The elementary school years - roughly ages 5 to 10 - are when kids step fully into the world beyond home. They're spending hours each day in classrooms, navigating friendships, managing academic expectations, and figuring out how they fit into a much bigger social world than they've known before. For many kids, this transition happens relatively smoothly. For others, this...[ read more ]
Someone you love has died. The pain is overwhelming. You can barely function. You're exhausted from crying, from pretending to be okay, from the weight of loss that sits on your chest every moment of every day. And the question that keeps running through your mind is: when will this stop hurting? You want someone to give you a timeline....[ read more ]
If you're a parent trying to keep your child safe online, you already know this is one of the hardest parts of modern parenting. The internet offers incredible opportunities for learning, creativity, and connection. It also exposes kids to risks that didn't exist when most of us were growing up - predators, cyberbullying, inappropriate content, scams, and the mental health...[ read more ]
You're up early helping your aging parent get to a doctor's appointment. Then you're rushing to get your kids to school. You're fielding calls from your parent's care team while trying to focus at work. You're managing medications, coordinating with siblings, helping with homework, making dinner, checking in on your parent again, getting kids to bed, and finally collapsing exhausted....[ read more ]
What Parents Need to Know "My teenager is so disrespectful." I hear this at least once a week in my practice. Parents come in frustrated, sometimes at their wit's end, because their once-compliant child now questions everything, pushes back, and seems to challenge them at every turn. Here's what I've learned after 25 years of working with families: what parents...[ read more ]
You're furious. Your heart is racing. Your muscles are tense. Someone tells you to "just calm down," and that makes you even angrier. If you struggle with anger, you've probably been told you need to control it better. Just breathe. Just walk away. Just don't get so upset. But here's what most people don't understand: anger isn't something you can...[ read more ]
It's that time of year again. You're thinking about what you want to change - lose weight, exercise more, be more patient, get organized, save money, spend more time with family. You're motivated. You're hopeful. This year will be different. Except it probably won't be. Most New Year's resolutions fail by February. And you're left feeling like you failed again,...[ read more ]
“Because I said so!!”How many times did your parents say this phrase to you? How often were you spanked as a child? How much yelling was there in your house growing up?It’s safe to say that parenting styles have changed over the years. While spanking may have been deemed okay years ago, most parents agree now that hitting a child...[ read more ]
Racial trauma, also sometimes referred to as race-based traumatic stress (RBTS), refers to mental and emotional stress that is a result of racial bias, discrimination, and hate crimes. Those individuals who experience these types of encounters can subsequently deal with negative repercussions.The Mental Health Impacts of Racial TraumaIndividuals who experience racial trauma not only deal with the initial event, but...[ read more ]
We live in a society that values things that appear perfect. And I suppose there are things that can be perfect. Architects can draw the perfect straight line, mathematicians can solve an equation with a perfect calculation, and a chocolate cake can be perfectly moist.But as human beings, we can never reach a state of perfection because we will always...[ read more ]