The phrase “what if” is a favorite of my girls.  They love to put it in front of their wildest thought, the impossible fantasy, and sometimes their most feared outcome.  What if means something just might happen since they could think it in their mind.

Imagination is great, but young kids don’t always know how to handle it well.  When they use it for fun, it can make a whole world come alive for them.  But when kids are troubled by something, an active imagination can make things difficult.   The younger the child, the less distinct they are with reality and fantasy.  Worrying about moving to a new town, a sick grandma, or a dangerous storm can become too overwhelming.

If you have a child who is good at focusing on the present moment or who can move in and out of pretend play easily, they may not have such a problem with it.  They may feel worried but they can also take in the value of reality to balance it out.  The storm looks menacing on the radar screen, but the path shows that it will clearly miss their house.

The child who is more predisposed to rigid thinking or who is bright and gets creative about many outcomes may have more trouble.  A child with rigid thought patterns may simply get stuck in their own head over something upsetting.  They become distressed and keep running the loop over and over.  Also, highly creative children may wander over too many possible outcomes and become worried about very unlikely situations.

A child’s family is excited to sell their home and move into a bigger house in town.  The child gets continually upset at the prospect of moving to a different school.  However, the parents have no specific
plan to move out of their school district and there are bigger homes nearby for sale.  The parents assure their child they really want to stay in the neighborhood, but the worries remain.

Some children with worries need the help of a counselor.  If worries bother a child so much that their school work …

My daughter talked to me recently about her perspective on getting older.  She’s in upper elementary school now, and was commenting on what she used to think of kids her age when she was in Kindergarten.  She was in such awe of the fourth and fifth graders, thought they knew a lot and could do so much.  In dance and gymnastics, they were the kids she and other girls her age really looked up to.  These older kids were her role models of how to do well in her school and favorite activity.

Now comes the kicker – she doesn’t see so many kids that are older than her because she IS one of those older kids now.  She’s still looking ahead to whoever is bigger than her.  Somehow, being the older kid doesn’t feel like she thought it would.

So she’s looking forward but also looking back.  It’s like she’s been riding on a long car trip and happened to glance behind her.  The scenery looks so much different after you’ve been traveling for a while, both behind and in front.  This is such an important part of emotional and personal development.  When you get perspective on your life journey, it is often humbling.  You’ve probably done more than you give yourself credit for.  You probably have people looking up to you that you didn’t expect or realize.  Some goals are probably closer than you’ve been thinking.

Jumping into a conversation like this with your child might sound tough, but this is the perfect time for it.  Summer break is a natural time of transition from school to summer activity.  The new possibilities for the upcoming school year, the recent closing of the last school year, new or advanced activities for this summer – all of these can give you a launching pad for a “how do you think you’re growing up right now?” kind of conversation.

Older kids benefit from mentoring younger kids.  It helps them develop a sense of empathy, patience, and integrity.  They enjoy being the older wiser kid and they may also have fond …

A parent’s work is never done it seems.  Feeding, driving, monitoring, scolding, praising, kid-wrangling, caring – it goes on and on.  Plus there’s work, errands, activities, and family outings to throw in there.  Then for the bonus round – toss in a family member with a health problem, financial concerns, and a local weather disaster.  Are you stressed yet?  More importantly, how do you keep it from coming out in your parenting?

Sometimes, you might think you are holding it all together fairly well.  You haven’t started any dangerous habits, people still end up where they need to be, and you still have a roof over your head.  Good enough?  Probably, but anything causing you to give extra time or attention could be slowly siphoning away your patience.

Here’s how you might see that your stress is spilling over onto others.  You get extra picky about the state of your kids’ rooms.  You turn a minor problem with a friend into a mile-long email discussion.  You feel like a victim and start saying things like “nobody ever”, “except for me”, “I always have to”, etc.

So once you realize this is happening, it’s time to do something and turn it around.  No, you may not be able to change the root of the problem.  But the first and best step is to realize that something isn’t right.  I don’t mean saying, “Yeah, it’s because it’s been crazy around here.”  Get right to it – a new activity that changed the supper schedule, someone’s been sick and needed more attention from you, your parents are moving next week and they keep calling you away from your house for help.

I did all of the “signs of stress” listed up there just this week.  I thought I was over the stress of my daughter’s surgery once we got home.  I was wrong about that.  I was still worked up because she required a few days of extra care and attention.  I was being summoned frequently and I was the only one available to do it most of the day.

I did all …

I am surprised but glad that so many people have been finding my PMDD posts and adding comments.  I hope that means that more women who need help with PMDD are finding my Psych Central blog helpful.  I’ve mostly been sharing my own anecdotes regarding advice and methods of treatment.  I thought it would be good to reference a few other resources to get an even bigger picture of PMDD.

Web MD -  This website is used by millions of people and often has plenty of information.  Although the article is filed under “PMS”, it does describe PMDD as a separate condition.  It includes good nutrition, exercise, medications, and counseling as possible treatment options for PMDD.  The article suggests cutting salt, caffeine, refined sugar, and alcohol.  Although exercise hasn’t been established as a treatment, many people find that activities like yoga and regular aerobic exercise help premenstrual symptoms.

Pain, anti-anxiety, and antidepressant medications are sometimes helpful with PMDD symptoms.  Also, contraceptives can manage hormone levels and help with mood swings.  Counseling can be very helpful for managing depression or anxiety symptoms.  It can also help you feel less ashamed for having to deal with PMDD, and can help you rebuild your way of thinking and managing your emotions.

Mayo Clinic – The Mayo Clinic website has similar recommendations for treatment, but also includes herbal remedies and nutritional supplements as being possibly helpful.  It also suggests that increasing your carbs during the week before your period can improve your memory and mood.

The Mayo Clinic site also says that up to 10% of women have PMDD!  It is not as rare as it may seem, so it’s important for women to understand what’s going on.  The author of the Mayo Clinic article says that major depression is common with PMDD, but it can also occur in women with no previous history of depression.  That means it can sneak up on you.  You may have no idea you should even be looking out for it.

Other Tips For Getting Help With PMDD

Both the Web MD site and the …

Fireworks Celebrate America's Birthday As Family

As I’m writing this, fireworks are just starting to pop in my neighborhood.  It’s dusk, too early for the really cool ones, but lots of people are making noise.  It’s Independence Day tomorrow, a celebratory Fourth of July weekend.  And like all proud families, the population of our country gets to celebrate a very important birthday tomorrow.

Birthday parties for people often include presents, a gathering of people, and hopefully a lot of dessert.  But it’s about more than just getting a year older.  The party is about celebrating the existence of that special person.  It’s a nice excuse for a party, but you are really just happy to have that person around you.  You are better for having known them no matter what their age.

I think that strikes a similarity to our nation’s Independence Day.  It’s a nice excuse to blow off fireworks and crack out the grill, but really we are all just so happy our country and liberties exist in such a unique way.  We Americans are a big family.  We may not agree all the time, we may not even like everyone in the group, but we are all better because we exist as this special family.

You can sense patriotism any time of the year, but it always gets a bigger focus on this holiday.  What would have happened if the young American military didn’t win the Revolutionary War?  Would we have done it later, or given up?  Where would our ancestors have gone if America didn’t exist?  These are new thoughts to me – it’s been so long since that critical time we’ve all just thought of America as “automatic”.

But no, the early American patriots banded together and had a common purpose.  They acted as a close family acts when the chips are down.  They pulled together and stuck it out through thick and thin.  Their beliefs and bonds were so strong.  If they had let their personal differences get the better of them, America as we know it might not be here …

I had wondered if this surgery might prompt a possible rebound of depression symptoms.  The surgery was similar to past ones and it was at the same hospital.  I actually think that part went OK.  Had lots of contact with family and friends, the surgery went quicker than we had thought it would, and had big improvement each day.

What I’m finding is that the daily attention I need to give her is more taxing than anything else.  It’s like having a very young child that needs to be picked up, fed, attended to without question or long delay, and to
have their emotions comforted frequently.  I’m still not thinking I’m having any kind of depression rebound, but I had somewhat miscalculated what would be more stressful for me overall.  That’s a key point of awareness for anyone who’s had depression – making the best guess of what could trigger you.  Even if you know yourself well, you might still be surprised by what kicks off symptoms.

Thankfully, I do feel well and I have many more outlets for my emotions now than I did then.  I did catch myself having a really big scary “what if” thought the other morning.  I had an unsettling feeling that something bad was going to come of my choices to be really focused on her care.  I feared I would suffer some kind of unexpected backlash for making myself unavailable for certain responsibilities for a while, or because I blanked out an important obligation that came around the time of the surgery.

After a moment or two of dealing with this, I took a closer look at what I was thinking about.  My circumstances for her previous surgeries were different those years ago, and I did experience some bad things at the same time.  Most of it was because of my untreated postpartum depression and the fact that nobody knew it was changing me.

Here’s what I took away from this moment of fear – that was then, this is now.  Just because I had some problems then didn’t mean I …

Take Personal Time As A Parent

I’m writing this post at the very end of my day.  Often, that can be good because many writing ideas have crossed my mind by this time.  Tonight, I could hardly grasp one thought long enough to even think about it.  So many “situations” today that the good thing has become a bad thing.  The kids whined about being bored, my husband had a bad day at work, and the truck needs more repairs than the value of the vehicle.  Blah blah blah.

Before I attract another comment about the not-very-hard life of a stay at home mom, I’d like to just stop for a minute.  It really doesn’t matter what the issues are, what your employment status is, or what your finances are.  Everybody gets overloaded.  And everybody with kids gets overloaded, and tends to dump it on their kids at some point.  Stay at home moms and dads do that.  Part and full-time workers do that.  Grandparents caring for their grandchildren all day do that.  This post applies to anyone and everyone in a parenting position.

Unlike the other post I wrote about bad schedule planning as the root of the problem, I’d like to focus on self care.  How many of you parents really take good care of yourself with personal time?  Do you have several half-finished books on your bedstand?  Bubble bath soap that hardly gets used?  A hobby that sits in the corner waiting for you to have time?  Yes, yes, and yes.  Guilty as charged on all accounts.

I’ve also noticed on What Not To Wear that many of the people who get nominated often do a lot for others but don’t prioritize themselves much.  When they get overloaded, they put themselves further down the list of priorities instead of higher up.  When I think of making Personal Time for myself, I think I make the mistake of assuming it has to happen only at the end of the day or that it has to be a huge hunk of time.

Perhaps it would be more useful …