Fathers are a big part of our lives, as they raise us and teach us about life — both directly and indirectly. There’s a lot to love about our fathers, but they are often also someone with great potential to do us emotional harm. As research shows, having a strong…
Trauma can have huge impacts on the life of the person who experienced it, but it can also have echoes in families for generations. Generational trauma occurs when someone experiences a traumatic event and the impact it has on that person is “passed down” or continues to be experienced by…
Few other psychological conditions affect an individual’s ability to function quite like abandonment issues. Often formed in response to a traumatic or neglectful childhood experience, abandonment issues can wreak havoc on the emotional and external lives of both children and adults who struggle to see their own value and to…
As toddlers and young children, we quickly and naturally form strong emotional bonds with our parents or caretakers. As a result, being apart from them at an early age is often accompanied by a level of anxiety. These feelings of distress are a normal stage of childhood development—but sometimes, our…
ADHD in teens can create unique struggles and issues at school as well as at home. On top of all the exciting and sometimes scary changes teens experience, ADHD can sometimes make middle school and high school life more complicated. For teens who have already been diagnosed, their ADHD symptoms…
Father’s Day is all about Dad—showing him just how special he is and how much of an impact he’s made on your life. Whether you connect with him by reminiscing about old family memories or taking the day to create new ones, Father’s Day is the perfect time to reflect…
About one in six kids in the United States struggle with a treatable mental health disorder, and only half of them get the professional help they need. As a parent or caregiver, you provide consistent support for your child. You help teach them how to navigate life’s challenges. An important…
This is not a fun topic to write about. Parent-child breakups are painful for everyone involved: for the adult children who feel torn between filial duty and self-protection; for the toxic parents who can’t understand what they did wrong; and even for the children those parents once were, who were…
For every Taylor Swift flourishing artistically during the pandemic, there are millions of suffering and burnt-out people who aren’t composing songs or painting portraits or writing novels. What have they been doing instead? Well, if they’re anything like me, they’ve been drowning in domestic labor, work, anxiety, childcare, and other…
Imagine that you have a two-year-old daughter. She’s happily playing with toy construction equipment in a sandbox. Then, out of left field, she says, “When I was a grownup I used to drive a forklift like this one. Except mine was orange and had the number five on it. Once…
Starting in the mid-20th century, father figures in pop culture, especially those portrayed on TV, have been characterized with negative attributes. Don’t be mistaken; there’s comedic gold to be mined from the blunders of characters like Bernie McCullough in “The Bernie Mac Show,” Hank Hill in “King of The Hill,”…
When we think about or discuss mental health topics such as depression, our minds tend to zero in on what the individual with the mental health condition is going through. But what about those closest to them—like their children? As a mental health condition that can leave sufferers feeling distant…
