Coping With New Ways of Living

Katherine Baker, Mental Health Social Worker Back-to-School Wellness Series Upper Saddle River Schools August 25, 2020 COVID-19 5.5 months in... Our new COVID-19 routines ● Disruptions to work, school, and caregiving ○ Additional or loss of responsibilities ● Disruptions to social lives (adults, youth, and family units) ● Drastically different health and safety routines as we navigate the outside world ● Shared living spaces for learning, work, play, and living ● Shared resources (devices, toys, materials) ● Changes in which family members are home and when ● Are ever changing!

Summer routines

● Adjusted to our children’s out-of-school, summer routines ● Adjusted/adjusting to family changes/losses, work/financial/living changes ● Adjusted to following health/safety protocols as more restrictions have lifted ● Adjusted to new ways of socializing with the loosening of restrictions and summer months (adults, youth, family unit) Just when we thought we had adjusted to these changes... It’s back to school! This new school year brings...

The “old” new... The “new” new…

● New teachers and friends ● New health and safety ● New schools protocols in school ● New classes ● New types of learning ● Other new daily routines ● New ways of interacting with (getting ready for school and + classmates in and out of school work) ● Different daily routines ● New activities (getting ready for school and ● New routines with guardians, work) siblings, caregivers, etc. ● Completely different/altered activities How can families manage new routines and successfully cope with continued uncertainties and changes? Creating new routines...again!

It’s okay to acknowledge our and our children’s disappointment that our lives did not “return to normal” for the start of this new school year.

● Establish new family routines and structures ○ Morning routines ○ Learning routines (hybrid plus remote or remote only) ○ Mid-day routines ○ Caregiving routines ○ Family time and evening routines Adjusting to our new routines

● Keep things in perspective ○ There is no blueprint for this! ● Allow time for the family unit to (re)adjust ● Try to avoid a negative impact of the “yo-yo” dynamic with coping strategies ● Discuss with your family that changes to routines will continue to occur ● Prioritize our emotional well-being Maintaining family harmony ● We are the models for our children’s behavior ○ Health/safety protocols: social distancing, mask wearing, hygiene ○ Managing stress ○ Coping with change ○ Communication practices ● C.A.L.M. ○ C: Remain calm and control what we can ○ A: Be available ○ L : Listen ○ M: Model coping with stress Maintaining family harmony ● Acknowledge family members’ efforts and praise improvements ● Engage in family activities ○ Let each family member take turns choosing a whole-family activity ■ Movie or game night ■ Outing (hiking, go to a park, etc.) ○ Find ways to spend quality time with your partner, or other family members ■ One-to-one time with each child

Maintaining family harmony

● Talk to your children about the family’s new routines and ask them how they’re adjusting ● Be an empathetic active listener ○ Be open and show them that you hear what they are saying ○ Summarize what you have heard before responding: “What I hear you saying is…” For those of us with partners... ● Develop a new shared schedule for childcare, family chores and administrative tasks, schoolwork, and parenting “on time”. ○ Do what works for YOUR family ● Emphasize relationship dialogue and communication. ● Be kind to each other. Give each other the benefit of the .

Remember: This is incredibly challenging for everyone. We are all trying our best. Coping strategies for managing continued uncertainty

● Take care of yourself ○ Maintain a healthy diet ○ Exercise ○ Get enough sleep ○ Find ways to decompress and take breaks in ways that work for you ○ Monitor and manage your own stress level and emotional well-being Coping Strategies

● Utilize coping strategies you found to be successful in other stressful times (pre-COVID or during quarantine periods of COVID) ● Mindfulness activities ● Meditation ● Taking breaks ● Engaging in enjoyable activities ● Utilizing social support Regulating our

RULER Method: Dr. Marc Brackett, Director, Yale Center for

● R: Recognizing ● U: Understanding Emotion ● L: Labeling Emotion ● E: Expressing Emotion ● R: Regulating Emotion RULER Method

Recognizing Emotion R: Discerning our own and reading, at a glance or soon thereafter, someone else’s overall emotional state.

Source: Marc Brackett, Ph.D., Permission to Feel: Unlocking the Power of Emotions to Help Our Kids, Ourselves, and Our Society Thrive. RULER Method

Understanding Emotion

Asking and understanding the Why? of our emotions. “Once we ask it...we begin a line of inquiry that can go on for some U: time. What caused this emotion? Once we find an answer, the next question instantly arises: Why, of all the possible reactions, that particular one?”

Source: Marc Brackett, Ph.D., Permission to Feel: Unlocking the Power of Emotions to Help Our Kids, Ourselves, and Our Society Thrive. RULER Method

Labeling Emotion

Naming our emotions. The connection between Recognition L: and Understanding and Expression and Regulation.

Source: Marc Brackett, Ph.D., Permission to Feel: Unlocking the Power of Emotions to Help Our Kids, Ourselves, and Our Society Thrive. RULER Method Expressing Emotion

Verbal and non-verbal expressions of emotions.

E: “Give ourselves and others permission to feel. Accept and acknowledge that there’s no in expressing our emotions. We don’t need to fix or hide what we feel. Expression enhances our lives in many ways, not all of them obvious. It propels us forward…”.

Source: Marc Brackett, Ph.D., Permission to Feel: Unlocking the Power of Emotions to Help Our Kids, Ourselves, and Our Society Thrive. RULER Method

Regulating Emotion

● Mindful breathing R: ● Forward-looking strategies ● Attention-shifting strategies ● Cognitive-reframing strategies ● Meta-Moment

Source: Marc Brackett, Ph.D., Permission to Feel: Unlocking the Power of Emotions to Help Our Kids, Ourselves, and Our Society Thrive. Mindful breathing

● Taking a few minutes to pause, breathe naturally through the nose ● Helps our bodies “hit the brakes” on our brain’s activation of our stress response system when we experience intense emotions ● Can count our breaths, repeat calming phrase ● Helps to have good posture and remove distractions ● Can be done anywhere, anytime ● Don’t judge yourself if your mind wanders when you first try ● It takes practice!

Source: Marc Brackett, Ph.D., Permission to Feel: Unlocking the Power of Emotions to Help Our Kids, Ourselves, and Our Society Thrive Forward-looking strategies

● Predicting which situations or encounters will provoke an emotional reaction and taking measures to prevent them from happening. ○ Avoiding a situation ○ Finding a compromise or work around ○ Doing something you enjoy as a reward for getting through something unpleasurable

Source: Marc Brackett, Ph.D., Permission to Feel: Unlocking the Power of Emotions to Help Our Kids, Ourselves, and Our Society Thrive. Attention-shifting strategies

● Tempering the impact of an emotion by diverting our attention from it. ○ Distraction works ○ Less effective in the long-term: denial, procrastination ○ More effective in the long-term: Compassionate self-talk (using the third person is more effective than using the first person, .i.e. “Katherine…” vs. “I…”). ■ Allows us to be empathetic to ourselves

Source: Marc Brackett, Ph.D., Permission to Feel: Unlocking the Power of Emotions to Help Our Kids, Ourselves, and Our Society Thrive. Cognitive-reframing strategies

● Reimagine or reframe a triggering emotional experience and then react to that new interpretation. ● Consciously choose to view a situation in a way that generates the least negative emotion in us, or we attempt to take the perspective of the person who is activating us and assume the best intention.

Source: Marc Brackett, Ph.D., Permission to Feel: Unlocking the Power of Emotions to Help Our Kids, Ourselves, and Our Society Thrive. Meta-Moment

● Used to bring down our emotional temperature to give ourselves space for rational thought ● A “moment about a moment” ● Pause, hit the brakes and stop the action ● Maybe we’ll: take deep breaths, count ● Gives us enough time to quickly answer: ○ “How have I handled situations like this in the past? ○ “What would my best self do right now?”

Source: Marc Brackett, Ph.D., Permission to Feel: Unlocking the Power of Emotions to Help Our Kids, Ourselves, and Our Society Thrive. Meta-Moment Steps

Before we explode or respond too quickly, we:

1. Sense the shift: Activated, caught off guard, have an impulse to say or do something you might . 2. Stop or pause: Create space before you respond. 3. See your best self: Imagine your best self. How do you want to be seen, talked about, experienced by others? 4. Strategize and act: Utilize other Regulating Emotion strategies (reframing, positive self-talk, etc.) that will close the gap between your “triggered” self and your best self.

Source: Marc Brackett, Ph.D., Permission to Feel: Unlocking the Power of Emotions to Help Our Kids, Ourselves, and Our Society Thrive. If you continue to feel significantly overwhelmed and stressed during these next phases of COVID:

● Reach out to trusted family, friends, and/or social supports within your communities for help ● Access health and mental health supports ● Reach out to the USR counseling team ● In particularly overwhelming moments, utilize coping and emotional regulation strategies USR School Counseling Contacts

Reynolds School: Stefanie Slacin ([email protected])

Bogert School: Sara Senger ([email protected])

Cavallini Middle School: Margaret Donnelly ([email protected])

Brigette Uzar ([email protected])

District-wide: Katherine Baker ([email protected]) Resources

● Bergen ResourceNet ● Calm.com ● COVID-19 Parenting Tips: UNICEF ● UNICEF parenting tips brochure ● Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence ● Mental Health America