Council of Counselors: Screen Saturated Kids / Job & Child Loss / Chronic Pain / Body & Mental Health / Gender Dysphoria & Anorexia

This is a weekly post that highlights resources from other counselors that I have found helpful. The counselors may be from the biblical counseling, Christian psychology, integration, or secular counseling traditions. By linking to a post, I am not giving it my full endorsement, I am merely indicating that I believe it made a unique contribution or raised an important subject for consideration.

Raising Kids in a Screen Saturated World by Eliza Huie

Have unwanted graphic texts, violent video games, pornography, cyber bullying, sexting, or screen addiction been a concern for you as a parent children in this cyber age? Do you feel overwhelmed in figuring out how to bring balance into your child’s screen use?

• See the “What I’m Reading” section below for a summary of and link to Eliza Huie’s book.

I Lost My Child. Then the Book of Job Made Sense. by Kimi Harris

Job was still in my “things I don’t understand in the Bible” box when a weight of pain fell on my shoulders. My husband and I were married young, and I became pregnant eight weeks into our marriage. Few people are more hopeful about the future than a couple expecting their first child. That hope took a turn when a routine ultrasound left us with a devastating diagnosis: Our daughter would die soon after birth from a severe heart defect unless she had three open-heart surgeries.

• Here is a collection of resources on suffering for those seeking God’s comfort in the midst of disorienting grief.

Why We Need Chronic Pain Awareness Month by Esther Smith

September is Chronic Pain Awareness Month. There was a time when I didn’t fully understand the purpose of awareness months. Sometimes I would look at the runs for such and such a condition, the ribbons and the bracelets, the signs and the events and wonder what that was all about. Now I get it. Now that I have chronic pain, I realize why awareness is important, and I want to share a few of those reasons with you.

• Here is an article on counseling suffering from Psalm 103 which has several themes of chronic pain.

5 Ways to Get Your Body Involved with Your Mental Health by Dave Hughes

Historically, psychology and its application through therapy have been seen as relevant primarily f not solely to what goes on between a person’s ears. As such, our thinking in addressing mental illness was limited as well. Research in recent decades though is quickly unraveling that myth. In fact, a lot of the work I do in somatic therapy reveals just how involved our bodies are in our mental health. The fact that we can resolve trauma, stress, and anxiety by working directly with the nervous system tells us a lot about how we need to shift our thinking when it comes to understanding people’s mental health as it relates to their overall health.

• Here is an article with 50 Good Mental Health Habits that cover physiology (body), cognition (mind), relational, and spiritual habits.

Is Transgender The New Anorexia? by Robert Tracinski

The study itself is not actually about “gender dysphoria” as it has previously been defined in the scientific literature. Rather, it is about the newer phenomenon of “rapid-onset gender dysphoria” (ROGD). Prior to about ten years ago, cases of gender dysphoria typically involved a long history of a child rejecting identification with his or her biological sex, going back before puberty. By contrast, “rapid-onset gender dysphoria” involves a post-pubescent child, usually a girl, with no history of dysphoria suddenly claiming within a period of weeks or months not to identify with her biological sex. Not only is rapid-onset gender dysphoria sudden, but it tends to occur in clusters.

• Whether treating gender dysphoria with gender reassignment surgery is akin to treating anorexia with liposuction in a provocative and important question, but here is a sample conversation at the level of a parent talking to their children – Talking to My Boys after the Transgender Talk at Their Public School.

What I’m Reading

Raising Kids in a Screen-Saturated World by Eliza Huie. Our lives are influenced by technology like never before. Screens and devices have become a part of our daily lives bringing many benefits, as well as challenges not least to the area of parenting. Our kids are digital natives, never having known a world that wasn’t saturated with screens, their knowledge and experience rapidly outstrip that of even the most technologically literate parents.

Raising them to make safe and godly choices in this area is difficult as many of us are still working out how to use technology wisely ourselves. Eliza Huie, a parent and Christian counselor, gives 5 tips to help us parent in this screen-saturated world. Her advice is biblical, practical, and non-judgmental as she explores how we can use our access to technology to help ourselves and our kids grow in love for God and service to one another.

Tweets of the Week

Meaningful Meme

On the Lighter Side

Because, “A joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones,” Proverbs 17:22.