“Is that why you’ve been so angry lately?” Often genuine curiosity like this from a parent is met with a scoff or an eye roll from their teen. We’re here to tell you why that is, and how to get around it. It’s easy to worry about why your teen is acting a certain way, […]
I recently wrote about how focusing on your child’s feelings rather than what they’re upset about helps you grow their ability to solve their own problems over time. Today I’ll be sharing about how this builds in your child the one thing they need to be ready to take that control over on their own. […]
Time and again I have parents wanting to dissect a certain event that happened this week with their child, trying to figure out WHAT they were upset about. News Flash: that doesn’t matter as much as having their feelings heard. For general every day stressors, your kid does not need to tell you the minute […]
I recently vlogged about using toys to help your children express their feelings to you more accurately. My hope with this tool is to give you an effective means to check in with your child when they are in distress. This works because play is the child’s language. We don’t fully develop the skills to communicate […]
Last week we learned that anger is always a secondary emotion. That means we can act as investigators rather than instructors when our children act out in anger. When our child/teen is angry, focusing on their other emotion and redirecting them to express this emotion effectively, will help dissipate their anger. Usually, we fall into […]
I hope you took some time this week to figure out what you’ll be implementing regularly to care for yourself, and identifying what, if any, activity for your child has to be shuffled around in order to make it happen. Bonus points for already doing it! So, when you thought about the memories these mean […]
Whether is a*hole, jerk, dummy, or stupid, it hurts when our kids/teens lash out in anger. No matter the age, correcting the use of the ‘bad word’ is probably not going to diffuse the situation in the moment. Focusing on the emotions behind the words will, however. 1. Check On Yourself No, not ‘check yourself’, […]
How I Became Interested in Animal-Assisted Play Therapy For a period of time at a Residential Treatment Center I worked at it was ‘bring your dog to work day’ any day you felt like it. So I, having just gotten a dog myself, was super excited when he reached the four-month mark and was allowed […]