Things that Go Bump in the Night: Understanding Worries and Fears Tis the season for all things spooky, creepy, crawly and fierce! While this can be good fun during festive fall events, some fears and phobias bring no such giggles or good feelings. It can be worrisome as a parent, and/or bothersome as a human, … Read more
Adjusting to an Empty Nest Most college freshman have been at school for about a month now. For parents, that means it has been at least 4 weeks without your child at home. You have been learning what it is like to go through daily life without your child at dinner, in his room, talking … Read more
The Importance of Sleep As school starts up again and schedules get busier, sleep is an important consideration for people of all ages. Sleep problems and disagreements about sleep can have negative impacts on individuals and families. Family fights about going to bed, following evening routines and rules, and waking up and leaving the house … Read more
Are You Burned Out? Signs of Burnout and How to Help With the academic school year starting back up in classrooms and some adults making the transition back to their jobs in-person, it would be prudent for everyone to do a mindful check-in and ask ourselves, ‘How are we doing? Are we doing okay? Or … Read more
Practicing Kindness and Finding Delight As I opened my laptop to write today, I passed by headlines about wildfires and floods related to climate change, increasing COVID-19 numbers, economic instability, political scandals, and the fear and anger experienced and expressed by leaders and followers in our almost unthinkably polarized society. And in my clinical practice, … Read more
You Don’t Have to be an Olympian to Prioritize Your Mental Health When my daughters were younger, I was working on finishing my post-doctoral requirements for licensure, and my husband was working full-time and going to school to get an MBA. When it was nice weather, I would go sit on my porch for 10 … Read more
The Bad Reputation of “Average” With the Olympics fast approaching, I am eagerly anticipating sitting on my couch watching non-stop television for three weeks. In addition to the pomp and circumstance of it all, I have always loved watching the incredible athleticism and am completely awestruck by what the human body can achieve. There is … Read more
Preventing Meltdowns in Children During the Summer Break Research studies have documented that schedules and routines influence children’s emotional, cognitive, and social development. Furthermore, these two key environmental conditions can significantly reduce and even prevent meltdowns. So, what is a meltdown? I encourage parents to consider that a meltdown can be an “involuntary reaction to … Read more
Helping Children Manage Re-Entry Anxiety For many of us, it feels like the warm days of summer are also ushering in a chance to return to a long-awaited sense of normalcy as vaccination rates increase and the world is re-opening. However, as with all major life changes, it is also completely normal to feel mixed … Read more
Shhhhhh! Ways to Quiet Our Anxiety I recently gave a talk for Mental Health Awareness month and one of the talking points that attracted the most interest was about different kinds of self-talk we can use to calm our worries. Anxiety is an incredibly common emotion, particularly in our world right now. Many of us … Read more
