Coping Skills

Helping Teens with Stress and Depression

Helping Teens with Stress and Depression

Firstly I want to pre-warn you that my guest Elliot Kallen and I discuss the topic of suicide. This might be an uncomfortable topic for you or perhaps younger ears are listening so please click play with care. 

Sometimes life throws us the most difficult of situations which stop us in our tracks and make us believe it’s too difficult to carry on. This was the unfortunate case for Elliot Kallen’s son and in turn for Elliot himself. But the impressive resilience of human beings allowed Elliot to carry on past his heart ache in order to help other families in similar situations so they wouldn’t have to feel the pain he went through. The strength he possesses is nothing short of amazing so I encourage you to listen to Elliot’s story and how he can help you and your child through depression….

Making a Coping Skills Toolkit at Dollar Tree

Making a Coping Skills Toolkit at Dollar Tree

In this episode, I am talking about coping skills tool kits that you can make at the Dollar Tree. I have previous similar episodes based on different stores such as Five Below, Target, Michael’s and Oriental Trading and one more general episode right back when I started this podcast. I talk about different styles of coping skills like relaxation, distraction, movement, sensory and processing.

The topics I cover in this episode are:

Peaceful Discipline Story Teaching: An Interview with Sarah Moore

Peaceful Discipline Story Teaching: An Interview with Sarah Moore

After an unbelievable routine check at the pediatrician’s office, Sarah’s life changed forever. The experience she talks about in this episode made her get serious about parenting and educating other parents about peaceful discipline. Yes, it is helpful to look at evidence based research on parenting but ultimately, you need to find out what works for you specifically. Listen to this episode to find out how…

The topics we cover in this episode are:

The Self-Driven Child with Ned Johnson

The Self-Driven Child with Ned Johnson

In this episode, Ned and I discuss the “parent as consultant” way of approaching raising children. It’s important to not solve all your kids' problems, they need to build those skills themselves to face issues in a constructive and thoughtful way. 

We also discuss stress and how we all need to learn how to deal with it. As a parent, guardian or teacher, we all need to model self-care to manage our stress levels so our children can watch, learn and mimic that behavior.

The topics we cover in this episode are:

The Many Roles of a School Counselor

The Many Roles of a School Counselor

Every school should have a school counselor and there are so many reasons why a school counselor may work with any student at any stage of their educational career. But what do they do? From individual 1-1 support to whole class workshops, a school counselor is there to see students thrive and support them with strategies so they can love and enjoy learning. They give the tools the student needs for the challenge in front of them at that moment. Today I speak to school counselor, Rachel Davis. The topics we cover in this episode are:

A Delicious Way to Practice Mindfulness

A Delicious Way to Practice Mindfulness

Did you know that mindfulness practice can shrink the amygdala which is the part of the brain that is responsible for fight, flight or freeze? While I know the benefits of mindfulness, I sometimes struggle to actually practice it. But several years ago, I was able to finally start on my mindfulness journey - by using food!

This can be done with any type of food but I particularly love using berries or chocolate. Take a listen to learn how to use this technique…

The topics I cover in this episode are:

Neurodiversity Affirming Whole Body Listening Larry

Neurodiversity Affirming Whole Body Listening Larry

In this episode I am joined by Speech Language Pathologist Elizabeth A. Sautter to talk about ‘Whole body Listening Larry’. For our communities to evolve and grow, we have to constantly look at ourselves, the way we speak and how and what we teach children in schools about diversity.  Not every brain is created biologically the same, so why do we think we could learn, listen, work or play the same way? I hope this episode opens your mind up to the positivity and brilliance that comes from people with neurodiverse brains.

The topics we cover in this episode are:

Coping Skills for Adults: Movement Strategies

Coping Skills for Adults: Movement Strategies

This episode is the next installment of ‘Coping skills for adults’ and I want to focus on the movement style. Movement and exercise is a strange one. Before doing it, you really don’t want to, it takes a lot of momentum but once you’ve completed a workout don’t you just feel amazing with all those feel-good hormones running through your body? This isn’t just a feeling, it’s been scientifically proven! Movement helps your physical functioning, studies also show it improves your cognitive function but most interestingly exercise improves your mental health. 

The topics I cover in this episode are:

Collaborative and Proactive Solutions with Kim Hopkins

Collaborative and Proactive Solutions with Kim Hopkins

We can learn a lot from history and luckily as humans we can learn to progress and right our wrongs, to be more ethical or helpful. In regards to caring for children, in the past we used restraint techniques when a child was displaying negative behavior and some were even paddled! In fact I was stunned to learn that, as of 2022 paddling is legal and being practiced in 15 U.S states. You don’t need hard scientific evidence to know this isn’t right. My guest Kim Hopkins joins me to talk about safer, kinder techniques we can use with our children to help them learn effectively.  

The topics we cover in this episode are:

Coping Skills for Adults: Sensory Strategies

Coping Skills for Adults: Sensory Strategies

This episode is the next installment of ‘Coping skills for adults’ and I wanted to explore some sensory strategies we can use to cope, de-stress, and relax throughout our days. We’re all busy people so if we can take these mini relaxation moments to de-stress then it won’t feel like another item to add to the to-do list, you can do it while you’re at the supermarket or working at your desk.

The topics we cover in this episode are:

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