• how to help your grieving child teenager family - wide title pic

    How to Help Your Grieving Children, Teens, and Families

    By Lisa Mottola Ernst, MSW, LCSW In working with grieving children, teens and families, I get many questions concerning children and their ability to grieve. Before answering these questions, it is important to note that children grieve differently than adults. For them, the loss of a parent, sister, brother, grandparent, friend or classmate brings both sadness and confusion. Given a child’s ability to love deeply, that child in turn grieves deeply as well. These grieving children need special care. Developmentally, it is important for children and teens to attend social functions and receive that peer support after a loved one has died. Many of these emotions are often displayed initially as…

  • 12 tips for parenting teenager - wide title pic

    12 Tips for Parenting Your Teenager

    by Janet Kontz, MA, LPC Does this sound familiar? We often hear from parents of teenagers that they find it difficult to connect with their kids when they reach the adolescent stage of life. Many parents feel that this is the most daunting time to be a parent. Helping your teenager navigate through this period of life in between childhood and adulthood can be as confusing and frustrating for you, as it is for them. Take heart, parents! It doesn’t have to be a hard as you might think, and you don’t have to do it alone. Here are 12 tips for understanding and parenting your teenager: 1. Expect inconsistencies Teenagers are…

  • Empty nest ambivalent emotions

    Empty Nest: Ambivalent Emotions

    This summer I watched a mommy bird build a nest in our back yard. Never before had I witnessed such a cycle of nature. This mommy bird was very nurturing and protective. Every day she sat on her little eggs with a watchful eye. When her babies hatched, she was faithful to care for them. She guarded them, she nourished them and she taught them. Then, as is God’s design, one day the nest was empty. Empty Nest and Mixed Emotions Like the mommy bird, as parents, we are nurturing and protective. We care for our babies, we guard them, we tend to their basic needs, and we do our…

  • Unconditional Love and Boundaries

    Unconditional Love and Boundaries

    A reflection on Cloud & Townsend’s “Boundaries with Kids” In Christian terms, unconditional love is love that doesn’t depend on the attitudes or actions of the beloved. It is a self-sacrificing love, which finds its ultimate expression in Christ’s sacrifice on the cross: “But God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8, RSV). Yet we know that God did not love us just to leave us wallowing in our sin; on the contrary, we are told, “Do you not know that God’s love is meant to lead you to repentance?” (Romans 2:4, RSV). We all desire love from our parents, children,…