February 7, 2023
Cindy Lopez:
Welcome. My name is Cindy Lopez, the host of this CHC podcast, Voices of Compassion. We hope you find a little courage, feel connected and experience compassion every time you listen.
We are all different and not each child fits into a specific category, and because of that we sometimes worry about labeling our children in certain ways, but what if your child is struggling with learning and you don’t know how to help, or your child has regular meltdowns and there’s no way that works to calm or sooth them or your son is not making friends no matter how many play dates you schedule or your teen feels shame about her body in spite of what you say or do. What can you do to help? First, please understand your child is not broken, and you’re not a bad parent. Additionally one helpful tool would be to have your child evaluated – an evaluation is not about labeling, but about providing helpful information and insights regarding your child. So listen to today’s episode, as we discuss all of this with CHC experts, Dr. Erin Hoolihan, Licensed Psychologist and Kimberly Yu, Doctoral Psychology Intern. Welcome Erin and Kimberly.
Erin Hoolihan, PsyD:
This is Erin. Thank you so much for having us today, Cindy. I’m very passionate about working with adolescents, especially older adolescents and young adult and with that comes working with parents. So I’m so happy to be here talking about labels and more importantly just how parents can best support their children as they continue to develop.
Kimberly Yu, MS:
Thank you, Cindy. I’m also excited to be here. I have a lot of experience working with kids and adolescents and also love parent work as well. And I think it’s a common question of how to navigate labels and how to help kids who are struggling or facing challenges without wanting to put them kind of in a box or label them in a way that feels stigmatizing. So I think it’s an important topic to discuss.
Cindy Lopez:
Erin and Kimberly, what would you say to a parent with a child who is struggling who doesn’t want to label their child?
Kimberly Yu, MS:
I think I would first want to normalize that experience. I think that is a concern that many parents have in trying to assist their kids in getting some help, but also worrying about how labels can affect their self-esteem and their self-image, but I would also say that labels in some ways can help connect kids with services and resources that can be supportive to them and help in what they’re going through.
Erin Hoolihan, PsyD:
I do think this is definitely a concern I hear coming up with parents that I work with, and I think one thing I often like to share with parents is the challenge is there, you know, the teen or the child is aware of the challenge. Usually the parents are aware of the challenge if they’re coming in for mental health services or an assessment or whatever they may be coming in seeking services for. The challenge exists and whether or not it’s labeled with a diagnostic label doesn’t fundamentally change the fact that the child is struggling. And as Kimberly was saying, unfortunately, sometimes labeling is needed for services or to understand how to best support a child. Labels can be an important piece of that.
Cindy Lopez:
Yeah, it’s interesting cause I think that parents often think about that if they label their child, it’s going to be with them for their life, and it’s gonna somehow impact them negatively. And also I think perception too, that they feel like the child is broken somehow, and that’s not the case. And so I really appreciate both of your comments that it’s normal for parents to feel that way, but there’s a bunch of good things, really good things that can come out of taking a closer look and figuring out what’s going on with your child.
Erin Hoolihan, PsyD:
I think that sometimes labels can be validating. It can help sort of categorize the needs that a child or an adolescent is coming in with. I do testing here at CHC and when I’m doing testing feedback with teens, and I tell them that there is this diagnosis or whatever the label may be, oftentimes they’re not at all surprised. You know, they’ll say something like, “yeah, I came in and told you I was having trouble paying attention, or I was having trouble with math or reading, whatever it may be. So I think again, that just sort of highlights that these teens are very much aware that these challenges are occurring and whether or not the parents are willing to label it or acknowledge it that can be part of like the validation piece and the step towards offering services to students who may be struggling or you know kids who need additional support from the adults in their lives.
Kimberly Yu, MS:
To comment on that I’ve, I’ve even had the experience of providing diagnoses to adolescents especially, and having them say, “oh, that’s what I thought too or I’ve been researching this on my own and yeah, that’s what I was thinking,” and so kind of like what Erin was saying, I think people understand that they’re going through something that’s challenging and will find language around it regardless of who’s providing it.
Cindy Lopez:
Right, and if you are ignoring the challenges, that’s not helpful either, and it can be invalidating for the child, right? To feel like, “oh, well I guess I’m just different. I guess I’m just dumb, I guess I don’t fit the norm.”
Kimberly Yu, MS:
Sometimes when we don’t have language around something we’re experiencing, it can feel very overwhelming and intangible; that feeling of unknown can be quite scary. When we’re able to break it down into labels or diagnoses it can feel more manageable, especially when those very directly linked to services or interventions that are designed for what people are going through.
Cindy Lopez:
Yeah, as an educator, giving kids language for their feelings and their emotions is important because they feel like something’s off, but they don’t know how to talk about it. Going through an assessment, having a diagnosis gives kids the language that they need to talk about what they’re experiencing. As a parent you might even understand a little bit more about yourself through your child’s process, and definitely understand more about your child and how you can more effectively support them.
Erin Hoolihan, PsyD:
As Kimberly was speaking, I was thinking about how a lot of teens are going out and doing research to better understand the challenges and mental health is all over the internet and all over social media. So it’s not that this information isn’t out there and that can be a lot of information to consume as a parent, as a teen, when you’re not quite sure what all of the language really means or what it might mean in a diagnostic capacity. So coming to a mental health professional, coming to an assessor can allow you to not only give that language to your child, but also give the appropriate language to your child. And it can allow the child to really understand what they are struggling with, without having to go out and do that research on Google or on Instagram or TikTok.
Cindy Lopez:
So why would a parent feel like an assessment or an evaluation might negatively label their child?
Kimberly Yu, MS:
I get the feeling that a lot of parents feel it’s stigmatizing to have a mental health diagnosis that’s given to them and that could be part of the reason that parents are afraid of labels. I don’t think that the same bias exists around people who break their bones or have diabetes or high blood pressure. And I think there are a lot of parallels and those are also labels, but I don’t get the sense that parents are worried about those labels in the same ways.
Cindy Lopez:
There’s definitely some stigma and especially in school, like it seems like once you get out of school, you kind of find your place in life, right? You kind of find your niche, but when you’re in school, school may be pointing out all the hard spots for you. So I think that could be part of the issue with parents, “I don’t want my child to be labeled. I don’t want them to have to go to a special class at school. I don’t want them to have to be separated from their peers because of it.” And there are definitely some things that we do in our education system that perpetuate that kind of stigma. And it’s hard to change those kinds of systemic issues, but I do think it’s important to help kids understand and think about their challenges in a way that’s helpful to them.
Mike:
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Cindy Lopez:
What are some concerns that you hear from parents about their children?
Erin Hoolihan, PsyD:
I think parents can come seeking mental health services or come seeking a diagnostic assessment for all kinds of different reasons, right? So they may see that their child is not learning the same way that the child’s classmates are or maybe the child isn’t able to concentrate or pay attention or execute daily tasks as effectively as they think that their child should, or maybe not developing socially, right? Having trouble making friends or connecting with peers, maybe parents are noticing like changes in their child’s mood, you know, so my child used to be really outgoing and loves spending time with the family and now that same child is always in his room, always sleeping, not eating very much. So I think that there’s a lot of different reasons that parents can come seeking our services. And I always like to really emphasize to parents that you know your kid best, right? And if you start to see changes with your child that are concerning to you that you don’t feel like you can manage at home that’s a good reason to come see someone else to get some additional support.
Cindy Lopez:
So what about those parents, what would your advice to those parents be?
Erin Hoolihan, PsyD:
I think oftentimes really trying to offer some support at home and see if that is enough of an intervention, right? So asking your teen what’s going on? Just observing some changes that you’ve maybe seen in them. You know, I’m noticing you’re not hanging out with your friends as much. You’re not going to basketball practice. You’re not eating the same way that you used to, whatever the change might be. Sometimes just observing that back to your child and then seeing what they have to say, right? Maybe that’s enough support and maybe offering the support or the problem solving or the validation that they may be looking for in that moment. Sometimes that’s not enough, you know, and I think when that isn’t enough, when parents are sharing, you know, I try talking with my child, I try seeing what’s going at school, asking about their friends, asking about their extracurriculars, and I’m not feeling like that’s really making the progress that I’m hoping to see. And I think that’s when you come seek services, right? So maybe that means getting an evaluation done to better understand and pinpoint what the challenges are. Maybe that means seeking some individual therapy for your child or some family therapy to better address sort of whatever changes or challenges that you’re noticing that have been different maybe than what you were seeing before in your child.
Cindy Lopez:
There’s that sense of trust your gut, trust what you are seeing and what you know about them, and also what your child is expressing to you, what you’re observing in their behavior and reach out. At CHC we have free 30-minute parent consultations so you can reach out without feeling a big commitment financially or even a big time commitment. You can make an appointment, reach out to our care team, careteam@chconline.org. Do a 30-minute consultation with them and just bring your concerns, talk about them, and then one of our folks can meet with you and talk with you about that and give you advice regarding next steps or guidance on what you might do next, if anything. And another piece of the work that we do at CHC is parent coaching, and that might be something that parents want to do too, especially if they’re trying to work with their child and figure out some ways to communicate with them.
We’ve been talking a lot about kids’ struggles, right? Like they’re struggling with learning or they don’t fit in at school, or they’re having some emotional outbursts, but what about strengths? When we think about having a child evaluated or assessed, how does strengths play into that as well?
Kimberly Yu, MS:
I think that strengths play into evaluations really well, and I know, Erin, you do a lot of evaluations, so I’m sure you can speak to this, but when I’ve done assessments in the past, I’ve always tried to highlight that people have all different types of minds and abilities. And I might even give an example of, you know, I’m someone who’s really good at baking, but I really have a hard time navigating, and I get lost all the time. And for you, maybe you’re really good at making friends, but it’s hard for you to pay attention. And I think just, highlighting that people fall along a spectrum in a lot of things. And even though academics and things like paying attention are really valued in school, it doesn’t mean that other things kids are good at don’t also matter just as much.
Erin Hoolihan, PsyD:
To piggyback off of that, I think parents do often come in for an evaluation because something isn’t going well or there is a challenge that they wanna help their child with, and that is a big part of what evaluations do. But more globally, they offer strengths and weaknesses of the child, right? And exactly like Kimberly’s saying, we all have strengths and weaknesses and not only identifying the weaknesses and offering support, but it’s also sometimes about leveraging the strengths, right? So identifying like what is your child really good at and how can we help them use that strength to be more successful, right? So during testing, maybe we’ll find out that your child is a really good like hands-on problem solver, right? And maybe that means that we need to take that information back to the school and get supports in place where the student gets to do more hands-on problem solving, gets to use tactile things to solve math equations or whatever it may be. So it is a lot about identifying like, why is this thing hard, or why is this domain more challenging? And such a big piece of what we do is saying like, here’s what your kid’s good at and here’s how to help them just do that more to be more successful in whatever they’re pursuing.
Cindy Lopez:
How can a parent make sure that a child’s strengths are highlighted in a meaningful way? So if they get some information in an evaluation or assessment, how can they use that?
Erin Hoolihan, PsyD:
I think that that can be done on a lot of different levels. I think that can be done on oftentimes school level, right? So the reality is that most teenagers, most children are spending eight, nine hours at school. So sometimes that means being your child’s advocate and going to school and saying, this is how my child learns best; these are some of the supports that will be most effective for my child. Can also be on like a family level at home, right? So talking about strengths and weaknesses as a family, really normalizing that we’re human, and we’re all good at certain things, and we all struggle with certain things and talking about how to use our strengths to help us be more successful, right? And I often encourage parents to be very transparent about their own strengths and about their own challenges and really model that for their children of how do we acknowledge that some things are hard for us, and how do we work hard to manage those challenges and how do we acknowledge our strengths and really play to those strengths in our day-to-day lives?
Kimberly Yu, MS:
I really like what you said about normalizing strengths and challenges, Erin, and being cautious of the language we use around challenges specifically. I think often when people struggle with things, it feels easy to wanna keep them secret, not share that with others, keep it to ourselves, and I think while parents can be well-intentioned. I think it might also inadvertently send the message that it’s something to be embarrassed about or ashamed of, and I think we want to just normalize that people have all different types of brains. People have all different types of strengths and weaknesses and, I think the differences should be celebrated.
Cindy Lopez:
Celebrating differences, it’s such an important mindset to have, especially as a parent. As adults, we have our strengths and challenges too, and so how do we leverage those ourselves? And that’s something we can help our kids understand. So I’m wondering if you have any thoughts about how parents can talk with their kids about differences as strengths? How do we help the child change that narrative and some of its language?
Kimberly Yu, MS:
I’m thinking about parents who have kids with anxiety or kids who are anxious and thinking about how I explain that to parents such that they can then explain that to their kids. I think a lot of it is just normalizing the experience of worrying and feeling stressed and sharing that worrying, feeling afraid has a function, evolutionarily, when we’re thinking about anxiety, it keeps us safe. And I think there are a lot of kind of fun ways to explain that to kids in that feeling scared can just keep our body safe. And we also wanna help kids so that they don’t feel scared when they don’t have to be scared all the time, but normalizing it and sharing that it’s not wrong to feel scared and it’s not wrong to feel anxiety. It’s something that’s very normal and that everyone feels.
Erin Hoolihan, PsyD:
I would definitely agree with what Kimberly’s saying around normalizing that we all have these challenges. I really appreciate what you said previously, Kimberly, in regards to being very thoughtful about the language that we’re using when we’re talking about strengths and challenges or weaknesses, that, you know, we don’ want to be talking about people as not normal or abnormal or weird or some of those buzz words because it’s important to know that children internalize those, right? So even if you aren’t saying those words directly to your child or calling your child those words, if they’ve heard you use that language to describe other people who are struggling they’re gonna be aware of that, and they’re gonna think about that when they are struggling, and they’re gonna think about that when trying to decide if you’re a safe person to come talk to about the struggles that they may be having. So, this isn’t necessarily a conversation starter, but I always just like to really encourage parents to always be mindful of the language they’re using at all times cause your kid is almost always listening and they’re always gonna remember, you know? So you don’t want to unintentionally communicate negative judgements to them in a way that you really don’t mean to, but that could later cause them to feel judged or invalidated or lesser than.
Cindy Lopez:
As we wrap up this episode, I’m thinking about the fact that we’re all different and that we don’t each fit neatly into a category. And when your child is struggling with learning or their regular meltdowns, but you don’t know how to help or you don’t know what works, you’re not a bad parent. So, thinking about our conversation, what do you really want our listeners to hear from you today?
Kimberly Yu, MS:
These labels we give are just one component of their child’s identity, and as parents who know them best, they can know that their kids are so much more than a single label or diagnosis that we provide- and help in just seeing their kid, globally for everything they are in addition to whatever label or diagnosis feels relevant to help them grow and do well.
Erin Hoolihan, PsyD:
Yeah, and I think the part that’s standing out to me about what you said, Cindy, is I, I hear that complaint a lot from parents, like, you know, if my child’s struggling, maybe that means I’m a bad parent, or maybe I messed up really big, and I think the reality is if a parent’s listening to this podcast, it probably means they care. If they’re coming to see a mental health professional, they care. If they’re going to a 30-minute consult or they’re going to parent coaching classes, they clearly care, and they want to help their children, and I think that one of the big takeaways from this podcast or this episode specifically for me is that these labels, they’re just another way to understand and support your child. They’re just another way to help offer supports and accommodations and interventions that help your child continue to grow and develop. So, you know, if you’re doing the things, that’s really what we want parents to be doing: to be engaging, to be trying. And you know, again, all the things that me and Kimberly have shared today are just more ways for you to understand and subsequently support your child’s development.
Cindy Lopez:
Thank you so much Kimberly and Erin for being part of this episode and for sharing your insights and experience with us. To our listeners again, you can reach out. We are here for you. You can reach us at chconline.org. You can reach out to the care team, careteam@chconline.org. When you reach out to the care team, you can just tell them what you’re looking for and what you’re concerned about, and then they can connect you with the appropriate services at CHC, whatever works for you. Thank you for listening in. Visit us online at podcasts.chconline.org. Make sure to subscribe to Voices of Compassion so you never miss an episode, and we’d love it if you’d leave us a rating and review. Have a question? Send us an email or a voice memo at podcasts@chconline.org. We’re here for you when you need us.
