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Please don’t forget about the hard conversations!

Importance of talking to our kids about suicide and mental health

The Struggle is Real…Pandemic Parenting continued

Nine months into the pandemic, parenting is even more challenging. Author's insights over the past 9 months.

Coronavirus Support Continued….

It’s still rough out there.  My own two childrens’ schools have closed for the academic year which means no graduation for either of them.  “Zoom school” is vastly different between their two schools, and even at its best (thank you teachers!), it doesn’t substitute for real school.  My family has never spent so much time […]

Coronavirus Support

There’s no doubt, COVID-19 has upended all of our lives.  We are living in unprecedented times with no concrete end in sight.  Uncertainty breeds anxiety, and being housebound can create or exacerbate conflict.  Developmentally, teens are moving away from their dependence on their parents, and spending more time with peers.  This “stay at home” directly […]

How to Help Your Teen Through the Coronavirus Shutdown

It’s a very uncertain time that’s for sure.  We don’t know how long this current state is going to last, which is scary.  Events are being cancelled right and left, which can throw all of us into a tailspin.  The activities our teens love and look forward to (sports, dances, trips, etc.) are on hold, […]

Supporting your LGBTQ+ Youth

We are lucky this week to have a guest blogger, Anais Plasketes (she/her). Anais is a licensed psychotherapist and sexuality educator in the Greater Los Angeles area.  She is passionate about working with youth grades 3-12 in school systems and their parents around issues of sexuality and development through a non-shame based, empowerment, and autonomy […]

NAMI: Loving and Caring for Your Child with a Mental Health Condition

This week we are lucky to have a guest blogger, Lora Illig, Director of Community Relations for NAMI Los Angeles County Council. Thank you Lora for your time and passion. As a parent of a child with early onset mental illness, I struggled with guilt and shame that somehow I caused the illness or that […]

Where You Go to College Isn’t Everything

I am following this college admission cheating scandal with rapt attention and horror.  I wish I could say I was surprised.  In many ways, my surprise is that we haven’t heard of this type of thing sooner.  While I firmly believe in personal responsibility and ethics, and am not excusing anyone’s wrongdoing, I see how […]

How to Handle Your Troubled Teenager

We are lucky to have a guest blogger this week, Lucy Taylor.  Thank you Lucy! Teenagers are often volatile, though some are more volatile than others. While some teenagers handle their minds and bodies reaching adulthood by getting plenty of rest and playing with their electronics, other teenagers act and react in worrying ways. If […]

How to Get Your Teen to Put Down Pot

We are very lucky to have a guest blog this week on a very relevant issue parents are facing. Thank you to Sara Gillbert and her team at The Recovery Village® With the legalization of recreational marijuana spreading through the nation, more teens are looking to get their hands on the substance to either try […]

For Parents: Support around 13 Reasons Why

  The long anticipated 13 Reasons Why return is tomorrow. Netflix has been receptive to many of the criticisms of the first season, and the results of a study through Northwestern University about the show’s impact. There will be more trigger warnings, resources given, and actors stepping out of character to talk about mental health […]

PLEASE Talk to Your Teens About Suicide

This post is a compilation of previous posts, so it may sound familiar to some of you, but the content is always timely.     Parents: Please don’t be afraid to discuss suicide with your teens In the last two days, I have heard of two teenage deaths by suicide. In one of them, the […]

How the “Race to College” is Impacting our Kids

There has been a nearly 37% increase in adolescent depression from 2005-2014.   (Pediatrics, November 2016).   Today’s teens report levels of stress that are higher than adults, exceeding levels that are healthy. (American Psychological Association, 2014). Suicide rates, particularly among adolescent girls, doubled from 2007-2014 and reached a 40 year high in 2014 (CDC, 2017). WHAT […]

Back To School Blues? You’re Not Alone

Back to school….Three little words that evoke a variety of emotions for parents and teens alike. For parents, back to school means more juggling, more conflicts about getting schoolwork done, tougher mornings, and more drama.  Although the structure of a school day and week is definitely nice. For our teens, it’s generally not fun to […]

Ten Important Reminders for Parents of Teens and Tweens

Our friends in the UK, Rayden Solicitors, have graciously agreed to let us share their recent blog post written by Nadia Biles Davies about a seminar Rayden recently hosted.   Her top 10 takeaways are a must read! Last week saw Rayden Solicitors host a panel of experts at our Supporting Teens and Tweens Seminar […]

A Few Minutes for Yourself Can Get Rid of Stress

This week we are lucky to have a guest blogger, Sarah Jones.  Sarah writes for Relax Everyday where she teaches her readers about the different relaxation strategies to achieve a healthier mind and body. By doing so, she helps to express her knowledge on meditation, relaxation, and massages. I know I can always use tips […]

Summer Must Reads

It’s been a while since you’ve heard from me. End of school year craziness and then the beginning of summer have thrown me off. While I haven’t been writing, I’ve definitely been reading. Here are some of my “favorite” articles of late. I hope you’ll learn from them like I have. Raising “good” kids is […]

We Need to Teach our Teens What a Healthy Relationship Is

Sexual harassment, misogyny, “slut shaming.” The Making Caring Common Project out of Harvard University, released new research this week about the disturbingly high rates of these behaviors in today’s young people.  Their national survey of 18 to 25-year-old “reports 87% percent of women reported having experienced at least one of the following during their lifetime: […]