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A lot of parents bring up phone time and social media use as concerns in sessions. We thought we’d take a minute to talk about this because it’s important for teens, but also for you as adults. Social media and screen time are here to …
This is a big parenting technique that has been taught for decades about how to deal with tantrums and big feelings: just ignore them. And, if we’re being honest, it makes sense coming from a behavioral perspective – reinforce behaviors you want to see more …
There’s a lot more information about trauma out there on social media now, which is great because it elevates collective awareness around trauma and how it impacts our daily lives.
You’ve probably heard of flight or flight as responses to trauma triggers, but you may not have heard so much about what the “fawn” response is, and we want to shed some light on that here.
“A trauma response is the reflexive use of over-adaptive coping mechanisms in the real or perceived presence of a trauma event…” (mindbodygreen.com | mbghealth | Fight, Flight, Freeze, Fawn: Examining The 4 Trauma Responses; Julie Nguyen, Kristina Hallett, September 11, 2021)
If you experience something that your body feels is unsafe your brain will activate a response to keep you safe. It’s like an alarm is set off when the trauma occurs and then you are triggered to silence the alarm.
Sometimes the experience may not be life threatening or a really big event, like a death or war, smaller events can also be linked to trauma. These events, though smaller, can still be overwhelming and cause stress. There is a range of what trauma can look like and it doesn’t have to be huge to impact you in a significant way.
“Trauma affects you differently depending on whether you have experienced it once, repeatedly, or over the course of time.” (University of Maryland Medical System | Trauma Response: Understanding How Trauma Affects Everyone Differently)
The four types of trauma responses are: Fight, Flight, Freeze, Fawn. You have probably heard of the first three; fight is when you take action in some way to address the trauma, flight is when you avoid or run away from the problem and/or others, freeze is when you can’t do anything, almost like a play dead response…but what about that last one, fawn? Let’s take a look at what the fawn response is.
Most of us want others to like us and be happy. But if you are always going over and beyond to appease people and ignore your own needs then you could be exhibiting a fawn response.
“Fawning is a trauma response where a person develops people-pleasing behaviors to avoid conflict and to establish a sense of safety.” (charliehealth.com | Is Fawning a Trauma Response? What You Need to Know | Charlie Health Editorial Team)
Some patterns associated with people who exhibit this trauma response include being overly agreeable, afraid to say no and being disconnected from their own needs due to always prioritizing the needs of others. The trauma they have experienced has led them to believe that they have to go with the flow in order to stay safe; they cannot say no because that will lead to a place or circumstance that is unsafe for them. (Peters, Jen | @jenpeters_soulguide_healer)
This is common in trauma survivors as they will try to please their abusers so that they hopefully can avoid more abuse. It can also be present for people in toxic or high-conflict relationships because they want to keep peace and not have to deal with conflict; they would rather just do whatever they can to make the other person happy.
The fawn response is a coping mechanism that you may feel is essential for survival or your only chance at living in peace. Unfortunately, fawning can lead to losing yourself. If you are constantly tending to the needs of others and putting them and their well-being first; you start to abandon yourself, which will eventually diminish your self-worth along with other challenges that impact your life.
Once you realize that a fawn response is what you are dealing with, it’s helpful to take steps to start to get to know your boundaries. Don’t judge yourself, instead acknowledge that your trauma response was your way of coping and surviving. (Amjad, Amna | @sonder.therapy) There are some helpful posts on boundaries here and here.
It’s a process and you can start by assessing your personal values so you can determine what is important to you and the people you want in your life.
You will also have to learn to be comfortable with other people not liking you or not always being happy with you. Again, this is a process. Therapy is a helpful tool because you have the support from a trained professional to help you identify and hold the boundaries
This includes tolerating and/or communicating through the discomfort that comes with other people’s responses. Remember, that is a trauma trigger: other people’s responses to what you imagine or what they actually don’t like. So your mind will send up the flares saying that something is definitely wrong as you go through the process of healing the fawn response. It takes practice and may require professional support. Doing this practice and getting support has the potential to rebalance your relationships, break generational patterns and lead to tremendously improved health on so many levels.
“Feelings are meant to be felt, and if we keep attempting to extinguish our own emotions, we are actively fighting and denying what makes us human.” (healthline.com |People-Pleaser? Here Are 5 Ways to Unlearn Your ‘Fawn’ Response; Sam Dylan Finch)
Keep in mind, we are human beings raised by human beings, we’re going to have some adverse experiences. The point of understanding trauma and our natural responses is to not villainize the people who raised you; they did the best they could with the knowledge, resources and capabilities they had.
Gaslighting is a term that has been thrown around a lot on social media lately. But most people don’t really even know what it is or how it compares to other behaviors, so let’s clear things up a little bit. Let’s start by defining gaslighting. …
There’s a lot of conversation around holding boundaries with people in our life. But how about with ourselves? If we are putting an emphasis on something like boundaries in a relationship, we also want to check in on what we are doing around that very …
Too much screen time is a common concern among parents and it’s a question that comes up frequently in therapy sessions. So we wanted to share some helpful information with you about it here.
Some common fears that parents have is that screen time will have a negative impact on their child’s cognitive and/or social development.
It’s very unlikely that your child can avoid screens altogether with remote learning and the use of Facetime or other video chat platforms to keep in touch with family and friends.
Therefore, learning to establish boundaries and place limits on screen time are important.
In our previous post ‘How Does Screen Time Affect Your Mental Health?’, we discussed how screen time affects adults. When it comes to screen time for kids there are some similarities as well as some additional considerations.
A parent’s choice to allow their children to have or use a device, whether it’s a phone, laptop, ipad, etc., is not something that can be judged from the outside. Each family has to make the best decisions for their family and their specific circumstances.
Some children only connect with their relatives through video chat or text and having an option to foster those relationships through technology is a positive thing.
However, childhood is a crucial time for brain and cognitive development and studies have shown that too much screen time can have a negative impact.
‘A recent study by the National Institutes of Health has shown that children spending approximately 2 hours on screens have lower thinking/reasoning power and language processing ability. Moreover, the study has found that the brain area (cortex) responsible for reasoning and critical thinking becomes thinner in children who spend more than 7 hours on screens.’ News-medical.net
A child learns a lot through their environment and surroundings, as well as by observing others. Excessive screen time can limit the learning that takes place during these interactions.
Screen time can be an addiction for both adults and kids, but kids usually have a harder time identifying it as an addiction and acknowledging that the addiction is a negative thing. Therefore, they may show more resistance when boundaries regarding screen time are put in place.
Screen time releases dopamine in the brain, which makes them feel good; so the more screen time your child has, the more time they will want.
It’s likely that screen time becomes more of a need than a choice or desire, because your child will crave that dopamine release.
As a parent one important thing you can do is set a good example with your own screen time.
Talk about the boundaries you have in place for yourself and show them how it looks to uphold those boundaries; kids are always watching.
Having conversations about screen time and being open with your children about it’s negative impacts (in an age appropriate way), can help them learn, from a young age, that it is an important thing to manage. That awareness and openness on the topic can make a big difference.
Educating your children on the negative impacts of too much screen time can be just as vital to their well-being as educating them on the negative impacts of other behaviors like poor eating habits and lack of physical activity.
If you would like guidance on how to calculate the amount of screen time for your child, an online search may yield varying opinions.
The American Academy of Pediatrics and World Health Organization recommend the following:
There are lots of apps and tools available to monitor your child’s online activity as well as set limits for their screen time. A few popular ones are Zift, Screen time, Unglue, Qustodio and Norton Family. Most of them have free and paid premium options. Parents.com gives detailed info on each of these apps HERE.
A good place to start when creating boundaries and limits for screen time is to assess the current amount of time your child spends online and what times during the day they are using their devices. You can then determine what they are doing with the rest of their time, whether it’s school work, sports, family time, etc. Knowing what their typical day looks like and how much time is spent on a device will help you determine what changes need to be made and how their new routine will look.
Creating a plan together as a family is a good way to explain to your child why screen time limits are important and to talk about expectations. You can discuss the boundaries and expectations together and listen to any concerns, questions or input from your child(ren). They are more likely to get on board with the plan if they feel that they have been a part of developing that plan and they do not feel like it is a punishment.
Consider that creating habits and routines in childhood will be helpful to them in adulthood.
Even if they reject it at first, they are likely to return to the familiar habits they learned as a child because, with age, they come to realize that they were important and helpful. So, while it is challenging, do your best to keep going! Putting in the work to teach your child the importance of screen time boundaries may be an important key to their well-being in the future.
What has been your biggest challenge in managing your child’s screen time? Need some support around this? We are happy to help, give us a call.
In today’s society lots of activities, both business and pleasure, involve a screen. It’s important to understand the impact of too much screen time and to consider ways to manage it wisely. Did you know that looking at a screen all day can impact your …
This question comes up a lot. And for good reason. For parents, it can come up around whether to mandate that a child follow through with something like a sports commitment. For adults, it can come up around whether to stay at a demanding job …
This comes up a lot. I get that it is confusing.
How can an interaction between two people not be personal? Meaning, how can you not take what someone does or says personally???
Well, it FEELS personal. Of course.
The things is, most of what people do is about them, not about you. In so many ways.
It’s helpful to understand this about yourself (how you act is about you) and about others (how they act is largely about them).
You are the person who is involved in the interaction that brought about a certain response. Yes, that is true. However, it’s more like you participated in an interaction that was a trigger or inspiration for a certain response.
So much of human response comes from past experiences and conditioning. It comes from personality. It comes from where someone is in that particular moment when an interaction occurs.
Do the mean words feel personal to the receiver? Yes.
How is it not personal?
The partner who said something mean is upset. That is the way they chose to handle their feelings. Maybe because that is how they’ve learned to defend themselves (get on the offense) or that is how they have learned how to fight. Not personal. Feels super personal, though.
Just because it is not personal does not mean it is OK.
The thing is, taking it personally would detract from the important process information: your partner fights by saying mean things. Is that how you want to work through problems in your relationship? That is the place you want to focus. You can argue and get all tangled up in feelings taking the mean thing your partner said personally, but then you never get to the important point so you can grow as a couple.
Let’s look at another example.
Does it feel personal? 100%
Is it? No.
It is how they are choosing to deal with their feelings and the issue coming up. Maybe this is what was modeled to them in their family about how to handle difficult moments. Maybe people in their family screamed and yelled and that was super uncomfortable, so they made the choice to never argue. They are giving the silent treatment because of them.
So what can you do? When things are better, approach that topic of the silent treatment. You might share what it’s like for you on the other side of that. You might find a way to compassionately ask why they handle things that way. Maybe it is too sensitive and it would be better to talk about this in a couples therapy session.
Does that mean they don’t love you? No.
They absolutely love you. What parent does not love their child??
How each parent shows that love is different, that is for sure. People often show love in the same way they were shown love, not how they think the person they are loving deserves to be loved.
That definitely feels personal. You might even get caught up wondering if what your best friend said is true about you.
Why isn’t it personal? People who tend to be critical were often raised by a critical parent so they have that dialogue going on inside all the time, you just happened to hear it out loud. They might be in a career that is based around critique or finding flaws and that is how they tend to look at things. They might unknowingly use it as an avoidance strategy to push you away when they need space.
Can you see how none of those possibilities have to do with you?
And how you could be in a fight with your best friend, lose a friendship or even spend days thinking about your best friend’s comment when it had very little to do with you?
I could continue with lots of examples.
The point is to help you start considering the possibility that something someone does or says may have very little to do with you.
This can save you a lot of time and struggle.
It also creates space for you to consider what you are bringing to interactions that is about you and not others. We’ll look at that in the next post.
If you want to go deeper with this, I highly recommend The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz.
We’ve all been through some significant life adjustments in the months of quarantine. Some of them difficult to assimilate. And, there might be a couple that you found might suit you. No matter where you are in your stance toward the pandemic, the reality is …