Martha B Straus, PhD is an emeritus professor of clinical psychology at Antioch University New England. She is the author of seven books including No-Talk Therapy for Children and Adolescents , a book that has truly stood the test of time and is a favorite of mine. Today we are primarily talking about her most recent book Cool, Calm & Connected: A Workbook for Parents and Children to Co-regulate, Manage Big Emotions & Build Stronger Bonds If we are going to help our child who is either v...
Jul 14, 2025•1 hr 5 min•Season 2025Ep. 134
David Russ, PhD is a clinical psychologist specializing in anxiety disorders and is the founding partner of the Carolinas Counseling Group in Charlotte, North Carolina. He and Christopher T McCarthy created the audio program for children Turnaround: Turning Fear into Freedom which I have to be a very useful resource for anxious children. He and Anna S. Christie have written Emetophobia: Understanding and Treating Fear of Vomiting in Children and Adults . For the purposes of this podcast, Dr Russ...
Jun 16, 2025•57 min•Season 2025Ep. 133
In this podcast, I talked with Dr Gordon Flett about the psychology of mattering, a topic in which he has been a leader in the field. Mattering is a core component of one's self concept which refers to a genral sense of being significant, and valued in our relationships. A felt sense of mattering is a strongly protective factor against a variety stressors. Conversely, the absence of mattering has been associated with depression and suicidal ideation. A sense of mattering becomes especially relev...
May 13, 2025•59 min•Season 2025Ep. 132
Lisa Danahy is a registered yoga therapist who recently published Creating Calm in Your Classroom: A Mindfulness-Based Movement Program for Social-Emotional Learning in Early Childhood Education. She also directs www.CreateCalm.org a nonprofit organization dedicated to educational programming for schools, teachers, children and special populations. Although her book is focused on the classroom, it is actually quite appropriate for families and health care professionals. She emphasizes the import...
Apr 28, 2025•46 min•Season 2025Ep. 131
Claudia Gold, M.D. is a developmental pediatrician who has just published her fifth book Getting to Know You: Lessons in Early Relational Health From Infants and Caregivers . She has previously been on this podcast when we talked about her book The Developmental Science of Early Childhood (2017). Dr Gold discusses how early infant-caregiver relationship serve as a prototype for all the relationships that follow. She talks about the importance of just observing your infant and that relationships ...
Apr 07, 2025•50 min•Season 2025Ep. 130
Anna Scetinina, MACP, RP is a psychotherapist in Toronto, ON Canada who has just written A Workbook for Kids Who Worry: 50 Ways to Stand Up To Worry. She is also an award-winning professional artist whose pictures delightfully illustrate the ideas in the workbook She discusses how Acceptance and Commitment Therapy can be used to help anxious children. Her workbook will provide parents, children and therapist with a range of activities that will help children build the skills to tame anxiety....
Mar 24, 2025•50 min•Season 2025Ep. 129
Heather White is the founder of OneGreenThing.org. She has spent over 20 years as a climate activist, including serving as presidential campaign staffer for Al Gore. She has published three books on climate change: One Green Thing: Discover Your Hidden Power to Help Save the Planet, Eco-Anxiety: Saving Our Sanity, Our Kids, and Our Future and 60 Days to a Greener Life: Ease Eco-anxiety Through Joyful Daily Action Heather provides an invitation to discover how you can participate in solving the m...
Mar 14, 2025•41 min•Season 2025Ep. 128
Lenka Glassman, PsyD has just published What To Do When You Panic: A Kid's Guide to Transforming Panic Into Personal Power She has also written a book for middle school children How to Master Your Mood in Middle School She is a clinical psychologist practicing in Bethesda MD and can be found at drlenkaglassman.com Her workbook fills a much needed gap in helping children with intense feelings that really take over. She delightfully engages her school age audience with using "magic tricks" to tame...
Feb 03, 2025•47 min•Season 2025Ep. 127
Ellen Hendriksen, PhD has just published her second book, How To Be Enough: Self-Acceptance for Self-Critics and Perfectionists . I talked previously with Dr Hendrikson on this podcast on 1/30/2023 after she published her first book, How to Be Yourself: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety . In both podcasts, you will find her eloquent and deeply informative. In this podcast we talk about perfectionism and social anxiety. Her new book is fun to read and deeply informative on the...
Jan 14, 2025•44 min•Season 2025Ep. 126
Climate change and the anxiety children may experience learning about it, is a challenging topic. Leslie Davenport is a climate psychology educator and therapist. She has just written What to Do When Climate Change Scares You: A Kid's Guide to Dealing with Climate Change Stress for ages 6-11. For tweens and up she had previously published All The Feelings Under the Sun: How To Deal Climate Change. In this podcast, Leslie Davenport explores some the complex issues around climate change, how we ma...
Jan 06, 2025•51 min•Season 2025Ep. 125
Tovah P. Klein, PhD is an adjunct associate professor of psychology at Barnard College and director of the Barnard College Center for Toddler Development. She has written two books and published numerous journal articles. Her first book, How Toddlers Thrive is absolutely one of my favorite books. She helps us decode toddler behavior which can often be quite baffling and confusing. Her most recent book Raising Resilience could not be more timely. It is about how to do help parent children so that...
Nov 27, 2024•1 hr 5 min•Season 2024Ep. 124
Melanie McNally, PsyD has just published Helping Your Unmotivated Teen: A Parent's Guide to Unlock your Child's Potential. She was seeing a lot of parents complain about how their teens appeared lazy and what she found was it was really a problem in motivation. Dr McNally talked with me about how to think about motivation and what goes into it, She talks about how motivation involves three skillsets: drive, grit and goals and then how to address difficulties with skillset Dr McNally is a license...
Oct 25, 2024•37 min•Season 2024Ep. 123
PDA or Pathological Demand Avoidance, alternatively also called Persistent Demand for Autonomy is a topic that is getting increasing attention in the United States. Ruth Fidler and Diane Gould have just published Navigating PDA in America In this interview, I talk with Diane Gould, LISCW, who founded the PDA North America in 2020, a nonprofit organization dedicated to educating the public about this condition. PDA is viewed as a type of autism in which ordinary demands of everyday life are exper...
Oct 01, 2024•55 min•Season 2024Ep. 122
Anna Housley Juster has just published a delightful book How to Train Your Amydgala, illustrated by Cynthia Cliff. In this interview we talk about her book and how to use it effectively with children. This children's book talks about how befriend the amydgala, our first responder to any threat or danger, and how to talk it down from any false alarm. A book which is both accessible to any child and accurate with regard to the latest neuroscience is going to be an important addition to the books I...
Sep 09, 2024•50 min•Season 2024Ep. 115
In this interview, I talk with Peter Vermeulen about his hypothesis that context blindness is the primary feature of autism. This is a perspective that I think beautifully explains some of the unusual fears and phobias that autistic individuals and thus significantly enlarges our understanding of autism and anxiety. His most recent book with Kobe Vanroy is What Really Works for Children with Autism written especially for parents and teachers. Dr Vermeulen has written over 15 books on autism and ...
Sep 04, 2024•47 min•Season 2024Ep. 114
If you have had more than one child, it is very hard not to realize how important temperament is when it comes to children. It certainly plays a role in the development of anxiety disorders. In today's episode I talk with Drs Lengua and Gartstein about how we need to take temperament into account in raising our children. It is such an important topic that can such a difference in raising our children and helping us really see them as the individuals they are. Liliana J. Lengua, PhD and Maria A. ...
Aug 12, 2024•54 min•Season 2024Ep. 113
Paul DePompo, PsyD, ABPP and Cassandra Moore, LMFT have written Tic'd: a child's guide to defeating tics. Dr DePompo is the founder of the Cogntive Behavioral Therapy Institute of Southern California. Cassandra Moore, LMFT is in private practice specializing in Tourette Disorder, ADHD, mood disorder and and anxiety disorders. They have written a very practical and helpful book for children dealing with a tic disorder. The authors provide an easy to follow sequence of steps to implement, CBIT (Co...
Jul 17, 2024•44 min•Season 2024Ep. 112
Danielle Dick, PhD is the distinguished Commonwealth Professor of Psychology and Human and Molecular Genetics at Virgina Commonwealth University. She is an internationally recognized expert on genetic and environmental influences on human behavior. In this interview, we talk about her book The Child Code. In this book, she provides a interesting review on how genes influence behavior, spoiler alert-there isn't a gene for anxiety-it is more complicated. But more importantly from a parenting persp...
Jul 08, 2024•34 min•Season 2024Ep. 111
Dr Sherryse Corrow is a professor of psychology at Bethel University in St Paul University, Minnesota. She is talking with me today about her research into face-blindness or Prosopagnosia. Developmental Prosopagnosia is a condition that has been estimated to effect 1 in 50 with very profound implications for those with this condition. Quite simply, the world is going to be a much more anxious place if you can't identify faces. Dr Corrow explains how this condition shows up in children, how adult...
Jun 25, 2024•41 min•Season 2024Ep. 110
Kiley Hanish, OTD, PMH-C is a neurodivergent occupational therapist specializing in mental health during the perinatal period which includes pregnancy, postpartum and perinatal loss. She has coauthored "Descriptive Study of the Sensory Experiences of Autistic Mothers as Occupational Beings". Recognizing that the majority of autistic individuals experience sensory processing challenges, this study looks at the challenges autistic mothers face in the transition to parenting. Becoming a parent is a...
Jun 11, 2024•58 min•Season 2024Ep. 109
Jonathan Dalton, PhD is a licensed psychologist who is the founder and director of the Center for Anxiety and Behavioral Change in Rockville, MD. He specializes in the treatment of anxiety disorders in children and adolescents. He is a sought after speaker and passionate advocate of public education concerning mental health issues. In this podcast, Dr Dalton explains anxiety may present differently in neurodivergent children. While a decrease in parental accommodation is a central part of the tr...
May 10, 2024•56 min•Season 2024Ep. 108
Yshai Boussi, LPC is a licensed professional counselor who works with teens and families. Polyvagal theory developed by Steven Porges is a perspective that many clinicians have found very useful. Yshai Boussi has presented this theory in very practical terms that can help parents become more attuned to their teenager and remain more connected to them. To learn more about Yshai Boussi and view his blog https://portlandfamilycounseling.com/about-us/yshai-boussi-lpc/...
Apr 30, 2024•50 min•Season 2024Ep. 107
Lenore Skenazy is the author of Free-Range Kids: How Parents and Teachers Can Let Go and Let Grow and is President of Let Grow , a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting play and independence in children and adolesecence. Ms Skenazy created quite a sensation after her article "Why I Let My 9-Year-Old Ride the Subway Alone" and got labeled "America's Worst Mom". This lead her to start Let Grow which is an invaluable resource for helping schools and parents promote healthy growth promoting ...
Apr 15, 2024•1 hr•Season 2024Ep. 106
Linda K. Murphy is a speech language pathologist who has written two books, Declarative Language Handbook and Co-Regulation Handbook. I found her books wonderful in clarifying how language can either turn the volume up or down on anxiety. Imperative language, those questions or comments that demand a response can create stress or anxiety. In contrast, declarative or descriptive language can help your child achieve a more regulated and open state. In this conversation, we talk about the power of ...
Mar 12, 2024•52 min•Season 2024Ep. 105
Regine Galanti, PhD has just published Parenting Anxious Kids: Understanding Anxiety in Children by Age and Stage. She is the author of several other books aimed at helping children with anxiety such as Anxiety Relief for Teens. She is the founder of Long Island Behavioral Psychology and can be found at https://www.longislandbehavioral.com/team In this interview we have a chance to explore her new book which contains invaluable advice for parents of anxious children at each stage of their develo...
Feb 26, 2024•45 min•Season 2024Ep. 104
Dr Jame Gregory is a clinical psychologist and researcher based at the University of Oxford. She has written with Adeel Ahmod a very helpful book on Misophonia that clinicians, those with misophonia and significant others will truly benefit by. She helps clarify why misophonia often gets attached to a significant person and details a program of therapy that can lessen the severity of this condition. It is really a must read for anyone concerned with this condition, but first listen to the podcas...
Feb 26, 2024•45 min•Season 2024Ep. 103
It was a pleasure to have Natasha Daniels as a return guest on this podcast to talk about her new book Crushing OCD: Workbook Kids. This book is going to be an excellent resource for families and therapists trying to help children with OCD. One of strengths of this book is that it lays out in very digestible units the sequence of steps needed in order to "crush OCD". It is also no small feat the language in this book is very child friendly but always respectful. https://hillchildcounseling.com/ ...
Feb 12, 2024•29 min•Season 2024Ep. 2
Stephen P. H. Whiteside, PhD is a clinical psychologist, Professor of Psychology in the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science, and Director of the Pediatric Anxiety Disorders Prgram at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. His new book will be out in April in which he outlines parent-coached exposure therapy. Unlike other therapy experiences, where children meet alone with a therapist, Dr Whiteside focuses on teaching parents how to help children work on their anxiety or OCD at home. In this i...
Jan 16, 2024•48 min•Season 2024Ep. 101
I had the opportunity to talk with Aimee Kotrba, PhD on the occasion of the release of the second edition of Selective Mutism: An Assessment and Intervention Guide for Therapists, Educators and Parents co-authored with Katelyn Reed, M.S . She is an international expert on the topic of selective mutism and I have used her material frequently with children struggling with selective mutism. Listen to this informative and fun talk with Aimee Kotrba, PhD. Dr Aimee Kotrba, is the owner of Thriving Min...
Dec 19, 2023•43 min
Emily Edlynn, PhD is a clinical psychologist who has just published Autonomy-Supportive Parenting: Reduce Parental Burnout & Raise Competent, Confident Children. As Emily Edlynn explains "This book gives parents a roadmap to move away from hovering and over-helping (burning us out and undermining our kids competence and confidence) to raising self-sufficent children ready for the world. We can all shift from "full service" to "self-service" in our homes by focusing on three fundamental human...
Dec 12, 2023•50 min
