Life Balance Counseling: Meet Our Staff

Life Balance Counseling in Schaumburg has expanded its team. Our team brings a wealth of experience and specializations in Anxiety Disorders, ADD/ADHD, Children, Teens, Chronic Illness, Emotional Eating, Grief and Loss, Mood disorders, Obesity/Weight loss, and Parenting. We also offer counseling in both English and Spanish. Please check out our team's bios.

Jennifer Budruweit, MA, LCPC, GC-C
Jennifer specializes in children, adolescents and families who are experiencing various challenges and has extensive experience treating anxiety, chronic illness, grief and loss. As a Certified Grief Counselor, Jennifer understands how difficult it can be working through the stages of grief and can help you process your experience and teach you tools to help you cope during this challenging time. 

Darley Giraldo, MA, LCPC
Darley has extensive experience working with children, adolescents, and adults with depression, bipolar, anxiety, ADD/ADHD, and complex behavior problems. He has worked successfully with parents in order to help them create structure and discipline to improve family life and children and parent relationships. 

Lauren Buetikofer, MA, LPC
Lauren specializes in eating disorders, emotional eating, obesity and weight loss. Lauren also has extensive experience working with adolescents and adults experiencing anxiety disorders and depression.

Lana Rukavina, MA, LPC
Lana specializes in perinatal/postpartum, couples/marriage and sports performance. Lana also has extensive experience working with individuals facing anxiety and depression challenges.

For more information about Life Balance Counseling in Schaumburg or to schedule an appointment with one of our counselors, please call 888.234.7628, send us an email at info@lbcounseling.com, or contact us online at lbcounseling.com
 

Pet Loss: How To Help Your Child Cope With Grief

Losing a loved one is a challenging experience for adults and often times can be very confusing for children because they are unsure of the various emotions they are experiencing. The loss of a pet may be your child's first experience with grief and is a great opportunity for parents to teach their child/children healthy ways to cope with grief.

A child may feel confused, sad, angry, or guilty and blame themselves for their pets death. A child may feel scared that other people or animals they love may leave them and may feel anxious or worried. Some parents feel they need to protect their child/children from experiencing their feelings. Parents may tell their child that the pet ran away or went to sleep to make their child feel better. Tell your child in an age appropriate manner of what happened to the family pet and help them learn to cope with their thoughts an feelings during this confusing time. It is better to be honest with children and allow them to experience grief in their own way with your guidance.

When it comes to the loss of a family pet, how do we help children cope with their thoughts and feelings?

• Parents need to express their own grief and loss of the pet. Don't hide your own thoughts and feelings towards the loss of your pet. Model your thoughts and feelings and the healthy ways you cope with grief. 
• Let your child express their grief. Let your child feel their emotions and offer them support and guidance during the process. Don't tell them not to cry. It is okay if they feel the need to cry.
• Educate your child about grief and loss and reassure your child. Help your child understand that the death of their pet was not their fault. Reassure them that other people they love are not going to die and talk to them about their feelings and concerns.
• Allow your child/children to be a part of the memorial for the pet. This helps the child/children learn about closure and honoring the pet. This will help the child process their thoughts and feelings towards their loss.
• Have your child write a letter or draw a picture for their pet. This is a helpful way for your child to say their goodbyes and get their feelings out about their loss.

If you feel like your child/children is struggling with their thoughts and feelings in relation to a pet loss, contact a Licensed Counselor and discuss ways to help your child cope with their loss. 
At Life Balance Counseling in Schaumburg we have a Certified Grief Counselor that can help. Feel free to contact us at 888.234.7628 for any help and guidance.

Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)

As the days get darker in fall and winter time, some individuals may experience Seasonal Affective Disorder. SAD is a mood disorder that is associated with seasonal changes. If an individual is experiencing seasonal Affective Disorder, they may experience symptoms of depression, fatigue, irritability, social avoidance, changes in sleep and eating patterns.

You may be thinking, what can I do to improve my symptoms as the seasons continue to change and the days get shorter and darker? It is important to be aware of the symptoms you are experiencing and get the help you need. If you are experiencing depression symptoms that are impacting your daily functioning, seek professional mental health help.

There are somethings you can do that may help relieve your SAD symptoms. Increase your daily exercise, maintain a healthy diet and make sure to get enough sleep. If you don't feel like your symptoms are getting any better and feel like you are stuck in a state of depression, seek a mental health professional that can help provide you with the tools to help you cope with sadness, social avoidance, and sleep issues. Some other options for treatment of SAD is light therapy which helps because during the fall and winter seasons we don't experience much sunlight. You may seek the help of a psychiatrist that may prescribe you an antidepressant based on the symptoms you are experiencing.

"Wherever you go, no matter what the weather, always bring your own sunshine." -Anthony D'Angelo

Positive Parenting

Do you feel frustrated or annoyed with your child/children’s behavior? Have you become the yelling and nagging parent? It is no surprise how overwhelming it can be when your child doesn’t listen, has temper tantrums, and does the opposite of what you ask. Repeating and reminding gets frustrating and then you may start yelling. Afterwards you may feel guilty, like the “bad” parent and are unsure of how to break this cycle.

I did a great webinar the other day on "Positive Parenting Solutions" with Amy McCready. I learned a lot from the webinar and felt it would be helpful to share some of her concepts and positive parenting solutions.

Kids core emotional needs are based on attention and power. If they don’t get their dose of positive attention and power they become whiney, clingy, or act helpless. Need to feel a sense of control of their little world. When they feel powerless they will act out in ways to gain attention. Power rush to get parents all bent out of shape. This can become quite frustrating for parents. You may say something like "if you keep whining, you are going to go in time out," or you have until 3 to stop whining or else we are not going to your friends house." Giving a Time-out or counting 1-2-3 creates a power struggle and your kids learn that they don't have to listen the first time.

A parent's yelling, punishing, bribing, nagging may help in the short term but your child/children's same behaviors end up occurring over and over again. Nothing seems to get better. Misbehavior is never just a kid problem. Parents play a core role in their child/children's behavior and if we don’t address ourselves we wont change the behavior and make things better for our whole family.

"The 5 R’s of Consequences

Respectful: the consequence must be respectful, which means no blaming, shame or pain. For example, "you never listen, you should be ashamed of yourself." Use a calm voice and if you can’t be calm don’t deal with the issue it in that moment.

Related to misbehavior: the consequence needs to relate to the misbehavior (i.e. if you are not brushing your teeth, then anything that might turn to sugar is off limits for eating for the rest of the week).

Reasonable in Duration: the consequence should be age appropriate. For example, a 4 year old – throwing toys, it would be reasonable to take toys away for the day. For a teen that may be texting during dinner the consequence could be be taking their phone away for a week.

Revealed in Advance: the consequence should be revealed to the child in advance which will allow the child to have the power to make a choice. Explain to the child that the appropriate behavior is …. and the consequence is …. This is a win-win because it gives the child the choice but parent sets the limits and guidelines.

Repeated Back to You: the agreement between the child and parent. The child repeats back to the parent what the behavior and consequences will be so that everyone is on the same page and there is an agreement in place." - Amy McCeary

For more information and more helpful Positive Parenting Solutions, visit http://www.positiveparentingsolutions.com