Regeration Counselling & Consulting (2019)

Daniel J. Siegel, M.D., is currently clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine, founding co-director of UCLA's Mindful Awareness Research Center, and executive director of the Mindsight Institute.

Tina Payne Bryson, Ph.D., is a psychotherapist in Arcadia, California, where she sees children and adolescents, as well as provides parenting consultations. She serves as the Director of Parenting Education and Development for the Mindsight Institute, focusing on how to understand relationships in the context of the developing brain.

Play therapy builds on the natural way that children learn about themselves and their relationships in the world around them (Axline, 1947; Carmichael, 2006; Landreth, 2002). Through play therapy, children learn to communicate with others, express feelings, modify behavior, develop problem-solving skills, and learn a variety of ways of relating to others. Play provides a safe psychological distance from their problems and allows expression of thoughts and feelings appropriate to their development.

How Does Play Therapy Work?*

Often, children have used up their own problem solving tools, and they misbehave, may act out at home, with friends, and at school (Landreth, 2002). Play therapy allows trained mental health practitioners who specialize in play therapy, to assess and understand children's play. Further, play therapy is utilized to help children cope with difficult emotions and find solutions to problems (Moustakas, 1997; Reddy, Files-Hall & Schaefer, 2005). Even the most troubling problems can be confronted in play therapy and lasting resolutions can be discovered, rehearsed, mastered and adapted into lifelong strategies (Russ, 2004).

*excerpts from the Association for Play Therapy website at www.a4pt.org

"In everything he discusses, Bruce adamantly emphasizes that healing and recovery is possible, driving home the point that relationships are the agents of change and the most powerful therapy is human love"

"From birth, we seek intimate connections, bonds made possible by empathy — the ability to love and to share the feelings of others.

Learn how recent technological changes, child-rearing practices, education, and lifestyles affect a child's understanding of human contact and deep relationships, the foundation for empathy and a caring, healthy society. Take home practical ideas for combating the negative influences of modern life and fostering social change."

This is a 1 hour presentation.

A Cannabis Communication Guide for Youth Allies

Provides introductory information and a set of exercises to engage youth in meaningful discussions and conversations about cannabis. This guide takes a harm reduction approach to talking with youth about cannabis. Its purpose is to help those who work with young people to have the right kind of conversations with them about cannabis: conversations that are safe, unbiased, informed and non-judgmental. Anyone who is looking for practical approaches to talking with youth about cannabis can use this guide.

Sit and bring the right ankle over the left knee.
With your right hand fingers find tight muscles and tendons on the back and inside of the calf, right by the knee. Once you find some give them squeeze in as much as is comfortable and hold.

With your left hand fingers find the achilles tendon close to the ankle and again squeeze and hold.

With the tendons being squeezed take a breath in. Slowly exhale for a count of eight as you flex your foot as far as is comfortable. Release. Repeat two more times on the right leg.

Switch legs and repeat three more times on the left leg.
This exercise and stretch improves posture, relaxation, and ability to socialize both in expression and response.

This is a strategy based on the principles of EMDR that uses bi-lateral stimulation to help the brain process anxiety and fear.

To do the Butterfly Hug, cross your arms across your chest with your right hand on the top of your left arm and your left hand on the right arm.

Alternate gently taping each hand one at a time at a rate that is comfortable. After doing this for a minute or so, take a deep breath. Do this a number of times until anxiety is reduced. After each deep breath, check in to access feelings and thoughts.

Lazy Eights on my back: The eight figure lying on its side (thus, a lazy eight) - also recognised as the symbol for infinity - is traced on the child’s back by the caregiver. The caregiver starts in the middle of the eight and moves upwards along the eight to the left around the child’s shoulder blade, travels again to the middle, then up to the right around the child’s right shoulder blade. This activity is helpful before bed as it is very relaxing or during the day if the child is anxious or stressed.

Lazy Eights can also be done by tracing the Lazy Eight in the air with the thumb of the left hand, and following the thumb with the eyes, and then repeating the same activity with the right hand, tracing the Lazy Eights with the right thumb in the air and following with the eyes. For younger children, it may be useful to begin by drawing the number 8 on a paper, and then holding the paper up (or taping it to a wall at the child's eye level) so that the child can trace the Lazy Eight with a finger on the paper, following with the eyes. Try this one out with both hands for 10 times in each direction around the Lazy Eight.

At the end of the book, ask what the child client liked and did not like about the book. This is an opportunity to discuss the idea of hope, drawing on the hope illustrated in the book and talk about what hope is. It is a chance to hear about your child's hopes and dreams for the future are and what gives them hope.

Using a clay pot, invite your child to create a hope plant similar to the boy’s garden in the book. Your child can paint things or words that are hopeful or represent hope on the pot. While your child is painting, you can talk about planting a flower or seed (whatever is available). This is an opportunity to talk about nurturing hope, to talk about what the boy in the book did to help his hope garden grow and what the child can do to help their hope plant grow.

"When introducing hope as a concept it is helpful to define it. I ask children what they think hope is. It is important to start by defining the difference between hoping and wishing. Wishing is very passive such as "I wish I had more money." However, hoping is an active process, it requires a person’s commitment and involvement.

Sometimes people feel as though they have run out of hope and need to borrow hope (Jevne) from someone else for a time. I believe it is our role to lend hope when our clients need it, until they come to a point where they once again find their own hope."

Resources & Activities

Read. Play. Move. Create.

Books for parents

Videos and links for parents

Helpful resources about addiction & substance use

Self-regulation activities for children

Brain-gym activities by Hearts at Play

More activities to help the body relax

Favourite hope activities