A group of us had a wonderful virtual chat last Wednesday night. Thanks to Temple Jeremiah’s Mental Health Committee we hopped on Zoom and had an opportunity to chat about how we were doing, our challenges, and commiserations.
An added bonus was that we were joined by Amber Bond, a JCFS Clinical Counselor. Here are the five tips she shared for coping during this challenging time:
1. Come up with a schedule together with your family members that works for everyone. Be sure to include recess and “PE.” Physical activity is really important!
2. Build in snack time! Not only does scheduling snack time ensure that you’re not reaching for junk food every 30 minutes but it also helps all family members avoid low blood sugar crashes from not getting timely snacks.
3. It is important to still use our communities as a source of strength. Just because we can’t physically get together doesn’t mean that we can’t connect virtually.
4. Keep prioritizing self care. Take the time to work out, maintain connections, and have alone time if you need it. Communicate your needs with your family.
5. Put yourself on a news diet. Limit your intake of the news to a handful of times, don’t stay glued to the news all day.
Afterwards Temple Jeremiah member and licensed professional counselor Krystal Glassman added a couple more tips. Children are very intuitive and are picking up on what is happening as well as our anxieties. It’s important to check in with our kids and see how they are doing. Two tips when talking to kids are:
1. Start by asking kids what they know first. They may have a great understanding of the situation, or not at all. By asking them first you’ll find out the base line and be able to better continue your conversation from there.
2. Keep all explanations to ten words or less. That’s about children’s attention spans. And it prevents you from sharing a winded and detail-filled explanation that they weren’t looking for.
We had a great time video chatting together and decided we would continue the Zoom calls every Wednesday at 8:00 p.m. Please feel free to join us whenever you would like to, come dressed in pjs, and enjoy some adult conversations. The zoom link is https://zoom.us/j/836075260. A huge thank you to Sarabeth Salzman for organizing!