Calling all Austin families! Would you like to improve your children’s behavior? Stop arguing with your spouse about discipline? Improve your parent/child relationship? Help get your kids to go to bed on time and eat their veggies? Katie and Kate [...]
Here's another question I received from a friend, reprinted with her permission. Our daughter is 2.5. She naps really well at school, but only gets a nap about 40% of the time on weekends. At home, she hummssssss with energy, [...]
A friend asked recently for an example of a natural consequence, so I shared one that had occurred just that morning in my own life. My older daughter, dawdling endlessly, was just about to make us late for school. [...]
Virginia Woolf was on the required reading list when I was in college, and the piece I remember best was the famous "A Room of One's Own," in which she argues that a woman must have a room of her [...]
I recently received the following question via email from a friend. With her permission, I am sharing it and my answer. My 4 year old daughter was born without all of her fingers. It causes her no issues in daily life. However, she does get a lot of comments, questions and stares. We are working with her on ways to answer questions, ask people to stop staring, etc...but it doesn't seem to be sticking. She prefers just to give people the "evil eye" and make a face at them if she feels uncomfortable. Should we consider therapy for this?
A father told me a story recently of a family outing that had a rough ending. Loading up in the car after a fun bike ride, the dad asked his older daughter to share her water bottle with her baby sister [...]
Yesterday, I spoke with Tara Trower of the Austin American Statesman for an article she was writing about talking with kids about the local wildfires. I smiled a little when I read the article, because the other therapist she spoke [...]
When I was in graduate school to become a therapist, I remember one of my professors using a metaphor to illustrate what a therapist does for her clients. She encouraged us to imagine that we held a large, uncovered bowl in our laps, and that our job was to hold that bowl while our clients put their fears, upsets, anger, etc in the bowl. Many years after grad school, I realized that parenting requires the exact same ability. Only now, it's waaaay harder.
I often talk with clients about how, a generation or more ago, one of the most popular markers of "good parenting," and therefore "good children," was obedience. An obedient child=a good child=a good parent. Nowadays, far fewer of the parents [...]
132 hours until school is back in session, but who's counting, right? ;^) I hope you've had a great summer, and with the start of the new school year right around the corner, I'd like to share a few tips [...]
I believe family is the foundation of who we are as people and as a culture, and helping improve family lives is my calling and my passion. My top priority is helping you manage behavior more effectively while preserving your parent-child relationship, either with one-on-one coaching or through my online offerings.
