How to Help Your Child Manage Their Anger

Are you finding it difficult to help your kid whose struggling with managing their anger or their acting out behavior? This is very common and this is tough for both the parent and the kid who struggles with anger management. If your kid is experiencing anger outbursts and it’s impacting their daily functioning, it’s important to help them build the emotional tolerance that they need to manage these big feelings. The following are ways that you can help your kid whose struggling with managing their own anger.

Behavioral issues, EmotionsNicole Silverman, LSWMay 17, 2023anger, managing emotions

How Group Therapy Can Help Your Child

Does your child struggle with managing their emotions or maintaining healthy interactions with others? Your instinct may be to enroll them in individual therapy and have them talk to a therapist one-on-one. However, individual therapy is not your only option. Consider group therapy as well! Group therapy might be a better fit, or it may be a helpful supplement to individual therapy sessions. How exactly does group therapy help your child? What are the benefits of this type of therapy compared to a one-on-one session? We’ll explain…

Ways to Help Your Middle-Schooler Manage Anger

Does your child struggle to manage their anger? Do they spiral into fits of anger, with seemingly no way to get through it? Anger is an emotion typically gets a bad reputation because it’s uncomfortable to cope with—especially for kids and teens. But chances are that your child has had their share of “tantrums” without knowing how to respond. We need to help our children understand that it’s normal to be angry at times; it’s part of the variety of emotions they’ll experience in life. It’s what they do with those feelings that matters. Here are some ways to help your pre-teen or teenager understand and cope with anger…

Helping your Child Overcome School Avoidance

Does your child show apprehension or refusal about going to school? If so, they’re not alone. It’s estimated that 10% of kids experience some form of school avoidance. School avoidance could show up in different ways, including significant separation anxiety from a parent, fear of being in a crowded place, social anxiety, bullying, academic challenges, and low self-esteem. When your kids refuse or do their best to avoid school at all costs, it can leave you feeling helpless or frustrated. So what can you do to help your child develop a more positive attitude towards school? Here are some helpful tips…

Talking To Your Teen About Self-Harm

Unfortunately, self-harm is on the rise. 15% of teens and 17-35% of young adults and college-students self-harm, according to recent data. While it can be difficult to talk about, it’s important to create an open dialogue to talk about self-harm and self-injury with your teen or young adult. Having a safe space to discuss this topic, as well as mental health in general, can help you and your young adult deal with this important issue and get treatment, if needed. How do you begin this conversation? And what should the discussion about self-harm look like? Here’s everything you need to know to get the conversation started…

Does your Child Need to See a Therapist?

Parenting can be a roller coaster of a ride. As a parent, you’re there for all the tantrums, the proud smiles, the hugs, as well as the arguments. As these behaviors fluctuate with age, so do your worries over time. What’s considered typical behavior for a young child may become a sign of concern if it’s still demonstrated as a teenager. Over time, it become more challenging to keep up with your child’s evolving need. How do you help when you see your child struggling emotionally? When is it time to seek help from a therapist? Here are some signs and tips to consider…

4 Ways to Help Your Child Cope with Anger

Does your child tend to become frustrated easily? Do they struggle to cope with anger in healthy ways? Anger is a basic emotion that everyone deals with from time to time. We may get angry with situations, with other people, or with ourselves. While it’s natural to feel angry or frustrated, sometimes anger can get overwhelming for kids and teens. It can make them feel like their emotions are out of control. They may not know how to manage such intense feelings. It can cause them to lash out, act up, or respond to anger in other unhealthy ways. Here are some strategies to help you support your child with feelings of anger…

How to Respond to Your Child who Self-Harms

It can be scary to learn that your child is self-harming. It may make you feel anxious, concerned, and confused. You may not know how to respond to self-harm behaviors. Fortunately, you are not alone in helping your child who self-harms. Many licensed therapists are specialists in working with teens who self-harm. There is hope! Seek help immediately if you think your child might be engaging in self-injurious behavior. Here are some steps you can take as a parent to support your child during the process…

Is your Teen Actually Depressed?

It’s hard to tell the difference between typical teen mood swings and depression. Your teen will feel sad or want to isolate themselves at times, or their behavior could be a sign of something more serious. Recognizing depression in your teen will allow you to get them much-needed help. It may be hard to distinguish the difference between typical teen behavior and indicators of depression. To provide clarity, ask yourself the following questions about your teen…

Using Target Behaviors to Spur Positive Change in your Teen

Is your child “stuck” in negative pattern behavior? In a perfect world, you could tell your children what they’re doing wrong and they would actually listen. They would stop procrastinating homework, scrolling mindlessly through social media, or getting emotional when under pressure. Making a change is easier said than done. Whether it be managing time more effectively, being increasingly present in the moment, or staying focused on the task at hand, your teen can make a change for the better. How? By focusing on target behaviors. Let’s explore how your child can use target behaviors to succeed at self-improvement…

What's Causing your Teen's Problem Behavior?

As parents, we know that something is wrong when our teens lash out, act up, or isolate. The tough part is figuring out what they are struggling with and how to solve it. And when the issue at hand is procrastination, anxiety, self-harming, or other problem behaviors, many parents at a loss for where to begin. This is where DBT comes into play. DBT skills like Behavioral Chain Analysis can help you and your teen identify and prevent problem behaviors before they get out of control. With the uncertainty of the school year just around the corner, now is a great time to get a handle on negative patterns of behavior so that they don’t escalate in the weeks to come. Here’s your teen’s guide to identifying and preventing negative behaviors…

Rewiring your Brain for Success

Do you ever wish you could break free of old habits that aren’t working? Making a change is easier said than done. Luckily, recent studies in neuroplasticity are proving that the seeds of change live in all of us. We all have the ability to rewire our brains for success because of neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity is a medical term that describes the brain’s ability to continually create new neural paths, as well as disconnect the paths that are no longer used. Research indicates that these pathways are not set in stone; they can be changed at any time or any age! By rewiring your neural pathways, you can let go of old, unhealthy habits and create new, healthy ones. Here are some ways to harness the power of neuroplasticity and form new roads to success…

How to Check the Facts

Have you ever regretted your response to a situation? In the moment, our initial “knee-jerk” reaction seems like the most compelling option. We yell, run away, or say things that we don’t mean because that’s how we feel in the heat of the moment. While that response is valid, it’s not always the most effective choice. What can you do to think things through before you react on powerful emotions? Try checking the facts. Check the Facts is a DBT skill that helps you change your emotional response and make healthier decisions as a result. Let’s learn about how it works…

Parenting from a Dialectical Approach

It is not uncommon for parents of kids with unpredictable, frequently changing, or intense emotions to struggle with their own emotions when making parenting decisions. Parents tend to get caught in the trap of “extreme” or “black and white” parenting decisions—for example, either being too loose or too strict with rules. There are so many factors involved in making parenting decisions that it isn’t fitting to choose one extreme or the other. Parenting is all about balance—and so is DBT, or Dialectical Behavior Therapy. When you are dialectical, you are able to find balance, like the balance between acceptance and change. Interested in learning more about DBT? This is how you can adopt a dialectical approach in order to make parenting a bit easier…

How to be a Conscious Parent

Parenting can be a struggle sometimes. When your young child is misbehaving, or your teenager’s behavior is out of control, you may naturally feel frustrated, concerned, and unsure of how to respond. While there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to parenting, there are ways to decrease stress (for parents and kids) and help your children grow. One option is conscious parenting. Conscious parenting is a mindful, parent-focused approach to parenting. It essentially says that in order to help our children, we must first help ourselves. For example, when your children act up, conscious parenting encourages you to think about your response and your state of mind before you react. Are you going to act on impulse or respond from a place of calm? Let’s learn more about how to be a conscious parent…

Helping Children with Anger

Everyone feels and expresses their anger from time to time. It’s natural to feel angry or frustrated. Anger is an intense emotion that can be difficult for children, as well as many adults, to deal with. Sometimes anger becomes overwhelming, making us feel like our emotions are out of our control. Therefore, it’s not surprising that anger is a challenging emotion for children. Does your child struggle to manage anger in healthy ways? Does he or she get angered easily or frequently feel frustrated? Here are some strategies to help you support your child with anger…

Helping your Child Overcome School Refusal

For some parents, getting your children to school can be a major struggle. If your child often throws a tantrum or has a meltdown before school, it is possible that he or she has school avoidance, or school refusal. It is more than nagging your kid to get ready for the day; school refusal is a serious emotional problem that is very distressing for both children and parents. School refusal can be attributed to stress inducing situations like bullying, peer pressure, or academic concerns, unhealthy attachments to the parents, or underlying mental health issues, such as anxiety or depression. Therefore, it’s important to begin to understand your child’s school refusal and help him or her overcome it. If your son or daughter is struggling to get to school, or you are starting to see some unhealthy patterns developing, here are some helpful suggestions…

Group is more than just a social hour!

GROUP IS MORE THAN JUST A SOCIAL HOUR.

So much more! Here are three reasons why group IS EFFECTIVE and how it HELPS....

How to Know When it’s Time to Worry about your Teen

As a parent of a teenager, it can be extremely difficult to differentiate between typical teen behavior and atypical, problematic behavior. Teenage behavior can be challenging to deal with, but when does it become extreme? You may not know what is just a phase and what you should really be concerned about. Don’t panic—instead, use these simple techniques to figure it out...

3 Tips to Tell the Difference Between Typical and Unhealthy Teen Behavior

It is sometimes difficult to distinguish normal adolescent mood shifts, reactions or rebellion from verifiable symptoms of depression, as they often mimic each other.

Read more for three quick ways to tell the difference...

Helpful Tips