I wrote this article for the Greater Good Magazine on how social anxiety can show up in kids and what we can do to help. Anjali sat at the kitchen table in front of a blank piece of paper. She sat, and sat, and sat. Then she got up from the table and walked away. The...
Note: this blog is a continuation of my last blog: Overcoming OCD…how it all began. My last blog featured Rohan* who had a debilitating nighttime fear of someone breaking into his house and taking him away. Rohan had been unable to sleep in his own room for the past...
When Rohan was five years old, he was outside playing with a friend, and a man walked through the alley. Rohan’s friend pointed at the man in the alley and said that the man was a kidnapper. Rohan ran into the house to find his mom. His mom assured him that he was...
Note: Be sure to read all the way to the bottom for a special treat from our family. Hello Friends, Have you ever noticed that your brain gets a little (or a lot) more anxious, neurotic, depressed, etc. than usual when you get sick? It’s a common occurrence, and I try...
Hello Friends, It feels good to connect with you. I’ve been teaching a lot and also slowly recovering from a case of bronchitis followed by Covid. One of my continual growth opportunities is how to balance rest with all I wish to do in the world. And I know I’m not...
When I make a mistake, oftentimes shame is in the room. If you have taken the Feelings Habit Animal Quiz and read my article about the four feelings habit animals, you might remember that the deer is the feelings habit animal that is most correlated with...
Personal disclosure: last week I spent a lot of time beating myself up internally. The reason was pretty innocent: I have been doing a lot of teaching lately, which has left little time for other aspects of my work (like writing this newsletter). Because investing...
Kids learn best through play! That’s because it’s easier to pay attention to playful things, and also because the neurotrophic factors the brain produces during play make it easier to remember what you’ve learned. In previous articles, I have shared about the Feelings...
This article originally appeared on Greater Good, the online magazine of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley. When I teach self-compassion to kids in schools, I do an exercise in which kids imagine that a friend of theirs has lost or broken something...
The Feelings Habit Animal Quiz is from the Mindfulness and Self-Compassion Workbook for Kids. There is nothing that can get a group of kids to roll their eyes like talking to them about feelings. The topic of feelings for most kids (and many grown-ups) is boring at...