Respecting My Kids: Feelings
"Parents… fear that by giving a name to the feeling, they’ll make it worse. Just the opposite is true. The child who hears the words for what he [or she] is experiencing is deeply comforted. Someone has acknowledged his [or her] inner experience.” Adele Faber & Elaine Mazlish, How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk
Read MoreSelf-Harm: It Makes Sense
"For a burn or a cut might be shown, might be nursed, might scar or heal... would anyway be there, on the surface of her body, rather than corroding it from within." Sarah Waters, The Night Watch
“My head was full of wild ambitious urges to hurt myself... I wanted my interior pain out in my body... I wanted this vague pain to be specific. That’s how I explain it.” Charles Baxter, The Feast of Love
To Risk or Not to Risk
"What did I know of life? I who had lived so carefully? Who had neither won nor lost, but just let life happen to him? …Who avoided being hurt and called it a capacity for survival?" Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending
I’m sitting at the computer, wondering how to get into this topic. The room is quiet. I glance at my phone, half hoping for a distracting text...
Respecting My Kids: Physical Boundaries
"Excuse me, please! I have something I want to say. It's my birthday, and I'm tired of being pinched, noogied, hit, hugged too tight, picked up, tickled, and touched in ways that I don't like. I am six years old, and I'm the boss of my body!" Ruby's Studio: The Safety Show
One morning a couple of weeks ago, I was dropping off my 5-year-old, Rachel, at school. I asked her, "Do you want a hug or no hug today?"...
Puppy Training: New Year’s Lessons from our Puppy
“Over the years I've come to appreciate how animals enter our lives prepared to teach and far from being burdened by an inability to speak they have many different ways to communicate. It is up to us to listen more than hear, to look into more than past.” Nick Trout, Love is the Best Medicine: What Two Dogs Taught One Veterinarian about Hope, Humility, and Everyday Miracles
Read MoreAbout Lynn
I am a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor with a Master of Science in Pastoral Counseling from Loyola University in Maryland. I have been in private practice for over twenty years and have experience working with adults and adolescents, addressing a variety of issues: anxiety, depression, relationship problems, past or current trauma, eating disorders, self-mutilation, bereavement, parenting concerns, boundaries, and self-care.