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Managing Overthinking, What-Ifs, and Worry Many of us struggle to manage our thinking and find ourselves overwhelmed by racing thoughts, reliving things we wish we could do over, or facing the fear of making a wrong decision. Frustration can peak as overthinking and worry can lead us nowhere nearer to a solution for our problems. … Read more
How to Haul Ourselves Out of Thinking Traps One of the major principles of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is that so-called cognitive distortions bring us a lot of unnecessary misery. Cognitive distortions are also known as thinking errors, thinking traps, or as therapist David Pratt has nicknamed them, “stinking thinking.” Thinking traps are misperceptions and … Read more
Finding Delight in your Children Building a secure attachment with our children is critically important for their development. Spending quality time with our children, being a consistent safe space, and reliably showing up to meet their needs help build secure attachments. Another aspect of parenting that helps build secure attachments involves delighting in our kids. … Read more
Save the World by Joining a Club? I recently attended a screening of a documentary with the rather ominous title, “Join or Die.” The film follows the work of political scientist Robert Putnam, perhaps best known as the author of the 2000 book Bowling Alone. Putnam’s work centers on the idea of social capital, or … Read more
Cultivating Hope, Even in Hard Times One dictionary definition of “hope” is: “to cherish a desire with anticipation: to want something to happen or be true.” Despite the fact that we all feel like we know what hope is, often times hope is associated with naiveté. Those that are hopeful are sometimes seen as engaging in … Read more
Magical Thinking At the time of this writing, the Washington Commanders are just a couple days away from playing in the NFC championship game. A family member suggested that we watch the game at his house for “good vibes,” indicating that since our team won the last time that we watched at his house, we … Read more
Don’t Make It Worse We all experience life differently, yet one commonality among us all is that we are all going to experience distressing events, as well as physical, emotional, and mental pain, at some point in our lives. Some of the distressing/painful experiences will be things that we can control, such as choosing to … Read more
Adults Need Play Time Too! It’s a no-brainer that play is an important part of childhood. As children, play allows us to express our creativity, try on different roles, and develop important social-emotional skills that help us “play well” with others. However, play for adults can be an afterthought and something we do not actively … Read more
Let’s Talk About Play As a parent of three myself, I know firsthand how easy it is to get sucked into the day-to-day management of a family. Before you know it, keeping up with children’s growing social calendars becomes a full-time responsibility (Wait, is it a soccer or volleyball night!?!?). Then on top of the … Read more
Is it a BIG, Medium, or little deal? I frequently use an excellent social-emotional curriculum for kids called Unstuck & On Target (Lynn Cannon, Lauren Kenworthy, et al). It’s particularly useful with children and tweens who struggle with emotional regulation and cognitive flexibility, but its concepts can be useful to all parents when their kids–or they themselves–have a … Read more
