Parenting

Helping Children Learn About Gender: A Guide for Parents

By Allison Dickens, LPC Happy Pride Month! During this month, alongside the celebrations honoring the LGBTQIA+ community, there may be questions from children about the meaning of some of these acronyms and terms.  Specifically, gender has become a more prominent and important topic to many youths and adolescents.  More and more, young people are questioning…
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Red and Green Flags in Teen Relationships

By Kailani Akana Murphy, LCSW Adolescence comes with a sometimes overwhelming amount of changes, both for the adolescent and for their families. One of the biggest changes is in social relationships and learning how to navigate them. How an adolescent navigates this developmental stage sets up their mental health outcomes later in life and learning…
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Finding the Right Academic Fit for Your Student

By Danielle Taylor, PsyD In NJ, students spend 180 days in school per year. A typical school day is 6-7 hours which means that students spend over 1,000 hours in school each year! This is why it is so important to ensure that you find an academic environment that is the right fit for your…
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Back to School Tips To Prepare For A Successful School Year

by Liza Ibrahim, LPC Summer is still in full swing with a few weeks left to enjoy the sun, family vacations, and the outdoors, but starting off a new school year can be stressful for both the student and parents. It can bring a mixture of emotions including anticipation, excitement, and worry. Every family can…
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Navigating Gender & Identity with your Kids

by Allison Dickens, LPC Happy Pride Month!  I hope all reading this have a joyful month full of celebration and self-exploration. As we come to the close of this important month, it’s important to remember that the conversation about gender and identity continues throughout the year.  As a parent, it is common to feel confused…
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SPACE Treatment: Helping your Child Overcome Anxious Emotions

By Allison Dickens, LPC Parenting, at the best of times, is hard work.  Parenting a child who struggles with anxious emotions can feel confusing, scary, and frustrating for all involved.  Further, as parents it is easy to feel that you are failing your anxious child by not responding appropriately to their emotional distress.  Traditionally, therapy…
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Talking to our Kids & Teens about Drugs & Alcohol

by Allison Dickens, LPC As the weather warms up, days get longer, and your kids start spending later nights with friends, it is natural to begin to wonder what they are doing and whether they are making good choices.  As a parent, the thought of your child, no matter how old they are, learning about…
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Surviving Perfectionism

By Jennifer Pitman, LCSW Marcus is an incredibly intelligent 16 year old who attends a highly competitive school. He has always loved playing basketball, but now wants to quit despite his talent and love for the game. Always a very smart child, Marcus frequently delves into topics of interest to him, but when it comes…
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The Parenting Shift: Adjusting to the Covid-19 Pandemic

by Gina McShreffrey Emmons, PhD Parenting on a normal day is difficult, but parenting during a quarantine is on a whole other level. Many of us have been thrown into really challenging situations during this time. We are trying to work remotely and maintain our professional roles from home while simultaneously homeschooling our children, or…
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