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Trauma from childhood is, in essence, an injury to the ability connect with people. And that's why so many people who were traumatized as kids experience loneliness throughout their lives -- sometimes even when they're surrounded by people. In this post I share a 10-minute video excerpted from my online course "Healing Childhood PTSD." it's all about loneliness and disconnection, and how to reconnect again. READ THE POST AND WATCHED HERE.

Children as young as 3 can be clinically depressed, and often that depression recurs as kids get older and go to school. It also can reappear during adolescence and throughout life. But new research from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis demonstrates that an interactive therapy involving parents and their depressed children can reduce rates of depression and lower the severity of children’s symptoms. The findings are published June 20 in The American Journal of...

Excerpt from Washington Post article written by Rene Denfeld: Full article.

“Nobody would believe what an effort it is to do what little I am able” – Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the Yellow Wallpaper, 1892 It is wonderful to see the birth of a child greeted with warm enthusiasm and support. We celebrate the joy of a growing family, and the excitement of a new life. Relatives and friends often provide gifts and extra help. But for some new moms, motherhood brings on many complex emotions besides the happy ones. While we may greet a new baby with happiness and delight –...

More than one in four fathers in the United States who have children 18 or younger now lives apart from their children, according to Pew. A movement is growing toward shared parenting or at least collegial “co-parenting” that recognizes the importance of having two parents in children's lives. And in states like Virginia and Kentucky, legislation was recently passed to encourage joint custody. At the same time, federal health officials, educators, doctors, social workers and researchers are...

My response is often: "Parents are often living and parenting in a manner which is very similar to the way they (couple) were parented and sometimes because they have experienced adversity in childhood, in a fight, flight or freeze mode that has not been addressed." You don’t know what you don’t know.

Smartphones have by now been implicated in so many crummy outcomes —car fatalities, sleep disturbances, empathy loss, relationship problems, failure to notice a clown on a unicycle—that it almost seems easier to list the things they don’t mess up than the things they do. Our society may be reaching peak criticism of digital devices. [For more of this story, written by Erika Christakis, go to https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/07/the-dangers-of-distracted-parenting/561752/]

The kind of father you become can be heavily influenced notions you don’t even know you have the day your child is born. For better or worse, it’s impossible to enter life as a parent unaffected by the framework and culture of your upbringing. It’s your starting point. I was exposed as a young boy to many different models of fatherhood from various sources on TV, at the movies, in my family, and around the neighborhood: the quiet, aloof dad who comes home from work and is left alone to sit...

"Even though I was getting A's and B's, mostly A's, in all my classes — all my honors classes — I still felt it wasn't good enough," Savannah says. No matter how well she did, someone else was doing better. "The pressure I put on myself was out of control," she says. She says she felt the pressure all around her — from peers, teachers and her parents. Newfound awareness of these kinds of struggles, has started a conversation — and new initiatives — in her community. A group of parents is...

The recent deaths of high-profile public figures and a new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report on rising suicide rates have brought the topic of suicide into everyday conversations. It’s important to know some facts and to know what to do if you think someone might be at risk for self-harm. A crisis can pass with time and the most important thing is to stay safe through the crisis and get help. 5 Action Steps for Helping Someone in Emotional Pain Ask: “Are you thinking...

Mothers who ‘connect’ with their baby during pregnancy are more likely to interact in a more positive way with their infant after it is born, according to a study carried out at the University of Cambridge. Interaction is important for helping infants learn and develop. Researchers at the Centre for Family Research carried out a meta-analysis, reviewing all published studies in the field, in an attempt to demonstrate conclusively whether there was a link with the way parents think about...

In 2014, 63 percent of fathers who lived at home with a child ages 0 to 18 reported eating dinner with their child every day; an additional 27 percent reported doing the same at least several times a week. Only 8 percent of these fathers reported sharing dinner about once a week, less than once a week, or never. Positive involvement from fathers is linked to many benefits for children , including better self-esteem, lower levels of depression, and greater academic success. This involvement...