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Rest. Why does this seem like a dirty four letter word? I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about rest. We were on fall break last week. You might think I took rest… Read More →

Rest. Why does this seem like a dirty four letter word? I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about rest. We were on fall break last week. You might think I took rest… Read More →

One of the things I realized about myself when I went to the Choice Literacy writing retreat is how quickly I speed through the day. I like to pay attention to the world… Read More →

Christopher A. Kearney is a Professor of Psychology and Director of UNLV Child School Refusal and Anxiety Disorders Clinic, University of Nevada, Las Vegas. His new book, Helping Children with Selective Mutism and their Parents, provides information that can help readers better understand and combat selective mutism. In the excerpt below, Kearney provides some techniques to help children cope with their anxiety about speaking.

Breathing

A simple way to help children reduce physical feelings of distress is to teach them to breathe correctly.  Many children experience shortness of breath, breathe shallowly, or hyperventilate when upset.  Doing so actually makes the feeling of anxiety worse, so helping a child regulate breathing is important.  Have the child sit before you in a comfortable position.  Then ask the child to breathe in slowly through the nose (with mouth closed) and breathe out slowly though the mouth. As the child does so, encourage him to breathe deeply into the diaphragm (between the abdomen and chest and just below the rib cage.)  The child may need to push two fingers into the diaphragm to experience the sensation of a full, deep breathe.  The child can then breathe slowly out of his mouth.  Parents may even join the process to help their child practice at home.

For younger children such as Austin[age 6], you may wish to create an image during the breathing technique.  Austin could imagine blowing up a tire or pretend he is a large, floating balloon.  As Austin breathes in, he can imagine filling up with fuel and energy.  As he breathes out, he can imagine losing fuel and energy (or tension).  The child must come to understand the difference between feeling tense when the lungs are full of air and feeling more relaxed after breathing out.  The following breathing script adapted from Kearney and Albano (2007) may be helpful:

Pretend you are a hot air balloon.  When you breathe in, you are filling the balloon with air so it can go anywhere you want.  Breathe in through your nose like this (show for your child).  Breathe slowly and deeply – try to breathe in a lot of air!  Now breathe out slowly through your mouth like air leaving a balloon.  Count slowly in your head as you breathe out…1…2…3…4…5.  Let’s try this again (practice at least three times).

Key advantages of the breathing method are its ease, brevity, and portability.  The child can use this method in different stressful situations and usually without drawing the attention of others.  I recommend that a child practice this breathing method at least three times per day for a few minutes at a time.  In addition, the child should practice in the morning before school and during particularly stressful times at school.  Some children benefit as well by practicing this technique whenever they are around other people and an expectation for potentially speaking is present.  For example, a child could use the breathing technique prior to and during a church service.

Muscle Relaxation

Another method of helping a child reduce physical feelings of anxiety is progressive muscle relation (PMR).  Youths such as Austin are usually quite tense in different areas of their body, especially in the shoulders, face, and stomach.  Different methods of muscle relation are available, but a preferred one is a tension-release method in which a child physically tenses, holds, and then releases a specific muscle group.  For example, a child may ball his hand into a fist, squeeze as tightly as possible and hold the tension for 10 seconds, and then suddenly release the grip (try it).  When this is done two or thr

After the chaos of selling books at the PEN Festival (a week of 12-hour days organizing, hefting boxes of books, ringing in hundreds of sales by hand, and processing returns), I'm finally getting my wish:

A day with no obligations.

If the weather holds, here's where I'm going this afternoon.

I just finished reading the July 2008 Issue of Real Simple, which I’ve been subscribing to for years. Since I didn’t start it until AUGUST, I realized that the cover story “More free time: realistic ways to tame your schedule,” was one I should read. If you’re the kind of teacher that I [...]

It's been brought to my attention recently that I've been remiss in updating the ol' blogroll with some of the blogs I actually regularly read, and some of the bookstore blogs that I'm just discovering. So I have gotten at last off my tush and added some of my favorites-- read 'em (at right) and weep.

Book Soup has the best (obscene but true) tagline.

Word has the best Brooklyn stuff, natch.

Bookavore is a fellow Emerging Leaders type, a true book nerd -- her description of how she became a bookseller made me want to be her new best friend.

Wordsmiths has the best ongoing narrative (home town store makes good, moves into the bank building, graphic novels go in the vault!) -- and awesome event photos; they're my newest model for how I want to run my bookstore blog.

there is no gap is the thoughtful stuff you'd expect from Shaman Drum's Karl Pohrt.

Archimedes Forgets is the off-hours (but still awfully booky) project of the ABA's lovely Sarah Rettger.

The Inside Flap is a brilliantly done multi-author blog from the bookstore crown jewel of Wisconsin.

Bookninja is an always prescient Canadian litblog (and the source of half my links these days), run by a poet acquaintance of mine who used to live in New York.

There's more, of course -- explore, explore!

* * *

Today is also my last day as a BookStream employee. I'll be working for the company a bit on a freelance basis, but today I'm wrapping up loose ends and saying goodbyes. It's a bit melancholy, but I've already got new irons in the fire -- meeting to get to, phone calls to make -- in the pursuit of the Brooklyn Bookstore.

What I'm hoping for in between is a little of this. While I can't remember the last time I spent three hours in the tub, like the author of this Guardian piece, I agree 100% with the following proposition:

"Baths are one of the few pleasures body and self can appreciate simultaneously. This is entirely because reading in the bath is the height of civilisation."

It's a bit of a cold wet day in Brooklyn -- after I wrap up the work day, I'm looking forward to a little height of civilization. Since I'm a wimpy Californian, sometimes in the winter the bath is the first time I feel really comfortable all day, and it's all the better with something to read. Jessa Crispin of Bookslut also famously reads in the tub (in Chicago I don't blame her), and I suspect it's a widespread practice among bookish types (it's also as cheap as luxury gets).

My bathtime reads tend toward the New Yorker, or a collection of essays (I'm currently reading Michael Chabon's forthcoming Maps and Legends) -- I find a bit of wit, a turn of phrase, the path of an idea (though not too heavy), is just the thing for winding down in a hot tub. (And I agree with some of the commenters: a glass of red wine "perched death-defyingly on the rim of the sink" can sometimes improve the experience.)

What do you like to read in the bath, if you do indulge? If not, what's your height of reading relaxation/civilization?

Call me a glutton for punishment. I participated in another portrait swap. This time, my subject was Patrick, keeper of the fifty-two fridays blog. This was quick, easy, fun and it produced great results (on both sides, if I say so myself!) Four days from start to finish.
At the top is my view of Patrick.
Patrick's got a cool, if somewhat angry, sense of humor.
On the bottom is Patrick's take on me.
Now, I'm satisfied and I think I'm really finished with portrait swaps.