Often times, children with learning difficulties experience heightened symptoms of anxiety. The academic struggles combined with (real or imagined) social, emotional, or behavioral fears can become debilitating for a child. As a parent, it is hard to see your child suffering academically, emotionally, and socially. Therefore, gaining a better understanding of the connection between learning disorders and anxiety is a vital step in aiding your child and increasing their confidence and overall ability.

Cognitive-behavioral therapy is one of the most well-supported treatments for depression and anxiety amongst children, teens and even adults. This type of therapy is widespread, as its name has made its way into our everyday language and popular culture. But, what really is it? When your child is receiving CBT for anxiety, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), depression or a related disorder, what are they doing? What’s the special sauce that makes this treatment so effective?

Reflections are repetitions of what your child has just said. This can be a verbatim repeating of what they have shared or a summary. Using reflections during dysregulated moments helps your child to slow down their own thoughts and big feelings while also allowing them to feel heard by letting them know that you’re listening to them.

Children’s emotions typically follow a curve. They are calm, until something triggers them and their emotions intensify. If the child is unable to cope with their feelings, they reach a peak emotion, which is typically when we would see them hit, yell, kick, or cry. Sometimes, it feels like you are looking at a child you do not recognize during these peak emotions. During each stage of this curve, parents can react differently in order to minimize the size of the child’s reaction and alleviate emotional stress. In order to find what triggers big reactions in a child, parents need to be detectives.

“That’s not fair!” We’ve all heard it. We’ve all said it. The feelings behind it are absolutely valid and can be difficult to manage. Take a step back for a moment and consider: what does fair really mean in your home? Like many parents, you may have been working to be equal, but defining it as fair. We want to challenge that mindset and give you tools to navigate those “unfair” moments.

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a diagnosis that has evolved over the years. There is now increased awareness and greater understanding of ASD. However, there continues to be several misconceptions about this diagnosis and some may not realize that there is a diversity of presentations associated with being on the spectrum. In this post, we have addressed some of the most common myths and questions related to ASD.

Power struggles with children can emerge for a variety of reasons. These willful and increasingly autonomous moments are a normal part of development and typically begin around age two. When parents are confronted with navigating a newly willful toddler, they are forced to make tricky split second decisions as to how to manage a behavior, tantrum or big emotion. Fortunately, there are effective strategies to help end power struggles with your child, many of which can be simple changes in the way the parent views the child’s behavior.

Most adults haved learned to successfully integrate their “thinking brain” and “emotion brain” in a way that allows them to continue to problem solve in these moments. Kids typically haven’t yet mastered this regulatory capability. We have to help our kids learn to effectively integrate their “thinking brain” and their “emotion brain” when they’re experiencing big feelings.

Accommodation is any change a parent makes to their own behavior to help kids avoid or lessen anxiety. Typically, these changes come from a caring and loving place, one where parents don’t want their kids to be distressed. In actuality, accommodation often shows kids that they cannot face their anxieties and they need others to step in to fix their problems. To figure out if accommodation plays a meaningful role in your family, ask yourself a few questions.

You’re seated right near the stage, watching the conductor lead the orchestra with rhythmic motions, pointing to the string instruments, to the woodwinds, to the bass… Just as the conductors so fluidly guides the orchestra to create beautiful compositions of music, so does our Executive Function guide our everyday thoughts and behaviors. Simply put, our executive function skills are imperative to our daily activity and functioning in the world around us.

Dyslexia is a language-based learning disability that affects reading, writing, and spelling. When families seek out an evaluation due to concerns about their child’s reading or writing performance, dyslexia is one of the primary diagnoses that comes to mind for many practitioners. About 85% of students referred for special education services are students with literacy difficulties that may be dyslexia. Dyslexia is the most common learning disability.Given its prevalence, it is perhaps surprising that there are still many myths that persist.

Going back to school can be an exciting time for some students and their families, but can be a period of anticipation and worry for others. The latter has been the case for more students lately, as the last year and a half has changed the meaning of “back to school.” Feeling anxious about this upcoming change and the uncertainty of what school will look like this fall is typical. There are ways you can help your child cope and adjust with this upcoming change.

It’s natural and appropriate for all young children to feel separation anxiety while separating from their caregivers. Children long to be close to their caregivers and separating from them threatens their sense of security, which creates feelings of worry and distress. For some kiddos, the distress of separating from their caregiver becomes more severe, which can interfere with daily life. Often, this leaves caregivers feeling low on options and overwhelmed. Navigating separation anxiety is a balancing act of managing the child’s desire to be close while providing encouragement towards independence.

Anxiety is like an internal smoke detector, but instead of only going off when there is smoke, it sets off many false alarms. For some people, their smoke detector goes off when danger is present and they need to stay safe. Other people experience frequent false alarms and have difficulty resetting. Imagine a smoke detector that goes off each time you use the toaster or microwave. Some alarms go off easier than others and it works the same way across people.

Positive parenting programs have a large and meaningful evidence-base for helping parents manage problem behaviors. However, positive parenting is not widely understood by parents. Many parents assume that positive parenting means kids can do no wrong and that we reward them anyway. In fact, positive parenting is quite different. Positive parenting actually involves relationship building, using parental attention effectively, giving kids independence, using discipline appropriately, and providing a safe, secure, and consistent environment. Once parents understand what positive parenting really is, skepticism tends to dissipate.

There are many moments throughout the day that require giving directions to kids. Parents need to make sure kids are safe, help them transition between activities, and ensure daily tasks are completed. The way we say directions or instructions matters and we want to make sure we are setting both ourselves and our kids up for success.

If your child has had difficulties in school or you have concerns about their development, you have likely been referred for a neuropsychological evaluation. To many parents, this daunting, new recommendation has you imagining your child hooked up to machines for neurological imaging and observation. When in fact, these evaluations require no fancy machines and are often fun for kids. We want to answer common parent questions about these evaluations and clear up the confusion.

Parents don’t like to see kids experiencing distress and no one likes to feel uncomfortable, kids or adults! As a society, we tend to value problem-solving. Especially as a parent, the instinct is to jump in and help our kids solve a distressing emotion or experience. This instinct actually saves us from feeling distressed and, while it is well intended, deprives our child of an opportunity to develop emotion regulation strategies.

For almost every family out there, screen time has increased over the past year. Some families feel like screen time has gotten out of hand and some just want to know how to make better choices about screens moving forward. So how can you decide what is best for your family?

When we are faced with behavioral challenges, it is easy to see the problem, but it is much harder to see the solution. Because we see a glaring problem, we might yell “stop!” or “don’t!” to get our child to change their behavior. The truth is: we want them to stop, but we really want our kids to show a more positive behavior.