As your child’s first and best teacher, your involvement in the therapeutic process can make all the difference for their progress! After all, you interact with your child everyday and provide many learning opportunities. No matter your child’s age or the goals they...
Parenting

What is Mindful Parenting?
We spend 40% of our time awake, lost in thought. Almost half of our lives are not spent in the present moment. Mind-wandering isn't totally bad but can be harmful since we are prone to negative rumination (i.e., catastrophic thinking, what if thinking, etc.). This can...

What exactly is a “parent session”?
What is a parent session? At Individual & Family Connection, we value parent involvement throughout a child’s treatment. Therefore we structure our treatment to include time for 'parent sessions' every 4 weeks. This will be a time for you to sit down with your...

How to respond when your kid feels “fat”
Feeling fat in Kindergarten The first time I felt fat was at 6-years-old. I was in the school nurse's office with a bellyache, waiting for my dad to pick me up when I caught a glimpse of my bloated belly in a mirror. Despite my stomach ache, I began to run around the...

What is going on with my teen?
Have you ever wondered or even worried about what is going on with your teen’s behavior? Mood swings, falling for peer pressure, questioning the meaning of life, expressing themselves through wild hairstyles, and perhaps the scariest for a parent...engaging in...
How to Create a Social Story
Where to use a social story As therapists we love creating social stories together with our clients. We see the benefit of social stories in helping reduce anxiety, worry, and frustration in our clients and we would love to see parents using them at home too! Social...

Top 10 Parenting Wins of the Pandemic
It is hard to feel like you're winning at much of anything as a parent right now. As a parent myself, I know the guilt that follows with every mistake we make, when our child has a set back, or especially when our kids are struggling and we just don’t know why. This...

Rude tween responses & how to change them
Familiar with any of these rude teen responses? “It’s whatever”[Big Sigh]“I am fine”“I don’t care”[Eye roll] Desperate to see more of your sweet kid again? These 5 tips will help you reconnect with your tween and respond to their rude attitude without adding fuel to...

End bedtime battles… even in a pandemic
Battles surrounding bedtime is not a new phenomenon. Families around the world experience their child’s determination and persistence when it comes to bedtime. Challenges might include refusing to begin their bedtime routine, asking for endless more stories, or just...

Screen Time Safety Tips
We all know the dangers that lurk online and it is important to consider how to make screen time safe for children who may be impulsive, desperate to connect, lonely, or otherwise at risk. It is never too late to have a conversation about screen time safety, but it is...