Our South Bay community is deeply saddened by the recent passing of Chris Stretch, LCSW. As a therapist, mindset & performance coach and a passionate public speaker, Chris was able to reach thousands of students and families with his message of grit, resilience, and hope.

While driving to speak at our event titled “How to Be a Good Friend”, Katie Hurley was side-swiped by an unfriendly driver but no one knew it.  Even though the driver did not stop, Hurley, psychologist and author of “No More Mean Girls”, "The Happy Kid Handbook" and "The Depression Workbook for Teens" showed no signs of agitation as she rolled through some powerful stats on the state of Teen Life. 

Vulnerability. Something I’ve run from far too long. At today’s speech in front of 1,000 students in 7th and 8th grade, I went to the scariest emotional place I own. While my main topic was exposing the consequences of vaping, I encouraged myself to explain the choice my brother made which ultimately took his life. This is the most important part of my journey where life stopped, and continues to affect me everyday. Allowing myself to open this deep emotion in front of strangers still breaks me every time.

One of the things I loved about this Families Connected Speaker Series event was that it was more of a conversation than a structured presentation. Norm Chow, Casey Jennings, Valerie Kondos Field and Mikah Maly-Karros all sitting together in one room (mind blowing, right?) discussing resilience. It was an honest, thoughtful and unscripted exchange between some very inspiring coaches and athletes.  Although there were many points of insight throughout the night, here are my top three takeaways: 

I’ll admit, I sometimes want to avoid parenting lectures because I fear I’ll leave reminded of all the things I should be doing but am not. I did not, however, feel that way leaving Yalda Uhls presentation! 

Here are my top takeaways (I promise they won’t keep you up at night with parent anxiety):

1. Research shows there are cognitive benefits gained from playing video games!  Parents like me who endured the Fortnite epidemic take heart. I can’t remember the specifics (I’m old. And tired.) but Dr. Uhls book probably explains it all, and I consider this news a win.

Parents do not need any more information about what you’re doing wrong or how you’re screwing up your kids forever. Instead, you need a little encouragement and simple strategies for making parenting easier and more fun. In raising my own five kids (and working with thousands of others at my summer camp), I’ve found that doing less can make us better parents and help us raise thriving kids.

With my fate already sealed, by high school I was drinking, smoking weed and experimenting with other drugs. After all, I was a bad kid and that’s what bad kids do, right? I convinced the outside world that consequences didn’t scare me. I pretended to be shameless. Internally, I was stuck in a cycle of self-destruction. I drank to escape my self-loathing and woke up each time hating myself a little bit more.

Throughout the school year, the series will offer six free events, each focusing on a critical component of youth wellness.

I’m a veteran of music festivals. I’ve chaperoned five groups of boys’ weekends at Coachella for my older two sons. One year I shut it down on Saturday and brought everyone home because I found prescription drugs and weed in my car. Not a popular decision, but the right one.  

Can kindness really make a difference? The experts believe it can. According to NAMI, kindness promotes compassion, empathy, closeness, gratitude and a sense of community—which are all qualities needed to help combat mental health disorders. Psychotherapy and medications are also necessary but therapists advocate for positive environments with a strong support system in order to be successful in recovery.

"I'm always the third or fifth wheel." Her spirits got so low that I eventually called one of the moms in our elementary group to ask her if her daughter could remember to include Linda. Although I had the best intentions, I actually made everything worse because Tweens don't want to feign being nice to anyone.

The college bribery scandal struck a collective nerve, swirling up anxieties of parents and teens already overwhelmed by the daunting application process.   

Among the most frightening, and dangerous mental health issues teens struggle with are eating disorders. In this blog I hope to to share the basic facts, statistics, causes, and strategies for coping with this wide-spread problem. 

One of the most difficult responses my parents get stumped on is when their child makes a statement “I’m feel fat” or “Do I look fat?” 

As a health care provider working in reproductive health for 23 years, I am surprised at how difficult it is for me to discuss sexual health and sexuality with my boys. Even with access to current research, professional mentors, clinical practice and Google, I find myself floundering to adopt the right approach.

As if we didn’t have enough to worry about, there is a new major problem targeting teenagers: VAPING.  The Food and Drug Administrations (FDA) has declared youth vaping an epidemic, and is trying to ratchet up the control of these devices and substances to teenagers.  Vaping has become the most popular tobacco product among teenagers…

As the parent of your own Teenage Events you probably know that I spend way more time fixing than I do clicking- it's part of the job. Looking back on my four years as a high school parent, even the best planning couldn't have prepared me for the following fixers: