Choose one strategy from each of the categories below and boom, you've got your plan. Let's walk you through it:

Anxiety and Stress Relief for Kids and Parents:

As anxiety therapists, Compassionate Counseling St. Louis works with a lot of kids, teens, and parents on ways to best reduce their stress levels. One really cool technique for this is called EFT, which stands for Emotional Freedom Techniques. Here in St. Louis, we have a great therapist who is trained and certified in this model. I’m so excited to share Alison’s answers with you today!

Why did you choose to become a Certified EFT Practitioner in St. Louis?

I've been offering EFT services online for many years now, but was really missing having face-to-face interactions with people, so have affiliated with the St. Louis Wellness Center to offer in-person individual sessions along with group tapping classes.

What kind of treatment do you provide?

I am a Certified Emotional Freedom Techniques practitioner. Emotional Freedom Techniques is usually referred to as EFT or Tapping. EFT is often called emotional acupressure. It's a highly effective form of stress relief where you use your fingers to tap on specific acupressure points on the face and the upper body to neutralize the emotional intensity associated with specific memories or events, beliefs, or fears. It's also very effective at reducing or eliminating physical symptoms since almost all pain has an emotional underpinning. EFT has now been studied a lot and more than 100 published studies show that it is at least as effective as other "gold standard" therapies including Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and EMDR, and can sometimes get results more quickly. EFT quickly reduces the levels of the stress hormone cortisol, it shifts brain wave frequencies, increases heart-rate variability, decreases danger signals from the brain, and can literally change our brains so that something that was associated with a troubling emotion can be associated instead with calm. It's a true mind-body modality.

Deciding on your college and figuring out how to apply in the first place can be STRESSFUL.

It causes a bunch of anxiety in the many, many highschoolers and college-aged students I work with. And while I’ve written on How to Prepare Your Anxious Highschooler for College and Parenting Your Anxious College Student, sometimes you need really specific information and to do lists from someone who does more than just the emotional/stress management side of college. That’s where Joann comes in!

I’m so excited to share our interview below! Joann also has one book out and another on the way, helping to walk parents and teens through the whole college application process (links below).

Joann: I provide college counseling for teens who are trying to navigate the college admissions process. 

I work with helping them identify colleges and/or majors that may be a potential fit, brainstorming the essay, creating an activity list/resume, completing the Common App, organizational skills, help with scholarships, interviewing, talking about their fears and concerns, answering questions, and whatever else comes with the college process. 

Kelsey: Could you talk a little about your approach and how you modify it when working with teens who have anxiety/perfectionism/stress/anger management?

Joann: The interesting thing about what I do is that nearly everyone has stress about the college process, not just those with diagnoses.  It might be the idea of leaving home and the fear it invokes or it might be just being anxious about getting it all done and making a good decision.  For people who have anxiety or perfectionism issues, though, college counseling can be especially helpful because we can separate fact from fiction and ‘urban legend’. Knowledge is powerful and knowing when to ask for help is a sign of intelligence!  Being able to ask questions freely is a great help to reducing students’ stress. For the anxious student, breaking down the steps into manageable baby steps has proven very stress-relieving as well! Being able to talk in a safe environment away from the school day where students can voice their opinions, fears, and concerns reduces stress and anxiety.  They are in a place where they can be their true selves.  Meeting regularly can help keep the student on track and not get off-course further reducing stress.

DBT Class With Licensed Clinical Psychologist Dr. Kirsten Gilbert

When your teen experiences stress, anxiety, and perfectionism, you want them to find the best options for help. One great resource in the St. Louis area is Kirsten Gilbert, PhD. Kirsten is leading a RO-DBT class this summer, starting June 17th.

What’s the story behind the program, and why do you like the work?

Radically Open Dialectical Behavior Therapy (RO DBT) is an evidenced based adaptation of standard DBT that targets 'over-controlled' personality. Although self-control is valued in our society and is helpful, too much self-control, in the form of over-control, can lead to a variety of problems that easily go unnoticed and are difficult to treat. Over-control is often characterized by inflexibility/rigidity, rule-governed and perfectionistic behaviors and over-controlled individuals are often shy, risk-averse, tend to suppress or hide emotions, don't like making mistakes and often feel socially awkward, anxious, or lonely. Over-control is a personality style that characterizes many disorders, including some forms of depression, anxiety, and anorexia nervosa.

I like this work because we help over-controlled teens relax rigid rules, be open to new situations and feedback, help them learn how to play more and how to socially connect with others.

In society today, teens have so much pressure to always be working harder, longer, and to be perfect, and RO DBT recognizes that some individuals are almost TOO good at this. These teens need to learn how to be flexible, interact socially, and learn how to make mistakes every once in a while.