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Illinois State Board of Higher Education

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Illinois State Board of Higher Education

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Great Tool for Application & Looking at How to Use Data

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Techniques & Tools for Working with Teens

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CBT Techniques: 25 Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Worksheets

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Here's a list of 25 cognitive behavioral therapy techniques, CBT interventions, and exercises. Try these worksheets in your own practice!

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We need to understand how scarcity affects the way we lead and teach. What would it mean for our schools and classrooms if we showed up for tough, honest conversations about what it takes to bring our best, most authentic selves to work?

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Dr. Daniel Siegel

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You Tube- Inside the Teenage brain - Bing video

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A lthough mental health professionals acknowledge that clinical issues often look different in young children, treatment practices continue to rely heavily on adult literature. These mostly miniaturized forms of adult treatment are often scaled down using more basic language and vocabulary, but they still depend on discovering ways to encourage the verbal communication of children. Furthermore, major deficiencies exist in the mental health care delivery system for children. General neglect and fragmentation of services create obstacles to effective service provision for this population.

Over the past decade, scholars have begun exploring early childhood development and effective counseling interventions, the role of traumatic stress in the presentation of emotional and behavioral symptoms, and the prevalence of attachment issues for young children. In this article, we aim to provide a brief overview of these key advances in what we have named "pediatric counseling." We also offer 10 evidence-based counseling interventions that stem from our work with young children over several decades.
Early childhood development and counseling
Children are not miniature adults, meaning a paradigm shift and specialized skills approach are required to help them most effectively. Children also go through rapid developmental stages, strengthening the argument that therapy with children should be vastly different from therapy with adults. Thus, professional counselors and other mental health professionals must consider various concepts, issues, techniques and interventions that are cognitively, emotionally, psychologically and developmentally appropriate for children.

During early childhood, defined as birth to age 5, rapid development of gross motor skills (running, climbing, throwing) occurs. Fine motor skills (drawing, writing, manipulating small objects) are slower to develop at this stage, but children should be able to copy letters and small words sometime during the latter half of early childhood. Cognitive development at this stage is based primarily on preoperational thinking. Hence, children in this stage rely heavily on what they see. They can now recall past events and anticipate future experiences that may be similar. At this stage of development, children are very egocentric, commonly overestimate their abilities (e.g., thinking they can carry things that are too heavy for them), and gain increased control of their impulses.

Play is extremely important to social development during early childhood. At about 3 or 4 years old, children engage in associative play in which they learn how to share and interact with one another. During associative play, there are no clear goals for the play and the roles of those engaging in play are not assigned. At about age 5, children begin to create games, form groups and take turns. Children are expanding their vocabularies at this stage, but the words and phrases used to express feelings and emotions remain limited. Because of their limited emotional vocabulary at this stage, children are more prone to act out their emotions behaviorally.

Deficiencies in service delivery:
Some of the major deficiencies in the mental health care delivery system for children include:

How children are categorized (i.e., poor conceptualization of children within their ecological context, including culturally marginalized children being overrepresented in the most severe clinical categories)

Environmental factors (such as racism and poverty)

Lack of empirical data

Fragmentation of services

First, children are typically placed in categories of clinical, subclinical and at risk, and they are often in need of services such as remediation and prevention. However, they are largely neglected within the system. This is partly due to clinicians' lack of training to provide developmentally appropriate clinical care for this age group. Lack of adequate funding and poor communication between providers (such as pediatricians, child care workers, parents/caregivers, social services personnel and professional counselors) are also factors.

Second, some environmental factors associated with higher rates of mental health problems include poverty, racism, abuse and familial problems. Systemic oppression is also linked to both behavioral and affective problems. However, insufficient research has been conducted with young children to provide adequate information about how these environmental factors affect them.

Third, there is a lack of empirical data on effective treatment for young children. Although the literature is replete with community agency programs and hospital-affiliated programs designed for young children and their families, there is insufficient support for the effectiveness of the treatments and interventions provided.

Finally, there is fragmentation of the services that exist for this population. Mental health services for young children should be initialized by a social service agency or primary care physician. However, this rarely happens. Even when it does, it is unlikely that these professionals have included or interacted with counselors. Thus, many children slip through the cracks and remain unidentified until a crisis arises, meaning they are most likely to receive psychological first aid via psychiatric services.

Counselor training: Experts stress the need for counselor trainees to acquire foundational skills that serve as underpinnings for effective counseling of this population. The major challenge within the discipline of counseling is how to transform these base-level skills into effective techniques and interventions for young clients. Many beginning counselors feel ill-prepared and are often frustrated when they encounter child clients - and preschool-age children in particular. Most counselors begin their training by practicing their counseling skills on classmates and never encounter younger client populations until they are out in
the field.
Traumatic stress issues
Researchers have suggested that symptoms of traumatic stress in early childhood include interrupted attachment displays of distress such as inconsolable crying, disorientation, diminished interest, aggression, withdrawing from peers, and thoughts or feelings that disrupt normal activities. Traumatic stress, a condition caused by pervasive, systemic external forces, can result in physiological, psychological and behavioral symptoms that negatively affect everyday functioning.

Symptoms of traumatic stress can include hyperarousal or hypoarousal, avoidance and re-experiencing. Hyperarousal in early childhood is often observed through displays of inconsolable crying, flailing about, arching the back and biting. Hypoarousal involves emotional numbing that may be observed as a child who sleeps excessively, displays a dazed expression or averts his or her eyes. Avoidance is characterized by withdrawal, which is often demonstrated as displaying less affection, consistently looking away or avoiding facial contact. Other observable features of avoidance include a fear of being separated from caregivers, refusal to follow directions, disorientation and extreme sadness.

Re-experiencing is often the most subtle of the three symptoms, but it can be observed through the presence of rigid and repetitive patterns. These patterns can include common play leading to outbursts or withdrawal if the pattern is changed or interrupted. The play or reenactments have a noticeable anxious quality to them, or the child appears to space out when engaged in these patterns. One of the most consistent observations of re-experiencing is the presence of nightmares.

Neurological responses to traumatic stress include:

Increased levels of adrenaline (activation of the sympathetic nervous system)

Decreased levels of cortisol and serotonin (a reduced ability to moderate the sympathetic nervous system or emotional reactivity)

Increased levels of endogenous opioids (which result in pain reduction, emotional blunting and memory impairment)

In addition, chronic stress can interrupt cognitive functions such as planning, working memory and mental flexibility. Hence, it is important to systematically assess how children use relationships, interact with others and interact with their environment. Furthermore, when traumatic stressors deplete the coping resources of caregivers, they can become neglectful or show signs of chronic danger, leading to the potential disruption of the attachment system for young children.
Attachment issues
Attachment research describes children's behaviors along a wellness spectrum from secure attachment (most well) to insecure attachment (where children are at highest risk). With secure attachments, caregivers display relaxed, warm and positive interactions involving some form of direct expression of feelings or desires and the ability to negotiate conflict or disagreement. In this manner, caregivers are encouraging, sensitive, consistent and responsive. With insecure attachments, the child loses confidence to varying degrees in the caregiving system, believing that the caregiver lacks responsiveness and availability during times of distress or trauma.

Securely attached children typically display the following healthy behaviors during the different phases of growth:

Phase I (0 to 3 months): Newborns often seek out connection (eye contact and touch) and respond to familiar smells, sights and sounds.

Phase II (3 to 6 months): Infants begin to orient to familiar people (preferring those who are familiar to them while avoiding those who are not familiar) and are emotionally expressive, responding to others' emotional signals.

Phase III (6 months on): Infants become wary of strangers and actively seek out familiar caregivers. Additionally, they begin practicing verbal and nonverbal displays of happiness, sadness, anger and fear.

Phase IV (from the second to third year on): These young children notably gain increased abilities to negotiate with caregivers (sometimes resulting in short-lived tantrums), are better able to coordinate goals with others (showing adaptable and responsive goals), display increasingly empathic responses to others, and progressively develop greater walking and complex verbal communication skills.

Insecure attachments styles are divided into three categories: avoidant, resistant and disorganized-disoriented. Avoidant attachment styles often can be associated with caregivers who minimize the perceptions of young children, are emotionally unavailable, and assign care of the child to others. This results in young children becoming indifferent to the presence of the caregiver, displaying detached/neutral responses to others, and minimizing opportunities for interaction with others.

Resistant attachment styles are associated with caregivers who resist distress (showing avoidance verbally or physically) and often wait for the child to get highly upset before attempting to sooth. This conditions young children to maximize distress, to resist or display difficultly in being soothed, and to under-regulate their emotions (e.g., responding dramatically to change and acting out dramatically when expectations are not met). Additionally, these children readily perceive experiences as threatening, get frustrated easily, and often approach life anxiously or as if helpless. These children initiate their interactions with others through their distress.

The third and most unhealthy attachment style is disorganized-disoriented. It is associated with caregivers who are often confrontational, helpless, frightened or disengaged (avoidant). These caregivers often passively place children at risk due to the caregivers' lack of involvement or preventive parenting skills. Their children respond by attempting to adapt to the caregivers' emotional needs - either caretaking or avoiding. These adaptive behaviors are often observed as consistent displays of confusion, hostility, freezing responses or caregiving responses (e.g., reassuring, pleasing, cheering up).

Counselors' role: As counselors, we are uniquely trained to meet the needs of young children because of our emphasis on human development, prevention, ecosystems and wellness. Counselors can use three main restorative skills to intervene with young children experiencing attachment issues related to traumatic stress. We can:

Set up a safe and warm environment in our clinical settings

Display trust through culturally sensitive gestures, tone of voice and facial expressions

Nurture a nonjudgmental understanding of young clients while focusing on exploration, empowerment and acceptance

By engaging in these three practices, professional counselors should be able to aid young children in working through a variety of social, emotional, behavioral and learning challenges. Counselors can foster warmth and vitality by employing mutuality and relational socio-dramatic play experiences. Additionally, counselors can create mediated learning so that young children can develop the ability to self-define, contextualize and transform their reality into healthy developmental journeys. This gentle, nonthreatening rebalancing of the energy can create restorative opportunities.
Ten evidence-based interventions
In 2000, Cirecie A. West-Olatunji (one of the co-authors of this article) and a colleague created a program called the Children's Crisis Unit, in partnership with a local YWCA rape crisis unit, to provide clinical services to young children in a five-county area when referred for allegations of child sexual abuse. Over a four-year period, the Children's Crisis Unit provided assessment and intervention for children and provided consultation to clinicians, law enforcement, medical professionals and legal professionals, both locally and nationally. During this time, training was provided for counseling, psychology and social work graduate students who learned how to work specifically with clients from birth to age 5.

The following techniques were used systematically with hundreds of clients. Although these interventions may be similar to those used with nonsymptomatic children, in working with young children, there are several unique features, including:

Assessment for degree of severity

Remediation

Involvement of the caregiver

Bookmarking for interventions at later developmental periods

1) Popsicle sticks: This intervention can be introduced in the first session with the primary caregiver and the child. One of the appealing things about the use of Popsicle sticks is that they are very inexpensive, meaning nearly any family can afford them. Counselors can use nontoxic crayons or markers and other craft tools such as glitter, buttons, yarn and nontoxic glue. Counselors direct the caregiver-child dyad to use the Popsicle sticks to create individual members of their family as dolls. This activity can be continued at home between sessions. This intervention facilitates bonding and trust, decreases anxiety, is client-centered and culturally appropriate, and allows children to tell their story.

2) Feeling faces: This activity provides easy access for the counselor because various versions can be downloaded from the internet. Use of the feeling faces allows children to identify with other children and their facial expressions. In the exercise, the counselor directs the child to select those faces to which he or she is drawn to determine thematic links between the selected faces. The counselor then hypothesizes and contextualizes the presenting problem. This activity is useful in remediating flattened affect, with the counselor directing the child to mimic faces that match a range of emotions.

3) Storytelling: Narrative activities allow children to tell stories of their own choosing or give a particular recounting as directed by the counselor. Storytelling also allows the caregiver to recount or read the child a story that represents some resolution to the problem. Additionally, this activity permits the counselor to a) read the child a story representing some resolution to the problem and then engage in dialogue about feelings or b) collect pre- and post-observational data regarding the child's responses.

4) Puppets: This intervention is helpful in allowing children to use dramatic play to express their feelings, recount a story or "restory" prior negative events. It can be particularly useful when the caregiver is actively involved in the puppet intervention. Puppets can be of the caregivers' own making or ones that are available in the clinical room. Smaller and isomorphic puppets work better with infants and toddlers, whereas 3- and 4-year-old children are more likely to respond to animal-shaped and larger puppets.

5) Anatomically and culturally correct figurines: These figurines can be useful in cases of physical and sexual abuse because children are more likely to provide an accurate accounting when directed to engage in dramatic play. This intervention allows children to reenact situations that they have experienced. Additionally, it offers opportunities for children to point to parts of the body on the figurines as well as on themselves. This activity can provide the counselor with an assessment of the child's developmentally appropriate knowledge about sexuality.

6) Dollhouse: This intervention offers a physical example of the home that can be used to explain what happens in the home from the child's perspective. Use of a dollhouse can aid in accessing the child's memories more easily based on familiarity with household items rather than starting from scratch. This activity allows counselors to be either:

Directive with the child, using prompts such as, "Tell me what happens in this room" (while pointing to a specific room in the dollhouse)

Nondirective with the child, permitting the child to have free-flowing play with the items in the dollhouse (while making observational notes)

7) Play dough (modeling clay): Modeling clay provides a kinesthetic, moldable medium that children can use to contextualize and express feelings involving sensory experiences. This intervention permits children to create representations of their family members by providing definition to body parts and facial expressions, and thus connecting emotions, experiences and people to the critical event. Play dough activities allow counselors to direct children to mold important people (both family members and nonfamily members) in their lives.

8) Freehand drawing: This activity offers children the opportunity to creatively express what is happening for them in the moment. Tools for this activity are based on the child's developmental level and might include crayons, markers, pens, pencils or chalk, depending on the child's age and motor skills. Counselors can use this activity to promote comfort, connection, nurturance and fun for children.

9) Kinetic family/human figure drawing: Kinetic family drawing is a more directive technique that allows children to articulate how they see themselves in relation to other family members. This activity allows for dialogue between the parent and child in terms of perspectives of the family. The counselor offers paper and drawing instruments and directs the child to draw a picture of her or his family. (Note: Try to avoid stick figures, depending on the age of the child.)

10) In vivo parent-child observation and feedback: This intervention permits the counselor to assume an observer role as the parent and child interact. It can be either directive or nondirective. This activity allows for a real-time view of the interaction quality between the parent and child, providing insight into parenting style and skills as well as attachment issues. In vivo observations afford counselors the opportunity to prepare the clinical room with play materials and direct the parent to engage with the child (or, in a nondirective way, allow the parent and child to interact without instructions). Thus, the counselor can step back to observe (either in the clinical room or in an adjoining room with a one-way mirror). If the counselor is in the room, she or he can provide instant feedback and redirection, if necessary.

It should be noted that when working with preverbal children, counselors should rely on nonverbals such as body language, facial expressions, physiological responses and the child's attention and focus. Also, be aware that children's comprehension develops earlier than their language abilities. It is important to remember that children understand more than they can communicate.
Extending our reach
The counseling profession is poised to serve as a leading provider of much-needed services to young children. Our focus on prevention, environmental context, development and wellness makes us uniquely trained to assess, intervene with and investigate clinical issues in early childhood. The benefits for us as a profession are numerous and extensive.

First, by incorporating a focus on young children, we can increase our role definition by providing psychological consultation to children, parents, and child care providers in day care centers (such as Head Start) and preschools. Second, we move from the implicit to the explicit. Many practicing counselors are already working with young children in their agencies, schools and private practices. However, without counselor educators and policymakers explicating guidelines for practice, the profession lacks a systematic response to ensure application of evidence-based interventions. Third, we can expand our involvement in addressing the needs of this clinical population by securing grants from federal agencies and private foundations; attending think tanks and conventions where other health professionals are gathering to discuss the needs of young children; and advocating for increased coordination of service providers across all service delivery platforms and agencies. Finally, we can advocate for ourselves by becoming more visible within the larger health care community.

Recommendations: Existing courses in counselor education need to incorporate a paradigm that includes training specifically geared toward clinical populations from birth to age 5. The major challenge within this discipline is how to transform base-level skills into effective techniques and interventions for young clients.

School counselors especially need to have specialized skills and training so they are equipped with tools that acknowledge characteristics and cultural nuances that are specific to child populations. Allowing graduate students to become familiar with the pediatric population early in their training begins the process of conceptualizing young children in the context of a holistic, strength-based and culture-centered approach.

Some professionals have offered a solution to this dilemma by suggesting a framework that incorporates exposure to a variety of populations or the use of various subspecialties. In such a framework, counselor educators systematically incorporate broad content knowledge of specialized populations that is applied throughout the curriculum. Family courses could focus on the specific issues that pediatric members of the family system face and how these issues affect the entire family's functioning. In addition, family courses could focus on interventions geared toward young children that incorporate the entire family, hence aiding the family to function more effectively. Counseling courses on theory and technique might add discussions on how to incorporate young child development and issues into concepts and interventions that are specific to various counseling theories.

Finally, to further develop our understanding of what practicing counselors actually do when working with young children, it is important to perform additional counseling research. One way of advancing our knowledge in this area might be the use of a Delphi study. This systematic approach, which would gather a panel of experts through a nominations process, could be used to generate ideas, gain consensus and identify opinions of a wide range of counseling professionals without face-to-face interaction. This method could provide a means of bridging research and practice to reach a common understanding of what steps can be taken to explore our conceptualization and assessment of and intervention with young children.

In sum, counselors have the ideal training to work closely with young clients and to provide culturally appropriate interventions to address the unique needs of this client population. Use of developmentally informed and ecosystemic frameworks will allow counselors to be accurate in their conceptualization and treatment of young children.

****

Cirecie A. West-Olatunji serves as associate professor in counseling at Xavier University of Louisiana (XULA) and as director of the XULA Center for Traumatic Stress Research. She is a past president of the American Counseling Association and the Association for Multicultural Counseling and Development (AMCD). Internationally, she has provided consultation and training in southern Africa, the Pacific Rim and Europe. Contact her at colatunj@xula.edu.

Jeff D. Wolfgang is an assistant professor in the Department of Counseling in the College of Education at North Carolina A&T State University. His research focuses on multigenerational effects of trauma on young children and their families. Contact him at jdwolfgang@ncat.edu.

Kimberly N. Frazier is an associate professor in the Department of Clinical Rehabilitation and Counseling at the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center-New Orleans. Her research focuses on counseling pediatric populations, cultured-centered counseling interventions and training, systemic oppression and trauma. She is a past president of AMCD and has served as an ACA Governing Council representative. Contact her at kfraz1@lsuhsc.edu.

Letters to the editor: ct@counseling.org

Knowledge Share articles are developed from sessions presented at American Counseling Association conferences.

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Opinions expressed and statements made in articles appearing on CT Online should not be assumed to represent the opinions of the editors or policies of the American Counseling Association.

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Interventions for attachment and traumatic stress issues in young children - Counseling Today

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A lthough mental health professionals acknowledge that clinical issues often look different in young children, treatment practices continue to rely heavily on adult literature. These mostly miniaturized forms of adult treatment are often scaled down using more basic language and vocabulary, but they still depend on discovering ways to encourage the verbal communication of children.

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ASCA:  School Counselors Addressing Racism and Bias

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ASCA:  School Counselors Addressing Racism and Bias

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Consolidated Tables for Understanding Cognitive, Social-Emotional, Language, and Movement/Physical Milestones

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That's a question parents, pediatricians, educators, and caregivers ask over and over again as children grow and change.

To help answer this important question, child development experts have created lots of different charts and checklists that can help you keep track of child development across several key domains:

physical development

cognitive development (thinking skills)

language development

social-emotional development

Know that you're going to see some variation between the lists. Researchers at Boston Children's Hospital looked at four of the best known child development checklists and found that they mention a total of 728 different skills and abilities.

More importantly, just 40 of those developmental milestones show up on all four checklists, which begs the question: Should you depend on a single checklist?

A good approach, these researchers suggest, is to start by talking to your child's pediatrician or primary care provider. The measures that doctors use may be different from those that parents can find in print or online checklists.

Your child's physician can screen your child for any developmental delays using validated screening tools at or in-between well visits.

It may also help to think of development as an individual progression, rather than as a list of boxes you should tick at certain prescribed intervals. If progress stops or seems to stop, it's time to talk to your child's healthcare provider.

If there is a delay, identifying it early can sometimes make a big difference for the child.

What are developmental milestones?
Milestones are the things a child can do by a certain age. Most children develop skills and abilities in roughly the same order, but the timeframes involved aren't exact. They vary from child to child, just as hair and eye color do.

Every child grows and develops at an individual pace. Here's a quick look at some common milestones for each age period.

tools for reviewing your child's development
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has created a free app to help you keep up with the many ways your child is growing and changing. You can download it here for Android devices or here for Apple devices.

During this period of profound growth and development, babies grow and change rapidly.

Doctors recommend that you speak to your baby a lot during this phase, because hearing your voice will help your baby to develop communication skills. Other suggestions include:

Short periods of tummy time to help strengthen your baby's neck and back muscles - but make sure baby is awake and you're close by for this playtime.

Respond right away when your baby cries. Picking up and comforting a crying baby builds strong bonds between the two of you.

Development table: Birth to 18 months

During the toddler years, children continue to need lots of sleep, good nutrition, and close, loving relationships with parents and caregivers.

Doctors at Seattle Children's Hospital offer this advice for creating a safe, nurturing space to maximize your child's early growth and development:

Create predictable routines and rituals to keep your child feeling secure and grounded.

Toddler-proof your home and yard so kids can explore safely.

Use gentle discipline to guide and teach children. Avoid hitting, which can cause long-term physical and emotional harm.

Sing, talk, and read to your toddler to boost their vocabularies.

Watch your child for cues about the warmth and reliability of all caregivers.

Take good care of yourself physically and emotionally, because your child needs you to be healthy.

Development table: 18 months to 2 years

During these pre-school years, children grow more and more independent and capable. Their natural curiosity is likely to be stimulated because their world is expanding: new friends, new experiences, new environments like daycare or kindergarten.

During this time of growth, the recommends that you:

Keep reading to your child daily.

Show them how to do simple chores at home.

Be clear and consistent with your expectations, explaining what behaviors you want from your child.

Speak to your child in age-appropriate language.

Help your child problem solve when emotions are running high.

Supervise your child in outdoor play spaces, especially around water and play equipment.

Allow your child to have choices about how to interact with family members and strangers.

Development table: 3 to 5 years

During the school years, children gain independence and competence quickly. Friends become more important and influential. A child's self-confidence will be affected by the academic and social challenges presented in the school environment.

As kids mature, the parenting challenge is to find a balance between keeping them safe, enforcing rules, maintaining family connections, allowing them to make some decisions, and encouraging them to accept increasing responsibility.

Despite their rapid growth and development, they still need parents and caregivers to set limits and encourage healthy habits.

Here are some things you can do to ensure that your child continues to be healthy:

Make sure they get enough sleep.

Provide opportunities for regular exercise and individual or team sports.

Create quiet, positive spaces for reading and studying at home.

Limit screen time and monitor online activities carefully.

Build and maintain positive family traditions.

Talk to your children about consent and setting boundaries with their bodies.

Development table: School-age

If you're wondering whether some aspect of a child's development may be delayed, you have several options.

First, talk to your child's pediatrician and ask for a developmental screening. The screening tools used by doctors are more thorough than online checklists, and they may give you more reliable information about your child's abilities and progress.

You can also ask your pediatrician for a referral to a developmental specialist like a pediatric neurologist, occupational therapist, speech/language therapist, or a psychologist who specializes in evaluating children.

If your child is under the age of 3, you can reach out to the early intervention program in your state.

If your child is 3 or older, you can speak to the special education director at the public school near your home (even if your child isn't enrolled at that school) to ask for a developmental evaluation. Make sure you write down the date and director's name so you can follow up if necessary.

It's really important that you act right away if you suspect a developmental delay or disorder, because many developmental issues can be addressed more effectively with early intervention.

During a screening, the healthcare provider may ask you questions, interact with your child, or conduct tests to find out more about what your child can and cannot yet do.

If your child has a medical condition, was born early, or was exposed to an environmental toxin like lead, the doctor might conduct developmental screenings more often.

Talking to parents about milestones
If you're a caregiver or educator who needs to discuss a possible delay with parents, the recommends that you approach the topic in a clear, compassionate way. You may find these tips helpful:

Talk about milestones often, not just when you're worried about a delay.

Use good listening skills. Allow parents to speak without interrupting them, and repeat their concerns so they'll know you're paying close attention.

Consider having a colleague at the meeting to take notes.
Be aware that parents may respond emotionally. Family and cultural issues may shape parents' reactions.

Share any notes or records you've kept to document the child's progress.

Encourage contact with their family pediatrician.

Follow up, making sure you share good news as well as concerns.

Babies, toddlers, and school-age children develop new skills and abilities in a steady progression as they get older. Every child develops at an individual pace.

Using developmental milestone checklists may be helpful for parents and caregivers who want to be sure that a child is growing in healthy ways. But it's also important to keep all well child appointments, as development is screened at each of these.

If you're concerned about the possibility of a missed milestone, your child's doctor can discuss it with you and can conduct a developmental screening as needed to provide a clearer picture. You can also connect with developmental specialists, early intervention programs, and special education programs in local schools to have a child evaluated.

Strong parent-child bonds, good nutrition, adequate sleep, and a safe, nurturing environment at home and school will help ensure that children have the best chance of developing as they should.

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Understanding the Stages of Child Development

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Stages of child development are important measures of growth and maturity. There are many tools to measure development. Here's a list of developmental milestones.

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Tests to Assess Personal Bias

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We are a non-profit organization and international, collaborative network of researchers investigating implicit social cognition, or thoughts and feelings that are largely outside of conscious awareness and control. Project Implicit is the product of a team of scientists whose research produced new ways of understanding attitudes, stereotypes, and other hidden biases that influence perception, judgment, and behavior. Our researchers and collaborators translate that academic research into practical applications for addressing diversity, improving decision-making, and increasing the likelihood that practices are aligned with personal and organizational values. To support the organization's research and educational mission, we also offer research support, education sessions, and (coming very soon!!) a membership and cohort-based learning program.

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Implicit bias is an automatic reaction we have towards other people. These attitudes and stereotypes can negatively impact our understanding, actions, and decision-making. The idea that we can hold prejudices we don't want or believe was quite radical when it was first introduced, and the fact that people may discriminate unintentionally continues to have implications for understanding disparities in so many aspects of society, including but not limited to health care, policing, and education, as well as organizational practices like hiring and promotion.

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During the past three decades, counseling scholars and practitioners have argued that multicultural competence is a central concern to working effectively with diverse clients and to providing culturally responsive counseling environments. Counselors and clients both bring to the therapeutic relationship a constellation of identities, privileged and marginalized statuses, and cultural values, beliefs and biases to which counselors need to attend. Furthermore, clients increasingly bring to counseling issues of inequity that lead to unhealthy risk factors.

The Multicultural and Social Justice Counseling Competencies (MSJCC), developed by a committee consisting of Manivong J. Ratts, Anneliese A. Singh, Sylvia Nassar-McMillan, S. Kent Butler and Julian Rafferty McCullough in 2015, seek to address these issues. Carlos Hipolito-Delgado commissioned the committee during his tenure as president of the Association for Multicultural Counseling and Development (AMCD), a division of the American Counseling Association. Both AMCD and ACA have endorsed the competencies, which can be found at counseling.org/knowledge-center/competencies. Their endorsement signifies the need to integrate multicultural and social justice competencies into all aspects of the counseling profession.

Built upon the original Multicultural Counseling Competencies (MCC) developed by Derald Wing Sue, Patricia Arredondo and Roderick J. McDavis in 1992, the MSJCC represent emerging multicultural and social justice factors within our global society. The original MCC focused on attitudes, knowledge and skills as the foundation of multicultural competence and were geared toward "majority" counselors working with "minority" clients.

Nearly 25 years later, however, it is clear that the range of diversity, particularly considering the salience of intersectional identities, is truly endless. For example, it is not uncommon for marginalized counselors to work with privileged clients in today's world. The MSJCC provide a framework for addressing the constellation of identities that clients and counselors bring to the therapeutic relationship. The MSJCC also set the expectation that counselors address issues of power, privilege and oppression that impact clients. Moreover, the MSJCC require counseling professionals to see client issues from a culturally contextual framework and recommend interventions that take place at both individual and systems levels.

In this article, we are highlighting the practical application of the MSJCC in counseling and share how they may be used in conjunction with other ACA-oriented multicultural and social justice competencies. We also emphasize implications for the use of the MSJCC. The January issue of the Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development (JMCD) provides a more detailed description of the theoretical underpinnings of the MSJCC.
Conceptual framework
The conceptual framework of the MSJCC illustrates the major concepts related to developing multicultural and social justice competence. At the core is the belief that multiculturalism and social justice should be at the center of all counseling. This conceptual framework also introduces new terminology with which it is important for counselors to familiarize themselves: quadrants, domains and competencies.

Quadrants: Quadrants reflect the complex identities and the privileged and marginalized statuses that counselors and clients bring to the counseling relationship. Clients and counselors are both members of various racial, ethnic, gender, sexual orientation, economic, disability and religious groups, to list a few. These identities are categorized into privileged and marginalized statuses. A client or counselor may hold either status or both statuses simultaneously. These statuses are prevalent depending on how each individual is experiencing the current interaction.

Being attentive of these statuses highlights how issues of power, privilege and oppression play out between counselors and clients. The interactions are categorized into four quadrants:

Quadrant I: Privileged Counselor-Marginalized Client

Quadrant II: Privileged Counselor-Privileged Client

Quadrant III: Marginalized Counselor-Privileged Client

Quadrant IV: Marginalized Counselor-Marginalized Client

Conceptually, client and counselor interactions may fit into the quadrants in numerous ways. They reflect the fluidity of identities and how the dynamics of power, privilege and oppression impact the counseling relationship.

For example, a gay male counselor of color and a heterosexual female client of color may experience their interaction through various lenses. They both may perceive their interaction to stem from Quadrant IV because of shared racial identities - a common experience with respect to issues of racism. Alternatively, the client may consider their interaction from a Quadrant I perspective because of gender differences. The client may feel displaced and at a disadvantage because of the counselor's male privilege. Another possibility is that the counselor might identify with Quadrant III because of their differences in sexual orientation. In such a scenario, the counselor may be placed at a disadvantage because of the client's heterosexual privileges.

Domains: Domains are intended to be developmental in nature, and they focus on progressive levels of multicultural and social justice competence. The domains are:

1) Counselor self-awareness

2) Client worldview

3) Counseling relationship

4) Counseling and advocacy interventions

Counselor self-awareness is important for identifying one's cultural values, beliefs and biases. This insight assists in identifying one's worldview and hot-button issues that may interfere with helping clients. Second, being cognizant of a client's cultural values, beliefs and biases may help counselors understand clients' worldviews and identity development. Next, being aware of the extent to which shared and unshared identities; privileged and marginalized statuses; values, beliefs and biases; and culture influence the counseling relationship may be important in determining appropriate evidence-based treatment interventions. When counselors possess self-awareness, are attuned to clients' worldviews and are cognizant of how this shapes the counseling relationship, they are better equipped to respond to client needs.

To respond effectively, the MSJCC set the expectation that counselors understand the sociocultural systems that are affecting their clients' sense of well-being and address the corresponding issues appropriately. To this end, the socioecological model is embedded within the counseling and advocacy interventions domain to provide a framework for interventions and strategies at the interpersonal, intrapersonal, institutional, community, public policy and international/global levels. Moreover, the levels allow counselors to see client issues more contextually and aid in determining whether targets for health promotions need to occur individually or systemwide.

At the intrapersonal level, counselors who are multicultural and social justice competent discuss their own cultures and identities, inquire about their clients and provide open conversations related to how, collectively, privileged and marginalized identities might work to enhance or barricade the counseling relationship. It is essential that counselors are willing to authentically bring this discussion into the room. Such discussions can help counselors gain rich insight into their clients' cultural backgrounds. Clients and counselors who engage positively in this dynamic may increase mutual trust and enrich the therapeutic alliance.

An important factor at the intrapersonal level is the exploration of client experiences with microaggressions and discrimination. Counselors can help clients develop critical consciousness around experiences with racism, sexism, ableism, classism, religious oppression, homophobia or transphobia and so on. This, in turn, helps clients externalize their oppression. Using culturally appropriate, empowerment-based frameworks and techniques to help clients express powerful feelings of anger or despair resulting from frequent experiences with discrimination and oppression is crucial to improving one's mental wellness.

At the interpersonal level, counselors who are multicultural and social justice competent take initiative to explore client relationships with family, friends, co-workers and their communities. This work may occur inside or outside of "the office." For example, counselors may step out of the comfort of their office settings to talk directly with individuals in their clients' lives (with client permission). This approach may help to identify individuals who support or obstruct client progress.

Relatedly, it is critical to help clients develop networks with caring individuals who share a similar privileged or marginalized identity and with whom they identify. Examples include helping an African American client to connect with an African American student group such as a sorority or fraternity. White clients might find it beneficial to be in an organization in which other White individuals are doing anti-racism work. This exploration process may be enhanced when counselors take the time to attend these meetings with clients. Stepping outside the office setting and working alongside clients will likely create discomfort for counselors who are traditionally trained.

At the institutional level, multicultural and social justice counselors focus their efforts on institutional rather than individual change. Counselors may initially inquire about the climate within a client's workplace, community organizations or school. For example, a counselor can ask a client, "What is it like being the only Latina woman in a predominately White workplace?" or "How is it to navigate your workplace as a person with a disability?" Counselors could take it a step further by conducting needs assessments of their clients' workplaces or schools to determine the extent to which these organizations are supportive of the clients. This strategy involves collaborating with clients and their workplaces or schools to conduct a climate survey.

Counselors may also advocate for clients by connecting them to supportive people within institutions who may be instrumental in helping to reduce inequities that clients experience. As change agents, counselors can work to improve climates within agencies, schools or organizations that inhibit client growth and feelings of well-being. For example, a professional school counselor might advocate with, and on behalf of, students who miss valuable instruction time because they use wheelchairs and cannot get to class on time due to overcrowded hallways and a lack of automatic doors. Similarly, a clinical mental health counselor might attend a meeting as an ally at the client's place of employment to discuss equity issues affecting the client's work environment.

At the community level, multicultural and social justice counselors focus their attention on the norms and values in society and the influence of these factors on clients' well-being. It is important for counselors to discuss how clients believe that others perceive them and if they think that society holds negative stereotypes or attitudes about their membership in a privileged or marginalized group.

For instance, a counselor might explore, through societal lenses, the difficulties that a nontraditional female student faces when she doesn't feel that her mostly male cohort takes her seriously as a medical student. The counselor could explore with the client the societal perceptions of women in science and math fields and the added pressure of having to prove herself repeatedly to male classmates. Creating informative websites may be another positive way to bring the issue to public awareness. Counselors may also use broader social advocacy strategies to vocalize support for women in general or back their participation in male-dominated careers, thus transforming public perception of their strengths and capabilities. Lastly, counselors can conduct research that identifies societal perceptions of particular women groups, explore the impact of these discernments and investigate how to mediate negative attitudes toward them.

At the public policy level, multicultural and social justice counselors focus on the rules, laws and policies that impact clients and other members of their group. This work may involve altering oppressive laws and policies or helping to create more-inclusive policies. An example could include focusing on issues faced by a female transgender client who is forced by city or state laws to either use the public restroom of the gender recorded on their birth certificate or face legal consequences. The counselor might advocate with, or on behalf of, the client by using the counselor's cisgender (person who is not transgender) privilege to work with city officials to alter policies and practices that are oppressive toward transgender people. Furthermore, counselors, along with their local counseling organizations and legislators, may help to create policies and laws that do not discriminate against the transgender population and other sexual and gender minorities who constantly feel the brunt of stigmatization.

At the international/global level, multicultural and social justice counselors stay current and understand the impact that international activities may have on clients. For instance, the November terrorist incident in Paris involving the Islamic State may create toxic conditions in which Middle Eastern clients in the United States experience a significant increase in discrimination. In addition to discussing the impacts on clients, it would be essential for counselors to increase their knowledge and seek professional development that furthers their understanding of the political and historical contexts surrounding such occurrences. This knowledge may in turn equip counselors with the ability to work with other community leaders to create programs that ward off potential hate crimes.

Competencies:Counselors who are multicultural and social justice competent are in a constant state of developing attitudes and beliefs, knowledge, skills and action (AKSA) that allow them to effectively work with clients from a multicultural and social justice framework. The AKSA competencies are embedded within the counselor self-awareness, client worldview and counseling relationship domains described above.

Attitudes and beliefs refer to possessing awareness of the values, beliefs and biases that counselors possess about themselves and their clients. Knowledge denotes counselors being well-informed on the complexities surrounding counselor and client identity development, worldviews, the nuances of culture and the positive and negative effects of privileged and marginalized statuses. Skills refer to counselors' abilities to tailor interventions that align with the cultural worldview of clients. Action refers to counselors taking steps to operationalize attitudes and beliefs, knowledge and skills with clients. The action component, also endorsed by Allen Ivey, Mary Ivey and Carlos Zalaquett, is based on the belief that possessing attitudes and beliefs, knowledge and skills is not enough if these competencies are not operationalized.
Using the MSJCC in tandem with other competencies
Counselors can use the MSJCC alongside other ACA competencies to provide culturally responsive counseling and contextually appropriate interventions. The ACA Advocacy Competencies, which emerged out of Counselors for Social Justice, another division of ACA, were developed to describe how counselors might advocate with clients or on behalf of clients. These competencies further delineate the micro (e.g., student, client), meso (e.g., school, community) and macro (e.g., public arena, public policy) levels of advocacy that counselors may use.

As discussed earlier, the MSJCC embed action within counseling competence, with the expectation that counselor awareness, knowledge and skills are linked to counselor action in addressing issues of privilege and oppression when working with a wide variety of social identities espoused by clients. Therefore, in essence, the MSJCC extend the advocacy competencies to a more comprehensive approach that works with clients and continues outside of the duration of counseling. However, the advocacy competencies still have value, and counselors can consult these competencies together with the MSJCC to identify the most effective levels of action intervention. Interventions should be in collaboration with clients (e.g., developing self-advocacy skills) or on behalf of clients (e.g., advocating for gender-inclusive bathrooms for transgender people).

The Association for Specialists in Group Work (ASGW), another ACA division, developed the Multicultural and Social Justice Principles of Group Work to revise an earlier document titled "Principles for Diversity-Competent Group Workers." Similar to the need to revise the AMCD multicultural competencies, ASGW was supportive of efforts to integrate multicultural and social justice principles into one document guiding the development of competence in leading group work. Counselors may use the MSJCC to guide both individual and group work with clients, using the MSJCC model to identify social identities of similarity and difference with clients, while also using the three domains of the ASGW Multicultural and Social Justice Principles of Group Work to explore the specific development of multicultural and social justice competence when facilitating group modalities. The three domains of these principles include the awareness of self and group members, strategies and skills (with two sub-domains: group worker planning and group worker processing), and social justice advocacy.

The MSJCC focus specifically on awareness, knowledge, skills and action that counselors should develop in multicultural and social justice competence. Meanwhile, the ACA Competencies for Counseling With Transgender Clients and the Association for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Issues in Counseling Competencies for Counseling LGBQQIA Individuals explore this competence within CACREP training domains (e.g., social and cultural foundations, assessment) when working with transgender and lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, questioning, intersex and ally (LGBQQIA) clients. Counselors may therefore use the MSJCC model to identify the privilege and oppression identities of counselor and client, while using the transgender and LGBQQIA competencies to examine these identities specifically within sexual orientation and gender identity.

Other ACA division competencies also exist (see counseling.org/knowledge-center/competencies). The extent to which these competencies specifically address or embed multicultural and social justice competencies varies. When using these competencies, the MSJCC will help counselors specifically give attention to the multiple issues of privilege and oppression that influence counselor awareness, knowledge and action competence.
Summary
The MSJCC provide:

A comprehensive framework for viewing one's attitudes about newly emergent populations

A fresh start for looking at the worldviews of populations with whom one may come in contact and provide counseling services for daily

An opportunity to examine the impacts of these internalized attitudes and, taken together with client worldview, delve into the influences those dual dynamics have on the counseling relationship, both in traditional and broader senses

Thus, the aspirational quality of the MSJCC is critical in every single counseling encounter. In mental health and school settings, we may continue to serve clients from marginalized groups, and they may continue to overrepresent traditionally beleaguered populations. However, the way oppression is manifest in today's world is ever-changing. For example, recent immigrants, whether documented or undocumented, face daily persecution. Others might belong to refugee groups that have been oppressed in their countries of origin and come to the United States only to face new subjugations.

Moreover, the expansion of the counseling role, beyond the actual traditional relationship and into a role of advocacy and social action as an expectation of the profession, creates room for stretching and growth on the part of counselors and their delivery models and systems. For example, should a counselor note an inherent bias within the agency structure, a learning curve might exist in terms of figuring out whom to talk to or what actions to take to create change. Consequently, some personal risk to one's job security may be present in taking such action.

Regarding community action, this role involves a new set of activities on the part of counselors to identify and network with community leaders and become involved with community action networks. Finally, the policy level is often intimidating and overwhelming for counselors in terms of understanding policymaking players and processes. However, consider what could happen if counselors were to become activists in changing managed care, for example, through lobbying and other large-scale education efforts. Not only would clients be better served if that were to happen, but counselors could also avoid becoming caught up in their own webs of helplessness or hopelessness that often lead to professional burnout. Additionally, training gaps often exist between newly trained and veteran counselors who have served in the field for longer periods of time. With the benefit of renewed multicultural competence training, successes and changes may inadvertently serve to engage experienced counselors at new levels, inspiring them to continue striving for multicultural and social justice competence.

****

Manivong J. Ratts, Anneliese A. Singh, S. Kent Butler, Sylvia Nassar-McMillan and Julian Rafferty McCullough served on the committee that developed the Multicultural and Social Justice Counseling Competencies.

Letters to the editor: ct@counseling.org

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Multicultural and Social Justice Counseling Competencies: Practical applications in counseling - Counseling Today

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Counselors and clients both bring to the therapeutic relationship a constellation of identities, privileged and marginalized statuses, and cultural values, beliefs and biases to which counselors need to attend. Furthermore, clients increasingly bring to counseling issues of inequity that lead to unhealthy risk factors.

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Assumptions of White Culture- See TABLE 5

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The Meaning of Whiteness: Addressing the Taboo in Counselor Education 

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The Meaning of Whiteness: Addressing the Taboo in Counselor Education 

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Erikson’s 8 Stages of Psychosocial Development Explained

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Several Practical Videos- Click on Resources

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School Counseling in a Virtual Setting

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During natural disasters and crises such as COVID-19, schools may need to move to a virtual setting. School counselors are then asked to provide school counseling services online, often with little time to prepare or little experience in virtual school counseling. Learn about the legal and ethical issues that can arise when conducting your school counseling program in an online world, both in emergency cases and in regular practice. View the FAQs: Virtual School Counseling Ethics document. Download the PowerPoint here.
Earn 0.1 CEUs/1 contact hours for this webinar by purchasing and passing the corresponding quiz found in the Specialists and Exams section of the Online Store. Search on the webinar title to find the exam in the online store. CEU exams are available for 3 years following the live webinar.
Learning objectives:
After attending this webinar, you should be able to:

1. Identify legal and ethical complications surrounding virtual school counseling.

2. Describe legal and ethical best practices when working in a virtual setting.

Presenters:
Original air date: March 23, 2020

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Ethical Considerations: School Counseling in a Virtual Setting (Part 1)

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During natural disasters and crises such as COVID-19, schools may need to move to a virtual setting. School counselors are then asked to provide school counseling services online, often with little time to prepare or little experience in virtual school counseling.

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Effective School Counselor with High Risk Teen

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Effective School Counselor with High Risk Teen

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Motivational Interviewing Demonstration

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The Effective School Counselor With a High Risk Teen: Motivational Interviewing Demonstration

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Practical Strategies & Activities

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Most of us are familiar with the expression " that which doesn't kill you makes you stronger." It turns out that this is only partially true - not everyone possesses the ability to persevere following trauma.

Indeed, while some people crumble in the face of adversity, others are somehow able to adapt successfully. Given its emphasis on human capacity, fulfillment, and healthy development; Positive Psychology is particularly invested in understanding the emotional quality that not only manages to shield some people from the impact of adversity - but actually enables them to thrive.

This protective emotional armor is called resilience.

When it comes to building resilience in children, the earlier the better. Not only are young people more amenable to change because their brains and personalities are still developing; but, because young children are often exposed to stressors, it certainly makes sense to empower them with resilience-promoting tools early enough to curtail negative outcomes (see positive parenting tools).

In this article, we will shed some light on the intangible, yet invaluable, quality of child resilience - such as what it means, why it's important, and how to encourage as much of it as possible - as early as possible.

The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall

Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1900

What is the Definition of Child Resilience?

Historically, the concept of resilience is actually nothing new.

Humans have a long history of fascination with stories about people overcoming great adversity. Multiple labels have been proposed to identify emotionally hardy kids, such as "stress-resistant," "successful high-risk kids," and "invulnerable," (Masten, 2012).

However, George Vaillant, an early pioneer of the resilience-focused literature, was dissatisfied with the notion of " invulnerability," feeling that it was unempathetic to the child's experience of trauma. Vaillant thus instead proposed the term "resilience" (Hauser, Allen & Golden, 2006) - a term which has stuck with social scientists and practitioners ever since.

While several definitions of resilience have been proposed by researchers, the following definition is among the most accepted and utilized for both adults and children:

Resilience is "the process of, capacity for, or outcome of successful adaptation despite challenging or threatening circumstances" (Masten, Best & Garmezy, 1990). Along these lines, children are considered resilient when they experience prosocial development despite adversity ( Masten, 2013).

Importantly, resilience is not a magic bullet or special power; it has in fact been conceptualized as a type of Ordinary Magic (Masten, 2014); given that, although powerful, some level of resilience is attainable to everyone.

Resilience is not automatic, but is instead a learned behavior that becomes internalized and applied during stressful times (Greenberg, 2007), thus enabling resilient individuals to survive and rebound following extreme challenges.

And like all things psychological, the concept of resilience isn't exactly simple. Resilience is a multi-dimensional process, consisting of a cluster of skills that vary depending upon a particular situation.

Why is Resilience so Important?

If there's one thing we can always be sure of, it's that adversity is inevitable. Moreover, while every generation has had its own unique challenges; it also can be argued that the demands, anxieties, and pressures faced by young people today present an exceptional challenge to healthy development.

But here's the good news:

When bad things happen, there is something we can control - our response. Individuals can either crumble or, as Dr. Gregg Steinberg describes in his Ted Talk, they can "'fall up' by using their "painful experience as a chisel to free their authentic self, to become the person they're meant to be" (Steinberg, 2015).

Fortunately, there are a number of invaluable psychosocial and environmental qualities that safeguard against or minimize the impact of serious issues on young people today.

These are the qualities the make-up resilience; qualities that a guide published by the Center on the Developing Child describes as influences that "Stack the scale with positive weight and optimize resilience across multiple contexts" (Harvard University, 2019).

Because resilient children have the emotional buoyancy to thrive in the face of adversity, the concept of resilience is of paramount importance to parents, practitioners, and teachers for whom positive youth development is a priority.

Resilience-Promoting Qualities

Resiliency research most often focuses on identifying the protective mechanisms associated with positive adaption in children.

In this vein, an extensive look at the substantive literature (e.g., Blaustein & Kinniburgh, 2018; Gavidia-Payne, Denny, & Davis et al., 2015; Grotberg, 1995; Petty, 2014) reveals the following domain-specific qualities that promote child resilience:

Individual/Internal to the Child Domain: Intelligence, agreeable temperament, optimistic outlook, problem-solving skills, self-esteem, self-efficacy, emotional flexibility, active lifestyle, emotional regulation, humor, autonomy, empathy.

Social/Family Domain: Secure infant attachment to a caregiver, warm and supportive parents, parental harmony, prosocial bonding to a supportive adult, meaningful peer friendships, healthy sibling relationships, social competence, cooperative learning skills, ability to solicit help, parental supervision, effective parenting skills.

Contextual/Environmental Domain: Safe neighborhoods, high-quality schools, community closeness, access to after-school programs, supportive extended family, successful school experiences, valued social role (e.g., job), positive mentors, faith-based or other meaningful community membership.

Relevant: How To Build Resilience With Resilience Training

The Child Resilience Theory

In order to develop programs aimed at promoting child resilience, researchers have proposed several explanations of how child resiliency actually works. In their review of the resilience literature, Yates and Masten (2012) describe three such theories as follows:

The compensatory model: This model suggests that protective factors function as neutralizers of risks by having an independent opposite effect on the development of risks (e.g., increased parental supervision may have a compensatory effect on children from dangerous neighborhoods by predicting better school achievement independent of the increased neighborhood risks).

See: Positive Reinforcement in the Classroom

The protective factor model: This model suggests that the risk for particular outcomes is moderated by protective mechanisms. This model is further delineated by two sub-models: 1) The risk-protective process, which operates by minimizing links between either risk and undesirable outcomes; and 2) the protective-protective process, which operates by increasing the impact of promotive factors.

As an example of the former protective factor model, a group of kids from high poverty families might achieve academic success due to the protective effect of effective schools/teaching.

The challenge model: This model is described as an inoculating process in which children exposed to early risks may actually be better equipped to cope with future stressors. In other words, by surviving early stress or trauma, the child becomes steeled against future deleterious outcomes.

This idea clearly circles back to the notion that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. As such, it is a tricky concept to apply because whether or not early exposure is protective or actually damaging is dependent upon the nature and degree of early risk. For example, a child from a military family who experiences a lot of school transitions might actually become really good at making new friends.

On the other hand, if the child is exposed to so many moves in and out of schools that his/her ability to make friends becomes compromised, the child may not be able to successfully cope and become socially isolated.

Of course, both of these examples are also influenced by a number of covariates; such as child temperament, intelligence, social support, etc. (e.g., it might be predicted that an outgoing child with a mellow temperament will experience frequent moves far differently than a more introverted, anxious child).

While each of these theories provides a useful model for broadening knowledge of the theoretical processes involved in building resilience, such discussions are more meaningful when augmented with real-life examples of what resilience might look like.

But first, let's consider the following question: How do you know if you have Resilience?

Although people may store-up large amounts of resiliency, one doesn't really know if they have it until they actually need it. As such, resilience can be conceptualized as a sort of emotional insurance. Masten (2012) describes two ways in which child resilience is often gauged:

Meeting Age-Related Developmental Goals: In this example, a child would be considered resilient if he/she was on target with meeting important developmental milestones such as learning to walk or using language.

Attaining Adaptive Psychosocial and/or Behavioral Outcomes: In this example, a child would be considered resilient if he/she experienced positive prosocial outcomes such as quality peer relationships, emotional well-being, and academic and/or career-related achievement.

But let's go a step further and think about how a resilient child might look.

3 Examples of Resilient Child Development

You probably know of or have read about someone who has overcome enormous odds. One such example from the late 1990s is that of Romanian children in orphanages who were revealed by reporters as suffering from the consequences of extreme neglect, deprivation, and gross developmental delays.

Despite these atrocious conditions, many of the Romanian children who were adopted into nurturing homes developed normally - meeting key developmental milestones (Alvord & Grados, 2005). As these children thrived in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds, they certainly represent a profound example of the ability to overcome formidable obstacles.

Child survivors of natural disasters represent another example of the power of resilience. For example, the 2004 tsunami in Sri Lanka that devastated everything in its path and killed nearly 31,000 people, exposed millions of children to unprecedented trauma. Despite the unimaginable losses the children of Sri Lanka suffered, a subset of them experienced healthy development.

Researchers examining the tsunami's impact on adolescents identified positive mother-child relationships as a key protective influence that was associated with resilience among the disaster's surviving youth (Wickrama & Kaspar, 2007).

Finally, in his deeply moving Ted Talk, Michael Kalous (2017) provides several heart-wrenching examples of children who've overcome and sometimes even thrived following severe trauma.

Kalous shares a very personal example of his own traumatic childhood, which was characterized by extreme instability and abuse. Yet, Kalous also describes how he was able to grow into a healthy, successful adult (e.g., college graduate, intact marriage, stable employment, etc.).

Considering his miserable childhood, many people often asked Kalous why he was so well-adjusted despite his background. In response, Kalous notes the following five protective mechanisms as instrumental in promoting his resilience:

Having a Hero: For example, a spiritual or human moral compass that is accepting and forgiving.

Having a Refuge: For example, somewhere such as a school where a child can escape stress.

Having a Place of Solitude: For example, a peaceful place of serenity such as the outdoors.

Having a Voice: For example, Kalous literally describes how participation in the choir enabled him to be heard and helped him to externalize his internal feelings.

Having a Purpose: For example, serving others as a way to provide perspective and to foster a sense of purpose.

How to Build Resilience in Children

Based on data from the International Resilience Project, which is a large-scale study of child resilience with participants drawn from 11 countries (Yates and Masten, 2012); it may be useful to consider the following three sources from which kids draw resilience:

I HAVE Sources: These refer to resilience-promoting external supports and resources.

I AM Sources: These refer to internal resilience-promoting qualities, such as feelings, attitudes, and beliefs.

I CAN Sources: These refer to resilience-promoting social and interpersonal skills.

Framing resilience in this way is helpful for identifying the nature and degree of a child's key sources of strength. For example, does the child have a caring adult he/she can talk to? Is the child optimistic about the future and confident in his/her skills? And can the child establish quality peer friendships?

Of course, identifying the most powerful predictors of child resilience (e.g., internal locus of control, self-esteem, self-regulation, social competence, social support, etc.) is essential; but how do we, as parents and teachers, provide the type of environment that will most reinforce these valuable qualities?

School-based Approaches for Building Resilience

Not only do children spend a significant amount of time in school, but the school context also provides an opportunity for establishing meaningful peer relationships and building self-efficacy.

By taking advantage of the educational setting to build resilience, multiple key protective mechanisms can be developed in kids; such as meaningful participation, social competence, achievement, and high expectations, prosocial relationships with teachers and students, etc. (Johnson, 2008).

Beyond the positive impact of school itself, elementary school-based interventions that enhance teacher effectiveness, parenting skills, and children's social skills; also have been found to increase adaptive behaviors and to promote positive youth development (Catalano, Berglund & Ryan et al., 2004; Catalano, Oesterle & Fleming et al., 2004; Lonczak, Abbott & Hawkins et al., 2002).

Similarly, the Alvord-Baker cognitive-behavioral curriculum, which is a systems model involving 12-14 social skills group sessions per semester, draws on multiple resources (school, family and community) to provide an integrated approach to enhancing youth resilience (Alvord & Grados, 2005).

Child resilience development in the school setting also has been enhanced using relaxation exercises and visualization in order to promote self-regulation. Relaxation techniques can be tailored to fit with each child's particular needs, with the child ultimately learning how to apply these techniques confidently and independently (Alvord & Grados, 2005).

Finally, the online publication " Dimensions of Early Childhood " provides several articles that suggest evidence-based methods for enhancing resilience in a school setting (e.g., peer mentoring, inclusive classrooms, etc.), as well as a specific list of ways adults can help students to "bounce back" (Southern Early Childhood Association, 2014).

Similarly, the American Psychological Association's website offers a resilience guide for teachers and parents.

Raising Resilient Kids

Family is undoubtedly the most important system affecting child resilience.

By providing a supportive environment with open communication and effective parenting practices, children are given a huge head start in terms of building resilience (Newman & Blackburn, 2002). By practicing prosocial parenting, parents hold a highly influential position when it comes to cultivating a child's capacity for resilience.

Along these lines, research suggests that child resiliency is supported by an authoritative parenting style, which is warm and supportive; yet also appropriately demanding in terms of expectations (Baumrind, 1991). In other words, authoritative parents provide consistent limits in a loving way.

Similarly, in her highly recommended parenting podcast: Respectful Parenting Unruffled, Janet Lansbury (2018) describes numerous relatable examples where resilience and positive youth development are enhanced by the use of respectful parenting (e.g., supporting a child who has differences, raising self-directed children, promoting confident leadership, etc.).

Along with these effective parenting styles, the following list contains a number of more concrete and specific ways in which parents and caregivers can promote resilience in children (Brooks and Goldstein (2003):

Build Empathy: Help your child develop empathy by teaching him/her how to really consider and visualize the struggles faced by others.

Identify a Go-To Person: Make sure your child has a close and supportive adult he/she feels comfortable confiding in.

Listen: Ensure that your child feels like you aren't simply hearing, but are truly tuned-in to what he/she has to say.

Accept Children for Who They Are: Avoid pushing your child in a direction he/she doesn't want to go; but instead, celebrate the person he/she is.

Identify Strengths: Find-out what your child is really good at and offer encouragement and support.

Do-Overs: Make sure your child knows that mistakes along the way are okay; present them as learning experiences and areas where he/she can try to do better next time.

Develop Responsibility: Give your child opportunities for developing mastery and responsibility, this will encourage self-esteem and -efficacy.

Offer Meaningful Participation: Offer your child opportunities to engage in activities he/she really cares about.

Teach Problem-Solving: Show your child ways to deal with problems, providing both role modeling and encouragement.

As an additional tool for parents, there are ten specific phrases connected to the desired goal that can be used to help kids to learn and internalize resilience when faced with a problem (Grose, 2013). These phrases are presented in a useful chart for parents and teachers, but here are a few examples:

For the Goal of Humor: "Come on, laugh it off." Helping your child to see the humor in a situation, as this is a powerful tool he/she will be able to apply in many difficult situations in life.

For the Goal of Providing Hope: "I know it looks bad now, but you will get through this." There is really no doubt that fostering a sense of optimism gives children a big advantage when it comes to many prosocial outcomes.

For the Goal of Positive Reframing: "What can you learn from this so it doesn't happen next time?" Reframing helps children to have a more realistic and healthy perspective of a situation. Children with emotional flexibility benefit from a good repertoire of coping solutions to draw from when needed.

Parental Resilience

I would like to be known as an intelligent woman, a courageous woman, a loving woman, a woman who teaches by being.

Maya Angelou (2013)

Developmental psychologists are well aware that having expectations for child behaviors in the absence of parental modeling (i.e., "do as I say, but not as I do") is not an effective way to achieve parenting goals.

Children will model after what they see - perhaps regardless of what they hear. Thus, parents are more likely to raise resilient kids if their children see them as strong and competent role models who do not crumble under pressure.

To model resilience, it is instructive for parents to consider how we tell our own stories - do we frame obstacles with optimism and apply effective strategies? Do we recognize and communicate challenges only as negative, or do we also recognize areas where they may be advantageous (Grotberg, 1995)?

Do we communicate with our children about areas where we have been resilient in our lives? Allowing your child to see you as a competent and strong survivor provides an invaluable lesson in resilience that he/she can emulate in times of adversity.

How to Teach Resilience to Teens

Adolescence can be a highly challenging period, as teens try to navigate social, peer and school pressures; while experiencing major emotional and physical changes of their own. As they attempt to distinguish their own identities, adolescents are often involved in increased risk-taking; and teens exposed to early trauma or social isolation are even more likely to get into trouble (Blaustein & Kinniburgh, 2018).

Thus, the importance of teaching resilience to adolescents as a way of fostering a healthy developmental trajectory cannot be understated. But where to begin?

The Enduring Influence of Parents

While some may assume that, as teenagers increasing rely on peers for support, the influence of parents becomes minimal. This is not true. Just as with younger kids, parental figures are absolutely essential for helping adolescents to overcome difficult struggles (Wolin, Desetta & Hefner, 2016).

Indeed, by fostering a sense of mastery and internal locus of control, adults help to empower a teen's sense of personal responsibility and control over the future (Blaustein & Kinniburgh, 2018). In fact, the presence of nurturing adults who truly listen has been reported among emotionally resilient teens (Wolin et al., 2016).

Parents, teachers and other adult role models play a key role in helping teens to draw on their own natural resilience as a way of promoting hope, faith, optimism, and strength in the face of adversity.

A Structured Approach to Teaching Teen Resilience

Drawing from the results of Project Resilience, Wolin and colleagues (2016) provide a structured format for promoting resilience among teens which can be implemented by parents, teachers or therapists.

The authors suggest group sessions in which teens are able to discuss and build upon their own strengths. In doing so, the goal is to reframe painful events from the past as situations in which the teens were able to draw upon their strengths to survive. The following seven resiliencies are described as a sort of "mental map" that can help adolescents cope effectively with adversity (Wolin et al., 2015):

Insight: Help your teen develop resilience by asking him/herself questions that reveal personal truths.

Independence: Help your teen develop resilience by teaching autonomy and self-reliance.

Relationships: Help your teen develop resilience by establishing meaningful connections with others.

Initiative: Help your teen develop resilience by taking charge of his/her life.

Creativity: Help your teen develop resilience by using his/her imagination to deal with feelings.

Humor: Help your teen develop resilience by finding the humor in difficult situations.

Morality: Help your teen develop resilience by encouraging him/her to do the right thing.

Realizing Resilience Masterclass

For educators and counselors, the Realizing Resilience Masterclass© provides the exact tools you need to teach resilience. You will be armed with presentations, textbooks, recordings, and videos you can use when you help others become more resilient. Highly recommended by other teachers and career coaches, this online course is invaluable for teaching kids and teens resilience.

How Can Young People Develop Resilience Themselves?

Considering what we know about resilience-promoting qualities, young people can most definitely take an active part in increasing their own stores of resilience.

Based on a comprehensive review of the child resilience literature (e.g., American Psychological Association, 2019; Blaustein & Kinniburgh, 2018; Gavidia-Payne et al., 2015; Oliver, Collin & Burns et al., 2006; Petty, 2014; Sanders, Munford, Thimasarn-Anwar et al., 2015., Wolin et al., 2012), there are a number of important resilience-promoting activities that kids and teens can implement themselves. These activities are summarized below.

16 Resilience Activities for Kids

Find your Passion! Adults and adolescents alike enjoy more fulfilling lives when they participate in meaningful activities. It is by discovering these underlying passions that a life of resilience and joy becomes possible.

A Take-Home Message

The following idea represents the primary message for readers to take away from this article:

Resilience is a powerful protective construct that is also malleable; it is a learned behavior. In other words, if you or your children are not particularly resilient today - there is still plenty of hope! You cannot always control what happens, but how you respond is up to you. In fact, it is empowering to know that there are MANY things that can be done to minimize risk and to promote healthy youth development and well-being.

This article provides numerous evidence-based qualities and activities that support the goal of building-up resilience in kids and teens. Promoting these resilience-enhancing tools among young people is instrumental for helping them to build invaluable emotional armor - armor that will enable them to actually thrive in the face of major obstacles.

Best wishes on your journey toward a life of optimism, meaning, and resilience!

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30+ Tips for Building Resilience in Children - PositivePsychology.com

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Most of us are familiar with the expression " that which doesn't kill you makes you stronger." It turns out that this is only partially true - not everyone possesses the ability to persevere following trauma. Indeed, while some people crumble in the face of adversity, others are somehow able to adapt successfully.

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Shifting Attitudes with At-Risk Students

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Shifting Attitudes with At-Risk Students

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Victor Rios: Help for kids the education system ignores

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Define students by what they contribute, not what they lack -- especially those with difficult upbringings, says educator Victor Rios. Interweaved with his personal tale of perseverance as an inner-city youth, Rios identifies three straightforward strategies to shift attitudes in education and calls for fellow educators to see "at-risk" students as "at-promise" individuals brimming with resilience, character and grit.

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Piaget's Stages of Cognitive Development

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Piaget's Stages of Cognitive Development

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Learning how to think.

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Piaget's stages are a theory of how a child's cognition - meaning their knowledge and understanding about the world - develops between birth and adulthood.

Jean Piaget was an early psychologist who specialized in child development from the 1920s onward. Piaget developed his theories by watching children and making notes about their progress.

The core idea of Piaget's theory is that children develop by acting as "little scientists" who explore and interact with their world to understand people, objects, and concepts. They do this naturally, even without the help of an adult.

This article explains Piaget's four stages of cognitive development, key concepts, and how people can use them to help children learn and develop.

This table and the following sections outline Piaget's four stages of cognitive development:

The sensorimotor stage

0-2 years

Infants start to build an understanding of the world through their senses by touching, grasping, watching, and listening.

Infants develop object permanence (see below).

The preoperational stage

2-7 years

Children develop language and abstract thought.

Children begin to use symbolic play ("playing pretend"), draw pictures, and talk about things that happened in the past.

The concrete operational stage

7-11 years

Children learn logical concrete (physical) rules about objects, such as height, weight, and volume.

Children learn conservation, the idea that an object, such as water or modeling clay, remains the same even when its appearance changes.

The formal operational stage

11+

Children learn logical rules to understand abstract concepts and solve problems.

From birth to 2 years of age, an infant begins to understand the world around them by using their senses and bodily movements. Experts call this the sensorimotor stage.

At first, a baby uses their basic reflex movements, such as sucking and waving their arms, to explore their environment. They also use their senses of sight, touch, smell, taste, and hearing.

As a little scientist, they gather information from these experiences and learn how to differentiate between people, objects, textures, sights, and how different situations make them feel.

Object permanence

The most advanced cognitive achievement a child reaches during this stage is object permanence. Object permanence refers to when an infant understands that an object still exists, even when they are not able to see, smell, touch, or hear it.

Object permanence is important because it means that the infant has developed the ability to form a mental image, or representation, of an object rather than merely reacting to what they experience in their immediate environment.

In the preoperational stage, a child builds on object permanence and continues to develop abstract ways of thinking. This includes developing sophisticated language skills and using words and behaviors to represent objects or events that they experienced in the past.

The child displays five key behaviors during this period:

Imitation. This is where a child can mimic someone's behavior even when the person they are imitating is no longer in front of them.

Symbolic play. A child starts to use objects as symbols, projecting the properties of one object onto another; for example, pretending a stick is a sword.

Drawing. Drawing involves both imitation and symbolic play. It begins as scribbles and develops into more accurate abstract representations of objects and people.

Mental imagery. The child can picture many objects in their minds. They may ask the names of objects often to secure these associations in their mind.

Verbal evocation of events. The child can use language to describe and represent events, people, or objects from their past.

During the preoperational stage, the child is egocentric. This means they only understand the world from their perspective and struggle to see other peoples' points of view.

The concrete operational stage is another major turning point in a child's cognitive development. The child builds on and masters abstract thought. They become less egocentric and more rational.

During this stage, the child acquires the ability to develop and apply logical, concrete rules to objects (but not to abstract concepts - this comes in the formal operational stage).

This includes a better ability to classify objects into groups and subgroups, the ability to understand logical orders, such as height and weight, and an understanding of conservation.

Conservation

Conservation is the understanding that an object can change in size, volume, or appearance, but remain the same object.

For example, the appearance of water changes when someone pours it from a short, wide glass into a tall, narrow bottle, but the water itself does not change. The child now understands this.

During the formal operational stage, children learn to use logic and create theories.

In the formal operational stage, which is the final stage of cognitive development, a child learns more sophisticated rules of logic. They can use logical roles to understand abstract concepts and solve problems.

The child is now able to analyze their environment and make deductions. They move beyond the limits of understanding objects and facts, toward problem-solving. This involves creating theories about what is possible based on their existing knowledge.

The child can now use their existing knowledge to create new theories about the world and make predictions about what will happen in the future.

The following sections will explain several important aspects of cognitive development that Piaget proposes as a part of his theory.

Schema

Piaget was the first to include the idea of a schema into a theory of cognitive development. A schema is a category of knowledge, or a mental template, that a child puts together to understand the world. A schema is a product of the child's experiences and can represent objects, events, or concepts.

For example, a child can develop the schema of a dog. At first, the word "dog" only refers to the first dog they meet, but over time, the word comes to represent all dogs. When a child is putting this schema together, they may call every furry, four-legged animal a dog before they master the category.

In addition to creating new schemas, children can adapt their existing schemas based on new experiences.

As a child ages, they form more schemas and adapt existing schemas to allow them a greater understanding of the world. In this sense, schemas are a way of structuring acquired knowledge.

Two key concepts related to schemas are assimilation and accommodation:

Assimilation is where a child uses a pre-existing schema to understand a new object or situation.

Accommodation is where a child adapts a pre-existing schema to fit a new experience or object. This process is more mentally challenging than assimilation.

Equilibration

Equilibration motivates a child to continue through the stages of cognitive development.

When a child experiences assimilation, their world view is inaccurate, and they are in a state of disequilibrium. This motivates the child to accommodate new information, to reach a state of equilibrium.

Piaget made many significant contributions to how people think about child development with his theory. However, it is not without criticisms, such as:

There is inconsistent evidence for these four stages across different children.

Evidence suggests that children can perform certain cognitive tasks at a younger age than Piaget suggests is possible.

Piaget's theory does not account for other influences on cognitive development, such as social and cultural influences.

Piaget does not specify which psychological processes drive these developmental changes.

Piaget's theory centers on the idea that children, as little scientists, need to explore, interact with, and experiment in order to gain the information they need to understand their world.

Caregivers and educators can put Piaget's theory into practice by providing plenty of opportunities for children to explore their environment. This includes letting them learn by trial and error and by experimenting with their environment.

In the early stages, people can help a child learn better by giving them new and interesting toys to play with and answering the questions they ask about the world. Providing challenging new objects and situations can create disequilibrium, which encourages the child to learn to reach equilibrium.

In later stages, word puzzles, problem-solving tasks, and logic puzzles will help their cognitive development.

Allowing a child to interact with other children may also help enhance their learning, especially those of a similar or slightly higher developmental stage to their own.

Piaget's theory of cognitive development had a significant impact on how people understand childhood development today. Piaget suggests that children go through four distinct stages of cognitive development from birth to adulthood.

Each stage includes certain milestones where the child demonstrates a more sophisticated understanding of the world. Piaget believes that development occurs through a continuous drive to expand and adapt schemas, or understandings about the world. However, some people have criticized Piaget's theory.

People can also explore other theories of cognitive development, such as Vygotsky and Montessori theories.

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Piaget's 4 stages of development: What do they mean?

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Piaget's stages are a theory of how a child's cognition - meaning their knowledge and understanding about the world - develops between birth and adulthood. Jean Piaget was an early psychologist who specialized in child development from the 1920s onward. Piaget developed his theories by watching children and making notes about their progress.