When your Teen’s Struggles Scare or Overwhelm you: Finding your own Calm in the Storm
When your Teen’s Struggles Scare or Overwhelm You: Finding your own Calm in the Storm When teens are doing badly — emotionally, behaviorally, or mental-health-wise, parents can easily fly into reactive states themselves and lose their own stability. They slip into states of frustration, fear, panic, or a sense of pressure to ‘fix their kid’ […]
Working with Teens with Extreme Behaviors: Making Sense of Them instead of Reacting to Them
Working with Teens with Extreme Behaviors: Making Sense of them instead of Reacting to them I recently trained a therapist who’s worried about her teen client. This client spends most waking hours under her covers. She dropped out of the school play, two sports, and stopped going out with friends. She mentioned another young client […]
The Silent Identity Crisis behind Teen Body Changes
The Silent Identity Crisis behind Teen Body Changes Today’s video is about body image in young people. A lot of my young adult clients used to be thinner as kids or tweens, then feel blindsided when their bodies change during adolescence or as they hit their twenties. Teen bodies change for so many reasons. Their […]
How Letting Go Creates Independent Kids: Parenting Teens with Trust vs Control
How Letting Go Creates Independent Kids: Parenting Teens with Trust vs Control I hear from a lot of parents of teens that struggle with the loss of connection they used to have when their kids were younger. Lack of connection with teens can happen for a number of reasons. Teens consistently struggle with things like […]
When your Teen Stops Caring about School: Listening May Be your Best (and Only) Approach
In my first few years in high school I was a terrible student. I got mostly Cs and Ds with an A or B mixed in (in pottery, badminton, and the occasional literature class). I failed pre-Algebra twice before I passed. The teacher comments on most report cards were typically ‘Disruptive in class,’ ‘Doesn’t apply […]
Teens, Screens, and Parenting: An Opportunity to Teach Leadership and Life Skills vs Another Battle to Fight
In today’s video I talk about a topic I get asked about almost daily by my parenting and practitioner clients: teens and screens. Excessive time on screens and social media creates fears around things like brain development, social skills, addiction issues, mental health issues, and lack of friends, exercise, time spent outside and time with […]
“Go crazy, then come back” Letting Go of the Stigma of Being Emotional or Losing Your Way
I created today’s video to point out how normal it is for people to get emotional, lose their bearings, or lose their way in life. I share about a teen who found out someone close to her had been lying to her, was extremely upset about it, then felt ashamed for being upset. She’d always […]
How Teens can Find Freedom from the Inadequacy Trap (“Comparison is the Thief of Joy” Part 3)
Last month my 15-year-old client perfectly described a scenario that I think we all grapple with at some point in our lives: “I have these moments, whole days sometimes, when I feel amazing and I do amazing. On the (tennis) courts, I’m in the zone, beating players way better than me. When I’m studying I […]
Comparison is the Thief of Joy”: Parenting without the Distraction of Insecurity, Pressure, and Ego
Last night my friends and I were reminiscing about our first iPhones. Initially I’d been resistant to the idea of Iphones for the same reason everyone else was. They were ridiculously expensive, excessive, and I figured it was a trend that would come and go (shows what I know). I finally caved and bought an […]
Helping Foster Kids (and all kids) Handle Unknowns and Stress with Less Self-Destruction
Today’s interview was originally created for parents and practitioners supporting foster kids that are spiraling down or getting into trouble, like skipping school, getting into drugs, or acting out. I’m sharing here because all kids and teens work the same way. Like foster kids, on some level all kids and teens face uncertainty, insecurity, anger, […]