Articles & Perspectives
From the team at Direction Behavioral Health Associates
These articles explore parenting, child and adolescent mental health, education, relationships, and human development. They reflect ideas developed through more than two decades of work with children, adolescents, families, schools, and treatment programs. Some are practical, some are philosophical, and some are personal, but all are intended to help people think more clearly about raising healthy, capable young adults.
Leadership Principles
Parenting requires a balance between providing support and allowing children to take increasing responsibility for their own lives. Direction’s Leadership Principles offer a practical framework for doing that—and for knowing when to step back and when to step in.
You can view the full list of Leadership Principles here.
Over the long run, one of your greatest assets as a parent is having a child who believes that, even when the two of you disagree, you are fundamentally on the same team.
Much of good parenting involves learning when not to interfere.
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One of the hardest parts of parenting is knowing when to step in and when to step back.
Control is temporary. Authority lasts.
Parents often ask me how they can encourage their children to be more responsible, more respectful, more resilient, or more confident. They want to know the right words to say, the right consequences to use, or the best strategy to motivate change. My answer is often simpler than they expect.
If I had to choose the single most important ingredient of parenting, it would be this: show up.
Over the years, parents have often asked me the same question in different forms: What should I do?
Functioning better is not a guarantee of happiness. Life is too complicated for that. But over the long term, functioning better gives people the best chance of building meaningful relationships, managing adversity, and creating lives that are stable, purposeful, and fulfilling.
Parenting
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"I thought I was supposed to..." is a common refrain in our Tuesday night parenting group. The room is full of engaged, loving parents who are all committed to doing the best they can at the hardest job in the world.
Parents naturally want to help their children succeed. When a child is struggling - whether with school, friendships, anxiety, or motivation - the instinct is often to step in, solve problems, and remove obstacles. Over the years, both as a teacher and now as a therapist, I've found that some of the most effective parenting advice can be surprisingly simple: Stop doing that.
Go to any playground, park or outdoor area with kids and you will hear a chorus of adults intermittently shouting, “Put that down!” Look nearby and you will see some child with a stick which, if he has been successful in his playtime mission, is likely larger than he is tall. I would like to challenge the naysaying adult to quit her barrage of commands and challenge her child to find an even bigger stick then whack a tree and in the process find and build his physical strength as well as his emotional resilience.
One thing parenting teaches very quickly is humility. It also teaches the importance of perspective and a sense of humor. Parenting (done right) is the hardest thing most people will ever do, and much of the conflict between parents and children comes from the fact that the aim of the job itself is easily forgotten.
Direction Counselor: “The police are on their way.” Words you never want to hear, particularly when you are taking care of kids. “He...
Psychiatry & Mental Health
Explore why locking up sharps may not be the best solution for your teen, and learn practical, compassionate steps parents can take to support their child’s safety.
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One of the most thoughtful questions parents ask me is, “If this were your child, would you prescribe medication?”
Dear Hollywood, I am writing to offer my services as a psychiatrist with nearly 20 years of experience. Here's how your depiction of psychosis can improve.
Mom: “Johnny has been looking depressed at home and stays in his room. He doesn’t do his schoolwork. He sometimes has panic attacks and...
Education
Helping one struggling child and one set of parents is difficult enough. Trying to think about stress on the scale of an entire school — hundreds of students and dozens of adults — is a completely different challenge.
Other Essays
My father has a thing for guitars and banjos. Like abnormally so. At last count, he had well over a hundred hard-shell cases taking up...