Have you found that your child’s behavior chart is no longer as effective as it once was? Or, maybe you’ve been working at it for weeks but have yet to observe your new behavior system actually working. Well, you’ve come to the right place. Today’s blog is all about making adjustments and modifications to your […]
Behavior charts are helpful tools for encouraging appropriate, responsible, and respectful behaviors in children. Perhaps the most challenging part of implementing a behavior chart is the actual set up. Below you will find a list of strategies to make this process go smoothly. Behavior Chart Basics: Work WITH your child to create realistic behavior expectations. […]
Books are powerful and serve a variety of purposes. Reading books can provide individuals with entertainment, knowledge, and skills. For children who are not yet able to read, books may represent special bonding time with a parent, caregiver, or older sibling. You may not have realized it, but books provide a great resource for social-emotional […]
Homelessness, incarceration, violence, suicide. These terms bring dark and upsetting images to mind for most everyone. You may be asking, what do these phenomena have in common? The answer is that the chances of experiencing one or more of these adversities is increased when individuals with mental illness do not receive proper treatment. The National […]
Adolescence is a time of major development marked by significant changes. One change that is often recognized during adolescence is an increase in emotionality. Some teens can be negative, moody, and difficult to communicate with. Furthermore, hormonal changes during this period of life can lead individuals to experience strong and sometimes unpredictable changes in […]
“Calm down”, “Just relax”, “Cool it”, “Chill out”, “ Take it easy”. Throughout the years of working with parents and their children, I’ve heard all sorts of ways that parents attempt to help their children gain control of themselves. As children develop from infants, to toddlers, to preschoolers and on, they constantly improve their understanding […]
If you have a teenager at home, you may be noticing that communicating with him or her can be challenging. As written about in a previous blog post, adolescence is a time of physiological, psychological, and social change. We often hear of the cliché exaggeration that teenagers want nothing to do with their parents. Well, […]
Earlier this month we posted a blog about anxiety disorders in childhood. Today’s blog is about one particular anxiety disorder, panic disorder. While panic attacks can occur in children, they are rare. The prevalence of panic attacks increases significantly at the age of puberty. Panic disorder is an anxiety disorder where individuals experience unexpected recurrent […]
In the world of mental health, anxiety is recognized as the most common disorder affecting individuals of all ages. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (www.nami.org), about eight percent of children and teens in the United States experience the negative impact of anxiety. “A large, national survey of adolescent mental health reported that […]
Bedtime. For many adults, bedtime means it’s finally time to shut down and rest. How peaceful! However, if you’re a parent of young ones, the simple statement, “It’s time for bed.” likely carries a very different meaning. In my experience working with families of children of various ages, it is not uncommon for bedtime to […]