For the previous 4 years, Thrive Counseling Center has sponsored Thrive Talks, a sequence that gives a variety of shows specializing in subjects of curiosity to our neighborhood. This yr is not any exception. Our first speak couldn’t be timelier. In the shadow of the latest Highland Park bloodbath, the quite a few mass shootings nationwide, and the hatred on show in Charlottesville, we as adults are left with the duty of explaining such horrific occasions to our kids. How can we clarify one thing to our kids that we will’t even perceive?
On Sept. 29 at 7 p.m. within the Veterans Room of the Oak Park Public Library, most important department (in addition to live-streamed on the Thrive Facebook web page). Dr. Laura Vecchiola, an skilled on the subject of speaking to youngsters about traumatic occasions, will current: “Feeling Safe in an Unsafe World: How to talk to Children and Adolescents about Traumatic World Events.”
This speak will present data for folks, caregivers, educators, and anybody else curious about studying how greatest to speak to youngsters and adolescents concerning the scary, and traumatic occasions which might be occurring on the planet round us.
More now than ever, youngsters are uncovered to violence, loss of life, and panic within the media. The concept that youngsters are oblivious or unaffected by occasions that don’t instantly affect them is a fantasy — youngsters and adolescents are mentally and emotionally processing their experiences of faculty shootings, gun violence, local weather change in addition to pure disasters, photos of struggle, and hateful rhetoric. Children throughout all developmental phases could be impacted by these occasions and, with out correct assist, a rise in nervousness, melancholy, hypervigilance, or behavioral issues may end up.
In this speak, members will discover ways to strategy these tough subjects of dialog, based mostly on their little one’s developmental stage of understanding. Practical tips on how you can begin, navigate, and finish conversations might be given. Participants may also be taught methods they will present consolation and re-establish a way of security of their little one’s each day life. Finally, members will discover ways to search for indicators of trauma or different emotional difficulties which may be a sign that their youngsters want additional assist. While these conversations are by no means simple, by the top of this speak members ought to really feel higher geared up to assist their little one and to be a secure, reassuring presence within the midst of a world the place scary issues can and do occur.
Please be part of us on Sept. 29 from 7-8:30 p.m. on the Oak Park Public Library’s most important department or through the livestream on Facebook.
As with all Thrive Talks, there isn’t any cost.
Steve Parker, LMFT, is chair of the Thrive Program Development Committee.
