Ok, I’ve finally done it. I’m closing my blog here on wordpress.com and
continuing it on my own website
All my earlier posts and content may be found at my new blog via my website.
Although I will no longer posting here, I look forward to hearing from you at my new site.
Thanks for your continued interest and support!
So, head on over and check out my blogs new home.
It’s Snowing!. (click to watch video)
Nothing better than seeing kids enjoying life…yes we make a big deal when it snows in Dallas 
Highland Village Texas | Christa McAuliffe Elementary took an early release to enjoy the snow and cherish the joy being children.
Thank you Jennifer Mattingly – principle.
Do you diminish or categorize your stress as “normal” or “it’s no big deal, everyone has stress?”
It is not uncommon for people to downplay the stress in their daily lives, not really knowing the true amount of stress they are under, or what is considered a stressful situations. It is important for you to know what causes your stress and stress needs to be understood, especially how stress can impact your health. This STRESS QUIZ is designed to help you discover the amount of stress you may be under and do not even realize it.
Rate yourself as to how you typically react in each of the situations listed below. There are no right or wrong answers. Circle the statements in each column that apply to you. If a particular area of your life doesn’t generally cause you stress, skip it.
| Cause of Stress |
Mild – 1 point | Moderate – 2 points | Serious – 3 points |
| Work | I work part-time | I work full-time | I work more than 40 hrs wk |
|
|
|||
| Number of kids | One | Two | Three or more |
|
|
|||
| Parents | My parents occasionally need my help | My parents have chronic problems and need my help more and more | My parents live with me because of chronic problems |
|
|
|||
| In-laws | My in-laws occasionally need my help | My in-laws have chronic problems and need my help more and more | My in-laws live with me because of chronic problems |
|
|
|||
| Health | I have typical complaints for my age | I have mild heath problems | I have moderate to severe heath problems |
|
|
|||
| Money | I manage to save a little but not much | I am often worried that I don’t have enough money | I have serious money problems |
|
|
|||
| Weather | I experience seasonal problems, such as depression on gray days | I experience severe weather problems, like hurricanes and tornadoes | My home has been affected by a weather related disaster. |
|
|
|||
| Space | We are crowded at home | We have just barely enough space at home | We have fights over space every week |
|
|
|||
| Commuting | I commute less than half hour a day | I commute from a half hour to an hour a day | I commute more than one hour a day |
|
|
|||
| Support System | I have some friends and family near by but not enough | I have family and friends, but most are not nearby. | I have almost no one I can talk to or get support from. |
|
|
|||
| Family Problems | My family has normal problems with friends, and neighbors | My family has moderate problems that affect our happiness | My family members have serious learning, physical, or mental problems |
|
|
|||
| Neighborhood | It could be better | Its marginal | Its not safe |
|
|
|||
| Other Problems | I have occasional other problems at home, work or school | I have frequent other problems at home, work or school | I have multiple other problems at home, work or school, that never seem to get better |
|
|
|||
| Total | |||
If you score in the 0-13 range, you have a MILD amount of stress.
If your score is 14-26, you have a moderate amount of stress. You are approaching the DANGER ZONE
If your score is 27-39, you need to understand that stress is a SERIOUS THREAT TO YOUR HEALTH. You need some extra support from a counselor, or close friend. I urge you to make your health a priority for you and your family.
How Stress Impacts Your Health - short-term stress can keep you awake at night and make you feel irritable and edgy. High stress levels over a long period of time can cause serious health problems such as high blood pressure. And high stress can weaken your immune system and make it difficult for your body to fight disease. Stress is linked to health conditions such as depression, heart disease, and asthma.
If you would like Dr. Kay Trotter to come talk to your group you can contact her at: Kay@KayTrotter.com, 214-499-0396, or visit her web site http://www.KayTrotter.com.
Dr Trotter also post regularly in her FaceBook fan page http://www.facebook.com/DrKaySudekumTrotter.
S T R E S S: the problem
Whenever we experience emotional distress arising from the four core wounding experiences – loss, rejection, betrayal and humiliation – we have a choice of “hiding” from or ignoring these upsetting experiences.
Our ability to effectively cope with challenges and upsets requires learning and practicing skills so they become everyday coping tools. Just learning about these principles is not enough. Remember about 75% of what you do is out of HABIT.
Training our brain to use health coping methods means we can heal our own emotional wounds so we also feel better about ourselves.
We need all three coping brain functions, thinking, feeling and self-protection, to get over experiences that make us stressed, worried, angry or upset.
C O P I N G: principles
L I F E S T Y L E: body – mind – spirit
You can’t always avoid stress but being able to identify what causes it is the first step toward helping yourself cope better. If you have difficulty pinpointing the causes or “triggers” of your stress, try keeping a record to help you identify patterns of stress.
To effetely use this chart, make a note of all your activates during the day and how you felt at the time. Fill in the chart whenever a stress symptom occurs, noting what happened just before. At the end of the week evaluate when you felt stressed and when you felt relaxed.
| Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Saturday | Sunday | |
| Morning | |||||||
| Afternoon | |||||||
| Evening |
R E L A X A T I O N: restores balance
For long-term stress relief you need periods of mental and physical relaxation throughout the day. Relaxation is a set of skills that teach you how to combat the effects of stress and restore the balance between body and mind to enable healthy, happy living.
WHY: long-term stress changes the balance of hormones in the body and leads to exhaustion. A suppressed immune system, slower metabolism and slower cell repair, result in rapid aging, weight gain, and greater risk of degenerative disease.
S I M P I L E: coping skills
If you would like Dr. Kay Trotter to come talk to your group you can contact her at: Kay@KayTrotter.com, 214-499-0396, or visit her web site http://www.KayTrotter.com.
Dr Trotter also post regularly in her FaceBook fan page http://www.facebook.com/DrKaySudekumTrotter.
After I posted my “Family Traditions and Celebrations” blog my sister, Ann, who is a personal chef, posted our family’s “Christmas Raisin Bread” recipe on her blog Ann’s Custom Cuisine and I wanted to pass it along to all of you.
My family has a recipe for Christmas Raisin Bread that has been in our family since the 1800s – maybe even longer. My mom learned it from her Irish grandmother, my great grandmother, and it is always baked at Christmastime and given as gifts to family, friends and neighbors as well as our mailman, milkman, hair stylists and others. As we were growing up, my mom also made it for all of our teachers, which means, with four children in my family, she was baking a lot of bread!
The smell of this bread baking always brings a smile to my face and fills me with lots of happy memories of childhood.
My family traditionally serves this bread as toast on Christmas morning (the brunch menu also includes sliced & sugared navel oranges and some of us like to dip the toast in the orange juice that is left on our plates!). We also use this bread for leftover turkey sandwiches slathered with lots of tangy Durkee’s Famous Sauce plus crisp lettuce and tart cranberry sauce.
My sister, Ann, who lives in St. Louis, also likes to use this bread to make a decadent Eggnog French Toast with eggnog from Oberweis Dairy, (which she says is the best she’s ever tasted).
While we all know how to make this bread, my mom is the official baker of the Christmas Raisin Bread. And, as her hands have lost their strength over the years, she developed a way to make the bread in a bread machine (although, she only lets the machine go as far as the dough cycle and then she takes it out to form loaves and bake in individual bread pans).
Source: Sudekum Family Favorites Cookbook
Yield: 6 loaves (1 pound each)
Ingredients
4 cup milk
1/2 pound lard
1 1/3 cups sugar
4 teaspoons salt
4 packages yeast*
4 eggs
5 pounds flour
1 1/2 cups raisin
* Do not use “quick-rising” or “instant” yeast
Preparation
How to Shape Dough Into Loaves
Roll dough into a 12×8-inch rectangle. Starting from the narrow edge, roll up tightly. At each turn, seal with fingertips or edge of hand. Press down on ends of loaf with sides of hand to make two, thin, sealed strips. Fold strips under loaf (or shape dough into a rectangular loaf, pulling ends together until smooth).
CHRISTMAS RAISIN BREAD FOR THE BREAD MACHINE
Yield: 2 loaves (1 pound each)
Ingredients
1 cup milk
4 tablespoons lard
1 egg
4 cups flour
1/3 plus 1/8 cups sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 1/4 teaspoon yeast
1 cup raisins
Preparation
We live in an age in which it is hard to spend time together as a family, not to mention some of us are divorced and single parents, some of us are remarried; and some of us remarried more than once, creating a rather confusing assemblage of members who aren’t entirely sure where on the family tree they belong.
Whatever our circumstance, many of us honestly don’t know how to celebrate together. To create family traditions and celebrations, traditions that lift days away from other days, give us something to look forward to and make a formal statement that “life is full of things to be grateful for” while also adding a sense of order and stability to our families and our lives.
What is a family tradition anyway?
The candy dish that is sitting on my kitchen counter today.
A tradition is something that you do once and it feels right; and so you do it again. It’s a ritual that “lives in your heart.” And it need not be big, or heavy or religious or difficult, it just needs to be YOU. For example, a simple little tradition that I started as my daughter was growing up was, I placed a small candy dish on the corner of my kitchen counter filled with seasonal goodies year round. At the time I did not realize I was creating a family tradition “it just felt right.” Then one day my grown daughter came over and demanded that I put the candy dish back where it belonged. I had no idea that, to my daughter, this was a family tradition and she let me know that it needs to always continue. Today, since its Christmastime, I have a special holiday dish sitting on my counter filled with tasty white chocolate peppermints… yummy.
Sudekum Family Favorites Cookbook
An old-time Christmas family tradition that I continue is the baking of the Christmas Raisin Bread, using a recipe that has been in my family since at least 1800s—maybe even longer. It’s always baked at Christmas and given as gifts to family, friends and neighbors. My family traditionally serves this bread as toast on Christmas morning and then uses it for leftover turkey sandwiches. In fact, over the years, the turkey sandwich has evolved to include the use of Durkee’s Famous Sauce, lettuce, and, yes, cranberry sauce.
Since it is the holiday season, I am going to give you some ideas but remember: Every day is special and are a good place for everyday rituals, no-reason celebrations, and just plain fun.
Hay for Jesus’ bed (a Sudekum Family Tradition) During the Holiday season, my mom would take baby Jesus’ cradle from our nativity scene and put it in the center of the kitchen table. As each of us children did a random act of kindness, we could take one piece of straw (from new broom bristles) and put it into the cradle, making sure that by Christmas day the baby Jesus had a soft bed.
Break-through Christmas Morning (from Café Traditions) When I was a kid, my parents “wrapped” the doorway to the living room so we would have to break through the wrapping paper to get into the room and see the tree (It’s kind of like a high school homecoming game when the football players break through the big paper ring).
Homemade Christmas Gifts (a Sudekum Family Tradition) As children, we were encouraged to not buy gifts but to make them, thus giving each recipient a small piece of each of us. As I grew up, so did my gift-making competence. And all my gifts, from the simple baked goods to the elaborate 3-piece suit I once made, came from my heart and were nothing less than acts of love. My gift-making ranged from baked goods, homemade candles, monogrammed hand towels, macramé plant holders, rag dolls, sock puppets, etc. And, yes, even my brother cooked, sewed and embroidered gifts.
Proof That Santa Was Here (from Café Traditions) Every couple of years since my kids were very young, I leave a small piece of ripped red velvet fabric near the fireplace on Christmas morning. It proves Santa was there and he ripped his suit on his way down the chimney.
The Annual Christmas Lights Tour (from Café Traditions) Christmas lights. Ever since my daughter was very young, we’ve planned a Christmas Lights tour for one night in December. Everyone gets their pajamas on and then we head out to see the Christmas lights in our town. I pop a couple of bags of popcorn and pack a few snacks and we drive around until everyone gets sleepy. Then we come home, brush our teeth and head up to bed. It’s so much fun, and the pajamas and late night snacks make it an extra special treat for everyone.
My advice is to forget about any stereotype you may have and forge ahead with enthusiasm and get started creating some Family Traditions and Celebrations, while also giving your family stability and a sense of belonging. Above all, remember that the object here is to have fun as well as create something special and meaningful for the people you love.
Start your own Christmas Family Traditions and Celebrations
I would love to hear some of your Family Traditions and Celebrations, so please post them.
Merry Christmas Everyone
If you would like Dr. Kay Trotter to come talk to your group you can contact her at: Kay@KayTrotter.com, 214-499-0396, or visit her web site http://www.KayTrotter.com.
Dr Trotter also post regularly in her FaceBook fan page http://www.facebook.com/DrKaySudekumTrotter.
Where do you go to nurture your soul? To relieve stress? To touch and be touched by our almighty Creator? I go outside to what I lovingly call my “Therapy Room.” My home near Dallas, TX sits on a gently sloping acre dotted with a few oaks and giving me a view of the neighboring stables, where horses graze contentedly. It’s private, peaceful and wrapped in tranquility. Here is where I can sit and feel the gentle breeze and rising sun warm my body, allowing my soul to resonate with the presence of God. Here I am at peace, as my spiritual being reconnects with the expansive energy network of God, more generically know as the Universal Energy Field. This vast, cosmic sea of endless possibilities and infinite wisdom … the Source of All … extending infinitely … beyond human measure. This Universal Field, Source of All, or “God” is the ultimate living being bringing forth and staying connected to every other living thing.
My Source of All resides outside, and more specifically, on most days outside in my backyard. There I can sit overlooking the gently rolling velvet carpet of my lawn, surrounded by majestic post oak tress, singing birds, and the gracefully calming presence of nearby horses. I begin my healing spiritual journey each morning here in my backyard. Some days my journey includes just watching the clouds and feeling God’s presence; other days I may journal, or listen to the Matt Maher album, “Alive Again.” But today—after the tornados, floods and the highly emotionally charged counseling sessions of this past week, my soul was hurting, so I knew my soul needed to be taken on a guided “healing light” meditation by psychologist Dr. Jan Berlin. Popping in my iPod ear buds, the meditative journey began in the middle of my out-door oasis.
Today, I listened to this healing message with my eyes open so I could also take in the visual healing energy that nature provides me—feeding me. And true to form, tears gently rolled down my cheeks as I felt God’s presence and healing light permeate my body. Someday I hope to be able to offer all my clients an “Outdoor Therapy Room” where they, too, can experience how the out-of-doors can provide them a special place for the human adventure of body, mind, and spirit. Where they, too, can personally experience how nature provides an opportunity for mindful ways of being, for reflection, for peace. How just being in nature—nurtures the soul.
The Healing Light – A Sacred Lens Guided Imagery Journey ~ by Jan Berlin PhD Audio CD can be found at: http://amzn.to/ddcJcE
If you would like Dr. Kay Trotter to come talk to your group or find out more about her counseling practice, you can contact her at: Kay@KayTrotter.com, 214-499-0396, or visit her web site http://www.KayTrotter.com.
Dr Trotter also post regularly in her FaceBook fan page http://www.facebook.com/DrKaySudekumTrotter.
Recently I was interviewed by Dallas Ft. Worth North Texas Child magazine as their mental health expert for a special issue they are working on. Specifically, they wanted to know more about family conflict and sibling rivalry.
Here is my interview:
Question: ”My kids squabble over everything. How do I help moderate these family feuds so they’re learning to get along, not just with each other, but with everyone?”
Answer: Last week I had the pleasure of eating lunch with my daughter, a third grade teacher in a North Texas school district. Because this was one of those rare dismal, cold and rainy days, the students couldn’t go outside for mid-day recess. Instead many used the free time as a study hall. As my daughter and I talked, occasionally a student would approach and ask Kelly a question about their work.
I felt a combination of motherly and professional pride as I watched her deftly guide the youngsters to discovering their own answers, helping them realize where they’d gone wrong along the way. One little girl in particular was making the common mistake of misinterpreting the questions, and I was instantaneously brought back to when I would frequently make this same mistake as this child.
When lunch was over the whole class came back from recess and continued their school day. I hung around for a little while and what I saw and heard were 20+ students clamoring for attention, seeking answers to questions and desiring guidance. This quest for feedback was combined with them wanting to get their basic needs meet, such as going to the bathroom, checking insulin levels, etc. Before I knew it, I had such a big impish smile on my face that Kelly asked, “What are you thinking?!”
“It’s amazing to see and hear how the 8 year-old brain works,” I answered. “I’m reminded in a very concrete manner that these children do not process information anything like we adults do.”
Far too often, adults forget or just do not realize that their children are not “little grownups.” Their brains are not neurologically capable of processing information like our adult brains do. Children’s brains are still building new connections, changing, growing and moving towards a cognitive maturity they won’t reach for a number of years.
For example, the 8 year-old brain is in the process of developing logical and concrete thinking, but still has a very limited ability to extend logic to abstract concepts. This shows up in the highly imaginative and illogical thinking of early childhood.
The cerebral cortex is the largest part of the brain, and is where the gray matter responsible for the “higher” functions of thinking and information processing resides. This area, when fully developed at age 24 for women and 27 for men, and enables us to grasp abstract concepts.
That means the 8 year old boys in my daughters 3rd grand class are 19 years away from being able to completely understand the concepts their parents are trying to communicate.
As a parent this means you need to continually realize your children will process information differently than you do. It’s not stubbornness or defiance – that blank look they give you may mean your child is simply unable to mentally grasp what you’re telling them. I tell parents it’s like speaking in a different language — your child can physically hear your words, but they honestly do not comprehend you.
I’ve found positive family communication increases dramatically when parents learn to speak their child’s language. When parents can “see the world through their child’s eyes,” they are better able to understand their youngsters, and effectively guide them.
After I shared this concept of “seeing the world through your child’s eyes” with one mother, she admitted that she thought her son was just being stubborn and wanting his way. She attributed his yelling and screaming as a calculated means to achieve his goal, and his dramatic acting-out was making the whole family angry and miserable.
When the mother switched tactics and worked at seeing the world as he experienced it, she became awestruck at what she discovered. She now realized that her son was not a bratty screaming child – but a very scared child. Her heart ached when she saw her son was so fearful that all he knew how to do was scream to get her attention. Once she knew her child was simply scared, she was able to help him—and become a better parent in the process. The boy’s behavior quickly changed for the positive.
The mother of an adolescent came to me seeking help to understand why her daughter continues to not read the social cues others give her, and constantly picks fights with her friends and family. As I helped her “see the world through her daughter eyes,” she learned that in the developing adolescent brain the limbic system, which governs emotions and behavior, is closely linked to the still maturing prefrontal cortex.
The way this powerful connection shows up, an adult who observes a group of people looking in their direction and laughing might feel an emotional response in the limbic system, but probably won’t respond in any way because the prefrontal cortex (which acts as a sort of mental traffic cop) would say, “It’s okay. It’s not about you.” An adolescent, on the other hand, might mistakenly make the unpleasant assumption that the people were laughing at her and become upset, angry, or defensive.
Adolescents just are not as good at interpreting facial expressions and nonverbal signals, in part because the prefrontal cortex is not yet lending the limbic system a hand.
My suggestions would be to continue to open your mind to the fact that your children aren’t intentionally trying to sabotage the family dynamic – they just need a little extra guidance in understanding and interpreting appropriate behavior.
If you would like Dr. Kay Trotter to come talk to your group or find out more about her counseling practice, you can contact her at: Kay@KayTrotter.com, 214-499-0396, or visit her web site http://www.KayTrotter.com.
Dr Trotter also post regularly in her FaceBook fan page http://www.facebook.com/DrKaySudekumTrotter.
