It’s the middle of the night in 2005. My Nokia cell phone vibrates me awake somewhere under the covers, and I manage to locate it quick enough to hit silent. A few moments later, the vibrating is present again. This time I look to see that it’s my brother in
Welcome to the June edition of the childhood trauma newsletter. The past few weeks have been heavy for caregivers as we grapple with the aftermath of the violence in our communities. I know it’s been said too many times, but my heart goes out to the families and the communities
Journalist Susanna Arthur from Psychcentral.com reached out to me a few weeks back and asked me to contribute to this article on the connection between parental death and anxiety for children, teens, and adults. This topic is right up my alley and is very personal to me. My mother died
Childhood trauma is the core reason so many children are suffering with their mental health right now. Children are scared. Their sense of safety and trust in the world around them has been damaged. But the good news is there are many things we can do to help mitigate and
Childhood trauma consultant and children’s book author, Beth Tyson, discusses what Ambiguous Loss is, why it’s important right now, and what we can do to help children cope with the uncertainty created by the pandemic. Beth shares her personal stories with grief and loss as she raises her daughter and
Every time I see an email headline with “Happy New Year!” from the newsletters I subscribe to it falls flat. Who is truly happy after what has transpired over the last year? “Happy New Year” seems like a tall order right now, and I think it’s beneficial to accept and
Today I was interviewed by Your Teen For Parents Media about how to talk to our children about school shootings. It was a timely conversation due to the mass threats that circulated last night on social media across the United States. These are scary times to be living in, and
Choosing a special gift for a tween can be challenging if you aren’t paying close attention. Tweens develop emotionally and physically at different rates, and this can make it tricky when finding the perfect gift. Not only that, but the pandemic has unleashed an avalanche of mental health trouble to
Does your child refuse to leave the playground or other locations without a meltdown? Transitions between activities are tough for toddlers and preschoolers, but especially for those children who have experienced trauma and loss. Children who have experienced traumatic changes in their life like divorce or removal from parents will
Is your reaction to your children’s behavior out of proportion to the situation at hand? This happens to all parents from time-to-time, but if you notice your intense emotions with your children are more frequent than you would like, you are probably coming face-to-face with an old emotional wound. When
