by North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center | May 13, 2019 | Anton Media, In The Media
Is your child a picky eater? Does her or his eating create tension in your home? What was your experience in being fed growing up? Were your parents overly involved?
These are a few questions to consider if you are concerned with your child’s eating habits. Donna Fish, a licensed clinical social worker, offers parents and kids guidance in how to take the fight out of food.
I met Ms. Fish at her workshop that focused on learning how to prevent and solve childhood and teen eating problems. She advised that two questions to ask up front are: What is the problem? And whose problem is it?
These two questions are critical to understanding whether your child’s eating is problematic from a medical/developmental perspective.
If a medical problem has been ruled out, the child is not nutritionally compromised and there are no body image issues the child is experiencing, then there needs to be some better understanding about how their picky eating is affecting dynamics in the family. For example, does it lead to parents frequently fighting or to tension on vacations?
Basic parent education on nutrition and development go a long way in helping a parent to understand that their child is on a normal growth curve and that how they eat from a nutritional perspective is nothing to be worried about. Consulting with your pediatrician or finding a nutritionist is a good place to begin.
If education doesn’t do the trick, then it is helpful to understand a bit more about whose problem it is. This necessitates an understanding about the meaning of food in the family.
In many cultures food and feeding represent love, nurturing and bonding. If a child’s picky eating denies a parent a sense of nurturing it can lead to a battle of wills. In that case, a child quickly learns how their eating represents an ability to take control, which can lead to power struggles in the family.
For parents, understanding their own experiences eating when growing up can offer them some insight. For example, if their parents were overly involved with their eating it might suggest some difficulty trusting your own body signals regarding when you’re hungry or full and satiated.
If a parent makes this historical connection, it may help them to better understand the value in allowing their child to have more autonomy with eating. For example, they can be allowed to control their own meal portions. For a toddler that might mean putting finger foods on their tray so they can help themselves as opposed to being spoon fed.
In her work with children who are struggling with eating, Fish advises “You are the expert on your body. You need to be the best body detective possible. It’s your job, not your parents’ job.” This is important work that helps the child to separate emotions from feelings of fullness and comfort.
Ms. Fish sees “all food as good,” as having some value, and talks to kids about nutrition in a way that generates interest and curiosity.
Still, if your child appears to continually make poor choices, it is important that you set reasonable limits. As Fish puts it, “Parents think their job is to protect their child from disappointment, anxiety and hurt,” but it is okay for children to experience the disappointment of your setting limits on occasion. It’s just another of the many areas where parents can help their kids learn a valuable life lesson.
To learn more about Donna Fish, visit www.donnafish.com. Take the Fight Out of Food can be found on Amazon.
Andrew Malekoff is the executive director of North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center, which provides comprehensive mental health services for children from birth through 24 and their families. To find out more, visit www.northshorechildguidance.org or call 516-626-1971.
![National Grid Helps Beautify Guidance Center Site]()
by North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center | May 13, 2019 | Press Releases
Volunteers plant and paint at Leeds Place in Westbury
Volunteers from National Grid included (left to right) Malcolm Minott, Fran Di Leonardo, Kathleen Wisnewski, Alanna Russo, Susan Eckert, Lauren Benetos and Carie Manticos, pictured with Dr. Nellie Taylor-Walthrust of the Guidance Center.
Roslyn Heights, NY, May 13, 2019 — On May 7, 2019, North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center welcomed seven employees of National Grid to its Leeds Place location on Brush Hollow Road in Westbury, one of the Guidance Center’s three sites.
The seven volunteers—who brought with new large decorative planters, several beds of petunias, geraniums, catmint, hostas and juniper bushes, along some white paint—spent the day planting, painting and cleaning the Leeds Place signpost, giving the building a fresh, friendly look.
“National Grid is happy to partner with North Shore Child & Family Guidance at their Leeds Place,” said Kathleen Wisnewski, National Grid Customer and Community Manager, who was part of the volunteer team. “The planting and beautification project performed by employees from our Customer and Community and IS Teams is another example of how National Grid gives back to the community we live and work in. It’s nice to know that the people entering the Leeds Place will be greeted by beautiful flowers to help brighten their day.”
Fran DiLeonardo, Director, IT Customer Service Management at National Grid, was enthusiastic as he put his all into the project. “It was another great day making a difference in the community that we live and work in!” said DiLeonardo. “It’s always rewarding to put the time aside and make it happen; that’s why we keep coming back!”
“I love meeting new people and learning about the good work they are doing to support folks in their communities who need a little extra help,” said volunteer Susan M Eckert, IT Infrastructure and Operations at National Grid. “It was very inspiring!”
This is the third time this year that National Grid has volunteered for the Guidance Center. “We are very proud of our partnership with National Grid,” said Lauren McGowan, Director of Development, North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center. “Everyone is so generous with their time and talents. The volunteers all worked tirelessly to help make the Guidance Center’s Leeds Place office an attractive place for our clients to continue on their path to healing.”
If your company would like to discuss opportunities to volunteer at the Guidance Center or support our mission in other ways, contact McGowan at LMcGowan@northshorechildguidance.org or call her at (516) 626-1971, ext. 320.
About North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center:
As the preeminent not-for-profit children’s mental health agency on Long Island, North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center is dedicated to restoring and strengthening the emotional well-being of children (from birth – age 24) and their families. Our highly trained staff of psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, vocational rehabilitation counselors and other mental health professionals lead the way in diagnosis, treatment, prevention, training, parent education, research and advocacy. The Guidance Center helps children and families address issues such as depression and anxiety; developmental delays; bullying; teen pregnancy; sexual abuse; teen drug and alcohol abuse; and family crises stemming from illness, death, trauma and divorce. For more than 65 years, the Guidance Center has been a place of hope and healing, providing innovative and compassionate treatment to all who enter our doors, regardless of their ability to pay. For more information about the Guidance Center, visit www.northshorechildguidance.org or call (516) 626-1971.
About National Grid:
National Grid (LSE: NG; NYSE: NGG) is an electricity, natural gas and clean energy delivery company serving more than 20 million people through our networks in New York, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. We are the largest distributor of natural gas in the Northeast. National Grid also operates the systems that deliver gas and electricity across Great Britain. National Grid is transforming our electricity and natural gas networks with smarter, cleaner and more resilient energy solutions to meet the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050. Our Northeast 80×50 Pathway is an industry leading analysis for how to reach that goal in the states we serve, focusing on the power generation, heat and transportation sectors.
Read more about the innovative projects across our footprint in The Democratization of Energy, an eBook written by National Grid’s U.S. president, Dean Seavers. For more information, please visit our website, follow us on Twitter, watch us on YouTube, friend us on Facebook and find our photos on Instagram.
by North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center | May 10, 2019 | Anton Media, In The Media
In a recent story in the Albany Times Union, reporter Mallory Moench paints a different picture about juvenile asylum seekers as compared to recent stories about caravans purportedly composed of gang members and Middle Eastern terrorists.
In the report we meet Rosa, who left El Salvador as a young adolescent after being targeted by a gang intending to prostitute her. To prevent becoming sexually exploited, she left her parents and crossed the border. She has been living in the Capital Region of New York for the past two years.
Rosa, now 17, is undocumented and is seeking special immigrant juvenile status that would enable her to apply for a green card which permits a foreign national to live and work permanently in the U.S.
Rosa understands that she could be denied and deported. More than 12,500 undocumented young people have participated in immigration court this year alone. For those without a lawyer, the odds of deportation are much greater.
According to the Albany Times Union report, “If juveniles [under the age of 21] have a relative who is a U.S. citizen or green card holder, they can apply for a family-based petition. If they are victims of trafficking, domestic violence or another crime they can apply for crime victim visas. If they’re fleeing persecution like Rosa, they can apply for asylum. If they’re missing one or more parents they’re eligible for special immigrant juvenile status.”
Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions had taken measures to fast-track deportations. Consequently, many juveniles may be sent back to their homelands—and the dangers and threats that await them—before legal proceedings are implemented.
Many of the young people living in New York’s Capital Region, ages 12 to 19, came from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras or Mexico after being confronted with gang violence. The profile and numbers of refugees on Long Island is similar. It is ironic that with the incendiary political rhetoric of the day, many asylum seekers have been labeled gang members, when it is gangs that they are trying to escape from.
Many young migrants endured trauma in their passage to the U.S. They faced starvation, violence and abandonment.
There are only two immigration courts in all of New York. One is located in New York City and the other is in Buffalo. For many asylum seekers, the cost for transportation to court hearings prevents them from following through. For example, for those living in the Capital Region, a bus ride can be as much as $100 and more than $500 for private transportation.
This is especially daunting when they are living in poverty.
Furthermore, there is a cap on the number of visas given each year and also each month. This contributes to inordinate delays in court.
For most of these juveniles the fear and anxiety of being deported as they await a final legal determination can be unbearable and impacts their ability to heal from the traumatic journey to the U.S.
Immigration laws do need to be enforced as open borders with endless flow of refugees is unsustainable.
The challenge is how to enforce the law, dial down the divisive and hateful rhetoric, demonstrate compassion and seek humane solutions for young migrants simply looking to live without fear. We’ve strayed from that ideal. I hope we can find our way back.
Andrew Malekoff is the Executive Director of North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center, which provides comprehensive mental health services for children from birth through 24 and their families. To find out more, visit www.northshorechildguidance.org.
![National Grid Helps Beautify Guidance Center Site]()
by North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center | May 9, 2019 | In The Media
I didn’t attend many funerals in my childhood. One that I recall was for the father of a close childhood friend. He died of a heart condition during our first year of high school.
In the intervening years I have paid my respects on numerous occasions, including a disturbing number of times after the untimely deaths of young people. Conversations at funerals inevitably lead to the circumstances of the death and the conditions leading up to it. Talking about the cause of a loved one’s death is never easy. But these conversations are especially difficult, even taboo, in the aftermath of a drug overdose or a death by suicide, when grieving is complicated by circumstance.
In most cases when someone dies, the feelings of loss and numbness ease incrementally, enabling the bereaved to process the experience and gradually return to a new state of normal. In contrast, when grief is complicated and survivors are inconsolable, accepting the loss and moving forward is far more difficult.
The stigma, shame and discrimination that accompany living with a mental health or substance-use disorder often have the effect of silencing not only those who have the disorder but also their family members. And after losing a loved one to one of these illnesses, surviving family members are often rendered voiceless once again.
Matt Shapiro, associate director of public affairs for the Albany-based National Alliance on Mental Illness New York State, shared that “The impact that mental illness had on me and my family led me to shame, silence and masking who I really was. [Becoming an advocate for] the National Alliance on Mental Illness has given me the ability to take off that mask, end the silence and speak about my issues.”
Shapiro is one of a growing number of those fighting to ensure that people with a mental health or substance-use disorder have timely and affordable access to treatment and care in accordance with the federal Mental Health Parity and Addiction Act. The passage of that bipartisan law in 2008 aimed to prevent health insurers from imposing less favorable benefit limitations on such care than on medical and surgical coverage.
But having a law on the books doesn’t guarantee compliance or effective enforcement. Millions of dollars in fines imposed on violators have had little impact on the trillion-dollar behemoth that is today’s health insurance industry.
Bad publicity doesn’t seem to work, either, because tens of thousands of New Yorkers continue to have difficulty accessing timely and affordable in-network care. Still, advocates like Shapiro battle on with unwavering determination.
Also fighting to make a difference are larger-scale advocacy efforts like Parity at 10, a three-year campaign to unite local and national advocates in 10 states, including New York, to pursue full enforcement of the Parity Act. Achieving full enforcement of parity compliance and enforcement, however, remains highly problematic.
It’s about time to ask Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the commissioners of the state Departments of Health and Financial Services, which are responsible for enforcing parity, questions such as, what will it take for you to suspend the licenses of serial violators in the health care industry and to put them out of business if they fail to reform?
Corporations have no empathy, and are unencumbered by conscience and shame. What do they care about? The profits they accumulate from the misery of people living with untreated mental health and substance-use disorders whose access to care they deny. If fines alone won’t work, only the real threat of putting them out of business will.
Do Cuomo and the State Legislature have the nerve to take on the health care insurance industry when it comes to parity enforcement, beyond passing nominal legislation for funding to add staff to the DOH and the DFS for monitoring and trouble-shooting, as they have done this year?
Increasing staff in those departments to enhance surveillance of parity compliance is a good step forward. But without impactful enforcement when persistent deficiencies that impede access to care are identified, the benefits are questionable.
Greedy health insurers and neglectful government regulators have two things in common: They count on stigma and our silence — in life and death.
Andrew Malekoff is executive director of the North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center, a nonprofit children’s mental health center. For more information, go to www.northshorechildguidance.org.
by North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center | May 8, 2019 | Blog
Each year, May 9th is designated as National Children’s Mental Health Awareness Day. According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), National Children’s Mental Health Awareness Day shines a national spotlight on the importance of caring for every child’s mental health and reinforces that positive mental health is essential to a child’s healthy development.
This year’s theme is “Suicide Prevention: Strategies That Work.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), suicide is the third leading cause of death among individuals between the ages of 10 and 14, and the second leading cause of death among individuals between the ages of 15 and 34. It is far more rare—though not unheard of—for children younger than 10 to commit suicide, but it does happen. About four out of every 500,000 children below the age of 12 commit suicide annually, reports the CDC.
At North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center, 20 percent of all admissions come to us as crisis situations, including kids who talk and act as if they don’t want to live.
“Both children and teens are at risk of depression and suicide when they experience traumatic events in their lives, such as divorce, death of a loved one, abuse or illness,” says Elissa Smilowitz, LCSWR and Coordinator of Triage & Emergency Services at North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center.
Parents must be open to believing the risk of suicide is real and not assume that their child or teen’s behavior is just a normal part of adolescence, adds Smilowitz. “Parents say, ‘Teenagers are supposed to be moody, aren’t they?’ Yes, but it is the severity of the mood that parents need to look at.”
Smilowitz points out some of the warning signs: “Look for changes in their behavior that aren’t typical for them.”
She cites:
Withdrawing from friends and family
Sleeping all day
Being depressed and crying often
Posting suicidal thoughts on the Internet
Talking about death and not being around anymore
Cutting themselves
Increasing aggressiveness or irritability
So, what do you do if you suspect your child or teen may be suicidal? The first step is to consult a mental health professional. The Guidance Center has a Triage & Emergency Services program that offers a rapid response to psychiatric emergencies. Our team will assess if the situation appears urgent and will make an appointment to see the child within 24 to 48 hours (if it’s deemed extremely urgent, we do advise you go to the Emergency Room).
It’s very important that you communicate your concern to your child in a loving, non-judgmental way, says Smilowitz. “Talking about suicide will not make your child more likely to act upon it,” she says. “The opposite is true. Also, let them know that you believe that getting help is not a weakness, but rather shows their strength.”
If you or a member of your family is in crisis, call North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center at (516) 626-1971. You can also call the toll-free National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255), available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week
Sources:
https://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/leadcause.html
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/recycled/2010/04/do_children_commit_suicide.html
