According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), one in five school children in the United States suffers in their mental health: anxiety, difficulty focusing and social challenges. As NPR has been reporting in their Mental Health in School series, many schools don’t have the resources to meet their … Read More
Motivation Through the End of the Year
As the days get longer and the weather gets warmer, you and your kids may start to look forward to summer and lose motivation to keep focused on schoolwork and the routine of day-to-day life. Here are a few tips to get your family through the home stretch! Make time … Read More
Leaking is a Toxic Behavior Parents should Avoid: Part 1
What is leaking? Leaking is a term coined by Dr. Patricia Papernow, step-family and post-divorce expert, which describes what parents do and say to blame and/or undermine the other parent in the presence of their children. In my practice, I hear examples of leaking from many parents contemplating a divorce. … Read More
Divorce: Dad or Mom left…now what?
Navigating divorce is difficult. There are many causes for divorce. A few of these are: Affairs Grown apart/fallen out of love Addiction Incompatible Divorce becomes even more complex when there are children involved. Many times, parents become bitter and angry towards each other and it is hard to treat each … Read More
Mourning the Loss of a Pet
Pet loss is often one of the most difficult experiences people deal with. It often takes people by surprise just how difficult it can be to “bounce back” after a pet’s death, or how hard the loss hits them in their day to day life. Whether it is a childhood … Read More
New Ideas for Resolutions
It can be easy to get stuck in the same routine where you make the same resolutions year after year. I can’t count the number of times I have promised myself to drink less caffeine! If you have tried the same few resolutions each year, why not try something different … Read More
Good Pictures Bad Pictures
Some researchers are citing the age of 8 – eight years old!! – as the average age of exposure to pornography. And – that’s an average. Meaning that kids also encounter pornography at ages even younger than 8. Prior to the Internet era children typically didn’t discover porn until age … Read More
Mental Health In Our Schools and How We Can Help Students
About one in five children in the United States show signs of a mental health disorder – anything from ADHD to eating disorders and suicide. And yet, as NPR has been reporting in their series on the mental health crisis in U.S. schools, many schools aren’t prepared to work with … Read More
The Perfectionist Child
A little perfectionist likes order, rules, and thrives on certainty. Perfectionism can start at an early age and when parents or caregivers give these children the support they need, they will thrive. However, it can be challenging to teach young children how to to deal with the inevitable reality that … Read More
Defense Mechanisms & Coping Skills – Denial – Part 2
One of our most primitive defense mechanisms is denial. Mark Twain perfectly captured the essence of denial when he quipped, Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt. In effect, denial is an effort to avoid the pain or discomfort of reality by pretending it doesn’t exist. It is the emotional … Read More