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Control and Acceptance

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This 3-minute video for parents features Mental Health Therapist Stephanie Dann talking about control and acceptance. - Wanting control isn’t a bad thing, but trying to control things we can’t over time doesn’t work and is exhausting. “When you try to control everything, you enjoy nothing.” - Acceptance is giving up the struggle with things you can’t control and accepting reality for what it is, even if we don’t like it. - Focus on what you can control: my attitude, how much news and social media I consume, following health guidelines, finding ways to have fun at home, how I treat others Challenge: When your student is having a difficult time, help them to focus on what they can control and act on that!

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Hi, my name is Stephanie Dann. I'm a mental health therapist with the White River School District and today I want to talk to you about control and acceptance. I like to feel like I have control over things in my life. It makes me feel safe and it makes me feel effective at my job and in my personal life. Wanting control is not necessarily a bad thing but when you try to conrol things you really can't it usually doesn't work out so well. I want to use an analogy to talk about this. If you've ever played with a beach ball in a pool, it's pretty fun to try to keep the beach ball down, push it down with our bodies, and then it pops back up again! It's fun to do that, but imagine if you tried to keep that beach ball down forever in the pool. How exhausting is it to try to keep pushing down, pushing down, pushing down. It's a real struggle after a while. And that's what it's like when we try to control things that we can't. After a while we get tired and it's hard to keep that up. A quote that I like is, "When you try to control everything, you enjoy nothing."  So, what are things we can't control? We can't control the actions of other people, as much as we'd like to. We can't control how long this pandemic is going to last. We can't control that other people are following social distancing guidelines, and we can't control when a vaccine will be ready. Acceptance is when we start to let go of that struggle that we can't control everything. We see reality for what it is, and even if we don't like it. And when we stop struggling with reality and kind of shift from 'why me', to 'things are the way they are, even if I don't like them'. When we're able to do that, when we're able to accept the things that we can't control it does feel a little easier. We're giving up that struggle. So, what things can you control? You can control your attitude, how much news and social media you consume, following health guidelines and finding ways to have fun at home, and how you treat other people. Now all those things are not going to look the same as they used to, but they are things that you can control. This week try doing that with your student if they're struggling. Try checking in with them about, are they trying to control everything, and struggling with things they can't control? And help them to see what they can.

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Control and Acceptance

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