I encourage you to consider your passion when it comes to pain. Is it a particular underrepresented or misunderstood age group or diagnosis? A treatment that you found particularly effective? The intersection between faith and health? How pain is handled in the schools, hospitals, or sports? Do you care a lot about community, state, or national policy? Focus in on that as you consider these possible action items and resources to advance awareness, understanding, and treatment of pain:

For the third week of the challenge, we continue to level up by working on partnership. Partnering with who? Partnering how? Let’s get into it!

Too often, we feel at the mercy of science and the medical system. But lived experiences of children, teens, young adults, and families with chronic pain and your perspectives are essential! Thankfully, clinicians and researchers are recognizing this more and more. This is IASP’s mission for this week, to partner with those with lived experience with chronic pain.

So we can step up to the plate and show up as partners in advocacy, research, and healthcare. It can be hard if we’ve been hurt by the system, and we can also be agents of change.

Week 2: Advocate

For the second week of the challenge, we are stepping up! Now that we’ve increased our knowledge of pain (from week 1), we’re ready to ADVOCATE.

Take a moment to consider that word and what it might mean to you. Advocacy can show up in your own healthcare, in your interactions with your family and community, or can extend beyond yourself.

As IASP reminds us, “Effective pain care requires communication, collaboration, and shared decision-making.

Spreading awareness can take time and effort from individuals and communities coming together. That can feel overwhelming, so instead, let’s take a bite-size approach. Keep coming back here to find a weekly challenge and choose from a list of actionable items. These will range in time, effort, and personal preferences, so my best recommendation is choose 1-2 that make the most sense for you!

1. Doughnut day!

Ok, it doesn’t HAVE to be doughnuts. But the concept of this activity is to do a dry run of the morning routine you expect to have on the first day of school. Wake up on time as if you’re going to school, get ready, pack your bag, and then instead of school, go get doughnuts! It’s a fun way to start first-day-of-school eve, can make a fun memory with family or friends, and can help you prepare for your routine or work out any challenges before the big day.

Chronic pain and ADHD are both conditions that are quite common in childhood and adolescence. 

It may seem like everyone’s children are getting diagnosed, but these concerns can still seem mysterious. 

Both have received a lot of attention in the media, but what do we know about them scientifically? Is there a connection between the two? 

2. Family Goal Setting

Maycember, anyone? It can seem that in the rush to the end of the school year, schedules get jam packed with activities with school, sports, extracurriculars, and friends and family. It can be easy to become overwhelmed and disconnected.

Instead, be proactive and sit down together as a family (or one on one), to discuss your goals for the upcoming busy season ahead. Talk about priorities and values, and see what you can do to help the season be closer to what you want it to be. If you can, take the time to consider not just what you all have to do, but what you want to do as well. Maybe you can each or together even choose a word or intention for the season, and hold each other accountable for that view.

Between daylight savings time, better weather, more social gatherings, and longer daylight, it’s tempting to go with the flow and stay up late sometimes. However, inconsistent bedtimes or insufficient sleep can be a trigger for headaches, migraine, and pain (Morris et al., 2022). 

What you can do: Aim for a consistent sleep schedule for your child, and note concerns such as difficulty falling or staying asleep. A pediatric pain or health psychologist can work with you and your family to find the right balance between allowing for spontaneity and fun, while supporting the good sleep habits that can reduce pain.

Many parents and caregivers report a wide range of concerns related to their children and teens. These include changes that they observe in their children’s and teens’ mood, stress levels, behavior, and even focus in school.

It can be really difficult to know what to make of it, how to disentangle the symptoms from the causes, and when to get help. 

If any of this sounds like you, have you considered the role of sleep?

It’s easy to forget. We all know we should be getting more and better sleep, but it often gets de-prioritized in the hustle of daily life. 

Chronic pain in childhood or adolescence can be devastating and scary. It’s so mysterious, we can’t see it, and we might feel alone. We’ll seek out any advice or knowledge to help us make decisions about treatment.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of myths and misunderstandings about pediatric chronic pain that can lead to more frustration, and in some cases, more harm than good.

Here are 5 common myths about pediatric chronic pain, busted!

Despite our improved knowledge of the relationship between physical and mental health, the medical system often forces you to make a choice. Do you want to see a physician, or a psychologist? But this can seem contradictory to our understanding how complex and dynamic our health truly is. 

However, given that the mind and body are truly interconnected, finding healthcare providers who not only understand these relationships but can help your child heal and recover THROUGH them can be life-changing.

Health psychology is a field of psychology that researchers and trains clinical specialists in understanding and addressing the overlap between physical and mental health. 

First, you might pay attention to the overall noise level. During the pandemic, in-home noise was found to affect adolescents attention and executive function. In high noise environments, children also have shown poor persistence on tasks and habituate to auditory distraction. Chronic noise exposure is also associated with higher levels on neuroendocrine and cardiovascular measures. 

We work hard, make plans, and try to keep up our motivation.

But do we ever think about whether our environment is helping us with our goals, or actually working against us?

Here are a few science-backed environmental changes you can consider to help you with you and your family’s physical and mental health goals this year:

January has many parents and families considering how to be healthier in the new year. Often, this looks like goals for more physical activity and exercise. We may dream of routines, progress, and change. 

Then, reality hits. Busy schedules, winter cold, and post-holiday tiredness settle in, and physical movement takes a back seat. It can feel overwhelming to get back on track, which leads to disappointment and feelings of failure.

But it doesn’t have to be that way!

Should you choose in-person or Telehealth for your child’s therapy?

This may not be a comprehensive list, but here are some top stressors around the holidays. Considering them in advance, in addition to some ideas, may help create a sense of ease and preparedness for the days and weeks ahead.

GI psychology may be a good idea to consider if you have one of the following diagnoses:

• Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), like Crohn’s or colitis

• Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), including IBS-C, IBS-D, or mixed

• Functional Abdominal Pain

• Functional Gastrointestinal Disorder 

• Cyclical vomiting syndrome

• Abdominal migraine

• And more

In fact, GI psychology is not limited to any one diagnosis. Rather, GI psychology may be recommended to you or your child if they are:

1) experiencing any sort of digestive symptom, and

2) this digestive symptom (or symptoms) are starting to become distressing or interfering with life.

Furthermore, research published in 2020 out of Canada demonstrated that higher rates of anaphylaxis (a severe, sometimes fatal, type of allergic reaction) occurred on Halloween due to accidental exposure to unknown nut and peanut allergens.

Steps Families Can Take

1. Make decisions as a family

Should your child go trick or treating freely, with supervision, or only in controlled situations?

We all want what’s best for our kids. If your child is struggling with any pain or health condition, you will move heaven and earth to help them.

But in reality, we have to consider finances in making decisions for our children and families.

So you might be wondering, how much is this all going to cost?