Category: Blog Posts

It’s only natural for your child to feel anxious about the new school year. And if your children have ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder), AS (Asperger’s Syndrome), or ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) they need extra help to transition into the new routine. Yes, it might be tempting to put off back-to-school preparations, however the more you prepare your child the easier it will be on you, your child and the teachers. Here are a few reminders to make this process easier…Be Positive
You can help ease their worries by always speaking positively about returning to school. Get them excited about that they’re going to learn. Help them remember what they enjoyed from previous years.

Make Appointments Early
Does your child need to see his doctor, dentist, or optometrist? How about teachers and administrators you need to talk with before school starts? It relieves a lot of stress to get these appointments taken care of well before the school year starts.

Get into the School Routine
Routine is so important for children with ASD and ADD. A month before school starts, review class materials that your child likes for a scheduled time each day, gradually increasing the time and adding more difficult materials so your child transitions from the carefree summer to the classroom structure. Also gradually shift wake up time and bedtime to match what your child needs to function well at school.

Involve Your Child in Back-to-School Preparation
Let them go school shopping with you so they can pick out things they like. Work together as you assemble their backpacks. Talk about what they’d like to eat for lunch and snacks. And the night before school starts, help them lay out the clothes they want to wear.

Visit the School
Introduce your child to as many people as possible – the teacher, principal, office staff, school nurse, teacher assistants, custodians. Alert them to your child’s special needs and how they can assist you.

I really recommend that you put together a packet about your child for the teacher.  Make sure to include your teacher in the Behavioral Plan for your child.

For additional back to school and safety tips, visit the American Academy of Pediatrics – Back To School Tips. My website also has information about Parenting a Child with ADD.

Up until now the diagnosis of brain disorders could be confused because Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Traumatic Brain Injury share common symptoms such as insomnia, irritability, and anxiety. Happily, I’ve just received a notification from Dr. Daniel Amen that their studies now confirm that brain scans detect the differences between Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Traumatic Brain Injury. That is exciting news!

This means that the 7 million+ PTSD sufferers and 2 million brain injury sufferers every year in the U.S. will receive better diagnosis and treatment.

How do researchers distinguish between the two brain disorders?

They use SPECT Imaging (single photon emission computed tomography) to measure blood flow and activity in 128 different brain regions. As Dr. Amen describes it, “SPECT can tell TBI and PTSD apart because these disorders affect the brain in different ways. TBI involves damage to the brain from direct blows or blast injuries, leading to reduced brain activity and blood flow. PTSD involves hyperactive reactions to different stimuli leading to brain scan patterns where blood flow is abnormally higher compared to TBI or normal health.”

Can brain damage from PTSD and TBI be reversed? Improvements can be made. The use of therapy, medicines, whole foods, vitamins and supplements can heal the brain. This is the type of holistic health regimen that I often use with clients. If you live near Portland, OR/Vancouver, WA please contact my office and schedule an appointment to get your life back.

Learn more about holistic healing on my website – Mind and Body: Holistic Health and Psychotherapy Options.

 How can you protect yourself when you’re dating online?

First, watch out for scammers. Unfortunately many older singles in their 50’s and 60’s are being scammed out of their life’s savings! The New York Times reported recently, “Between July 1 and Dec. 31, 2014, nearly 6,000 people registered complaints of such confidence fraud with losses of $82.3 million.” The real number is much larger because many are too embarrassed to admit it happened to them, which allows the criminals to perpetrate their scam on someone else.

What are some warning signs to watch out for when dating online? The F.B.I. gives the following alerts:

“1. Be cautious of people who claim that the romance is destiny or fate and that you are meant to be together.

2. Beware if a person tells you they love you and cannot live without you, but they need you to send them money so they can visit you. And if you do not send them money or help them, they will claim you do not love them.

3. Swindlers typically claim they are originally from the United States (or your region) but now are overseas, or are going overseas, attending to business or family matters.”

The AARP network recommends that you use Google’s “search by image” to see if the suitor’s picture appears on other sites with different names. Also, if an email from a potential suitor seems suspicious they recommend that you copy and paste it into Google and see if the words pop up on any romance scam sites.

What about protecting your heart when you’re dating online? I often advise singles to make a list of the qualities you’re looking for in a prospective partner. Be as picky as you want. If he or she is to fit nicely into your life, then you need to be specific. Don’t compromise. List everything your heart desires from physical appearance, to political beliefs, to leisure interests, to favorite foods. It’s all important. In fact, it’s often the small details that make or break a relationship so put them all on your list, big and small.

After you make your list, ask yourself if this list is a good match for you. Remember opposites attract, but the best partners are much like ourselves. If your list describes your opposite, you might want to rework it.

If you are recently divorced or widowed, it can be scary thinking about dating again. But you don’t have to be alone. There are safe ways to find romance by getting support from a psychologist who specializes in relationship development. If you live near Portland, OR/Vancouver, WA please contact my office and schedule an appointment so we can explore your options.

Read more on my website: Advise for Singles.

Most entrepreneurs are so caught up in the passion of their enterprise that they rarely plan ahead for the wealth that accumulates. As a result, when it comes time to develop an estate plan, many entrepreneurs are at a loss for where to start.

It would seem that the logical place to start is with your attorney, CPA, investment advisor or banker. However, while all of these professionals should play a part in the development of your estate plan eventually, the first stop on the way to a successful estate plan is the psychologist’s office to deal with the soft side of the family business. Many an estate plan has been left undeveloped because the interpersonal relationships in the family were counter to the best interests of the business.

Family firms are a system of family members, in-laws, shareholders and stakeholders. These systems interact with vendors, customers, employees, and the commercial community at large. It’s a delicate balance to maintain a successful business and a successful family enterprise when the systems are integrated into a family firm. The stress on the system becomes even greater when it’s time to develop a plan for the continuity of the business and the family, and a fair apportionment of wealth. If the family doesn’t have mature and healthy interpersonal relationships, the process of estate planning can be costly, painful and unsuccessful.

Consider for example a CEO who is about to retire. He has two daughters and wants to gives each daughter an equal share. One daughter has worked with him for years. The other daughter has never worked for her father but now that he’s retiring, she and her husband want to take a more active position in the company. The first daughter feels she deserves to continue as the president of the company. And she is not pleased about her sister’s new interest. Nor does she like her father’s decision to treat them equally. Where this family once got along fine, a new problem is growing that they never had to face before. How would you are your advisors handle this “hot potato”?

To create an estate plan that truly integrates the success of the family and the firm, it’s necessary to seek the help of a psychologist who understands the soft side of families and particularly those families who are in business together. Cleaning up root interpersonal problems is essential to the development of a meaningful estate plan that doesn’t increase family conflict. For example, with the help of a psychologist, the father with two daughters learned that “fair” was more appropriate than “equal” when it came to dividing the wealth and the business with his daughters.

If you have worked hard to create an enterprise you can be proud of and want to pass a legacy onto your children and grandchildren, first evaluate the soft side of your family system for any unresolved issues. Then take these concerns to a psychologist trained to help with untangling family knots and reweaving a healthy family/business tapestry. If you live near Portland, OR/Vancouver, WA please contact my office and schedule an appointment.

Back in the 90’s I made the statement

, “Women mentoring and mentoring women will undoubtedly insure a strong female leadership in the 21st century.” This has certainly proved true as more women discover the value of working with 

business coaches and life coaches to build the lives they want to live.

Women, just as men need to be wise to the politics of corporate life. They need to have professional credentials and skills if they want a good salary or to achieve that promotion. It’s just that women take things personally so those personal needs must be addressed.

My research has found that, for women, getting to know oneself in relationship to others is the foundation of life. Mentoring for them is about developing relationships and about learning as much from the protégé as from the mentor. It’s collaboration, a dialogue, an evolving and developing process leading both women into a deeper relationship as well as a more advanced stage of life.

In the past the mentor was a cherished grandmother, aunt, older sister or neighbor who took the young woman under her wings and showed her the ropes. With so many fractured families this support system isn’t always available.

If there is no woman to mentor her, no mentor to relate to her personally, a young woman may hold herself back from accomplishment because of lack of confidence or lack of a mirror to show her she’s on the right track. That’s why being a mentor, or finding one, can be the key to success.

So just what does a mentor teach? Mentoring can cover the gamut of female behavior from dressing for success to litigation tactics to canning vegetables to dating etiquette. If you’re considering mentoring, don’t limit your options to the traditional male arena. We owe it to the next generation to teach what we know. Your young protégé needs to learn how to be a woman, not just an attorney or an artist.

Principally a mentor will encourage her to believe in herself. However, young women are still in great need of learning about the career possibilities there are in the world, so if you have a unique specialty, tout it. Let young women know that there are new and exciting career realms to explore.

Please join me on my Facebook page and share your story of how a mentor helped you.