Parenting Through Stressful Times Now, more than ever, emotion regulation skills and community connection are critical to our well-being. Hi, Everyone, It has been quite a week.  It seems like the entire country-- and maybe especially the Bay Area-- has gone from...

Coronavirus. Managing your own anxiety, talking to our kids, and being smart! Hello, Practice families! This cold and flu season hit my family hard; out of nineteen work days in February, I was home with a sick kid (or ill myself) for no fewer than TEN of them.  I...

Tips for Making the Holiday Chaos Feel More Manageable No magic wand, just a few tips and tricks Hi, Practice families! With only three full weeks between the Thanksgiving holiday and the winter break, the rush toward the holidays this year feels particularly frantic....

How to Get Your Kids to Follow Directions No magic wand, just a few tips and tricks.Happy December, Practice families!Let's face it-- no matter how much we love our kids, it might have been a bit of a relief to send them off to school today after a rainy holiday long...

Screen Time and Mom Guilt.  Hi, Practice families! A few weeks ago, a good friend from grad school (also a child psychologist, male, childless) forwarded me this article from the New York Times Parenting section, 'Screen Use Tied to Children's Brain Development,'...

Helping Your Child Cope with Stress or Anxiety (How to do it...and why it can be so hard!)   Hi, Practice families! A few months ago, I wrote about the recent study from Yale University suggesting that working with parents of anxious kids was equally as effective...

It's One of Those Weeks Hi, Practice families! Our power went out in Marin on Saturday evening...  it was restored late last night, and I have never been so grateful for light and heat.  Over the course of the past four days, I tried to access that gratitude mindset I...

Where I'm Choosing to Spend My Attention This WeekHi, Practice families! I turned forty last week.  This is not typically the kind of thing one admits on the Internet, I know-- but rather than sparking an existential mid-life crisis, this birthday triggered a lot of...

It's a Stressful Time of Year! Hello, Practice families! It's October.  The newness of the beginning of the year has worn off.  Kids and teens are approaching the end of the first grading period...  which means that as parents, we're staring down report cards and...

The Secret to a Happier Family LifeHello, Practice families! In last week's newsletter, we talked about the way in which watching, reality-testing, and shifting our own thoughts as parents can change the way that we feel AND the way in which we respond in upsetting or...