When something, an event, or someone triggers a stressful situation for you and your child, finding the place in your heart and mind to be empathic may be one of the biggest challenges you will face.

That said, being empathetic in this moment may be one of your most powerful tools to regain control and enable a positive energy shift.

Empathy is given, not taken. It is a powerful emotion that derives from your own early childhood attachment with a loving parent or guardian. When it is said that empathy “can’t be taught”, it’s not really the case. It was “taught” to us by how our parents related to us in our earliest developmental stages, and it will be taught to your children as part of how you attach and relate today.   Empathy is like an automatic switch in your head that turns you into an “understander”, and subjugates your goals or objectives in the moment for those of another. A person that feels the real...

Do you have fun with your kids? Having fun may be more illusive than any of us would like, especially  with the conflicts, stresses, and demands that define the hectic role of raising a family. The good news is that we are all wired in one way or another to have fun and to laugh.

Even though today we think of comedy as the means to get into a laughing mood, we actually use “a laugh” every which way from Sunday and don’t even realize it most of the time. Albeit, differently from one of us to another, the role of laughter in allowing for the human connection we all seek is part of our DNA.

When you realize this, it is pretty cool to make “a laugh” part of your parenting tool set. Laughing is a very powerful way to engage with anyone, especially a child, and is one of our most natural ways of building trust. The technical term for this is  attunement, when you are “tuned in” to the one you are connecting with, and...

Have you noticed that “emotionally charged” situations can sometimes be more precipitous than you first expected. Sometimes a metaphor is a powerful way to think about an idea. The notion of a Hurricane or “100 Year Storm” is interesting.

Typically they occur infrequently, but when they do the sense of how they overwhelm us is undeniable. To all of our dismay, these kinds of storms are occurring more frequently and more intensely.

And in life, more often than we might expect, the scenario is actually like the “perfect storm”…  with simultaneous overwhelming conditions in play (ex. a new move, a new school, a new baby)  So, with that notion, are you in your own whirlwind at home or at work? Are situations you might naturally expect to “go more smoothly” hijacked by either your emotions or your counterparts in such a way that either one or both of you become overwhelmed and unable to manage the storm?

Big...

arenting more than one child can be a marvelous opportunity, allowing the relationship between siblings to be loving, engaging, and instructive for both the kids and parents alike.

At the same time, there is a pattern that can emerge which disrupts some of the opportunities for development and positive growth.

Along the journey, depending on the age difference, a 2nd child may precipitate unexpected emotional stresses and be in the crosshairs to absorb some challenging emotional blows.

“Second Child Syndrome” may evoke  competition and provoke a situation where the younger child is destined to underperform by comparison. Shouldn’t it just be innate that the second child would know that it’s ok to get to the finish line at their own pace? We know it doesn’t work quite that way…and the brunt of the emotional loss of status can translate into anger, hostility, anxiety, or worse-depression.

The early detection of this emerging...

When clients present, they are often challenged by the idea of finding their target for EMDR-Therapy. Getting to the target is a fundamental step in developing an effective EMDR-Therapy intervention. Deep down, they know what it is and one of the critical jobs is to non-invasively enable the client to self-identify it and go with it during the sessions.

So, the target is "embedded" in deeper thoughts. It’s interesting to dissect the word THOUGHT. If you split it apart, you get “THOU OUGHT”. Thou Ought is as close to “I oughta do this, and I oughta do that” as anything we have heard. And it’s built invisibly into one of the most powerful words we rely on to explain how we do what we do – a thought is the byproduct of thinking. The targets are buried somewhere in their web of thoughts.

So what…

We have noticed over the years that there is a natural, human tendency which impedes desired and beneficial behavior changes. Clients...