I’ve heard some good news from parents lately.  The good news is that some pediatricians are recommending parents seek out play therapy for their children.  You may be wondering what part of that is good news.  First, I believe therapy offers a message of hope.  A message that says, “things can be different. Let’s figure it out together”.  Secondly, the alternative recommendation in so many cases is medication.

As a play therapist, I am so happy that pediatricians are supporting this developmentally appropriate form of treatment for children.  I’ve spoken with quite a few parents whose children are anxious around strangers (bey0nd what is typically expected developmentally) and/or don’t do well around loud noises or crowds.  In the three most recent cases, the children were 2 or 3 years of age.  The pediatricians recommended play therapy first and then medication if nothing changes. 

I must say I cringe at the thought of medicating children so young.  I do believe therapy can have an effective and meaningful impact. However, what parents of children this young should consider and pediatricians should be recommending is Filial Therapy, also known as Child Parent Relationship Training, or here at New Leaf Clinic, Guilt Free Parenting. (You can find a link to an article describing Filial Therapy under the Resources tab on our website.) 

Guilt Free Parenting teaches parents how to be therapeutic agents with their children.  That is, we will teach you, the parent, how to do a parent version of play therapy in your home with your child.  Parents are the best source for ‘treating’ anxiety and fears in young children.  This is because young children feel most safe and connected to their own parents.  So our group is about teaching you to respond in loving, nurturing and even healing ways to your child. 

Frequently I am asked why children go to therapy.  I respond, “for the same reason adults do”.  Children go to therapy when facing death or divorce or change.  Maybe the change is a new sibling, or moving to a new school, or having a new nanny.  All children respond differently to change and just as with us adults some need extra support and encouragement. 

As a parent, I am most frustrated when I feel stuck, unsure, confused or helpless.  I want to excel at my job of parenting.  I want to improve my child’s life.  I honestly know that I can.  I want other parents to have this same experience. Good news!!  We can teach you responses that will help your child feel better when they face some of life’s uncertainties. Good news! You can feel less frustrated with your child and yourself!  Good news!!  You have the power and can have the knowledge to truly help your child!

Join us our Dallas moms group. Mondays for 10 weekly sessions beginning February 8 from 10-11:30am at Frankford and the Dallas North Tollway.  Initial one on one meetings will be scheduled with each prospective member to insure we can meet your personal needs and expectations.  Call or email today! info@newleafclinic.com or 214-707-8835.

This question seems simple on it’s surface, you may even have a quick knee jerk reaction that seems so obvious to you.  Well, this question is a key aspect of our Guilt Free Parenting moms group offered this spring in Dallas.  Our Group spans 10 weekly sessions and begins Monday, February 8th from 10-11:30am at Frankford and the Dallas North Tollway. 

Our children have a reaction to this question as well.  In their eyes, time is of endless quantity.  They can’t imagine not having an infinite amount of it and tell us this repeatedly each day: “In a minute mom”, “I want to go to the park, the zoo, the mall, and Sally’s house tomorrow”, “Oh mom, I forgot I need to have my costume made for the school play by tomorrow”.  I wonder, if money grows on trees, where does time grow?  I need THAT plant.

So, if our kids believe it is in endless supply, can they even differentiate between quantity and quality (especially our very young children)?  YES!  I have worked with so many stay at home moms who say that they spend all day everyday with their kids.  Yet, when I hear from their children there seems to be a disconnect.  The time spent at the grocery store, doing laundry, and making dinner doesn’t count… not in their eyes anyway… and frankly not in most moms’ either. 

All this said, how does our parenting group help?  The focus of our group is to help parents and children connect.  Children feel most connected when parents speak their language.  On it’s face, this is clear developmentally.  Children just don’t understand what we are saying.  The problem is exacerbated by the fact that as parents we miss a lot of what our children are saying as well. 

Our group teaches specific relationship building skills including limit setting, reflecting feelings, and returning responsibility.  We ask parents to practice these skills outside of our group during once weekly 30 minute ’special play-times.’  Our group encourages moms to engage children in their play and teaches moms just how to do this.

In my previous experience leading this group, a stay at home mom shared her surprise at her daughter’s reaction to their weekly special play-times.  She said that her 5 year old daughter told her how happy she was they were now spending time together.  The mom was happy AND sad… how had she previously missed all of her daughters requests for quality time?  How had she ignored her desire for such a connection with her own daughter?  Join us… learn that there is a concrete and discernible difference in how you interact with your child!

Dallas area Moms!!  Join the New Leaf Clinic Parenting Group specifically designed for moms.  Guilt Free Parenting Group Begins Monday February 8, 2010 from 10-11:30 located at the Dallas North Tollway and Frankford.

As a counselor, the feeling of guilt is one I frequently confront on a professional level. Personally speaking too, I know the feeling of guilt… and by feeling I mean that sinking sensation in one’s gut. 

As I was considering a blog topic for this week, I decided to look up ‘guilt’ in the dictionary. I wanted specific, professional words to describe that deeply emotional sensation. Here’s what I found, “feelings of culpability especially for imagined offenses or from a sense of inadequacy” (Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary). Reading this I had an ah-ha moment- one followed by that feeling in my gut.  What specifically spoke to me was the ‘for imagined offenses or a sense of inadequacy.’

As a professional parent educator and in my own personal parenting, I am in touch with that  repugnant feeling… guilt. I know what it means and where it comes from. It’s that sense of inadequacy that feeling of flying blind, crossing your fingers, or praying desperately that your choices will have positive effects on your children’s lives.  As a professional parent educator, I am blessed to apply my many years of education, training, clinical experience and research to my own parenting. I definitely struggle less with feelings of inadequacy and am so thankful. However, this is the number one feeling that leads parents to seek my services. Inadequacy that sometimes turns into crippling fear and familiar words during our initial conversation, ” I think I’m really messing up my kid.”

So if the feeling of guilt stems from a sense of inadequacy what can be done to curb that feeling. The underlying feeling of inadequacy that feeds the guilt. Education and support! That is what our group, Guilt Free Parenting, offers. In a supportive environment led by two professional counselors and joined by moms with real worries and wisdom, we will teach specific skills. By skills I mean, teach how to communicate with children, especially young children who communicate so differently than we do. We will teach how to reflect your children’s thoughts and feelings so you can communicate you hear them, you care about them and you understand them.  Having said that, this does not mean that just because you hear them, care about and understand them they get everything they ask for. Instead we will teach you how to communicate this messages while simultaneously instilling boundaries and discipline. We will provide a specific strategy for setting limits and tolerating consequences. By tolerating consequences, I mean for both you and your child. I mean really, isn’t that where the guilt gets really bad? When you set a limit you never intended to adhere to and feel sick about the consequence (leaving the restaurant, playgroup, donating a favorite toy). We will teach you how to live with the discipline you wish to instill in your child… so they can too.

We will confront that feeling of inadequacy head on through training and education and allow a safe environment for talking about your perceived inadequacies and the guilt trip you are paying way to high a price to take!

Join our Dallas Parenting Group this spring. We will meet weekly for 10 weeks beginning Monday, February 8, 2010.

I speak frequently with stay at home moms who marvel at how little they get done in a day, a week, a semester.  It seems the laundry piles up and the dishes always need to be done.  Even more, it seems these formerly mindless and easy tasks take so much energy.  I heard one mom marvel at how quickly people without children got in and out of their cars: “How come I can easily kill nearly 10 minutes getting in the car and at least another 5 getting out of the car!!  No wonder I rarely make it somewhere on time!!” 

I’ve heard from moms who were MDs, attorneys, accountants, teachers, nurses, and various other professions who are amazed at how tired they feel and when they look around how little they accomplish. Have you had thoughts like this and been embarrassed to share them out loud?  Maybe you even think feeling frustrated or overwhelmed seems indulgent given the many blessings in your life (the ability to stay home or the blessing of you healthy children).

I believe we all need support in whatever it is we embark on in life.  That is one significant reason so many people marry!  So for any stay at home mom who loved her former identity of a hard working, high achieving professional, I ask you who your current co-workers are?  Who sends you emails to applaud your accomplishments?  If you are looking for co-workers in this all important job of motherhood… join us! Let us help you find outlets in your life that will allow your personality to thrive and thus your children to thrive in your care.

We are beginning a parenting group in Dallas this winter!  We are so excited about offering this opportunity for moms to connect and learn specific skills to help with the joys and aches of parenting. Email us at info@newleafclinic.com for more information.

 As we began the planning process, we liked the name Guilt Free Parenting.  While the group itself follows a model technically called Child Parent Relationship Training, we wanted a more casual appeal.  We are seeking to reach moms who want to feel more empowered and rejuvenated in their relationship with their children.

When I think of parenting, I think of a diet.  You may laugh and think to yourself, ”wonder if she’s like me finishing the food on my child’s plate or eating things like mac and cheese and fish sticks that without kids I would never eat.” And yes, those thoughts certainly do enter my mind- yet this reference is on a deeper more emotional level. I know enough about dieting to know about falling off the wagon.  Trying so hard at something and being so strict and rigid that you fail.  In working with parents, I have heard similar stories. “I read this (fill in the blank with the titles you’ve flipped through) book and tried all the suggestions and it worked for a while, but  it stopped working, it was too hard, or I couldn’t get my spouse on board. So parenting, like dieting takes committment and consistency. 

Well, what do you do when you eat poorly one day?  Are you the give it all up type or the ‘tomorrow is another day’ type? 

Parenting is all about fresh starts.  You and your child get one every single day. Even more profoundly, every single encounter each day.  Sure there is carryover and foundations are laid, but change is possible.  A favorite professor of mine, and world renowned play therapist, Dr. Garry Landreth, puts it this way, “It’s not what you did, but what you do after what you have done”.  That concept isn’t just for me, it isn’t just for grown-ups.  It is something I want to teach my child, something about forgiveness and open communication. So, when I respond to my daughter in a way that does not communicate my love and respect for her, I think about that phrase.  I think about how I can teach her that I make mistakes and it is okay to say so and that I respect her enough to ask for her forgiveness. 

So, our group is about implementing strategies that lead you to feel guilt free.  Lead you to be able to move past the guilt you feel for disciplinging your child more harshly than you intended, for threating to take away all their toys forever, or for spanking them when you swore pre-parenthood you would never. 

Join us, Mondays 10:00-11:30 beginning February 8th in North Dallas- Frankford and the North Dallas Tollway.

Join us for our Guilt Free Parenting groups beginning in early February!!  Check back for exact time and email  info@newleafclinic.com for more information!

Doesn’t it sometimes seem that being a mom comes with more questions than answers? I frequently talk to moms who worry how long they can continue parenting by trial and error! So many of the moms I work with spend their free time reading and talking and watching shows on parenting.  It seems the more resources they work to integrate the more lost they feel. As an professor, I teach my students that asking questions and engaging in dialog is THE best way to learn.

As a parent, I recognize that discussing our children and our parenting is revealing ourselves at our most vulnerable.  This group provides an opportunity for moms to learn from one another and to untangle the struggle from the joy of parenting.  Through the part discussion and part educational format, the Disciplineistas group will provide you with specific skills to assist you in raising responsible, intrinsically motivated, and emotionally aware children.

Two specific qualities make our group unique. First, this group teaches you to meet your children where they are… to speak to them in their natural language, play.  Secondly, we ask you to practice the skills we teach you during 30 minute weekly play sessions with your child.  I find this to be the best and most manageable aspect of this format. If you are like me you have half read parenting books on your nightstand (and learning and teaching parenting is my profession).  You may have tried the suggestions, but they didn’t work.  If this is the case you were likely trying the ‘techniques’ at the most challenging times of your day… maybe during the ‘witching hour’ that around dinner, just home from work, before bed chaotic time. That time when very little goes easy. We want you to implement our teachings at a time when you and your child are relaxed and ready to enjoy one another’s company.

So join us, Mondays beginning in February from 11- 12:30 in a casual, homebased environment.  We will provide snacks, workbooks and some supplies. 

For more information click the About tab above and then click Services and email drd@newleafclinic.com or call214-707-8835.

 When someone finds out I am a counselor specializing in working with children and adolescents, I hear an array of questions.  One of the most frequent is about what they should read to learn more about a specific issue or concern they are currently facing.  There are so many books out there on parenting it is difficult to know which are useful and which are fluff.  What I find most helpful are the old standbys.  Books about child development. 

In fact, the most frequent questions I receive start something like this, “my child is doing____ , is that normal?”  The best way to gauge this question is to know what behaviors are normal based on a child’s age and developmental stage.  So, I keep certain child development books on my nightstand.  A favorite is Child Behavior by Ilg, Ames, and Baker.  This book was published in 1981 and has no revolutionary new trends, but lots of information on children’s developmental stages. I rely on this book not only as a professional, but as a parent.  The second chapter, Ages and Stages, begins at 4 weeks and ends at 10 years of age. All that information in a brief 34 pages. This is why I love this book.  It is meant as a reference guide hitting some of the biggies of behavioral changes like stranger anxiety and issues related to lying, frequent in 5 1/2 and 6 year olds. 

Many things our children do are within the range of ‘developmentally normal.’ This said, it does not erase the feelings of frustration or concern we parents have.  For example, knowing that two year old children struggle with issues of hitting, biting or trouble sharing does not keep parents from being mortified when they sign a behavioral note from school or daycare or fear never being invited to a future playdate.

As a counselor working with children, I spend a significant amount of time with parents normalizing certain behaviors as developmentally appropriate and  differentiating these behaviors from ones needing professional intervention.  For more in depth reading on child development check out the expanded information provided as a series of books also by Ames and Ilg available for each year of age from ages 1 through 9.  Find them online or at a local bookstore titled Your One Year Old through Your Ten to Fourteen Year Old.

Check back at our blog for a reoccurring series of What’s on My Nightstand.

Recently, a friend of mine asked me a question. She wanted to know my opinion about an educational curriculum for babies and young children, as she was considering using it with her 8-month-old.  I mention this because I believe most parents can relate to the essence of her question: “What can I do to help my child ‘get ahead’ academically?” I think the fear is that in our increasingly competitive and technologically advanced society, parents fear their child might get “left behind.” Many parents try desperately to educate their young children by relying upon other parents, popular books, and toys presented by the media as their guides.  As a parent, I can relate to the strong pull I feel to help prepare my children academically; to do everything I can to provide them with a scholastic advantage.  The temptation to run out and purchase every learning toy, educational computer game, or reading curriculum I hear other moms raving about because “Little Sally has all her upper case AND lower case letters memorized…” is sometimes nearly overpowering.  I’m not saying I don’t ever buy these things, I do.  But before running directly to the nearest toy store, I always try to run things through my “What I Know and Believe About Children” filter. 

I know that young children learn best through their life experiences; specifically, through their play. They thrive in a predictable, safe environment in which they are provided with toys that facilitate creative expression, such as blocks, cars, dollhouses, clay, arts and crafts materials, sand, water, musical instruments, books, dress-up clothes, etc.  Children make great strides physically, emotionally, and cognitively when they are provided with rich life experiences, like trips to the zoo, museums, libraries, playgrounds, the outdoors in general, and countless other places where they learn by experiencing new things. 

I believe that young children learn best when learning is fun, not necessarily when learning is a structured curriculum. We spend most of our lives in structured learning environments.  Once formal education begins children have much less time available to them for unstructured free play.  So, as contradictory as it may seem, letting children “just play” may be one of the best ways to help prepare them for the future.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating that parents never teach their children anything.  Teaching moments will inevitably come because children are naturally so curious.  Go with that curiosity and make it fun.  And the next time you are at the park and you overhear another parent talking about the latest and greatest educational movie for toddlers, relax. Go pick up your little one, and head for the sandbox.

The increase in use of prescription medications for ADHD is a hot topic of conversation among parents of school aged children, teachers and even talk radio shows. I have encountered many parents who express reluctance over using medication to treat their child’s ADHD symptoms. Sometimes these are parents whose children have exhibited numerous side effects resulting from medication. Sometimes these are parents who want an option they believe are more consistent with other choices they’ve made for their children’s health including alternate vaccination scheduling, breast feeding, and organic foods.

At New Leaf Clinic our counselors partner with parents to design interventions that meet the beliefs and needs of each individual family and child. Recommendations may include creating a more consistent and organized household; for example, evaluating your child’s after school schedule, instigating an age appropriate bedtime, or creating an organization system for school work.  We use a variety of assessments that will give us a holistic picture of your child and provide you with a more specific description of their struggle. The more we learn about your child, the more specific we make our recommendations.

Our assessments provide information regarding your child’s visual or auditory learning preference resulting in our ability to provide strategies that play to that strength. For example, when providing your child with their daily to do’s visual children will benefit from having these items in writing. Imagine the decrease in the frustration you feel when you repeat yourself until you are “blue in the face”. Speaking to your child’s learning style will increase the success of your communication with them. Discovering your child’s learning preference coupled with a specific assessment of their ADHD (inattentive or hyperactive type) and other specific behavioral observations and assessment results allows us to provide specific options that do not include medication. If our results indicate medication may benefit your child we will provide you with assessment results to share with your medical professional to assist them in providing you with a prescription and dosage that will be most beneficial to your child.
 

New Leaf Clinic operates from a philosophical perspective that respects the whole person of your child.   We believe your child’s behavioral and educational strengths and challenges are the result of a variety of influences. Our assessment incorporates your child’s developmental history, interests, aptitudes, learning styles, peer and family relationships, and self concept. We gather information via psychological tests, discussion and observation of your child, and feedback from parents and teachers.

As counselors, our strength and uniqueness rests in our ability to provide a warm and professional atmosphere for your child leading to decreased anxiety and a better overall evaluation of their true abilities. Additionally we provide specific feedback to parents that highlight your child’s strengths and recommendations that will allow for your child to fully develop those strengths and

We believe that your child is more than the results on formal assessments.  Our ability to gather information from a variety of sources and the breadth of assessments ranging from IQ and Achievement to self concept and peer interaction enables us to evaluate your child holistically.  We will make recommendations that are specific to how your child will best interact a variety of environments including home and at school.

Our goal is to provide a positive experience for you and your child where we can gather information that can assist you in meeting your specific needs and goals. We have a variety of referral sources to assist you in follow-up services including counseling, medical interventions, tutoring and other services as identified through the assessment process.