Planting the Seed of Meaning and Purpose in our children’s lives
Two years after I had graduated from college, I discerned that I was going to work and live in solidarity with the marginalized. I didn’t want to just work at a free clinic and then go home to my nice apartment. I wanted to be alongside the marginalized. I looked into...
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Addressing your child’s anxiety – for real.
Anxiety in children is on the rise. Here I talk straight and get real about it. I talked to a dad in coaching who shared with me that he and his wife were struggling with their middle school-aged child. He had increasingly become anxious and even “OCD” about things,...
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Teaching responsibility and natural consequences to children
The other day, I stood there listing out to my son the things he had to do before he left for soccer practice and what he should be doing with his time. And then I just stopped. I stopped talking. I stopped time-keeping. I stopped nagging. I stopped micromanaging....
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Parenting a teen? Talk less and listen more.
Last night I needed to talk less and listen more. My family knows that I am not at my best at night. I am tired and sensitive. And yet it’s bedtime that my children often want to talk. Sometimes I can barely handle it. I get more easily triggered. I don’t respond...
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The number one trauma parents want to prevent: child sexual abuse
We're going to talk about something hard today: preventing child sexual abuse. I lived in Boston at the time when the first child sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic church broke and became public. Like many people, I was shocked, disgusted, and angry. It was such...
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It’s time for beauty, honor, and integrity
It's Time for Beauty When your heart is heavy, when your eyes are tired, when you’ve been working too much and too hard, when your anxiety runs high, when you’ve read about yet another cruelty happening in our world... let it be time for beauty. Yes, pause just...
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I was that new kid sitting alone at the lunch table
I was that new kid sitting alone at the lunch table. Through my experience of healing and now as a psychotherapist and mom, I'm sharing what parents can do to prevent bullying and step up our parenting... The summer before sixth grade, my family moved from northern...
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The impact of teachers who regard their students
The impact of teachers who regard their students is felt way beyond one school year. Just walking into Mr. Erard’s upper elementary Montessori class as a parent, you could tell there was something magical about it. There was a vibe, an energy to the room that made...
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What children really need when they face challenges
What children really need when they face challenges isn’t for us to save them, but rather this… “Mom,” my eight year old daughter called down to me, “I’m stuck.” She was standing above me on a small wooden platform high in the trees and far from the sweet, safe...
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How to set the compass of your heart…and teach your children, too.
Each day - a new day. A new opportunity to set the compass of your heart. It is so so easy for me to wake up and hit the ground running. Some of it is reality and some of it is self-imposed. I love my work! I love writing! I've written before about the one morning...
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