Blog
7 Tips to Help Your Relationship Flourish During a Pandemic
1) Don’t Panic: With so many possible sources of information, it can be hard to stave off panic and unfounded pessimism. To fend off panic, you must prioritize reason and realism. One way to do this is to get information from credible sources such as the World Health...
In These Funky Times, Kids Gotta Get Up and Get Down
When the governor announced in April that all schools would remain closed for an extension of the already-extended spring break, kids and families were home for a whole month with no clear timeline of going (or not going) back to school. Lots of parents and guardians...
Finding the Positives by Going on an Emotional Scavenger Hunt
Since many of us are spending a little more time with our partners, children, or other family members because of COVID-19 precautions, our emotions may be bumping into one another more than usual. Tensions can run high in close quarters, and it might be really hard to...
3 Important Truths for Moms During the Pandemic
First: You are not making a wrong decision. Parenting is already full of conflicting philosophies that leave us second-guessing our decisions. The pandemic has added a whole new layer to stress out about. Should I let me kids go to school and risk getting infected...
How to Support Yourself and Your Family Through a Long Hard Time
Back in March, I wrote an article sharing some ideas for how to help children cope with the COVID-19 pandemic. At that point, we were in the acute phase of this collective trauma, and many (including myself) believed and hoped it would be over in a few weeks or...
Why Your New Year’s Resolutions Fail By January
80 percent according to Business Insider, actually. To make matters worse, only 8 percent of people even achieve their resolutions in the end. You can find link after link talking about how those people manage to successfully stick with their resolutions. In fact,...
When Grief Is a Holiday Guest
Grief doesn’t follow any particular calendar or timeline, but for many people the end of the year tends to be difficult. And by “the end of the year”, I really mean right around October to somewhere around January/February – so much happens in these few months. Some...
Unplug Your Kids
Christmas had passed, and with it the usual onslaught of ads urging us to buy with abandon. One December commercial showed how blissful holiday travel could be with children tucked happily away with a video in the back of the new family van. With apologies in advance...
The Key to Making Family Changes Stick
Have you ever played with one of these? If you’ve ever spent any time in a baby’s room, you may have seen one of these on their crib. Mobiles really hold a newborn’s attention as they turn and dance. The slightest touch will throw the whole thing off balance and into...
What Is Wrong with Us?
Sometimes, we can sense there is a problem in our relationship, but we aren't sure what it is. We feel disconnected, but it's hard to pinpoint how it got to this point and why we feel that way. Take this quiz to help you figure out what is happening in your...
Does My Kid Need a Therapist?
Just like with adults, there are a wide variety of issues that might bring children to therapy. These run the gamut from needing improved coping skills for daily life stress to dealing with significant trauma or mental health concerns. The first thing to understand...
Are We Facing the End of the Family As We Know It?
Have you been worried about the State of the American Family? It’s not that unusual these days to hear one pundit or another decry the end of the American family. Even the Pew Research Center has been documenting our attitudes about the changing look of our families....
Baby, You’re Worth It
LOVING YOURSELF IS A PROCESS. Knowing your worth can be an even longer process. Sometimes a life long process. But, I want you to know that you deserve to look at yourself in the mirror, or simply think about yourself, and feel pride and happiness, and WORTHINESS....
How to Find a Mentor
While traveling with a wise and respected community leader, I jumped at the chance to learn from her. Never one to pass up an opportunity, I explained why I admired her, then asked for guidance in an area with which I’d struggled. With grace, and refreshing honesty,...
Women and the Power of Mentoring
She stood at the sink, frustrated, staring out the window at the new 1963 Dodge parked at the curb. She needed to get to the store, and they had just purchased the car so she could get around during the day. The problem was her husband hadn’t had time yet to teach her...
Parental Burnout Is Real and We Need to Talk About It
I’m talking about parental burnout today - what it is, how to know you’re in it, and what to do about it. Burnout is one of those things that everyone is going to encounter at times throughout their lives, and it can be hard to notice it and differentiate it from...
How Do You Fight?
Every couple I meet with says the same statement in the first session, "We have no idea where to even begin." Most of the time they say this because they have been disconnected or fighting for so long that there is SO much to tell. I usually ask them to think back to...
Whatever Happened to that Great Kid I Knew?
Do you sometimes wonder what happened to that sweet boy who’d curl up on your lap and tell you way too much detail about every little moment of his day? Who is that sullen young man at the dinner table these days? You know, the one who rolls his eyes and answers most...