In this blog post, I want to talk about the experience of being a parent who is taking their child to therapy and trying to track if their child is getting better or not. While I’m a child/teen therapist of 25 years and work mostly with parents currently, I’m also a mom of three kids. I’m a current and past ...READ MORE »
I am in the midst of reading a book called, The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why it Matters, and What You Can Do to Get More of It by Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D. I really like it, and especially relate to the content in Chapter 6, entitled “What the Hell: How Feeling Bad Leads to Giving In.” The general premise ...READ MORE »
There’s an old joke that goes, “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” and the punchline is, “practice, practice, practice.” Oftentimes, in my work as a therapist for children, adolescents, and their families, the question comes up of “How do I remember to use this in the moment?” And the simple answer, as the above “joke” points out, is practice. Skills ...READ MORE »
So here we are. After 4 posts about contemporary sexual practices and expectations for our teens, we are ready to talk about how to promote positive sexual health with your teen. From my research, I believe that the sex positivity movement from the 1990’s lends us a hand in this goal. Sex Positivity: What it Means and How ...READ MORE »
This blog post is the 4th in a five part series on healthy sexuality for children and teens. Last post, we boosted parents up to tackle conversations with their daughters about sexual health. In this post, we want to add boys to the mix. First, let’s think about a framework for helping boys view themselves as developing young men (assuming ...READ MORE »
Each month I do a “Mental Health Monday” Q&A on social media, and each month some version of this question comes up: “How am I supposed to handle the sadness/fear/anger about the [insert most recent horrible current events] going on in the world around me?” Honestly, I feel this way too sometimes. The news is pretty grim these days. And ...READ MORE »
Calling all parents who are parenting girls! Please come GET REAL with me. I have an almost 14 year old daughter and her sexual development is front and center for me lately. She’s 5’5”, fully developed, and heading to high school next year. All I have to do is think back to my 14 year old self, and realize ...READ MORE »
As a child/teen therapist for almost 25 years and a leading mental health consultant, I often have conversations with parents and educators about how to have difficult conversations with kids. These adults come to me knowing that I’ve spent countless hours talking with children and teens about their problems, which often are due to painful experiences. And having treated ...READ MORE »
I was inspired to write this five part blog series after I listened to podcast on healthy sexual pleasure by Dr. Lori Brotto, “Restart Your Sex Life,” which was hosted by Glennon Doyle Home – We Can Do Hard Things – The Podcast (wecandohardthingspodcast.com). It focused on how adult women (especially) can create more health in their sex ...READ MORE »
As a psychotherapist in Washington, DC who works mostly with adolescent girls, women in their 20s/30s and perinatal women, many of my sessions have been focused on Roe v. Wade being overturned. After the ruling came out, I went to get coffee near my house in Northwest DC. I overheard many conversations focused on the ruling. Most conversations expressed dismay but ...READ MORE »
