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Thursday, July 31, 2014
Helping Children Improve Their Sportsmanship
Monday, June 30, 2014
Why I Am Obsessed with Social Thinking
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Saturday, May 31, 2014
Exciting New Findings In Alternative Health
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Wednesday, April 30, 2014
Getting Children Away From Computer Screens and Into Other Activities
Dear Friends of Quest,
I hope that this monthly installment of our newsletter finds you happy and healthy! Our spring sessions are in full swing and summer is just around the corner!
FREE EVENT:
Quest will be hosting a meeting to describe many of the therapeutic components we use at camp regarding developing better emotion regulation and pro-social behaviors and how parents can utilize these strategies in the home setting. The talk will be held on Thursday, June 5th, from 6 to 8:30pm at the Central Library in Huntington Beach (Room D) and is open to parents and professionals in the community. Please RSVP toJodie_Knott@questcamps.com.
As I announced last month we are putting into place several new things that I think will help to improve the camp experience.
New Additions for Camp this Summer Include:
--A transportation shuttle service to and from camp
--New field trips for bowling and the movies
--Additional Parent Meetings
--A new registration that will be much more user friendly than our last system and allow for signups by smartphone and tablet
--Additional staff to assist with the administrative details of camp
Summer Dates: July 7 to August 14
Please Click Here to View the Summer Calendar
This issue of our newsletter features an article regarding how to encourage children to engage in a wide range of activities. At Quest, we are proud to provide an innovative treatment program through our therapeutic summer camp and school year therapy groups that have been proven to reduce problem behaviors not only at camp, but in school, at home, and in everyday life. We hope that our newsletter will be a source of support and applicable information to improve the lives of the amazing children and families in our community.
Sincerely,
Jodie Knott, Ph.D.
Director and Licensed Psychologist
Quest Therapeutic Camps of Southern California
Getting Children Away From Computer Screens and Into Other Activities
A common struggle that many parents have is how to tear their children away from electronics and computer screens and to get them participating in other activities. This can be especially true for children who have attention and social difficulties, who appear to be more likely to be sucked into the strong gravitational pull that these devices tend to have. The good news is while it can take effort there are ways to help get children into other interests and even out into the outdoors.
This heightened pull toward electronics for children with attention and social difficulties could be related to several factors including:
1. Children with attention difficulties are more likely to hyperfocus at times and video games are designed to be highly stimulating.
2. Children with social difficulties are often less likely to have social activities in the hours after school compared to children with many friends.
3. Interacting with other children in video games through game interfaces often feels safer for children than engaging in face-to-face interactions.
4. Children with attention difficulties struggle with feelings of boredom in many situations and having a handheld device serves as a distraction or a way to possibly avoid social situations in public that could be stressful.
Strategies that parents can use to get away from electronics:
1. Limit game time and make it a reward when it is allowed. Many families set many restrictions for screen time. Some will set rules around no game or screen time on school days or will only allow screen time as a bonus when homework and other responsibilities are completed.
2. Assist children with understanding what other types of activities are available when electronics are not going to be available to them. Some children with attention and learning difficulties have more difficulty than other children remembering all the other activities they can do since if children are hyperfocused on video games this type of tunnel vision can make it difficult to remember other options. Some children do well when they work with their parents to create a written list of all the activities that are possible to do. I know other families who have set up activity stations for their children with stations housing a variety of different types of activities or hobbies. Stations should be tailored to the child, but can work well when their are several options (books, Legos, art supplies, sketch pads, visual puzzles, models, journals,etc.).
3. Teach children social rules they might not be attending to including that all children are bored at times and it is a life skill to be able to find appropriate ways to entertain oneself.
4. Provide bonuses for children who participate in various enrichment activities without dwelling on their desire to spend more time playing with electronics. It is common for children with attention and social difficulties to really fight against going to activities or trying something new. Bonuses for children who try new things or who have a good attitude when they are directed to new activities can be helpful. Also, in these types of situations I find that often children are anxious about not knowing what to expect or are overwhelmed in part due to other activities of the school day. In these cases, helping children to increase their skills in regulating their emotions by using a variety of coping strategies can be helpful.
5. Have days where the whole family unplugs together. These could be days spent outdoors such as having a family outing or playing a game together.
Developing interest in other activities can sometimes take time and investment, but can really payoff for children and their families as a whole. Hopefully these tips will help to get more families outdoors and away from screens.
I hope that this monthly installment of our newsletter finds you happy and healthy! Our spring sessions are in full swing and summer is just around the corner!
FREE EVENT:
Quest will be hosting a meeting to describe many of the therapeutic components we use at camp regarding developing better emotion regulation and pro-social behaviors and how parents can utilize these strategies in the home setting. The talk will be held on Thursday, June 5th, from 6 to 8:30pm at the Central Library in Huntington Beach (Room D) and is open to parents and professionals in the community. Please RSVP toJodie_Knott@questcamps.com.
As I announced last month we are putting into place several new things that I think will help to improve the camp experience.
New Additions for Camp this Summer Include:
--A transportation shuttle service to and from camp
--New field trips for bowling and the movies
--Additional Parent Meetings
--A new registration that will be much more user friendly than our last system and allow for signups by smartphone and tablet
--Additional staff to assist with the administrative details of camp
Summer Dates: July 7 to August 14
Please Click Here to View the Summer Calendar
This issue of our newsletter features an article regarding how to encourage children to engage in a wide range of activities. At Quest, we are proud to provide an innovative treatment program through our therapeutic summer camp and school year therapy groups that have been proven to reduce problem behaviors not only at camp, but in school, at home, and in everyday life. We hope that our newsletter will be a source of support and applicable information to improve the lives of the amazing children and families in our community.
Sincerely,
Jodie Knott, Ph.D.
Director and Licensed Psychologist
Quest Therapeutic Camps of Southern California
Getting Children Away From Computer Screens and Into Other Activities
A common struggle that many parents have is how to tear their children away from electronics and computer screens and to get them participating in other activities. This can be especially true for children who have attention and social difficulties, who appear to be more likely to be sucked into the strong gravitational pull that these devices tend to have. The good news is while it can take effort there are ways to help get children into other interests and even out into the outdoors.
This heightened pull toward electronics for children with attention and social difficulties could be related to several factors including:
1. Children with attention difficulties are more likely to hyperfocus at times and video games are designed to be highly stimulating.
2. Children with social difficulties are often less likely to have social activities in the hours after school compared to children with many friends.
3. Interacting with other children in video games through game interfaces often feels safer for children than engaging in face-to-face interactions.
4. Children with attention difficulties struggle with feelings of boredom in many situations and having a handheld device serves as a distraction or a way to possibly avoid social situations in public that could be stressful.
Strategies that parents can use to get away from electronics:
1. Limit game time and make it a reward when it is allowed. Many families set many restrictions for screen time. Some will set rules around no game or screen time on school days or will only allow screen time as a bonus when homework and other responsibilities are completed.
2. Assist children with understanding what other types of activities are available when electronics are not going to be available to them. Some children with attention and learning difficulties have more difficulty than other children remembering all the other activities they can do since if children are hyperfocused on video games this type of tunnel vision can make it difficult to remember other options. Some children do well when they work with their parents to create a written list of all the activities that are possible to do. I know other families who have set up activity stations for their children with stations housing a variety of different types of activities or hobbies. Stations should be tailored to the child, but can work well when their are several options (books, Legos, art supplies, sketch pads, visual puzzles, models, journals,etc.).
3. Teach children social rules they might not be attending to including that all children are bored at times and it is a life skill to be able to find appropriate ways to entertain oneself.
4. Provide bonuses for children who participate in various enrichment activities without dwelling on their desire to spend more time playing with electronics. It is common for children with attention and social difficulties to really fight against going to activities or trying something new. Bonuses for children who try new things or who have a good attitude when they are directed to new activities can be helpful. Also, in these types of situations I find that often children are anxious about not knowing what to expect or are overwhelmed in part due to other activities of the school day. In these cases, helping children to increase their skills in regulating their emotions by using a variety of coping strategies can be helpful.
5. Have days where the whole family unplugs together. These could be days spent outdoors such as having a family outing or playing a game together.
Developing interest in other activities can sometimes take time and investment, but can really payoff for children and their families as a whole. Hopefully these tips will help to get more families outdoors and away from screens.
Monday, March 31, 2014
Developing 21st Century Skills Through Summer Camp
I hope that this monthly installment of our newsletter finds you happy and healthy! Our spring sessions are in full swing and summer is just around the corner!
We are putting into place several new things that I think will help to improve the camp experience.
New Additions for Camp this Summer Include:
--A transportation shuttle service to and from camp
--New field trips for bowling and the movies
--Additional Parent Meetings
--A new registration that will be much more user friendly than our last system and allow for signups by smartphone and tablet
--Additional staff to assist with the administrative details of camp
Summer Dates: July 7 to August 14
Please Click Here to View the Summer Calendar
REGISTRATIONS BY APRIL 15TH WILL RECEIVE $200 OFF SUMMER CAMP COSTS!
This issue of our newsletter features an article regarding how camps can teach children the skills considered critical to be successful in the 21st century. At Quest, we are proud to provide an innovative treatment program through our therapeutic summer camp and school year therapy groups that have been proven to reduce problem behaviors not only at camp, but in school, at home, and in everyday life. We hope that our newsletter will be a source of support and applicable information to improve the lives of the amazing children and families in our community.
Sincerely,
Jodie Knott, Ph.D.
Director and Licensed Psychologist
Quest Therapeutic Camps of Southern California
Developing 21st Century Skills Through Summer Campby Nicole Wurm,
Head of Counselor Services
What are 21st Century Skills and why does it matter?
According to the American Management Association (2013) employers reported that companies with many job openings were unable to hire applicants due to lack of higher level skills. These skills are called 21st Century Skills which include creative solution development, ability to function as a team to solve problems, critical thinking, communication, flexibility, adaptability, social skills, leadership, and much more. The companies that formed the Partnership for 21st Century Skills asked for schools and youth development organizations to begin developing these skills in their students. The development of these skills is critical in preparing children for their adult life and career. Schools are beginning to use 21st Century Skills to develop these skills in conjunction with the new Common Core standards. These skills are an important part of being a well-rounded individual and a capable leader in business or the workforce.
For more information on the 21st Century Skills framework or skills please visit:
http://www.p21.org
http://www.p21.org/storage/documents/1.__p21_framework_2-pager.pdf
How can 21st Century Skills be Built?
The use of experiential learning is an effective means for developing 21st Century Skills. Experiential learning is the process of learning from experience. Summer camps use experiential learning to develop these skills. Quest camp has taken the lead in developing and preparing children with the skills that will be in high demand for future jobs. A person begins developing these skills by experiencing team building initiatives that draw out the need for these skills. In order to successfully complete the tasks children must work as teams to create innovative solutions. During and after the experience they must reflect on the problem and what methods they can use to create a solution. They are building new knowledge and understandings through reflecting on the process they engaged in during their experience. Although these skills are beginning to be integrated into schools, camps have been developing these skills in children for decades (Brody, 2013). Summer camps and other outdoor adventure experiential learning facilities are at the forefront of fostering these skills (Hattie et al., 1997; Henderson et al., 2007; Thurber et al. 2007). Quest camps purposefully create its curriculum to foster the development these skills among its campers.
How Quest Builds 21st Century Skills?
The games, activities and social interactions that Quest Camps utilize are developed to provide students with the opportunity to experience situations that need these skills. We build these skills up by starting with simpler experiences and construct a scaffold for students to build the knowledge and skills upon. Team building activities occurs several times throughout the week requiring students to work together to solve a problem; the objective of the exercise maybe to develop improved communication skills, teaching methods of problem solving or fostering creative thinking skills. Other experiences are designed to develop leadership, flexibility, social skills, responsibility and adaptability. Quest also integrates some of the information, media, and technology skills through the use of video game making week and movie making week, as well as, creativity, collaboration, communication, innovation etc. Leadership is highly encouraged within our program as campers develop the necessary skills and confidence and their abilities. Quest Camp uses experiential learning through the games, activities, and social interactions to develop the skills they will need to flourish and succeed in the 21st Century workplace and their lives.
**Information in this article is from Nicole's Thesis from California State University, Fullerton.
Friday, February 28, 2014
Taking the Shame out of Parenting for Both Children and Parents
I hope that this monthly installment of our newsletter finds you well! We are super excited at Quest since we have already been planning many great things for this upcoming summer! We are putting into place several new things that I think will help to improve the camp experience.
New Additions for Camp this Summer Include:
--A transportation shuttle service to and from camp
--New field trips for bowling and the movies
--Additional Parent Meetings
--A new registration that will be much more user friendly than our last system and allow for signups by smartphone and tablet
--Additional staff to assist with the administrative details of camp
It is hard to believe that our winter groups will be concluding in the next 2 weeks. Both of our two therapy groups (our general group with some video game making and our rock climbing therapy group) will be starting the spring sequence on Wednesday, March 19th!
Summer Dates: July 7 to August 14
Please Click Here to View the Summer Calendar
OUR NEW REGISTRATION SYSTEM WILL BE FULLY ACTIVE BY FRIDAY, MARCH 7TH! REGISTRATIONS BY APRIL 15TH WILL RECEIVE $200 OFF SUMMER CAMP COSTS!
This issue of our newsletter features an article regarding how to discipline children without them experiencing shame. At Quest, we are proud to provide an innovative treatment program through our therapeutic summer camp and school year therapy groups that have been proven to reduce problem behaviors not only at camp, but in school, at home, and in everyday life. We hope that our newsletter will be a source of support and applicable information to improve the lives of the amazing children and families in our community.
Sincerely,
Jodie Knott, Ph.D.
Director and Licensed Psychologist
Quest Therapeutic Camps of Southern California
Taking the Shame out of Parenting for Both Children and Parents
This month I decided to pull a couple excerpts out of a book by Dr. Brene Brown called, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent and Lead related to parenting and shame. I read this book recently and have referred it to many people since and have covered many of the concepts with the children I work with since the book is incredibly well written and clearly details many of Dr. Brown's findings as a leading researcher on shame. She provides tangible suggestions about how to live more wholeheartedly. Below are a few quotes from the book specific to parenting and shame that I think are helpful. Dr. Brown defines guilt as "I did something bad" versus shame which is defined as "I am bad". She discusses how perfectionism, having prerequisites of when we will be worthy, and the need to change how we look at and discuss guilt and shame to transform our feelings as adults, as well as for children, so that we can all have better shame resilience.
When it comes to parenting, the practice of framing mothers and fathers as good or bad is both rampant and corrosive--it turns parenting into a shame minefield. The real questions for parents should be: "Are you engaged? Are you paying attention?" If so, plan to make lots of mistakes and bad decisions. Imperfect parenting moments turn into gifts as our children watch us try to figure out what went wrong and how we can do better next time. The mandate is not to be perfect and raise happy children. Perfection doesn't exist, and I've found that what makes children happy doesn't always prepare them to be courageous, engaged adults. (Brown, page 15)
Are we sending overt or covert messages about what makes them more and less lovable? Or are we focusing more on behaviors that need to change and making it clear that their essential worthiness is not on the table? (Brown, pages 221-222)
In addition to keeping a mindful eye on prerequisites and perfectionism, we can help our children keep and cultivate their sense of worthiness in another way, one that relates back to what we learned about the differences between shame and guilt. Research indicates that parenting is a primary predictor of how prone our children will be to shame or guilt. In other words, we have a lot of influence over how our kids think about themselves and their struggles. Knowing as we do that shame is positively correlated with addiction, depression, aggression, violence, eating disorders, and suicide, and that guilt is inversely correlated with these outcomes, we naturally would want to raise children who use more guilt self-talk than shame.
This means we need to separate our children from their behaviors. As it turns out, there's a significant difference between you are bad and you did something bad. And, no it's not just semantics. Shame corrodes the part of us that believes we can do and be better. When we shame and label our children, we take away their opportunity to grow and try on new behaviors. If a child tells a lie, she can change that behavior. If she is a liar--where's the potential for change in that?
Cultivating more guilt self-talk and less shame self-talk requires rethinking how we discipline and talk to our children. But it also means explaining these concepts to our kids. Children are very receptive to talking about shame if we're willing to do it. By the time they're four and five, we can explain to them the difference between guilt and shame, and how much we love them even when they make bad choices. (Brown, pages 224-225)
Brown, B, (2012) Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent and Lead.
Tuesday, December 31, 2013
Helping Children to Recognize Emotions in Themselves and Others
Happy New Year!!! I hope that this monthly installment of our newsletter finds you enjoying the holiday season and getting ready to celebrate the start of a new year!
We are excited to have both of our two therapy groups (our general group with some video game making and our rock climbing therapy group) starting the winter sequence on Wednesday, January 8th!
SIGN UPS ARE HAPPENING NOW!
This issue of our newsletter features an article regarding how to help children to recognize the emotions that they experience as well as when others are having an emotional reaction. At Quest, we are proud to provide an innovative treatment program through our therapeutic summer camp and school year therapy groups that have been proven to reduce problem behaviors not only at camp, but in school, at home, and in everyday life. We hope that our newsletter will be a source of support and applicable information to improve the lives of the amazing children and families in our community.
Sincerely,
Jodie Knott, Ph.D.
Director and Licensed Psychologist
Quest Therapeutic Camps of Southern California
Helping Children to Recognize Emotions in Themselves and Others
Learning to recognize one's own emotions as well as the emotions of others is a critical skill needed for children and adults to have healthy and positive interactions with others. While the ability to be able to read facial expressions is typically a well developed, natural skills for people, it is very common for children with attention and social difficulties to have severe struggles in this area. Typically by preschool, children can make and understand all of the 410 different facial expressions. "An early skill that has been found to be important for the development of additional social ability is the ability to understand and recognize facial expressions appropriately. These expressions allow the child to understand the other's mood reaction to their behavior and adapt accordingly." [1] In general, children on the autism spectrum have been found to struggle significantly since they typically don't give eye contact and instead look at someone's mouth. This is concerning since approximately 80% of human facial expressions is communicated through the eyes. [2] In addition, only 7% of emotional meaning is expressed with the use of words, while 55% is conveyed through facial expression, body language, and gestures. [3] Luckily, children can be taught how to recognize facial expressions and emotions in themselves and others.
There are several resources that can be helpful to help children with recognizing facial expressions and emotions. A couple of these programs include:
1. "Let's Face It!"--A face recognition program that teaches facial recognition and emotion recognition in 20 hours. The program is a free download from the University of Victoria Brain and Cognition Lab and the Yale Child Study Center. Information is available at: http://web.uvic.ca/. [4]
2. Attainment's Getting the Message, Learning to Read Facial Expressions Program--Pat Crissey provides a solid program with many ways to assess aspects of facial recognition as well as providing a curriculum for how to approach teachable skills and connected practice opportunities.
At Quest, we have also worked with our children by teaching many skills related to face recognition and emotion recognition. We do this in several ways. Regarding facial recognition, one key area of our program is trying to make our conversations with our campers explicit and go over with them what benefits they can get out of seeking out more information from facial cues and body language. We don't just tell our children to give us good eye contact, but we discuss with them the type of information that they should be seeking out through the eye contact that they are giving. In addition, often parents or teachers will assume that children will understand the adult's emotional experience since their emotions are being conveyed through their facial expressions. Since the children we work with are prone to struggles in this area we instead are very clear in our language. For example: I might say to our campers "Right now I am very frustrated. You can see this by looking at my face. Pay attention to the shape of my eyebrows and how my hands are on my hips. Those are both clues that I am frustrated right now." We often will try to help the children we work with to recognize their own cues as well. An example of this would be to say to a child, "Right now it looks like you are upset. I can see that your voice is lower, that your shoulders are slumped, and your mouth is turned down. These are all cues to me that you might be upset."
For emotional conversations, our campers also often respond best when we give multiple choice options regarding how they are feeling versus an open ended question. In several instances we work to help our children to rate their various emotions from happy, sad, excited, nervous, etc. on a 1 to 5 scale. Often we will see less behavioral difficulties when we are successfully able to help our children recognize when they are getting upset and then using appropriate coping strategies. At Quest, many of our children become proficient at labeling the intensity of an emotion that they are experiencing and then using corresponding coping strategies until they have decreased to a 1 or a 2 on our 5 point scale. We also routinely use our number scale on days with emotionally intensive field trips such as a trip to a local amusement park when we ask our campers how excited and also how nervous they are and then discuss how we can often feel more than one emotion at a time.
While it takes time to focus on facial expressions and the recognition of emotions it is valuable since this is a key skill for success. The good news is is that there are good resources out there to help teach your children these skills.
[1] Semrud-Clickman, M (2007). Social competence in children. New York, NY: Springer, p. 76. as cited in a presentation on Social Difficulties of Learning, Attentional and Autism Spectrum Disorders by Dr. Kevin Blake, 2013. www.drkevinblake.com.
[2] Dr. Kevin Blake, presentation on Social Difficulties of Learning, Attentional and Autism Spectrum Disorders, 2013. www.drkevinblake.com.
[3] Mehrabian, 1987, as cited in Getting the Message, learning to read facial expressions by Pat Crissey, 2007, USA.
[4] Dr. Kevin Blake, presentation on Social Difficulties of Learning, Attentional and Autism Spectrum Disorders, 2013. www.drkevinblake.com.
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