Hard Conversations: Suicide
I recently offered an online series about how to have hard conversations with kids about a variety of topics. I selected four broad topics based on my 15 years of working with parents and kids…
The importance of HOPE (in a world that sometimes can feel hopeless)
I’m a “word” person. I have always been fascinated with words. I used to grab my thesaurus and look up synonyms and antonyms for words. Just for fun. (I know…it’s strange – don’t judge). You…
So what’s the real story about our kids and screen time??
Screen time. Two little words – filled with so many ideas, judgments, worries, and advice. If there is a hot topic in the world of parenting, it is the “appropriate” limit for screen time. Shout…
This year’s focus – Breathe
A couple of years ago, I attended a women in leadership seminar where the speaker challenged us to consider the most important word for our year. I skeptically thought to myself, “How could I possibly…
Daily Reminder – Week 7 – Find and share humor
Laughter is the best. It is contagious, isn’t it? You hear a child laughing and you can’t help but also find yourself giggling. This week, I want to challenge us all to use laughter and…
Daily Reminder – Week 6 – Make their favorite meal
I have talked about how I believe Gary Chapman missed the 6th Love Language of cooking. I use the topic of love languages a lot in therapy and I think most people find it to…
Daily Reminder – Week 5 – Gratitude
My kids don’t know it yet, but I am working on a gratitude scrapbook for them for Christmas. A couple of months ago, I found myself in a place of feeling pretty low. I felt…
Weekly Reminder – Week 4 – Leave surprise love notes
I have written about love notes to our kids before. In an era when our kids are continually flooded with information from websites, texts, and tweets, I want to continue to be a competing presence…
Weekly Reminder – Week 3 – Celebrate!
So this one might seem crazy, but I think our kids love when we are crazy. You know how there are like crazy holidays on any given day? Like… did you know December 30 is…
Weekly Reminder – Week 2 – Defining moments
I recently did a talk with a large group of middle schoolers about defining moments. The focus of this was multi-fold. First, to get them to see we have small decisions everyday that can make…