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I want to discuss boundaries today from two different perspectives: boundaries or the lack thereof often observed in children with chronic trauma histories and boundaries for you as caretaker. This won’t be easy. It won’t be easy for me and it won’t be easy for you. Promise. Boundaries serve us and protect us. They organize... Read More

How do we prepare a young human to enter the adult world ready to participate? Let’s take a few minutes to look a little closer at our parental roles with an eye to which ones work toward this goal and which work against it. Those that are critical for children under 7 must yield to... Read More

I’m continually amazed by how much time I spend considering the human condition. As a child, I remember thinking that my family was one of a kind and that Leave it to Beaver was showing me what all other families were like. My aspirations tended toward helping teens realize their power to live lives vastly... Read More

It’s humbling to consider what’s happening in the brain of an infant. Even before birth, a fetus is shaped by its mother’s rhythms—walking, sleeping, talking—as well as her emotions and the substances she ingests, from caffeine to sedatives. These experiences can cause obvious outcomes like neonatal withdrawal, but also subtler, long-term neurological changes. Parents who... Read More

Tears 101 I’ve mentioned before the value of daily meditation. Well, this morning found me looking for a guided meditation that promised a less self-destructive dopamine hit than I’d been enjoying all week. I’ve been getting waaay too much this week by eating waaay too many sweets while wallowing in grief. I was desperate for... Read More

Whose Fault Is It? My 11-year-old granddaughter urgently asked me to take her to get two cocoas before she left for an event Saturday. Up here in Flagstaff, there were about 6 inches of snow on the ground. It was cold! When I declined to leave the warmth of my house and the project I... Read More

WHERE DO I COME FROM? Call me Cathy. Cathy with a C, please. I have a vague memory that I was named after my dad’s former girlfriend. I was my mother’s 5th pregnancy, first live birth. I am my dad’s second born; a half sister was 6 years older. I had 3 younger sisters. We... Read More

Leaving the Nest: Adulting 101 I may have said this before, but just to be sure: being the parent of a teen wasn’t easy, but it paled in comparison to parenting a 20-plus-year-old. As long as they were living at home, I could tell myself that I knew they were safe at least part of... Read More

Parenting Older Teens I heard Alan Alda (of Mash fame) say that being a parent is like watching ea cheesy horror film. As you watch that teenager open the door to the spooky basement to investigate the source of a disconcerting noise, all you can really do is watch and helplessly throw popcorn at the... Read More

Kid Power 101 Last fall, I spent a week with a friend I hadn’t seen in 40 years. To my great relief, what we loved about each other as teens survived the ensuing years of our very different lives. As we each told stories to “catch up”, I realized that in spite of great tragedy... Read More