Jeannette Harroun, Marriage & Family Therapist

Great article by the Association for Play Therapy on play therapy research and outcomes. https://cdn.ymaws.com//pu/Why_Play_Therapy_is_Appropri.pdf

While it's true we have feelings, responding to them and developing an understanding of how others feel (empathy) are LEARNED skills. While I agree with this article, I do think its our responsibility as parents to teach this rather than putting more on schools.

Parents often bring their kids into therapy to learn strategies to manage anxiety and also wanting to know what they can do to help. Kids are facing enormous pressures and need to know we love and support them unconditionally.

Something to think about. Boundaries are good things!

This is very true! And it will often show within their play eg someone getting hurt and needing to go to the hospital, fighting, shouting, beating, bullying with often demonstrate within their play. But it can give you an opportunity to talk with them about what happened.

This is a long but excellent article on the benefits of gratitude. Awesome to realize that we are able to feel better and improve our health by simply being grateful for what we have.!

Such a good article!

Over thinking feeds anxiety.

If you're the parent of a school-age child or teen you've probably been hearing about "growth vs. fixed mindset." While encouraging a growth mindset is great, what I keep hearing from kids sounds like it's already been boiled down to jargon and inspirational quotes rather than actions. So what is a "growth mindset"? As put forth by Carol Dweck, its about putting more of your energy into learning rather than worrying about being smart or talented (i.e., becoming smarter, mo...re intelligent, more talented through time and effort). It's NOT about being open-minded or optimistic (although of course that can help.) The article below, although long, is a good overview and includes ways to develop a growth mindset both for ourselves and (yes, scroll further down) help our kids develop one too. https://positivepsychologyprogram.com/growth-mindset-vs-f/