Matthews Child & Family Therapy

10/14/2020

"When we are happy, we go back to being [a little kid], living in the moment. Squeezing everything we can from the moments we have.... Time ticks at the same speed for everyone. Be time smart and use all your allocated time to bring health, happiness and wealth into your life. It's the gift your parents gave you."

Time is precious. It's the only thing we really have. People say "Carpe diem" (seize the day), but only few actually live by this. Do you?

09/22/2020

Make time every day for your children to play. Take play time seriously.

Many parents are worried the disruptions of COVID lockdowns and school closures may affect their children's mental health and development.

09/01/2020

Filial therapy empowers parents and improves the relationship between parent and child. It is a well-studied, evidence-based treatment that may also be effective in the prevention of future difficulties, as it addresses problems within the family system and gives parents tools they can use to more effectively respond to their children. Filial therapy may even be more beneficial than traditional play therapy, as it is often possible to see positive results in fewer sessions.

Filial therapy is a form of play therapy that helps parents develop the skills to address their child's concerns and affect change in the family unit.

08/24/2020

Did you know that depression in teenagers looks and feels different than depression in adults? It is important for parents to know these differences in teen mental health for early detection and treatment. Here's a good article by Nicholas Westers, Psy.D., that explains the difference between sadness and depression and how we can help our teens.

Nicholas Westers, child psychologist, explains the difference between sadness and depression and how we can help our teens.

08/04/2020

Dr Gordon Neufeld, a developmental psychologist, best selling author and founder of the Neufeld Institute in Vancouver, Canada, talks about the importance of play and how it relates to emotions. Good read, especially now with kids returning to school -- don't forget playground time!!

Neufeld: “We’re beginning to understand that the primary purpose of play is to take care of our emotions,” he says. Put simply, play creates a safe space for us to feel and process our emotions. And it has a very particular set of attributes: “engaging, not work, not for real, emotionally safe, freely entered, expressive of self and emotion, and with clear parameters that distinguish it from real everyday life.”

This type of play is what Gordon and his team describe as an emotional playground. “Play turns out to be the only form of activated rest that’s available to us,” he says.

“At night, the emotions do not rest. They’re in charge of our dreams. They’re in charge of our memory encoding. So when do our emotions rest, when do they not have to go to work? They don’t have to go to work on an emotional playground. As soon as we’re playful, it occurs to our brain that emotions do not have to work. And so now we can feel them more.”

And this is important because of another discovery – that feelings and emotions are not the same thing.

“A feeling is actually the feedback of how emotion affects us. And so [when we play] the sensory gating system in the back of the brain opens up to these feelings that are interpreted, which is exactly what it is that we need to happen.”

Research from both game studies and psychology suggest that the way humans process difficult things in life could be through play.

07/07/2020

Children whose fathers make time to play with them from a very young age may find it easier to control their behavior and emotions as they grow up, research suggests.

04/14/2020

Interesting read from Dr. Harriet Lerner about how to navigate the delicate balance between separateness and connectedness in relationships.

Establishing boundaries in relationships means you need to set your bottom line and stick to it Give and take is essential for a good relationship. As the Rolling Stones song goes, “You can’t always get what you want.” Things go a lot more smoothly when two people are flexible about accommodat...