parents

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How Understanding ME, YOU and US Makes for Better Parenting

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How Understanding ME, YOU and US Makes for Better Parenting

This process made me analyze and process something that most of us psychotherapists take for granted.  The ability to self-reflect is one that will help all relationships.  It is particularly crucial in parenting, but unfortunately it is something very few parents tend to do.  


Self-reflection takes time to learn and practice.  In development, it should be a marker we reach in varying degrees through the age groups but should master at the end of adolescence.  As Dan Siegel discusses in both of his books, Brainstorm and Mindsight, we need to be able to understand, ME, YOU and US, to make the best decisions as it pertains to relationship.  In parenting this is how I see this breakdown

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You're Wrong, The World is Safe

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You're Wrong, The World is Safe

I have something radical to say and I wish you could hear me because if you were in front of me I would be screaming it: the world is safe.  The world has always been safe.  Yes, children die, famine exists, natural disasters kill thousands, and we murder one another through war, domestic violence, and hate.  But the world is safe.  For those of you who don’t believe the world is safe, why are you lying to your children?  I know that a deep part of you knows that  the world is safe, but your life experience has fooled you into believing that it is not.  So how do we get back to the purity of the early years before your mother may or may not have responded to you in a way that brought the first doubt of your safety?

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Two Key Points in Handling Sibling Rivalry

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Two Key Points in Handling Sibling Rivalry

As a parenting and child development expert, I generally know how to handle these moments of rivalry, but as a parent I understand how excruciating and off putting they can feel.  Here are some things to keep in mind the next time your siblings fight.

 The most important point:  if no one is bleeding,

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Finding Motherhood at the LAX Underpass

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Finding Motherhood at the LAX Underpass

There’s an underpass at LAX going north on Sepulveda Blvd, and  it’s pretty amazing since sometimes a plane is taxiing right on top of you.  I was born a mother traveling through that underpass sometime in 2005.  My daughter had been born maybe 3 months before; the timing is now vague.  However, I remember crying as I drove to yet another audition (yes I used to be an actor) worried that I had left my preemie alone with a baby sitter I barely knew.