Christin Mullen

LMFT

Christin

Parenting 101 during Covid

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5 Powerful Strategies For Parents of Children during the Pandemic

1). Connect and Redirect instead of Command and Demand

Action Step: Instead of Command and Demand…. Try Connect and Redirect. This helps when you kid has “flipped his lid” or he has a lot of feelings and may be close to flipping his lid. His/ her behavior is not coordinated. Emotions are exploding like a volcano. When we see chaotic/unpredictable behavior or rigid/ completely predictable behavior, a parent is given a basic notion that his/her child has “flipped his lid”. If he is no longer in the river of harmony- there are two ways you child goes. He is not in an integrated brain state. This moment is an invitation- “my child is off the handle”. First thing you do is connect and then try to redirect. You want to help your reactive child, become receptive. (Reminder: the brain has two basic states: reactive or receptive.) If you attempt to educate or direct when your child is in a reactive brain state, they will not be able to respond in an open and engaged manner. Before I give her left brain advise (explain), I need to connect (describe what I understand is going on for her). I need to tune into my right brain. I need to be willing to feel the pain that she is experiencing. Whatever I do, I need to be open to what is in my child. There is a big rupture to my connection with my child if I have not done my own work around painful experiences I had as a child. If you give all kinds of left brain advice before you connect, the child is unable to receive it.

For more info: This quick video by Daniel Seigel, MD, Connect and Redirect. Also The Whole-Brain Child by Daniel Siegel, M.D. and Tina Payne Bryson, PH.D is a great resource. I listen to the Whole-Brain Child on podcast while out for a walk and it revitalizes me to use effective strategies with my kids during distance learning and when they are “flipping their lids”. To do you own work around your own childhood, I highly recommend starting with Parenting from the Inside Out by Daniel J. Siegel  and Mary Hartzell.

2). Help your children understand how fear works by teaching them basic brain science. Teach them that imagining something scary can set off an alarm bell in their brain (the same as if something dangerous was really happening), sending messages to their body to get ready to run, fight or freeze. It causes the body to have uncomfortable sensations. The brain and body can make you feel like you are really in danger even when you are not.

Action Step: A helpful video in learning about the brain, the mind and relationships is the brain model and Fred Rogers, and the other is about Connecting to Calm both by Daniel Seigel, MD. Take a look and talk about it with a loved one.

3). Externalize the fear– the way to fight it by introducing parts of the self. For Example:

A) Boo Voice (worry mind) Help your child be a detective and identify what the worry part is saying. This is the voice that comes up when we imagine scary things. “what ifs?”. It is exaggerated and articulates the fears and doubts and misguided conclusions that predict bad things happening. Name it, draw it, externalize it to fight it. “I’m not buying what you are selling, Worry part”.

B) Wise Mind (integrated self) Your child will come up with strong, truthful and brave things to say to stand up to the “worry part or Boo Voice” and grow their “wise mind”. “Blah, blah, blah Worry Part, you always say the same thing about — and I am not going to get hooked into your story, I say hush up and let me do my life”.

Action Step: Check out Dr. Reid Wilson’s “Noise In Your Head” video series captures the essence of Dr. Reid Wilson’s groundbreaking new book, Stopping the Noise in Your Head: The New Way to Overcome Anxiety and Worry, and delivers it in 6 concise, comedic installments. Lynn Lyons also has videos on her website for teaching kids how to manage anxiety.

I can have two equally compelling thoughts. One that causes my threat system to set off alarm bells in my mind and body, OR I can choose to focus on thoughts that help me feel strong and brave. These thoughts help me access my learning brain so I can problem solve instead of ruminate. I get to bring rationality and intuition together. When I say, “I’ve got this”, I reduce arousal in my emotional brain. Go to Happify to see a great animation by Sharon Salzberg on “How Mindfulness Empowers Us” . In grounding ourselves, getting curious about which part of ourselves is taking over, we can decide whether to go along for the ride with that thought.

4). Build brave muscles. Help your child be ok with uncomfortable feelings that show up and pivot and do their life anyway. Help them do exposures with ATTITUDE. “Show your worry part who is boss”. Your child learns to manage fears and worries with more skill and grow his/her confidence. At first, it helps if they can titrate between something funny and something scary. They step into what is scary on purpose! They decide NOT to listen or react to it. This needs to be child directed. A gentle nudge is ok as long as you and your child already discussed that he/she wants you to help them stay strong and not fall into the worry’s parts tricks.

Action Step: A great podcast to help you do this: Flusterclux: to fight anxiety . Helping families manage anxiety. Lynn Lyon’s podcast is an awesome for parents! For parents and adult anxiety, I highly recommend checking out Reid Wilson’s videos “Noise in Your Head” on youtube. They are fun videos to watch and they teach evidence based CBT skills to externalize the fear messages and show up for stuff that matters even if it is scary.

5).Teach your child the power of redirecting their Mind

Action Step: Create a 1-2-3 grounding exercise or a fun activity you and your child do together. We know connection calms kids. You can play with it and bring in flexibility, playfulness and fun creating a state of relaxation and laughter. E.g. Create a funny album for your child. Time to share anecdotes, funny stories (relax state). “What we practice grows stronger”. This podcast by Dr. Shapiro on mindfulness explains in a fun, easy way the importance of directing our mind to what we want to strengthen. Adminst all the business, find ways to hang out in fun ways together.

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A Pandemic, Wild Fires, and Distance Learning, Really? How Much Can We Hold?

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How much can we hold? Our collective nervous systems in California are out of balance. We all have a certain amount we can tolerate. We use self-care, time with friends & family, and time off to help us regulate our emotions and be within “our window” so we can practice kindness and compassion. I have struggled lately to feel grounded given all the scary events happening around us. When we are in our window of tolerance, we are less likely to “flip our lids” and much less likely to sweat the small stuff. Right now we need lots of self-compassion because our window has closed some, and we are less likely to be in “optimal arousal”. We need to breathe more, laugh more, cry more, drink healthy water, and rest. I don’t know about you, but for me practicing kindness and compassion for myself and others is a moment to moment practice. Honestly, some moments go better than others.

When we are out of balancec, we are outside our “window of tolerance”.
Our nervous systems look more like this lately…

What to do: To expand our windows of tolerance and bring ourselves back into a tolerable place where we are not experiencing intense waves of emotion, we need to do what brings us joy. We might need to visualize our safe/ happy place. Even if we can’t go outside, we can imagine being in our favorite place. As long as we are physically safe at this very moment, we can tap into all the beauty around us. We can remember what feels good and practice it. Even if it is only in our minds. We can breath in all who love us and all we love. We can draw on this resource to help us regulate our nervous systems.

This is what it looks like when you are feeling safe, healthy, happy, rested, nourished and strong.

To help our kids have less cortisol surges ( often in the form of tantrums), we teach them elmo belly breathing when they are toddlers (check it out on youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mZbzDOpylA) or we teach them starfish breathing. My children, Sam and Will demonstrated on this video to help all of us learn some fun, cool hacks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANITKi0D2B8 . We as parents offer quiet attention to our children to help them down-regulate their nervous systems. If we are in an aroused state or outside our window of tolerance, we need to bite our tongues and step away so that we are not inadvertently causing more distress to our children and impairing their nervous systems further. And when we do flip our lids, we go back and repair the situation by calmly talking about what we would have liked to have said instead. We can go slow and show what we would have like to have done/ said. This repair is essential to help our kids see we make mistakes and so do they. It is ok and it’s important to own and talk about our mistakes.

How to Diagnose and Treat PTSD in Kids

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Nisha Iyer created this helpful resource for parents wanting to help their children with symptoms such as nightmares, flashbacks, sleeping problems, and anxiety associated with a traumatic experience the child witnessed.

This is a helpful flyer for parents wanting to know how to treat flashbacks and other PTSD symptoms in their children developed by Nisha Iyer.

What is Flash Technique?

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I took a couple of classes with Phillip Manfield and learned Flash Technique.  This technique was developed recently for people with overwhelming trauma and the client does not need to connect to the trauma directly.  It is so useful as a way to begin helping someone process something very hard.    I use this technique when clients are feeling very activated about a single incident stressful event and they are not wanting to talk about the event.   It is another great resource for my EMDR toolbox to help clients’ heal safely.

The Differences Between Empathy & Sympathy

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I show this to many of my clients as it is a helpful narrative about the differences between empathy and sympathy. We can all use a little more empathy in our lives.

Brene’ Brown on Empathy

What is Relajaja?

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Liliana Casas Hernandez, LMFT, and Christin Mullen, LMFT came up with this name together by combining words from English and Spanish. We work in both languages and we decided to create a word that combines “relaxation” in English, “relajar” in Spanish means to relax. We added “Ja Ja” as it is similar to “ha ha” in English reminding us to be playful and have fun while we create opportunities for healing and growth.

Liliana Casas Hernandez, LMFT, and Christin Mullen, LMFT facilitate webinars, training, and groups for adults, parents, children, and adolescents specifically addressing anxiety and trauma. We have fun, interactive training with role plays and opportunities for creativity, discovery, and growth.

We also volunteer for Counselors Without Borders and advocate for social justice work especially supporting immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers. We support counselors in training and therapists to learn trauma-specific skills to address crisis situations and humanitarian disasters.

Break it down for our kids- Anti-Racism Resources to help us move forward.

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Parents and teachers in the midst of everything, trying to help our kids make sense of the inequalities they see all around them.​ Liz Upchurch worked very hard on putting the following resources together and she gave me permission to share this on my website. I am so fortunate to have such amazing friends and colleagues collaborating with me on this important work.

It’s our job to help kids develop a deep recognition of injustice and the need for anti-racism work.

NOTE: These resources have been compiled from a variety of sources, including recommendations from activists, people of color, and leaders in the current movement; training and diversity/equity organizations; and other community groups. My friend Liz Upchurch send me most of these great resources. She and I are simply passing along their work. 

We all hold a responsibility to teach all children about our shared history including the ways in which society has unevenly treated people of color.
Black lives matter. Each of us has a role to play in opposing racism, injustice and oppression. TED (I am a big fan of TED talks) curated talks and articles as a starting point to understanding the roots of racism and the ways we can combat it together.
This is from TED:
* Watch a recent panel discussion with Dr. Phillip Atiba Goff, Rashad Robinson, Dr. Bernice King and Anthony D. Romero on ending systemic racism in America.
* Learn about how to build an antiracist world from Dr. Ibram X. Kendi.
* Take these eight steps to become a better ally in the fight for racial justice.
* Discover the negative impact racism has on the economy, explained by public policy expert Heather C. McGee.Ask yourself these three questions to decide when to speak up about racism.
* Watch Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw’s essential talk on intersectionality.
* Hear some hard truths about the American justice system in this legendary talk from Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy.

Other Great Anti-Racism Resources

Sources

  • Employee Resource Group for Black employees at a private company
  • The Menlo School
  • Lesbians Who Tech & Allies
  • KQED
  • Paradigm IQ
  • LifeLabs

Allyship terms + concepts to know  (From LifeLabs, a training organization)

An important part of allyship is keeping up with terms that matter. Here is a series of terms shared by members of our community that help to increase conversational capacity:

  • Privilege: an unearned advantage given by society to some people but not all. Recognizing your own privilege (the ways in which your identity and background have helped you) is a great place to start since it opens the door to empathy and allows people to become more aware of opportunities to use their privilege to be better allies. 
  • Systemic oppression: pervasive inequality that is present throughout society, benefits people with more privilege, and harms those with fewer privileges.
  • Marginalized person: a member of a group that is impacted by a system of oppression. 
  • Ally: a member of a group that benefits from privilege and works to end oppression for others and/or make it easier for people with less privilege to gain access to opportunities.
  • Intersectionality: the concept that people can be subject to multiple systems of oppression and/or privilege that intersect and interact with each other (coined by legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw). For example, someone’s experience can be shaped by being male and cis-gender (privilege) and also Black and gay (marginalized).
  • Psychological safety: a feeling that someone can share what they are really thinking and feeling without fear of negative consequences (like loss of physical safety, status, relationships, job).
  • Microaggression: a statement, action, or incident regarded as an instance of indirect, subtle, or unintentional expression of a negative stereotype. 

How to Be an Ally

LEARN

History / Context

Read

Listen

Watch

Organizations on the ground

  • Minnesota Freedom Fund, “pays criminal bail and immigration bond for those who cannot afford to” as they “seek to end discriminatory, coercive, and oppressive jailing.” *Note: The Minnesota Freedom Fund has asked that all donations be directed elsewhere, due to the surge of support they have received in the past few days.
  • Reclaim the Block “organizes Minneapolis community and city council members to move money from the police department into other areas of the city’s budget that truly promote community health and safety.”
  • Black Visions Collective, “a Black-led, Queer and Trans centering organization whose mission is to organize powerful, connected Black communities and dismantle systems of violence…through building strategic campaigns, investing in Black leadership, and engaging in cultural and narrative organizing.”
  • Campaign Zero, a comprehensive platform of research-based policy solutions to end police brutality in America.

ACT: 

Tips for Action

Protest

Change Policy

Support Black-owned Businesses

Donate

Bay Area

Further Afield

  • Black Lives Matter :: A global network fighting for Freedom, Liberation and Justice of Black folks by building local power and intervening when violence is inflicted on Black communities. 
  • Campaign Zero :: A campaign taking deliberate action to end the disproportionate police violence and incarceration of Black communities in America. 
  • Run with Maud :: A justice campaign fighting for due process in the lynching of Ahmaud Arbery. Sign the petition or make phone calls to demand justice for Ahmaud. 
  • Take Action Minnesota :: A Minnesota-based organization pushing for collective aid and pursuing justice in the murder of George Floyd. 
  • Minnesota Teen Activists :: A collective of youth activists fighting white supremacy and injustice in Minnesota. 
  • Fair Fight Action :: An organization promoting fair elections and educating voters about their voting rights nationwide. 
  • NAACP Legal Defense Fund :: America’s premiere legal defense organization fighting for racial justice. 
  • Color of Change :: The nation’s largest online racial justice organization. 
  • The Bail Project :: Provides free bail assistance to low-income individuals who are legally presumed innocent. 
  • Black Visions Collective :: A Minnesota-based organization that believes in a future where all Black people have autonomy, safety is community-led, and we are in right relationship within our ecosystems. 
  • Reclaim the Block :: A Minneapolis-based campaign that works to move money from the police department to other areas of the city budget, prioritizing community health and safety.
  • Communities United for Police Reform :: A campaign to end discriminatory policing practices in New York. 
  • Southern Poverty Law Center :: An organization that monitors and exposes the behavior of hate groups and extremists in the US.
  • American Civil Liberties Union :: An organization dedicated to defending and preserving the civil rights and liberties of all Americans. 

Sign

HEAL:

Mental Health Resources for POC

Meditation, Mindfulness, etc

  • HealHaus, 
  • MetaDen, and 
  • Minka Brooklyn offer virtual classes and workshops in meditation, movement, breathwork, reiki, and self-development
  • Frequency incorporates sound therapy in guided breathwork, meditation, and human connection.

Children’s Books on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

31 Children’s books to support conversations on race, racism, and resistance

The 2020 Ultimate List of Diverse Children’s Books

Books with Characters of Color

Mixed – Diversity and Inclusion Story and Discussion Guide for Parents (children’s book + parent’s guide)

Articles for Parents and Teachers

How White Parents Can Talk To Their Kids About Race (NPR)

How silence can breed prejudice: A child development professor explains how and why to talk to kids about race (Washington Post)

Critical Conversations (The Conscious Kid)

Podcasts and Videos for Adults

Talking Race With Young Children (NPR) (audio)

How To Raise Anti-Racist Kids (with Dr. Nzinga Harrison) (audio)

1619 (New York Times) (audio)

Come Through With Rebecca Carroll (audio)

Color blind or color brave? (TED talk by Mellody Hobson) (video)

Now providing hybrid sessions both teletherapy and in person in downtown San Mateo.

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