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Overcoming children's fears: How to make the most of Halloween to support your kids' emotional and psychological development

10/16/2016

Every year on Halloween, children and adults alike gather together to celebrate the day before the ghosts of the dead return to Earth. Although the tradition of Halloween as we see it today has dramatically shifted from the original Celtic rituals, the symbolism and psychological meaning behind it remain the same - to gain control over all matters unknown and scary.

In this article, I want us to take a look at the function of Halloween for the psychological and emotional development of our children, and how to make the most out of this spooky, yet fun time of the year.

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Guest Post: Back-to-School: Establishing and Maintaining Healthy Routines That Will Stick

9/13/2016

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Back-to-school means early morning wake-up calls and a mad rush to get everyone ready and out the door in time. Too often, this means a quick but less-than-healthy breakfast, or worse, no breakfast at all. From getting enough rest to waking up in time to have a healthy breakfast, making good dietary choices at breakfast and lunch, and taking care of personal health and hygiene, there are many factors that don’t directly relate to school that have a tremendous impact on how well your children function during the day.

While healthy behaviors have a big impact on focus, attitude, and more, kids don’t often decide to do these things on their own. It’s up to parents to help their children establish healthy routines that stick all year long. Here are a few important healthy routines to cultivate now for year-long success.

Adequate Sleep is a Must
Making sure your kids get to bed at a reasonable time is one of the most important things you can do to boost their chances for success.

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6 Quick tips to stimulate your child's brain for learning

8/21/2016

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As you prepare your children for the beginning of a new school year, I figured we take a look at a few quick tips to help their brains for the process of learning.

Learning is supposed to be fun and stimulating and unfortunately it often becomes about the grades, it creates anxiety and causes stress rather than pleasure. This is especially true in competitive, high achieving school districts and private schools, where it is all about the result and not so much the process.

Having too high standards on our kids can cause anxiety, which in turn can create a sense of failure and incompetence. In fact, high levels of anxiety is the biggest hindrance to a child’s ability to learn and remember.

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How to talk to kids about death and loss

6/26/2016

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One of the most common questions that parents in my counseling private practice ask me is “How do I talk to my kids about…?” You can fill in the blank with really anything: divorce, death, loss, bullying, the differences between boys and girls, dating, sex, race, mental illness, terrorism, the list goes on.
I am sure we can all relate to losing a loved one, a pet or a favorite toy, and it can be just as hard for the adults if not harder, to cope with the loss as it is for the kids. For this reason, I am going to talk about how do we discuss death and loss with our children and what can we do to overcome it.
The first and most important thing we need to do when talking to our children about any difficult topic but especially about death and loss is to

Name the loss. This is usually the most important, yet sometimes most difficult part for parents and caregivers. We tell ourselves that kids are too young to understand. Or we want to protect them and we tend to spare them the truth. However, it’s essential that we put into words our children’s experiences because words bind the anxiety associated with the unknown and eventually, provide a sense of relief.

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Female bullying and aggression among girls

4/12/2016

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Image by Mulan, flickr.com

"Odd girl out: The hidden language of aggression in girls." This is the title of the book I am reading right now. I find it very interesting how the author, Rachel Simmons, addresses an issue we rarely like to talk about - aggression in girls and the way they bully each other in a much more subtle and often very hurtful way compared to boys. As I am getting more and more girl clients of varying ages and struggles, I wanted to look into the issue of female bullying today and tie it to girls’ mental health.

I stumbled upon Odd Girl Out while looking for another book: American Girls: Social Media and the Secret Lives of Teenagers by Nancy Sales. When I read it, I’ll make sure to report back. But, I was fascinated to see something that I myself experienced as a girl shared by so many other girls and women. As we find out in the book, that’s what Simmons discovered as she interviewed girls between the ages of 10 and 14 from ten schools around the country, becoming a part of these girls’ community and talking to them for a period of one year.

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Overcoming children's fears: How to make the most of Halloween to support your kids' emotional and psychological development

Guest Post: Back-to-School: Establishing and Maintaining Healthy Routines That Will Stick

6 Quick tips to stimulate your child's brain for learning

How to talk to kids about death and loss

Female bullying and aggression among girls

Hi, I'm Misha!

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