February 2018 SEPTA Meeting Minutes

Arlington Special Education PTA

February 2018 Monthly Meeting

Syphax Education Center

2110 Washington Blvd.

Arlington, VA  22204

SEPTA Business:

• SEPTA President, Caroline Levy – Introductions of SEPTA board members and special guests
• Adam Mann, SEPTA Treasurer – Treasurer’s Report – currently $28,000 in the bank, 149 paid members, goal is to get 300 members, fundraisers have gone really well this year, expenditures are on target.
• Caroline – shared out about the VA PTA workshop that she attended down in Richmond.  The focus was on advocacy. The keynote speaker was the Secretary of Education for Virginia (the first former teacher to hold this position.)  VA Governor, his wife, and the VA cabinet will be “substituting for the day” in VA schools – perhaps we could challenge our county or school boards to do the same!
• Brief overview of Upcoming Events
• New design for Wilson Bldg – discussed concerns on both sides of the issue of separate entrance and bell schedules between Stratford and H.B. Woodlawn

Presentation by Dr. Christina Mitchell, School & Clinical Psychologist, Anxiety in Children and Adolescents:

Anxiety is fear of a real or imagined threat

• Biologically driven
• Briefly talked about what causes anxiety and where it comes from (cognitive, behavioral, and physiological triggers)

Where does childhood anxiety come from?  Brain, Body, Indentity, Stress, Expectations

What does child anxiety look like?

In younger children:

• Separation concerns, school refusal, checking behaviors
• Irritability
• Anger
• frustration intolerance
• excessive worry or concern
• social withdrawal
• avoidance

In adolescents:

• Perfectionist behaviors, preoccupied with social acceptance, checking behaviors
• Can also be irritable, angry, or frustrated
• excessive worry or concern
• negative self-talk
• committing “cognitive distortions” or “mental mistakes”
• avoidance

“Avoidance” – if you are trying to figure out what’s going on, and your child or teen is constantly avoiding or trying to escape a particular activity – it may be that he or she is anxious about that activity

Three main subtypes:

• generalized worriers
• perfectionistic children and teens
• socially anxious children and teens

Generalized worriers, which may (or may not) manifest in generalized anxiety disorder:

Children may worry about

• leaving their parents
• new situations
• trying new things
• something bad happening to them or parents

Teens may worry about

• Grades
• Appearances
• Performance
• social pressures and acceptance
• future events

Generalized worriers may experience:

1. Fearing the worst, or catastrophizing.  This is a cognitive mistake where individuals predict and assume that the most negative outcome possible will occur.
2. Thinking in extremes – may show “all or nothing” thinking and focus on negative rather than positive.
3. Noticing only the negatives – paying more attention to what went wrong or what might go wrong.  May increase anxiety because it discounts positive experiences.

How parents can help:

1. Show empathy.  Validate and acknowledge your student’s worries, and let them know you understand how distressing it can feel.
2. Teach the importance of perceptions. Teach child that how they think about a situation will impact how they act and feel.  Teach them to challenge their mental mistakes.
3. Discuss how you cope with worry.  Share your own strategies – model mindfulness, talking it out, journaling, talking to a therapist, or thought-charting.

Parents and teachers often try to jump right to the problem-solving step.  Often what kids want to hear first is, “That sounds really hard. I’m sorry that’s happening to you.”  Empathy first.

Teach them to challenge their own mental mistakes.  “If i don’t get an A, I’m not going to get into college.”  Challenge this statement – play out what might actually happen, or what’s actually likely.  Try to unravel the anxiety a little bit.

Discuss how you cope with worries.  It can be part of modeling. Parents in the audience shared some of their experiences with this.  Being honest with how you handle similar challenges can be very helpful. Even if you show less successful strategies to them, no one is perfect, and it can be an opportunity to go back later and have a conversation with your child about how you might have handled it differently.  These are all teachable moments.

Any time you see your child coping with something appropriately, or notice that something they were worried about didn’t happen, you can reinforce good coping strategies or positive outlook by talking about it after the fact.  Debriefing what happened.

Perfectionistic kids

Parents shared stories of kids who seem to expect that they have to perform or behave a certain way, and get really upset when they don’t.  

Signs and symptoms:

• feels that performance is never good enough
• becomes upset when makes a mistake
• procrastinates out of fear of doing less-than-perfect job
• views criticisms as failures
• excessively reviews or corrects work

Perfectionistic striving can healthy

• drive to attain accomplishment
• leave no stone unturned
• motivated by positive outcomes

When striving becomes a concern, it manifests as

• desire to avoid mistakes
• fear of failure
• etc.

Perfectionists may experience:

1. Disrupted task performance.  They may not realize how their perfectionism gets in the way of task completion (constant editing and revisions).  Can lead to academic troubles.
2. Heightened test anxiety. May demonstrate paralyzing anxiety or dread before tests; maintain impossible standards; have concentration problems.
3. Increased emotional distress.  Can lead to chronic worry, performance/social anxiety, self-blame.  May lead to depression or body image concerns.

How parents can help:

1. Model “positive striving” and normalize imperfection.  Demonstrate through your own everyday actives what setting realistic goals look like, knowing your limitations, being ok if something goes wrong, and making non-catastrophic judgments about yourself.
2. Convey your own standards for success.  Let them know that making a mistake does not define them.  Back up your words with positive reinforcement when you see your child make more accurate self appraisals.
3. Support positive striving by conveying values through what you attend to and what you encourage.  Positively acknowledge when your child makes realistic goals, is passionate about learning, and displays appropriate levels of effort.

Kids comparing themselves with other kids, especially siblings, is normal for 10/12 year olds, who are going through a social developmental phase where they are looking at peers and trying to figure out where they stand.  Try to redirect the conversation so it’s not a comparison. If it seems that their self-esteem is affected, that may be a good time to seek help from a therapist. Often, we try to rationalize in the moment with a child who is behaving irrationally.  In that moment, you won’t get through to the child. Might be better to offer empathy in the moment, and then later have a conversation and try to unravel their misconceptions.

Socially Anxious Kids

Signs and symptoms:

• worries about answering questions in class
• avoids asking for help
• stays quiet in crowds
• avoids meeting new people
• gets extremely anxious during social events or performances

May experience:

1. Social insecurity, in the teen years in particular.  Can get in the way of practicing important developmental tasks like making friends, trying new things, experiencing success.
2. Negative thoughts.  Perceive social situations differently and commit “cognitive mistakes,” e.g., mind reading (“everyone will think I’m stupid”), or all-or-nothing thinking.

How parents can help:

1. Modify your own anxious perceptions.  Could you be magnifying the importance of this one event for how others might view you?  Ask your anxious kid – What would happen if people noticed you did something wrong? Is there a possibility people may not be watching you as closely as you think?

Suggestions from audience – for children who are fully capable of giving a presentation but socially anxious about it, ask teachers whether there is a different way that the child can do it that is less anxiety provoking.  (e.g., videotape the presentation rather than doing it in front of the class).

Therapy example – take gradual steps toward it.  Raise your hand and ask one question. Next time, ask two questions.  Next time, do a 5 minute presentation. Work up to longer time periods.  

2. Normalize fears and mistakes.  Explain that everyone gets nervous before presentations, point out times in your own life where you made mistakes, model self-acceptance in everyday life. 

3. Use positive self-talk.  Help your child shift their thinking by creating a thought chart that identifies more positive, realistic statements about the feared situation.

For children who are non-verbal or not able to communicate with words, interventions may be more behavioral.  Reinforce positive behavior – e.g., when you see something happening that you want to support, use a reward chart.  She can share information about behavior-based strategies to help ease anxiety.

When is it time to seek help?  

• child is distressed/anxious
• child is avoiding
• child’s behavior has markedly changed
• school performance has been impacted
• social patterns have changed
• Child is showing increased irritability

Finding a therapist:

Fit is important – pay attention to goodness-of-fit.  Your child has to feel comfortable in order for work to take place.

Ask the therapist how long they’re been in practice, what their approach is to treatment, do they have specific training in anxiety and working with children/teens, how involved you as the parent will be.

When the child is younger, parents should be more involved so that they are active participants and can learn strategies to help support the child and any interventions the therapist is using.  

As they get to be teens, some information will still be shared with the parent, but there should be a discussion at the outset as to what will be shared and what the ground rules will be.

Resources Dr. Mitchell suggests checking out:  

Books

1. The Anxiety Workbook for Teens: Activities to Help You Deal with Anxiety and Worry
2. My Anxious Mind: A Teen’s Guide to Managing Anxiety and Panic
3. Freeing Your Child from Anxiety

Websites

http://maginationpress.apabooks.org  

www.apa.org

www.aacap.org

www.adaa.org

Sometimes kids need help with executive functioning – if they are overwhelmed by homework for example, maybe start with helping them with logistical planning.  If it continues to be a worry, then maybe you would need more help.

There are evidence-based interventions that could be implemented at an individual level or sometimes a group level, e.g., in school.  

Meeting adjourned.