Author: elzanfrank
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Are We Overemphasizing Emotions?
Part One: Soothing & Problem-solving without an emphasis on emotions. Key Concepts: Talking about emotions is one certain way of feeling better. Of lightening up. This depends, of course, on the reaction of the listener. An accepting ear is required. We all have experience of the discomfort when you share something personal and the other…
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Depression in Children
Writing on suicide, I have to write something on depression… Depression is the common cold of the therapy room… a densely entangled ball of wool. There exists after all, a whole Encyclopedia on depression (it is old, but yes, it does exist). Here are some thoughts on depression in children. When I see a child, these…
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Children and Suicide
In the past ten days, two grade 7 boys in my region committed suicide. I do not know the families, but I do know the schools. Both are schools that I often recommend as examples of vibrant, caring and committed community schools, with clear anti-bullying protocols in place. Suicide, can happen anywhere. When it happens…
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Making Sense of Suicide
I could write a whole series on suicide, because it says so much of the times that we live in. In this piece I describe two very different people who crossed my doorstep: An adolescent girl and a mid-career professional man. Both confirm my professional conviction that all behaviour is logical. That symptoms are not…
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On Poverty, Low Parental Education and Lack of Intelligence in Children
Do children who grow up in extreme poverty lack intelligence and imagination? A toddler sits in the sand, eyes clouded. He simply sits. Occasionally listlessly handling a pebble. That’s it. Extreme poverty robs a child of adequate stimulation, of joyful exploration, of life-giving nutrition and care. No, poor children are not born less curious and…
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How Parental Reactions and Meaning-making Help Children to Self-regulate: Self-regulation is an Acquired Skill.
Meaning making and emotion regulation A parent is driving the children to school. “Mom”, complains Jessica, “Thomas is kicking my seat.” The car swerves to the left and stops. Mother turns around, her face red: “Stop doing that immediately Thomas. If you do not stop kicking your sister’s chair, I cannot drive to school.” How…
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Will, Power & Motivation
And what about two year olds who are in charge? Where there is a will there is thé way What is will? A person’s choice or desire in a particular situation. Merrriam-Webster Free will? Within your will you experience yourself. This is already noticeable in a two-year old: The experience of an injury to the…
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Mental health
Some days I think we have all gone missing in this overkill of information and options. To use nutrition as a metaphor: if we all just ate three meals of real food every day, would that not quite simply suffice and liberate us all from the plethora of debates? So as for “Mental Health”: Speak…
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Why Babies Cry and Why We Feel Lonely at Dusk:
Once upon a time, long ago, the first human was born. Of two parents, one male one female. Or should that be, one female one male. That very first human was born maybe only a few seconds before another one elsewhere appeared, but they would be the first of the new species homo sapiens. The…
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Theft
I hear the child’s voice and then I see them. The mother is crisply urban. With platinum white hair expensively snipped to look boyish, her heals go clickety clack on the glossy tiled floors of the shopping mall. “We forgot to pay for it.” The little girl, all pink, is clutching a Barbie book in…
Elzan Frank 