10 Ways to Beat the End-of-Summer Blues

As the carefree days and warm nights of summer come to a close, so does the freedom of time spent outdoors playing with friends. Changes in the season (cooling temperatures, waning sunlight, falling leaves) and structured routines can create a more somber mood among kids, sparking some mild (or not-so-mild) melancholy and depression. Here are 10 tips to help kids cope with the late-summer blues and ease their transition into the season of fall and school.

Roll Back the Schedule Begin adjusting bedtime, wake-up time, and eating schedules to avoid an abrupt switch once school starts. "Slowly start to change some of the routine so it's not such a shock in September," suggests Jennifer Kolari, family and child therapist and author of Connected Parenting. Around two weeks before school starts, begin rolling the bedtimes back by 10 or 15 minutes a night to slowly move kids into their school schedule. "We sometimes get a little looser in the summer," says Kolari. "I think it's easier if the day begins to have a little more structure to help kids practice the transition." Robin Goodman, Ph.D., clinical psychologist and art therapist agrees: "You don't want to start the transition when school is already started."

Involve Your Kids
Let your kids help with setting up playdates, starting a chore or homework schedule, or shopping for school supplies and new outfits, suggests Dr. Goodman. Kids will let you know what's trendy and will often have opinions about what kind of design or theme they like for a backpack, lunch box, notebook, or clothes. The more your kids feel a part of the back-to-school planning, the more enthusiastic they're likely to become.

Look for Blues Clues Kolari refers to a "September crash" as a time "toward the end of September when kids realize that summer really is over, and then they feel sad and have behavioral issues." Trouble sleeping, resisting getting up in the morning or going to school, crying, clinging, throwing tantrums, and increasing aggression toward siblings are indications of anxiety. "It's very rare for kids in this age group (5 to 8 year olds) to sit down and talk about their feelings," Kolari explains. "They show you what's wrong through their behavior instead of telling you with their words what's wrong." Observe what your kids are doing rather than what they're saying.

Be a Good Listener Listen to kids if they share feelings of sadness that summer's ending or feelings of anxiety about the upcoming school year. Don't minimize their thoughts or stop them from being heard. "I think one of the mistakes parents make," Kolari says, "is to try to cheer their kids up and not let them think or talk about difficult feelings, when they actually need the time to process." Rather than cheerleading, "just sit with your kids and say 'Yeah, I miss that too' and really be in there with them. Tolerating our children's pain is very hard because it seems so counterintuitive. But to talk them out of it doesn't help." Once they feel heard, kids will be more willing to explore solutions and move on.

Prepare for Problems Troubleshoot potential problems with your child. If she's starting a new school, visit ahead of time or go over the route to get there. Be organized and avoid feeling overwhelmed by deciding what's going in her backpack and what supplies she needs beforehand. "If you predict something will be on your kid's mind, then prepare for it. Have your child work out the best coping strategies with you," advises Dr. Goodman. "Role-play and act out situations that they might have trouble with." Kids may be worried that school will be harder this year or that they won't be in a class with friends, so allow for all scenarios.

Give Extra Cuddle Time Spending time together through playing, tickling, cuddling, and reading gives kids a thicker skin and more confidence when they go off on their own. "Although you'd think that would make your child not want to leave you, the exact opposite happens. It's like you're filling them up and they're getting what they need. That's strengthening to them, so they can go off to school and feel a lot better," Kolari explains. The extra connection and loving moments before a big change can help kids feel less anxious and more self-assured.

Teach Relaxation Skills "If you can teach children relaxation skills, they can use them whenever they start to get anxious," says Edward Christophersen, Ph.D., Clinical Psychologist at Children's Mercy Hospitals and Clinics in Kansas City, MO. Dr. Christophersen describes sitting with his son just before his first day of school and calling his attention to a leaf that had blown through the window, which they observed and discussed. This act of being mindful can counter stress. "What you're doing is teaching kids to be present and really relish and enjoy pleasant activities."
He also suggests recalling visual images from pleasant experiences from the past, such as a beach outing. You can also use a photograph to help kids recapture feelings of happiness so they can access relaxation when they feel upset. "The main thing is getting kids to think about positive events instead of negative or unknown events."

Help Kids Set Goals Review the previous year and the progress your child has made; then set goals for the upcoming year to give them something to work toward. Dr. Goodman explains that no matter what your child's age is, discuss what she has learned to do since last year, whether it's writing, reading, drawing, riding a bike, etc. This helps your child see that "there was progress, that this is a process, and that the same thing will happen this year." Often, the two biggest focus areas for school-age kids are academic goals and social goals, Dr. Goodman says. By championing what has already been conquered, parents can remind their kids "that what seemed hard in the beginning ended up being easier -- and they learned a lot."

Designate an Official End of Summer "One thing that's really nice for families is to have some sort of ceremonial end to summer," says Kolari. Her family partakes in a potluck they fittingly call "the last supper." "We celebrate the summer ending, and everybody talks about their favorite moments. There's a sort of marking ceremony that's now a tradition." Whether it's having a barbecue, picnic, or campfire, or making a photo album, rituals can help create closure and allow kids to take happy memories with them into fall.

Mark the Calendar
Get the calendar out before school starts and note things to look forward to as a family. Start mapping out fall trips such as apple or pumpkin picking, making or shopping for Halloween costumes, or anything meaningful to your child. "Kids will see this is a whole year of new things to start planning for. Back to school doesn't have to mean back to everything awful. There are lots of other fun things to do," Dr. Goodman points out. It's a reminder that, although summer's ending, fall has wonderful things to offer, too.

Copyright © 2011 Meredith Corporation
Corinne Schuman is a mother and licensed mental health counselor in Washington, DC.
From www.parents.com by Jennifer Kolari

The True Meaning of the Golden Rule: Love Your Bullies

Post by Izzy Kalman

February 20, 2010
Psychology Today Blog, A Psychological Solution to Bullying

The Golden Rule: It's the ultimate, all-encompassing rule of morality, promoted by every religion and ethical system. Today, many anti-bullying organizations are touting the Golden Rule as the solution to bullying. However, as I will be explaining, very few people actually understand what it comes to teach us.
While the term the Golden Rule (I will refer to it as GR for the rest of the article) was coined only a couple of hundred years ago, the rule has been recognized for thousands of years. Its most familiar formulations are: Love your fellow/neighbor as yourself; Do unto others as you would have them do unto you; Whatever is hateful to yourself, do not do to others.

2400 years ago Aristotle made a logical proof that the best way to live our lives is the GR. He explained that if everyone lived by the GR, we wouldn't need government–we would all get along nicely without any human authority over us (according to Mortimer Adler in the book, Aristotle for Everyone). Two thousand years ago, the Jewish sage Hillel, when asked "to explain the Torah [the Jewish body of rules for life based on the Bible] while standing on one leg," said, "Whatever is hateful to yourself, do not do to others–all the rest is commentary."
It's obvious that if people lived by the Golden Rule life would be terrific. Relationships would be ideal. Bullying would cease to be a problem. If the entire world lived by the Golden Rule, there would be Peace on Earth. It's also obvious that it's impossible to be living ethically if we are violating the GR. So why don't the social sciences and the mental health professions teach the practice of the GR? Why is bullying an escalating problem? Why are we still afraid of World War III? Why has the GR failed to accomplish its purpose?

I believe it's because of two general reasons. 

One reason the social sciences and mental health professions don't teach the practice of the GR is that the GR has become associated with religion, but psychology is science, and science is divorced from religion. So we don't even consider the GR.
But the GR is not a religious rule. It says absolutely nothing about a god or a higher power. You can be an atheist and still cherish the GR. As I will be explaining shortly, the GR is actually a scientific psychological rule. It is a simple formula for defusing aggression and creating harmony.

The other reason is that very few people understand what the GR is really about. Some people, including intelligent, educated ones, believe it means that we have to do to others exactly what we want for ourselves. For example, let's say I'm going to buy you a necktie as a gift. If I like red neckties, I should give you a red necktie even though you may prefer blue, because I like red. That is an infantile interpretation of the GR.

Many people believe the GR means that it is important to be nice to people.
But that's not its purpose. We do not need the GR to inform us that it is important to be nice to people. It is obvious that it is important to be nice. The problem is, What do we do when people aren't nice to us? Our entire lives we are being taught how important it is to be nice. So when someone is mean to us, how do we respond? My God! They're not allowed to treat me that way! I am always nice to everyone! How dare they be mean to me?! So we get angry. We want to get them punished. We want revenge.

What the GR really means is, We should be nice to people even when they are mean to us.

Read the Sermon on the Mount, the compendium of Jesus' moral instructions for people. (When I refer to Jesus in this article, I am not talking about him religiously. It is up to you whether you believe he is divine or mortal or even existed. I am strictly talking about his wisdom, his philosophy, as presented in the teachings attributed to him.) He talks about the GR. He says it is not about being nice to people who are nice to us. Anyone can do that. That comes naturally to us. Jesus says that even the tax collectors can do that–and Jesus was not particularly fond of tax collectors. Jesus says it's about being nice to people even when they are mean to us, and he gives us many examples. He says, love your enemy; turn the other cheek; if someone asks you to carry something for a mile, carry it for two miles; if someone wants your coat, give them your jacket, too. He says, don't get angry. This means, of course, don't get angry at people when they are mean to us. (We don't get angry at people when they are nice to us.) Jesus understood this perfectly, but very few others do.
(The truth is that there are entire cultures that understand the true meaning of the GR, and they live in incredible harmony. One such people are the Ladakhis, who I wrote about in a recent blog entry. The book about them, Ancient Futures, never even mentions the words the Golden Rule, but the description of their way of life matches the GR precisely).

Allow me to explain how the GR works scientifically/psychologically.
We are biologically programmed for what I refer to as the Rule of Nature, or what many social scientists refer to as the Law of Reciprocity. This means that I will treat you the way you treat me. If you're nice to me, I'll be nice back, and if you're mean to me, I will be mean back.
In nature, if you are nice to me, you are probably my friend, so it is safe for me to be nice in return, and it will benefit both of us. If you are mean to me in nature, you are probably a real enemy trying to injure me or kill me. I had better not be nice to you when you are trying to injure or kill me or I'll make it even easier for you. In fact, I had better be even meaner to you than you are to me or I'm going to be a big loser!
If you think about it, you'll realize that we are all biologically programmed for reciprocity. When someone is being genuinely nice to you, do you feel like being mean back? Of course not. You feel like being nice back. And when someone is being mean to you, do you feel like being nice back? No. You feel like being mean back. We can control our responses, but this is what our guts tell us: to be nice to those who are nice to us and mean to those who are mean to us. With the exception of some people who have serious neurological or emotional disturbances, we are all like this. No one had to teach it to us or we wouldn't all be like this.
But even the Rule of Nature/Law of Reciprocity creates a fair amount of harmony. If you observe creatures living in nature–including humans–you will notice that they spend far more time being nice to members of their own group than they do being mean. That's because we discover that when we are nice to others, they tend to be nice back, and when we're mean to others, they tend to be mean back. So we figure out by ourselves that in general it pays to be nice to others.

The GR makes a higher level of harmony possible. It actually takes advantage of our programming for reciprocity. And this is how it works.
If I live by reciprocity, I have very little control of my relationships. If you are nice to me, I will be nice in return and we will be friends. However, if you are mean to me, I will be mean in return and we will be enemies. The GR puts me in control. I will be nice to you even when you are mean to me. Why? Because how long can you continue being mean to me when I am always nice to you? Before long, you are going to start being nice to me because you are biologically programmed to treat me the way I treat you.

The GR is the therefore the ultimate empowerment. It is the solution to being a victim. A victim reacts. A victim's behavior is therefore controlled by the bully. But in order to not be a victim, we must act independently of the bully's actions. we treat them like friends even when they treat us like enemies. And that way we end up controlling them.

Treating people like friends does not mean that we must give them everything they want. We can be hurting people by giving them everything they want. We can be spoiling them, enabling them or helping them become bad people. The GR requires us to say "no" to people sometimes, but we are to do it nicely, without anger. Nor does the GR mean that we must let people abuse us, injure us or kill us. We are required to protect ourselves and to stop others from hurting us. The GR even requires us to kill people if there is no other way to stop them from being murderous. But it is not because we hate them. It is because we love them and they give us no choice.

Anti-bully activists have been trying to promote the GR. They have adopted the GR as their motto, and they gets kids to wear rubber bracelets engraved with the GR. However, the activists don't truly understand the GR. They believe it means, Don't act like a bully. They are really promoting reciprocity: We will be nice to you if you are nice to us, but if you bully us, we will have no tolerance for you and we will get you punished ("administered consequences," in current jargon). What the anti-bully activists don't realize is that the GR really means, Don't act like a victim! 


Someone once showed me a letter written by a school principal to the students of the school. It explained how important it is to live by the GR. The concluding paragraph said (the following are not the exact words, but they're pretty close): "So you have to live by the GR in school, and if you don't, we will have no choice but to punish you." Sorry, Mr. Principal, but that is a violation of the GR. How would you like it if some authority figure went around punishing you whenever they decided you didn't treat someone the way s/he wanted to be treated?

In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus says outright that the GR is a rejection of reciprocity:

You have heard that it has been said, You shall love your neighbor, and hate your enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for those who despitefully use you, and persecute you. (Matthew 5:43-44)

Loving our enemies is the true purpose of the GR.
We don't need to be instructed to love our friends because that comes naturally to us. When it comes to enemies, though, our natural instinct is to hate them. However, that only escalates their hatred for us in return. Now, how would you like it if your enemies loved you? Wouldn't it be terrific? They wouldn't be your enemies anymore! So just as we would like our enemies to love us, we need to love our enemies.
If we were to replace our zero-tolerance-for-bullying policies with this simple expression of the GR–Love your enemy (bully); be nice to people even when they are mean to you–bullying would disappear. And if we were to teach it on an international level, we might achieve peace on earth.
No other way is possible. We can't practice intolerance of bullying, hoping that it will lead to a society in which intolerance no longer exists. We can't conduct war against other countries hoping that it will lead to a world without war. The only way to lead to a world that lives by the GR is by living by the GR now.

Disclaimer: While I teach the meaning of the GR, I don't claim to be a model of it. There are people who live by the GR much better than I do without ever having been taught the rule. I often forget to apply it, and people who know me can attest to it. So if you wish to accuse me of being a hypocrite, I will be the first to agree!

Nicole Kidman on fame, and actors as highly sensitive people

Jennifer Aniston: What attracts you to a project? What’s the key element that has to be there?

Nicole Kidman: Usually something strange. It’s a little weird or offbeat or very uncomfortable.

I have to be convinced to do things that are more mainstream.

As a kid, I was always a bit, I suppose, darker. I was drawn to things that were unusual.

And that’s partly to do with my parents. My mom’s always questioned things, wanted us not to conform.

So, with roles, I like to be in a place of discomfort. I do my best work in the most complicated roles. I don’t have the capacity to be lighter, and I so wish I did. I’m working on it. …

JA: Did you always want to act?

Nicole Kidman: I think I did… For me, it was never going to be work. It was almost like I needed to have a day job, because this was too much fun.

But I was a highly sensitive child, and the last thing my parents wanted was for their child to go in and get hurt.

JA: What do you think is the hardest thing about being an actor?

Nicole Kidman: Fame. It’s a great thing in the sense of the opportunities it gives you, but you don’t realize that you’re dancing with the 100-pound gorilla.

JA: Yeah, it turns from Glinda the Good Witch into the nasty green one, then back to Glinda again.

Nicole Kidman: Most actors are highly sensitive people, but you have this incredible scrutiny. You have to develop a thick skin, but you can’t have a thick skin in your work.

So it’s that constant push-pull of going, How do I stay human and vulnerable and real, and how do I, at the same time, not let all this affect me? I suppose it’s the same when you’re at school and you get a taste of girls who are being mean.

It’s the same thing, just at a bigger level.

But at the same time, we’re in an extraordinary place, and to complain about it you go, Ugh, move on.

~ ~

From “Nicole Kidman: The Interview” By Jennifer Aniston, Harper’s Bazaar January 5, 2011 – they costar in the new comedy Just Go With It.

Book review: The Happy Introvert: A Wild and Crazy Guide for Celebrating Your True Self

 

Written by a self-confessed introvert, this fun-to-read handbook is a slightly wacky yet truly heartfelt look at the richness introverts experience in their inner worlds. Practical and guiding, it is a road map for how those experiences can be better understood, appreciated, and shared by introverts and extroverts alike.

The book dispels the wrongly held belief that introverts are victims of depression or some other unhappy state and reveals how introverts experience the usual range of human feelings, including joy and contentment. Helpful advice teaches introverts how to excel in areas where their personality is a benefit as well as how to find the inner strength to negotiate an extroverted world and stand up for themselves and each other. 

 

Elizabeth Wagele

Born in Salt Lake City, Utah. Moved to Berkeley at ten, went to Cal majoring in music and music composition, married Gus, had four children and taught piano lessons. Renee and I wrote The Enneagram Made Easy - I did the drawings too. I wanted to see if I could write a book. I like to play the piano for people and for myself. Take requests and play tunes by ear or make up Enneagram variations. Don't forget the Beethoven Enneagram CD I made. That was really an interesting project and fun to do. I like to travel too. I love my kids and grandkids. I'm always curious about something - a 5 in the Enneagram. INFP in the MBTI.