Category: Blog Posts

There are a growing number of stay-at-home dads – up to 2 million in 2012. According to Pew Research Center 8% of homes have single fathers. Can a father bond with his child as strongly as the maternal bond at birth? And does it matter if the child is his biological child?

These questions were asked and answered in CNN’s story, Dads’ brains are ready to bond with kids. It discusses the finding from the largest parental brain study to date. The scientists wanted to determine how male and female brains function differently as parents, and more specifically, how men’s brains are changed by fatherhood. What did they discover?

The amygdala, which regulates emotional response and allows the maternal bond to occur quickly, became highly active in mothers after giving birth. The months of pregnancy accelerate this connection.

Secondary caregiving fathers’ brains showed a strong response in the neural network that regulates social cognitive processing.
Primary caregiving fathers activated both of the above-mentioned areas of the brain after a short time.

Being the primary caregiving parent activated the most response. Professor of psychology and lead researcher, Ruth Feldman concluded, “There’s something really strong that makes mothers bond with the infant right when they’re born. Fathers need a little more work for that to happen.”

Across the board, they found that fathers, whether primary and secondary caregivers, increased amygdala activation when they increased their time taking caring of the child. It didn’t matter if the child was biological or adopted.

Ever one of the five key areas of being a good parent takes time – listening, consistency, teaching, modeling, and loving. Now we have scientific proof that it takes time to change the brain in order to form that close bond with your child. If you don’t feel close to your children today, perhaps it would be good to ask yourself, “How much time am I spending with each child?”

Read more on my website: Adoptive Families and Parenting.

The legalization of marijuana is a hotly debated political issue. Recreational use of marijuana is legal in Colorado and Washington State. At this date, medical use is legal in Oregon as well as 20 other states, plus DC. I appreciate that in The NY Times article, Legal Marijuana for Parents, but Not Their Kids, they discuss not the legal or ethical issues, but the more important health issues attendant on this subject.

How is the legalization of marijuana affecting our children? It certainly sends mixed messages to our children. At the very least they’re going to ask, “Why is it okay for you, but not for us?” It concerns me that they may perceive that it’s now a harmless substance for them to use. However, that is far from the truth. Evidence shows that the brains of young people are still developing until their early 20s and youths who start using marijuana are at risk to long-term problems. Their likelihood of addictive behavior increases and their cognitive functions decrease.

A long-term study based in New Zealand found that “teens who smoked marijuana heavily and continued the practice into adulthood lost an average of eight I.Q. points by age 38 that could not be fully restored”. A Canadian study published in 2002 agrees that heavy marijuana use by teens results in lower cognitive abilities.

The article quotes Mr. Pasierb, the chief executive of the Partnership for Drug-Free Kids, “We know that 90 percent of adults who are addicted began use in teenage years. They programmed the reward and drive center of their teenage brain that this is one of those things that rewards and drives me like food does, like sex does.”

As a psychologist who specializes in the holistic health approach, I see daily evidence that what people choose to drink, eat, or smoke greatly affects the complex interactions between mind and body. I urge parents to discuss this issue seriously with your adolescents. They need to learn how to take control of their lives and learn how to achieve optimum mental and physical health and wellness.

If your teens are struggling with the pressures of life and you’re afraid they’re turning to unhealthy means of coping, please don’t hesitate to contact my Portland, OR/Vancouver, WA office and make an appointment today. What they chose to do now will affect the rest of their lives. Let’s help them make positive choices that support them in building happy and productive lives.

Read more on my website – Holistic Health.

How do you blunt the stress of parenting a child with disabilities? Do you feel like you can’t take time for yourself? A recent NY Times article, When the Caregivers Need Healing, reminds us all that it’s vital for caregivers to make time for themselves so they have enough emotional and physical strength to continue to care for others.

All parents experience stress-filled moments when raising their children. However, parents of children with autism often experience more stress, depression and anxiety. That’s in part because the care for their autistic child is relentless – day in and day out for the rest of their lives. Plus there are the worries over how to pay for the necessary therapies.

Dr. Fred R. Volkmar, the director of Child Study Center at Yale University School of Medicine sums the situation up, “Having a child that has a disability is all-encompassing. You can see how people would lose themselves.” The article reports that researchers at Vanderbilt University tested the effectiveness of mindfulness training and positive adult development as solutions for the stress of being a caregiver.

The study did not focus on sharpening parental skills, but rather on teaching parents to tackle their stress in positive ways that helped them accept life as it is. Both methods resulted in significant reductions in stress, depression, insomnia and anxiety. Which method worked best?

The ones in the mindfulness treatment group who practiced meditation, breathing exercises, and qigong saw greater improvement than those who received positive adult development training on curbing negative thoughts, practicing gratitude and reclaiming life as an adult.

What solution is best for your specific circumstances? Enlist the help of a trained psychologist to help you create a strategy for managing the stress you deal with daily. I also share in both of my books invaluable, practical tips that I’ve drawn from years of experience helping families to thrive despite the affects of Asperger’s. If you haven’t grabbed your copies yet, now would be a very good time to do so.

Life with a Partner or Spouse with Asperger Syndrome: Going Over the Edge? is available on Amazon and AAPC Publishing.

Out of Mind – Out of Sight: Parenting with a Partner with Asperger Syndrome (ASD) is available in Kindle edition and paperback.

Read more on my website: Depression and Stress.

Do you have a hard time getting your teens out of bed? Especially with a new school year beginning, getting enough sleep can become an issue. A recent CNN article, “Doctors: Early school start times unhealthy for students”, suggests that schools shouldn’t start before 8:30am. They support this by a recent statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics, which recommends that adolescents get 8 ½ to 9 ½ hours of sleep per night.

They link sleep deprivation in adolescents to poor academic performance, traffic accidents, depression, and obesity because they tend to eat more carbohydrates and fats. Children have even been misdiagnosed with ADHD when it’s really a sleep disorder.

They’ve found that students who get to sleep before midnight and have a later start time at school tend to be more alert and emotionally and mentally stable. They also have better attendance and academic performance and fewer car crashes.

What can parents do to help their teens get enough rest?

After years of building a successful business, many owners want to keep it in the family. That brings up the difficult issue of succession. Perhaps your children and grandchildren have grown up with the business. And as they’ve gained abilities, they’ve become valuable members of the family firm. While your children may be highly skilled in their particular specialty, do they have what it takes to lead your team to excellence in your industry?

The qualities of a leader are many. And to some extent the type of leadership style that works in one setting may not work in another. What is common to all successful leaders however, is the ability to communicate with his or her subordinates, colleagues and superiors. The confident leader communicates this confidence and encourages the best from others.

Leaders of family firms who want the best for their families and their business confront the problem of cultivating leadership openly and honestly. They insist on training the next generation in the development of problem solving skills, communication skills, confrontation skills as well as the skills of the specific product manufactured. They also need what I call “the resilience factor“, which embraces the qualities of flexibility, a win-win philosophy, quality over quantity, toughness, and foresight.

There are a variety of strategies for ensuring that the second generation in family firms is prepared. The strategy that fits for you depends upon the business, the parent’s skills and personality and the skills and personalities of the children.

The child needs an environment where they must prove themselves capable of leadership in the family business. For some this means leaving the business for awhile and working elsewhere. For others, it means getting an education before returning to the family business. Another child may benefit by working their way up from the “mailroom” with no preferential treatment from the parents. Finally, some children will be better family members and more capable adults if they never return to the family business.

There are two goals in family firms. One is to develop a thriving business. The second is to develop healthy independent adults who can contribute to society.

Keep in mind that the business can be successful without the child and the child can be successful without the business. That is, set your sights on accomplishing both goals independent of each other, and you may be surprised how they come together in the long run.

Often it helps to get an objective view of your family and business. A psychologist is skilled at helping you sort out your choices and get clear on your objectives when making big decisions in life. If you’re ready to gain that kind of clarity in your own life, make an appointment with my Portland, OR/Vancouver, WA office.

Why do we pick specific people to be our friends and spouse? New research shows that it’s because our nose can detect genetic similarities and differences in the people that you meet. Not only that, but your nose attracts you to the ones that are more genetically compatible with you.A recent CNN article, We’re genetically linked to our friends, discusses a study that suggests we are attracted to people who are more genetically like us. They quote James Fowler, coauthor of the study and professor of medical genetics and political science at UC San Diego, “Looking across the whole genome, we find that on average, we are genetically similar to our friends. We have more DNA in common with the people we pick as friends than we do with strangers in the same population.”

He and his coauthor Nicholas Christakis, professor of sociology, evolutionary biology and medicine at Yale, have spent the last ten years searching for the biological explanation behind how we interact socially.

What have they learned?

They found that our DNA dictates the social activities we enjoy. Hence our friends, who enjoy the same things, do so because they are genetically like us. And the genes that most greatly impact our choices are the olfactory (sense of smell) genes and the genes controlling our immune system.

Another CNN article from 2011, The power of smell in picking sex partners, discussed two other studies that corroborate these findings. We all have a unique “odor print” like we have a unique fingerprint. That “odor print” is found in the part of the gene responsible for immune response known as the Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC). Women prefer the scent of men whose MHCs are different from their own.

This contributes to people finding marriage mates that they are compatible with, who like to do the same things, while at the same time are able to avoid inbreeding and thereby can produce stronger immune systems in their children. What a unique way to keep the human race as healthy as possible! How interesting to learn that we use our nose to pick those we’re closest to.

Humans are so complex in the way everything must function harmoniously. When something gets out of balance our emotions, thinking and actions can become uncontrolled and erratic. That’s why it’s so important to approach mental health issues with a holistic approach – treating the whole person and including nutrition, exercise and proper sleep in that treatment. If you live in the Portland, OR/Vancouver, WA area and would like to consult with me about how a holistic approach can help you achieve optimum mental health, please contact my office and schedule an appointment.

Read more on my website – Holistic Health and Advice for Singles.