Transitions, or the Spaces In Between

I was child who had a rough time with transitions. Especially goodbyes. When summer rolled around, my parents felt they needed to send me away from Los Angeles, to see other parts of the world and live different experiences. My mom would take me to the airport and get me and my bags checked in. In the moments leading up to the goodbye, my stomach would gnaw and twist. Those unsettled feelings had less to do with where I was going; I would worry about that later. It was the goodbye that I couldn't digest.

When it was time to embrace my mom, the tears would flood and sometimes would not stop for hours. Every where I looked in the airport reminded me of the separation. People hugging and kissing hello. Others giving a last tearful embrace. If my plane got delayed, which inevitably happened, I would call my mom sobbing from a pay phone. I didn't care about not taking off on time, and potentially missing my connecting flight. I was still stuck on goodbye. The letting go of her and the people and places I loved. Underlying my sadness was a fear. "What if I never come back?" "What if I never see my mom ever again?"

When I watch kids in their classrooms, how they handle transitions is of primary interest. Those spaces between being one place and another. That awkward time between letting go of one thing and embracing something new. I see it in the way they say goodbye to mom in the morning, and the manner in which they are able to settle down afterwards. Some kids cry intensely at the separation, and sit right down at the art table to work on a project. It is as if they are saying, "That hard moment is over, but now I am ready to be here."

Some kids look away during the goodbye and pretend they don't care. They spend the next few hours bouncing from one thing to the next, poking other children who are concentrating, vying for the teacher's attention. Their body language speaks volumes: "I want to be here but I cannot forget that I am not with my dad."

Some kids say goodbye and hold back tears. They take a seat and watch the other children playing before entering into the classroom. "I'll be ready in a minute. Just give me some space."

Hello at the end of the day is another big transition. Sometimes the kids with the most difficult goodbyes have the hardest time saying hello. They ignore their parents or run from them. "I finally got used to being without you, and now it's time to go."

Some kids cry at the relief of it, as if they had been holding their breath the whole time mom and dad were gone. "Thank goodness you are here! I can finally relax and be myself..."

Other kids don't want to let go of the school day. Going home means dinner time and bed time. They don't want to stop the fun. "Please dad, just 5 more minutes?!?"

A four year old child I was working with was struggling with her parent's divorce, an immensely difficult transition for children. While playing a therapeutic "feelings" game with her, she spontaneously related every emotion on the cards to hellos and goodbyes:

"I am happy when my mom comes to pick me up."

"I am sad when my mom brings me to school."

"I am excited when I see mom's car in the parking lot."

"I am surprised when she comes and picks me up early."

I am disappointed when she gets here late."

Hellos and goodbyes are tough on us all. Comings and goings are difficult for children and adults alike. All transitions represent endings, from smaller transitions (coming into the classroom after outside time, or leaving the house in the morning) to big ones (falling asleep at night or seeing dad off at the airport ). They are metaphors for life's final goodbyes.

If your child is having a hard time with transitions, try and put yourself in their shoes. Ask yourself, "What might my child be fearing?" Reflect on the way you handle your own transitions, from seemingly insignificant ones ("How long does it take me after I get to my office to finally settle down and work? What are my rituals around that?") to larger ones ("How do I manage my own hellos and goodbyes?" "What is it like for me to separate from people that I love?") or ("How easy it it for me to let go of the day when it is time to go to sleep?")

If you are looking for ways to support your child's transitions, ask his or her teachers for some suggestions. Invest time in your child's transitions. If morning goodbyes are difficult for them, allow more time so that you do not feel frustrated with your child and make it worse. Don't shy away from your own difficult feelings around separation. Ask yourself, "Are there emotions or sensations that I am experiencing that might be making this process worse?"

If you need help navigating transitions (bedtime, drop offs and pick ups, getting out of the house in the morning), or you child's transitions have suddenly become inflexibile or marked by intense hardship or strife, seek consultation from a school psychologist, early childhood mental health consultant, or private mental health professional. This is an indication that your child (or you) needs support.

We cannot take the pain of goodbye away from children, but we can support their emotional openness and flexibility to all of life's experiences, positive and negative. This will help them develop resiliency for the many difficult hellos and goodbyes to come.

How do you define emotional wellness in preschool aged children?

Emotional wellness in young children is the ability to form warm and loving relationships with ones peers, teachers, and parents. It is the ability to play imaginatively and lose oneself in an activity, such as drawing, painting, cooking, blocks, or puzzles. It is the ability to learn the many things that the world has to teach about people, places, letters, numbers. In an essence, emotional wellness in children is what Freud concisely characterized it to be in adults: the ability to love and work.

Emotional wellness is much easier to define in its absence, when there are challenges and difficulties. What are the signs of emotional difficulties in young children?

One big sign of emotional problems in young children is when they have difficulties relating to other people. Relationships with adults are marked by power struggles and strife. Instead of feelings of affection and patience, teachers and parents frequently feel aggravation and frustration. "I did not sign up for this," is a common refrain.

Relationships with peers may also be a problem. Children may act aggressively with other children instead of sharing and playing. They may tease others, provoke others or act meanly.

Aggression may be turned on themselves, in words and behavior. Children may say things such as, "I hate myself," or "Nobody likes me," or "I hate my life." They may act recklessly and engage in self-injurious behaviors, such as jumping off high places or banging their heads.

Withdrawn behavior is another sign of emotional difficulties in young children, though it rarely receives the same attention as externalized behaviors. Children who shy away from interactions with their teachers and peers, and who are generally not engaged in life in the same joyful and spontaneous way as other children may be a cause for concern. Particularly if this behavior has come on suddenly.

Another sign of emotional difficulties in children is in their transitions. Children may run away when it is time to come off the playground, nervously giggling while taking flight from their teacher. They may wander from their classroom when the activity changes, or erupt into a tantrum. Separations may be marked by prolonged disturbances from which the child is not able to easily recover. Instead of exhibiting flexibility during moments of change, they respond with rigidity and fear.

Other signs of emotional difficulties are disturbances in sleep, such as nightmares or night terrors. Night terrors are when a child awakens a few hours after going to bed screaming, thrashing, and crying. His eyes are wide open and he appears panicked and frightened, but, in fact, he is still asleep. Both nightmares and night terrors are associated with anxiety about daytime events, particularly conflict between a child's parents.

A child with emotional difficulties may also soil or wet themselves beyond the time when this is considered developmentally appropriate. In fact, a child's age and stage of development must be taken into account when considering any of the aforementioned symptoms (separation anxiety, aggression, disturbances in social interactions, tantrums, sleep disturbances, enuresis, and encopresis). For example, wetting at age two is considered developmentally appropriate, but at age five it is not. An inability to share is expected by age four but not at one and a half.

If you are wondering whether or not your child is having emotional difficulties, ask your child's teacher. Request a meeting with the mental health consultant or psychologist working at your child's school. Seek out professionals in your community that are specialized in working with young children.

It is a common misperception that a child's social-emotional functioning is separate and distinct from their cognitive abilities. They are inherently linked. A simple example follows: if a child is distracted by his or her own anxieties, it will be hard for him to sit down at circle time and learn from a story. If you want to support your child's cognitive development and later academic prowess, you need to set them on the right track socially and emotionally.

Many parents feel embarrassed or ashamed to say that they or their child is having emotional difficulties. There is a cultural stigma about all things psychological. Many parents think that seeing a therapist means they, their child or their family is crazy. There is nothing stigmatizing about supporting your child's development and bettering your relationship with your child!

Mental Health Consultation: A Psychologist in Preschool

(Published in The California Psychologist, Volume 43, Number 5, September/October 2010)

I observe children in preschool classrooms. Sometimes, as I am watching, I ask myself how it is possible to get paid to do the job that I do. Perched on a chair at the edge of the room, I apply the same principal that I did when I was a child, crouched over tide pools: watch long enough and something is bound to happen. A child with low frustration tolerance will have an outburst when she cannot complete an activity. How will the teachers handle her tantrum? A child with a history of abandonment will become distressed when the teacher leaves the room. What meaning will the remaining teacher make of his behavior? On a lucky day, a prized moment will occur. At a nearby table a conversation begins.

“My mom says that when somebody dies, they become another person,” one little girl says to two others.

“Like becoming a baby again?” her friend responds, using what she knows about the world to grasp this new and elusive concept.

The third, already envisioning her friend’s inverted development, blurts out, “Are you going to be a baby and wear diapers again?!?” All three explode into a fit of giggles.

Observation is the core of my work in preschool. But as an Early Childhood Mental Health Consultant, it represents only a small (and fun!) part of a much more complex job. I use my observations to 1) Identify children with mental health issues and link them with services and 2) Identify problems in the preschool system as a whole and work to address them. All of my work is embedded in the relationships that I have cultivated with the teachers, parents, children and staff over a period of months or years. The model of Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation that I implement is long term and relationship based (Johnston, K. & Brinamen, C., 2006).

The Case of James

James spent his first two weeks at preschool intently watching the other children and the teachers from a safe spot at the entrance to the classroom, attempting to make sense of what he was supposed to be doing there. When he finally joined the group, the teachers and I quickly noticed that James had some difficulties. During one-on-one conversations and classroom meetings, we brainstormed answers to the following questions: “Why does he provoke the other children with mean language?” “What is the meaning behind his aggression towards his classmates, his teachers and even himself?” “What can we do to help him relax and ease his rigidity when he gets upset?”

Feeling that we needed more answers, we decided to call a meeting with his parents. Since we did not know them very well, the site director, lead teacher and I decided that the meeting should be geared towards building a relationship and finding out more about their family. During the meeting, James’s parents were very forthcoming. We discovered that they were struggling with foul language, aggression and rigidity at home, and asked them to share their strategies for supporting and calming him. My ears perked when James’s mom told us that James had observed her getting attacked by a dog a few weeks before he started preschool. She also shared that, at age two, James had split his forehead and had to be held down by his mom and dad while the doctor gave him stitches. I recalled Alicia Lieberman’s (2008) term “emotionally costly stress” and wondered what James had internalized from these frightening experiences.

Before the meeting ended, I asked James’s parents for their written permission to keep a closer eye on their child, and suggested that we meet or speak on the phone again soon. In a private conversation, I suggested to James’s parents that they address the issues their son is having by engaging in dyadic therapy, and offered them the names and numbers of some agencies and therapists who could help. I expressed my concern about how James’s “emotionally costly” experiences might be preventing him from developing friendships, learning new things in school, and hence progressing developmentally. I explained the neurological processes in the brain that allow young children to be so flexible and hence so amendable to early intervention. Thankfully, James’s parents were willing, and able, to take my advice. The child is now more relaxed and less aggressive, has better relationships with his parents, teachers and peers, and is learning and growing every day.

A Presence in Preschool

With parents like James’s, helping teachers by helping the children in their classroom is easy. More difficult to address are systemic issues in the classroom and the preschool as a whole: a team of teachers in a classroom who don’t get along; differences in approaches to handling children’s problems; discrepancies in teacher training and education; even underlying race and class tensions amongst the staff.

In the beginning, all these problems felt overwhelming to me. I took them on and did my best to fix them, feeling frustrated when I was not successful. As I gained experience, knowledge, and confidence, I began to realize the importance of mere presence. Being there to listen, to reflect and to bear witness to their difficulties is extremely powerful. If there is an argument or misunderstanding between two teachers, I listen calmly, mediate with neutrality and attempt to cultivate understanding about each other’s perspectives. I coach teachers individually on how to communicate effectively, being careful to practice what I preach with my own words.

When confronted with disagreements about approaches to child rearing, I work to create an environment in which the teachers and I can all think together about what is best for the child or group of children. Oftentimes during these conversations, I take on the perspective of those with the smallest voice: the children themselves.

To address discrepancies in education and training, I draw on my knowledge base of psychology and my years of experience in the classroom. Cautious of taking on the expert role, but acknowledging that I have useful information to share, I tactfully interject psycho-education into my conversations. I additionally have created tools to hone observation skills and better understand children’s behavior that I continue to refine. The teachers and I implement these tools together, in vivo, in the classroom.

On rare occasions, I am given the opportunity to do groups with all the teachers and school staff. During these groups, I incorporate exercises that encourage self-reflection and perspective taking. For example, I ask each person to reflect on a difficult experience in the classroom: what they felt, where in their body they felt it, and how their feelings influenced their consequent treatment of a child or co-worker. Each person then shares his/her answers out loud. These exercises highlight how everyone struggles to do the emotionally taxing job of being a preschool teacher, and how similar their struggles are. They additionally create empathy for their fellow teachers and staff, and allow for a release of pent up stress and tension. Following these groups, it is as if the entire center has taken a collective sigh. They are gentler on each other and on themselves, and better able to attune to the children’s needs.

As an Early Childhood Mental Health Consultant, I know that I cannot solve the complicated dynamics and multiple layers of problems so often present in preschool. But I can create a safe space for people to express their points of view, to find meaning in children’s difficult behaviors, and even to talk about how larger issues of race and class intersect in the preschool classroom. By being open to what comes and present for the teachers, parents, children and school staff, I create a container for their experience. By creating a container for the needs of the adults, the adults are then able to create an effective container for the needs of the children. And at the end of the day, that is the real reason why I am a psychologist in preschool.


References
Johnston, K. & Brinamen, C. (2006). Mental Health Consultation in Child Care: Transforming Relationships Among Directors, Staff and Families. Washington, DC: ZERO TO THREE Press.
Lieberman, A & Van Horn, P. (2008). Psychotherapy with Infant and Young Children: Repairing the Effects of Stress and Trauma on Early Attachment. New York: The Guilford Press.

Montessori and Ego Strength

My first year of work as an Early Childhood Mental Health Consultant in a public Montessori preschool, I learned a lesson that would forever expand my thinking about the field of psychology. I was the individual therapist for a little boy in one of the classrooms. This boy, whom I will call Erik, was identified as a therapy candidate because of his low frustration tolerance, his outbursts of rage, his rigidity, and his declarations about hating himself and his life. I was learning that these symptoms were classic of children, especially little boys, who could find no reasonable explanation for why their fathers were not around except that they were fundamentally unlovable. This child was acting out his depression through his behavior in the classroom... and driving his teacher nuts in the meantime!

As a novice therapist and mental health consultant for preschool aged children, my heart broke for this child. I wanted him to feel good and to know that he was a lovable, worthy person even though his father had abandoned him. Seeing such a young child in so much pain is a difficult thing to manage. My immediate reaction was to be protective of Erik. Since my coping mechanisms for working with this age group were still developing, my feelings about him were raw.

At Erik's school, I had one and sometimes two other children I was working with in therapy. I was also acting in my role as mental health consultant for the teachers and administrators, helping them to support the children by supporting the whole school system. Needless to say, I was not only at the preschool to work with Erik. But that is not what he thought!

On Wednesdays, my day at his preschool, he would wait for my morning arrival at the school. As soon as he spotted me in the hallway rolling my yellow backpack stuffed with play therapy toys, he would pop out of the classroom and yell, "Hi Ms. Becka! When are you going to come and get me?!?" And every time, his teacher would come storming out after him, scolding him about leaving the confines of his classroom without her permission. Erik would watch me with curiosity and confusion, particularly if I was with another child. "I have work to do," I would tell him, tyring to adopt the Montessori concept of "work" but lacking the conviction. "I will come to the door to get you as soon as I am ready." With that, his teacher corraled him back in the classroom while he screamed, cried and dragged his feet.

The reality of the situation was that I wanted to hide from him that I was working one-on-one with some of his classmates. 'He couldn't handle it if he knew,' I would tell myself. I wanted him to feel special and not experience further rejection from the adults in his life. He needed to feel that he was my one and only.

The Montessori Implementor at the school soon caught sight of the awkward routine that had developed between me, Erik and his teacher. In her presence that particular morning, Erik had grown so upset when he ran into the hallway and saw me walking towards the play therapy room with another child that he screamed after me at the top of his lungs: "You are ugly! I never want to play with you ever again!" Upon his forced reentry into his classroom, he grabbed his classmates' chairs and threw them to the floor one by one.

"What was going on with Erik this morning?" she inquired of me a little later in the day. I explained to her that Erik had apparently grown really jealous when he saw me with another child in the hallway. "I try my best to hide it from him," I confessed, shrugging my shoulders.

She paused as she contemplated this in silence. "Why would you try to hide that from him, Rebecca? You need to explain to him that you work with him and other children when you are here, and that you will come to get him when it is his turn," she explained casually. "The reality is that he knows it already. He is probably really confused about why you aren't being more straightforward with him about it."

I was dumbstruck by this conversation. I had never even considered how, in trying to protect Erik from his own feelings, I had actually made the entire situation a confusing, intolerable mess for him. It instantly clicked for me that by "protecting" him I was depriving him of the opportunity to learn the skills he needed to handle his frustration. I could not believe my oversight, particularly in light of the fact that this was Erik's very issue! Erik not only had to cope with the abandonment of his father, but he had an older sister who spent a lot of time with her daddy over the weekends. He could not for the life of him understand why she got to see her father and he did not. If I did not become more clear to Erik in explaining my intentions, he might jump to the exact opposite conclusion of what I wanted him to take away: that people reject him because there is something fundamentally wrong with him.

The insight that I learned from the Montessori Implementor that day was a turning point for me. It marked the beginning of an expansion in my psychological conceptualizations of people, particularly young children. Schooled as a psychodynamic psychologist, I was taught to identify pathology in patients and to treat their symptoms by bringing unconscious conflict to light. I was also taught to hone in on patient's feelings and find meaning and patterns in their behavior.

In the Montessori school where I was working, there was less of a focus on children's feelings and more of a focus on building their skills. This was achieved through the thoughtful layout of their classroom environment, and by providing them with materials that were interesting, developmentally appropriate, and just challenging enough for children to establish independent mastery over them. Skill building in the Montessori classroom was also achieved by the prevailing Montessori philosophy that children are competent and strong if you give them the opportunity to be so.

The difference between Montessori philosophy and psychodynamic psychology is epitomized by the phrase coined by positive psychologist Martin Seligman. "Doing well in the world versus feeling good." (Seligman, M. The Optimistic Child, Harper Paperbacks, 1996). According to Seligman, you cannot achieve the state of feeling good without first achieving competency, or doing well. As a psychologist, I was skipping right over the mastery building in my effort to relieve Erik's pain (and perhaps my own), in the service of making him feel better.

I have not traded my psychodynamic lens for a Montessori (or positive psychology) one. In fact, a large piece of my work as an Early Childhood Mental Health Consultant at the Montessori school has been in expanding the Montessori philosophy to include more of a psychological perspective in the classroom, given the large numbers of children experiencing mental health issues.

I still believe that psychodynamic psychology is greatly effective in alleviating people's pain and helping them understand how their early experiences shape the present relational patterns they find themselves stuck in. I find this approach particularly useful for parents of young children.

As for the children themselves, I am now very mindful about focusing on their feelings so that they feel nurtured and loved without trying to create a false sense of contingency (a world without pain) or unconsciously communicating that I do not believe they can handle things. Montessori has taught me that children are very resilient and have a great deal of ego-strength.

The very next time I saw Erik, I explained to him that it was my job to come to his school and take different children for "special play time" (e.g., therapy). "But," I continued, "I will always come to get you as soon as it is your turn." Erik showed no visible sign that this was a climactic moment of understanding for him. In fact, he continued to run out into the hallway to greet me when I arrived at his school, and to check if it was his turn yet. However, to our great relief, the hallway tantrums stopped. Erik was additionally more relaxed and secure in his classroom knowing what my intentions towards him, and the other children, were. Our "special play time" could now progress into deeper areas of psychological conflict.

Parenting for Kindergarten Readiness

When parents hear the words Kindergarten Readiness, their minds immediately jump to a child's ability to write their name, count to ten, cut with scissors, and sound out words. But what most parents aren't informed about in regards to Kindergarten Readiness is that the ability to perform these academic tasks requires a previously learned skill set. We take for granted that underlying the ability to read, write, count, and cut paper is a child's ability to concentrate on new tasks and engage appropriately with the people in their classroom environments, namely their teachers and classmates.

The ability to focus and concentrate is a skill that requires mastery. It is, in fact, the developmental task of preschool aged children. This ability to focus and concentrate depends directly upon a child's ability to regulate his or her emotions. Self-regulation, as it is called, is defined as the ability to control reactions to strong emotions, such as anger, sadness and even joy, and to recognize and interpret the emotional states of oneself and others.

If self-regulation leads to the growth of attention and concentration, which then fosters the ability to learn about all of life's wonders, how can parents best support their preschool children's growth? Where should parents focus their efforts to help prepare their children for kindergarten?

As an Early Childhood Mental Health Consultant, I have had the pleasure of watching children, barely three years old when they enter preschool, blossom into self-assured, expressive, cognizant Kindergartners. I have also experienced the heartache of seeing children who are not thriving when they set off for Kindergarten. Children who are not in command of their bodies; whose emotions are marked by negativity, frustration, anxiety, and dissatisfaction; children who do not have positive relationships with their classmates or the adults in their lives.

In my work, I have witnessed the impact of parenting practices on children and noticed that they tend to fall into two divergent sides of a continuum. I call this the great chasm of childrearing. On one side are the parents who are very focused on obedience in their children, and hence have rigid expectations about their behavior. When there is misbehavior, there is a large focus on punishment. Underlying this kind of parenting is a fear about what will happen if absolute control over the child is removed. Most often, those who parent this way were raised in exactly the same manner.

On the other side of the childrearing chasm are parents who have little or no expectations of their child's behavior. These parents are overly attuned to their children's needs and desires, wishing only to "make them happy." Misbehavior is rarely punished for fear of damaging the child's emerging sense of self. Underlying this kind of parenting is a fear about what will happen if perfect contingency (e.g., a world without hurt or frustration) is removed from the child, so they allow the child to set the tone, the parameters, and the rules of the relationship. These parents want to be different from the more rigid and demanding parents they were raised by, but have difficulty finding a healthy middle ground.

The interesting thing about both of these styles of parenting is that they often create similar kinds of emotional dilemmas in children, leading to behaviors that are taxing and frustrating for both parents and teachers. For example, children of parents on both sides of the great chasm of childrearing tend to be highly anxious. The anxiety from the former is created by a fear of retribution and judgement from adults, as the parameteres are so harsh that these children do not learn to trust their own abilities. Children raised with the opposite side of the great chasm of childrearing are burdened with anxiety about not having enough parameters or by having to create them on their own. Both of these types of children test adults to see how far they can push the limits. Neither of them is given the opportunity to internalize appropriate boundaries. These children are left merely reactive to the world around them, as they lack the internal competencies that guide them.

Parents who have well adjusted children, or children who are most likely to succeed in kindergarten and beyond, fall in the middle of these two styles. These middle ground parents have clear expectations of their children's behaviors, and repeat these expectations frequently, knowing that children need a lot of reminders. They try to put themselves in their children's shoes and see things from their perspective, without being lax about rules and expectations. They are attuned to their children's needs without being unrealistically focused on them.

Middle ground parents save harsh rebukes or punishment only for the most severe situations, as they know that too much focus on obediance and punishment only creates fear in children and does not give them the space to develop skills to regulate their own behavior. Middle ground parents know that children can (and should) tolerate a certain amount of frustration, as they will need a healthy tolerance of frustration throughout their lives. These parents use language that is more elaborate than just commands (ex. "Sit down!" or "Let's Go!") but not so elaborate as to include talk about adult worries or problems. Middle ground parents know that language is not only how children learn to communicate but it is how they learn problem solving skills. These parents allow children to ask questions and speak to the frequently about what is going on in the world around them.

If you are curious about your own parenting style, the first step is to ask yourself the following questions: What do I fear as a parent? Am I being too lax or too severe on my child out of my own fears? In what ways is my parenting style similar to the one my parents used? How can I avoid being (fill in the blank. ex. hurtful, mean, shaming) while still holding my child to expectations and rules that are important to me?

If you are having difficulty becoming a middle ground parent, seek out help. Ask your child's teacher for suggestions. Make an appointment to speak with the mental health consultant at your child's school. Find out who the professionals are that work in your community, either privately or in the public sector, and how they may be of help to you. Dialoguing about and reflecting upon the challenges of raising children will help you better arrive at the effective middle ground in the great chasm of childrearing.

In addition to having an awareness of parenting styles, we all need to be mindful that our culture places a large emphasis on cognitive development. Mathematics, language and deductive reasoning are emphasized, sometimes to the exclusion of emotional wholeness and relationships. The irony is that children cannot thrive academically without the emotional health that comes from secure, nurturing relationships. These relationships foster the true Kindergarten Readiness skills: patience, flexibility, emotional-regulation, self control, sharing, listening, collaboration and respect. 'Reading', Writin' and 'Rithmetic will fall into place naturally in the context of healthy relationships and reflection.