More back-to-school tips for you and your child!

Survival Tips
Here are some more things that can help put you ahead in school:
The old saying "breakfast is the most important meal of the day" is never more true than when you're going to school. Students are more alert and perform better in class if they eat a good breakfast.
Get enough sleep. Studies show that teens need at least 8½ hours of sleep each night to feel rested. Sleep deprivation can lead students to fall asleep in class (embarrassing if you're caught!) and can also make it hard to concentrate. It can be more productive to get the sleep you need than it is to stay up late cramming: A recent study found that students who got adequate sleep before a math test were nearly three times more likely to figure out the problem than those who stayed up all night.
Do more at school and you'll have less to do at home. Take advantage of those times during the school day when you're not in class: Review notes, go to the library or computer lab, get a head-start on your homework, or research that big term paper. You'll be thankful later while you're at the mall or a concert and your classmates are stuck at home cramming!
One of the best ways to make friends and learn your way around is by joining school clubs, sports teams, and activities. Even if you can't kick a 30-yard field goal or sing a solo, getting involved in other ways — going to a school play, helping with a bake sale, or cheering on friends at a swim meet — can help you feel like a part of things.
School is a time to make friends and try new things, but it's also a place to learn skills like organization and decision making that will come in handy for the rest of your life.
Reviewed by: Steven Dowshen, MDDate reviewed: August 2007Originally reviewed by: David B. Waldman, MA

Back-to-School Tips for Parents!

Getting a new school year off to a good start can influence children’s attitude, confidence, and performance both socially and academically. The transition from August to September can be difficult for both children and parents. Even children who are eager to return to class must adjust to the greater levels of activity, structure, and, for some, pressures associated with school life.

The degree of adjustment depends on the child, but parents can help their children (and the rest of the family) manage the increased pace of life by planning ahead, being realistic, and maintaining a positive attitude. Here are a few suggestions to help ease the transition and promote a successful school experience.
Before School Starts
Good physical and mental health. Be sure your child is in good physical and mental health. Schedule doctor and dental checkups early. Discuss any concerns you have over your child’s emotional or psychological development with your pediatrician. Your doctor can help determine if your concerns are normal, age-appropriate issues or require further assessment. Your child will benefit if you can identify and begin addressing a potential issue before school starts. Schools appreciate the efforts of parents to remedy problems as soon as they are recognized.
Review all of the information. Review the material sent by the school as soon as it arrives. These packets include important information about your child’s teacher, room number, school supply requirements, sign ups for after-school sports and activities, school calendar dates, bus transportation, health and emergency forms, and volunteer opportunities.
Mark your calendar. Make a note of important dates, especially back-to-school nights. This is especially important if you have children in more than one school and need to juggle obligations. Arrange for a babysitter now, if necessary.
Make copies. Make copies of all your child’s health and emergency information for reference. Health forms are typically good for more than a year and can be used again for camps, extracurricular activities, and the following school year.
Buy school supplies early. Try to get the supplies as early as possible and fill the backpacks a week or two before school starts. Older children can help do this, but make sure they use a checklist that you can review. Some teachers require specific supplies, so save receipts for items that you may need to return later.
Re-establish the bedtime and mealtime routines. Plan to re-establish the bedtime and mealtime routines (especially breakfast) at least 1 week before school starts. Prepare your child for this change by talking with your child about the benefits of school routines in terms of not becoming over tired or overwhelmed by school work and activities. Include pre-bedtime reading and household chores if these were suspended during the summer.
Turn off the TV. Encourage your child to play quiet games, do puzzles, flash cards, color, or read as early morning activities instead of watching television. This will help ease your child into the learning process and school routine. If possible, maintain this practice throughout the school year. Television is distracting for many children, and your child will arrive at school better prepared to learn each morning if he or she has engaged in less passive activities.
Visit school with your child. If your child is young or in a new school, visit the school with your child. Meeting the teacher, locating their classroom, locker, lunchroom, etc., will help ease pre-school anxieties and also allow your child to ask questions about the new environment. Call ahead to make sure the teachers will be available to introduce themselves to your child.
Minimize clothes shopping woes. Buy only the essentials. Summer clothes are usually fine during the early fall, but be sure to have at least one pair of sturdy shoes. Check with your school to confirm dress code guidelines. Common concerns include extremely short skirts and shorts, low rise pants, bare midriffs, spaghetti strap or halter tops, exposed undergarments, and clothing that have antisocial messages.
Designate and clear a place to do homework. Older children should have the option of studying in their room or a quiet area of the house. Younger children usually need an area set aside in the family room or kitchen to facilitate adult monitoring, supervision, and encouragement.
Select a spot to keep backpacks and lunch boxes. Designate a spot for your children to place their school belongings as well as a place to put important notices and information sent home for you to see. Explain that emptying their backpack each evening is part of their responsibility, even for young children.
Freeze a few easy dinners. It will be much easier on you if you have dinner prepared so that meal preparation will not add to household tensions during the first week of school.

By Ted Feinberg, EdD, NCSP, & Katherine C. Cowan National Association of School Psychologists

Benefits of helping others

When you become detached mentally from yourself and concentrate on helping other people with their difficulties, you will be able to cope with your own more effectively.

Somehow, the act of self-giving is a personal power-releasing factor.
- Norman Vincent Peale
************************************************************************************ESPAVO.............. "There is no exercise better for the heart than reaching down and lifting people up." - John Andrew Holmes Jr. -

What is a phobia? What can be done?

Do you believe that you might have a phobia? Plenty of people do! Some of the phobias that we hear about are:

• fear of spiders and snakes


• fear of public speaking


• fear of flying


• fear of small, enclosed spaces


• fear of having certain illnesses

What keeps people from getting treatment for these often-debilitating disorders? Actually, it's the fear of what someone else might say or think about getting help for a problem like this. It's not logical but then many of the things we are taught about the way life works are not logical. Some people are lucky enough to wake up one day and say, "wait a second, my mother, father, sister, brother, teacher, coach or baby-sitter may have told me that _________ was true, or would happen if I do ______. but that's crazy!" I'm going to get some more information on this ( or that) and try doing things or thinking about this in a new, improved way!"

What freedom and empowerment this brings to people. I see it happen every day and it's what makes me love being a therapist/counselor. Are YOU ready to look at your fears and "stinkin' thinkin'?" Please give me a call at 419-1698 and set up an appointment.

A Message from Louise Hay

Experience Your Own Freedom of Choice

Write down all the shoulds in your life. All the things you feel guilty about and feel that you should be doing. Now examine each should and ask yourself:

Why have I not done this?
Do I really want to do it?

Stay with each one until you get a satisfactory and honest answer. Feeling guilty about something we don’t want to do but feel we should do is giving away our own personal power. Who is trying to manipulate you through guilt? Your answers will enable you to release these old patterns or to realize what areas you really need to work on.

Turn every should in your life to a could, both for yourself and for others. Drop the word should from your vocabulary. Drop the concept of should from your mind. Replace both the word and the concept with could. Should is limiting, could is choice.

I Should…
I Could…if I wanted to

All the shoulds and the should-nots in your life are just trying to live up to someone else’s idea of acceptable behavior. Let your own Power of Freedom decide what you want to do and what would be best for you not to do. Free yourself from the tyranny of shoulds. Come from Freedom of Choice.

Affirm today: I stand tall and free. I am strong and confident in all that I do.

How do you know if you need therapy?

Obviously, this is not a "one size fits all question." I'd like to give you an overview, however, of what the web has to say about this.
"Things aren't going well. You leave for work with a sense of dread and come home half-dead with fatigue. You fight incessantly with those you love-or can't find anyone to love. The toll of smoking or excessive drinking is obvious, even to you, but you keep on doing it.
Maybe something happened to knock you off balance. You lost your job a month ago, and now it's hard to get up and get dressed. A friend is terminally ill, and you can't put thoughts of him out of your mind. Since that emergency landing at O'Hare, every business trip gives you nightmares.
Or there's nothing really wrong, nothing you can put a finger on. But one day you realize that you've been struggling through the motions in a miasma of low-level discomfort and dissatisfaction. Whatever you do doesn't seem like the right thing, and none of it gives much pleasure.
What are you going to do? There's no shortage of books to tell you how to heal whatever ails you, no lack of talk-show gurus with wise advice on everything from beating the blues to finding lasting love or the job of your dreams. Maybe you've assembled your own little arsenal of strategies that help when the burdens get heavy and the skies refuse to brighten: taking a long, strenuous walk, a hot bath, a vacation. Volunteering at a soup kitchen. Cultivating your garden.
Friends and family are an age-old source of solace in times of trouble. Human beings are essentially social creatures; we need each other, and a sympathetic ear, an encouraging word can work wonders. It's been shown that simply having a confidant-someone you can trust to listen and care-reduces stress, eases anxiety, and lifts mood.
But sometimes the usual fixes just don't work; you know you've got a problem, and it's not about to go away. And the question comes up, moves up rapidly from the back of your mind (or perhaps it's suggested-diplomatically or otherwise-by a friend or loved one): should you go for therapy?
What Is Psychotherapy?
We all know what therapy is-until we try to pin it down, and realize how many very different things have come to carry the label. "Therapy" can last six weeks or six years. It may involve two people-you and the therapist-or your whole family, or even a group of strangers. You may talk about today's crisis or last night's dreams, or events you can scarcely remember. You may be encouraged to keep a diary of your thoughts, or to free-associate. To pound pillows or to take pills.
What do they all have in common? No matter what particular form therapy takes, the essence is an ongoing relationship. Researchers who seek to find what makes therapy successful return again and again to that central fact: whatever else happens, the closeness and trust between patient and therapist-what is called the "therapeutic alliance"-is a key factor. It even appears to be important when medication is the main treatment.
Therapy is a unique type of relationship, and what makes it valuable is what sets it apart from friendships, working partnerships, family connections, and love affairs. Its purpose is well defined: understanding and change. It comes into being, that is, to help you identify and understand dysfunctional ways of thinking, feeling, and acting, and to generate more productive and satisfying ways of thinking, feeling, and acting.
Friends and family members want to help us when we're in distress, and the advice they offer (with or without solicitation) can be useful. But the kind of counsel you'll get from a therapist is different. Rather than being simply instructive ("Here's what you ought to do"), it's likely intended to be a catalyst, to quicken your own ability to work things out. " This is an excerpt of a book by Carl Sherman called "How do you know if you need therapy." If you're getting this newletter, chances are that you're now in therapy. Just thought you'd enjoy it anyway and want to know more perhaps??

You ALWAYS have a choice; did you know that?

• You don't have to buy from anyone.
• You don't have to work at any particular job.
• You don't have to participate in any given relationship.
• You can choose.
• You steer the course you choose in the directionof where you want to be today, tomorrow,or in a distant time to come.
• You hold the tiller.
• You can decide to alter the course of your life at any time.
• No one can ever take that away from you.
• You can decide what you want and go after it.
• It's always your next move.

Isn't that good news? I'll be happy to talk more with you about this!

Dr. Alice