Tag Archive for: family therapy

Welcoming Our Newest Therapy Dog – Kiki!

Hi there! I’m Kiki, a 3-year-old Great Dane mix. Over the past several weeks, I’ve been training for Animal Assisted Therapy with my human, Lisa Cardwell, LMFT. I will begin my work with clients in the Prospect office in mid-March and can’t wait to get started!

I love people of all ages, playing soccer and fetch outside, and tilting my head as far as I can from side to side when listening for words I understand. Lisa sometimes calls me Kikiroo because I love to do kangaroo jumps and bounce around on my hind legs. Learn More...

Setting Boundaries During the Holiday Season

Is this the “most” time of year for you too? While there are breaks from school (and maybe work too), many of us find our schedules BUSIER than ever with extra holiday celebrations and fun events. A friend shared with me last holiday season that their family had SEVEN family holiday gatherings to attend within a week’s time. She, her partner, and their children were all exhausted and at each other’s throats by the end of it all. It was too much. Here’s an invitation to set some proactive boundaries in your lives now, before the “most” time of year gets the best of you and your family too! Learn More...

7 Ways to Help Your Child Cope with Boredom During the Holiday Break

Holiday breaks usually include some much needed downtime for many families. With a scheduled break from schoolwork and tests, large projects at work, & extracurriculars like sports and clubs, most families welcome the chance to rest and recover from such busy day-to-day lives. A drastic change from going from “go-go-go” to such a relaxed schedule can reveal some needs your family may have. Here are some things you can do to help with that adjustment: Learn More...

Back to School: What to expect from your child and how you can provide them support

For many parents, the return of children back to school is a mixture of relief and stress.  We feel stressed because there’s a lot of prep work for the return to school and there is also a sense of relief when we can all get back to a set routine and schedule. 

Leading up to the first day of school for your kids, you may notice feelings of concern, fear, and nervousness or even anger and irritability.   Learn More...

What’s the Difference Between Mental, Emotional and Behavioral Health?

Depending on the professional with whom you speak, mental health can sometimes be referred to as emotional health or behavioral health. To me, they’re all the same. It’s hard to differentiate our cognitions (mental) from our emotions and our reactions (behaviors) because they are all interconnected and influence one another. What is happening in our environment impacts the way we think about ourselves and our surroundings, influences how we feel both physically and emotionally, and therefore causes us to react in our behavior.  While emotions can oftentimes be recognized through non-verbal communication, we cannot read one another’s minds, and yet, the behaviors of children are oftentimes what gets the grownup’s attention.  Challenging behaviors are usually why parents call us for support. Learn More...

Creating a Summer Schedule for Your Family

As the school-year ends, many families embrace a slower schedule, or lack thereof. Taking a break from the busy school schedule is well-deserved, but if you’re like my family, some structure and routine to the day can keep things interesting when day in and day out at home can seem boring after a while.

A summer schedule can also help set some boundaries around use of technology, which research shows is correlated to poor academic performance and higher mental and emotional health symptoms. And at least at my house, the more screen time there is, the more outbursts we have, which tells me their brains need less of it!  If you want to include technology time in your summer schedule, you could designate a limited amount somewhere throughout the day. Learn More...

Telling Your Children You’re Divorcing: 5 Things to Consider

When couples decide to end a relationship and it leads to the breakup of a family with children, the amount of information to process can be somewhat overwhelming. While the separation may be what’s best for everyone involved, how the information is shared with children will be a memory they hold forever.  How this family change is shared can impact the trajectory of the entire transition for each child. This process should be handled with tender care and with an emphasis on how you, the parents, will provide physical, mental, and emotional safety for each child.  Here’s a simple list to guide you through a very challenging decision making process which can help you share this news with your children in the most honest and gentle way possible. Learn More...

The Secret to Co-Parenting Success: Shifting from a Personal Relationship to a Parental Relationship

As a Therapist who has spent over a decade working with families and children, I’ve had the great privilege of sharing the various journeys of many, many clients. Some journeys (especially at the end of my work with clients) take a positive turn; I cherish the moments when I see clients thriving and no longer needing therapy for the time being.  Most people, however, begin their work with me at the start of a challenging journey, such as a journey of separation and divorce. Since I specialize in working with children, teens, and parents, the caregivers typically reach out to me after they’ve made decisions to end their relationship. They are oftentimes seeking out support for the purposes of best caring for their children through the transition. Sometimes they need support in developing c0-parenting skills, and sometimes they need support in how to tell their children about the divorce (and most times, both).  If you need help in planning how to tell your children you are separating, this article may be helpful, here. Learn More...

Teaching Our Child the Gift of Independent Play

My partner and I have two children, who are four years apart in age. As anxious and loving new parents, we participated in our oldest child’s play as much as we could, and as early as we could. From infancy, we joined our oldest on the floor to show interest in his world, communicate with him in the language he speaks (play), and demonstrate his importance and value to us.  As a Registered Play Therapist, I teach parents daily about the importance of child’s play and how children learn, problem solve, communicate, express, and work through their feelings, all through play. I also educate families about how much love and significance a child feels when parents join in the activities that bring joy to the child; it builds connection!  And as we know, when children are more connected, they are generally more cooperative. So much good comes from playing with your children! Learn More...

A Day in the Life of a Play Therapist: Attending a Play Therapy Conference

Have you ever wondered what a day at a play therapy conference might look like? I can assure you, it’s a lot of fun! I recently attended a fun Play Therapy Conference focused on Puppets in Play Therapy and Nature Play Therapy. Here are some highlights of the conference. After checking in I found my seat with some colleagues from Creative Family Counseling and some play therapists from Hazard, Ky. We chatted a bit and then our trainer, Jaime Lynn Langely, LCSW, RPT-S, started the class with a fun challenge. She had us list all the ways we might use a small brown paper bag in play therapy. I listed 11 which was the most of all the people in attendance. I won a prize for having the most responses! My clients will definitely use these prizes. This was a great way to start the conference! Learn More...