In the wake of another tragic school shooting (the 28th of this abbreviated academic year, according to the New York Times), we again find ourselves searching for answers and, too often, coming up empty. Once again, there are lives lost, and young minds forever altered. Video evidence suggests that, though the surviving students may have [...]
I’m a lucky man in most every way. I have a beautiful family, and we share a beautiful life together. I have a career that is entirely fulfilling and has allowed me to create new bucket lists all the time, previous goals, hopes and aspirations being eclipsed in ways I still find breathtaking. In my [...]
I woke up the Monday before Christmas to the alarming news of two suicides in my area in the past 48 hours, one a high school student, and one a dad. Three family crisis calls awaited me on voice mail as well, kids and parents who reached a tipping point of emotional difficulties reaching out. [...]
I’ve never been a big Thanksgiving guy. I find the meal to be bland, every element of it. Turkey? Eh. Gravy? Intestinal concrete. Mashed potatoes. Paste. Cranberry sauce is particularly morbid to me. I find the celebration, and often the conversation, to be forced. And it feels weird to be preparing and dining on a [...]
It’s Sunday night, late. Election day is Tuesday. Julie just pointed out the degree to which I’ve been all over the map emotionally today. I’m on Twitter running numbers in swing states. I’m optimistic. I’m watching morning news. I’m crestfallen. I’m listening to Matthew McConaughey on a podcast. I’m allright allright allright, until I remember [...]
For my clients, myself and my family, 2020 has offered a patchwork quilt of emotions, most of them painfully negative, the vast majority of which we could never have predicted as we rang in the new year. If I extrapolate my findings, we are a jittery, anxious, depressed, pre- and post-traumatic populace, white-knuckling through the [...]
Dudes: Would you find it absurd, after 20 years of marriage, if a guy told you he still finds his wife really hot? Peculiar that she gets his heart beating perceptibly quicker every day? Odd that he'd still be fired up to see, even talk to her, after a long day at work? Would you [...]
In my work, I’ve been encouraging parents lately to communicate to their children via text. I’ve encountered abundant resistance to doing so, from “We Johnsons don’t communicate that way. We talk to each other,” to “I get headaches trying to focus on those damn little buttons.” But there is an increasing recognition that texting is [...]
In my clinical practice, I see frequent referrals in which parents are deeply concerned with their teen's overuse of electronics. They cite myriad fears and concerns, including stress, lack of attention to schoolwork, too little face-to-face contact with others, a decrease in social skills, and brain damage. Their concerns are not unfounded. In fact, I [...]
Yeah, you've probably envisioned the perfect morning. Cup of coffee out on the deck at sunrise, perhaps. Deep-breathing and yoga stretches? A gentle jog through the woods? When you're a parent, those ideal mornings tend to fall away for an hour or two that tends to be a bit more, say, chaotic. More like a [...]