Psychotherapy is a collaborative, family process. Deciding to start psychotherapy is a significant step toward improving mental health and well-being...whether for yourself or your child. Yet, many people hesitate because they are unsure if therapy will suit their needs or how to find the right therapist. Choosing a therapist is a personal process, and asking the right questions can help you feel confident about your decision. This guide walks you through important questions

Picture an 11-year-old I'll call Maya. She earns straight A's, listens in class, and has never once been sent to the office. Her teachers describe her as dreamy. Her parents describe her as an easy kid, if a little tired lately. What no one sees is the first ten minutes after every bedtime. Maya lies still in the dark, silently counting to a number that feels safe, then replaying her day to make sure she didn't do anything wrong. Weeks ago, a thought crashed into her mind: wh

October is Dyslexia Awareness Month, and it is a good moment to separate what we actually know about dyslexia from what gets repeated online. Whether you are just starting to wonder about your child's reading or you have known for years, this guide covers what dyslexia is, what is happening in the brain, how it connects to executive functioning, how to talk with your child about it, what it can look like as kids grow, and what truly helps. A one-page reference guide for your

There is no version of this moment that feels manageable. Your child says something, maybe quietly, maybe in the middle of an argument, maybe in a text you weren't supposed to see, about wanting to die, or about hurting themselves. And in that instant, most parents feel some combination of terror, disbelief, and a desperate need to fix it immediately. If you've been there, or you're worried you might be someday, this post is for you. Not because we have a script that makes it

This post is part of Practitioner Conversations, an ongoing series born out of the everyday moments that come up in our work — the questions raised in an IEP meeting, a hallway conversation, or a case that just doesn't sit right. Each conversation starts with something real and asks the same underlying question: how do we best support kids in schools, their families, and each other, while staying honest about what the research does and doesn't tell us? These posts are as much

Every August, the world seems to organize itself around the school bell. New backpacks. Bus schedules. Teacher wish lists. Parent-teacher night on the calendar. It's a season that rightly celebrates the educators who will spend the next nine months shaping our children's minds. But somewhere in the shuffle, we tend to forget about a different kind of teacher — the one who never gets a first day, a classroom, or a summer off. The stay-at-home parent. At Minds in Progress, we t

I spend my days helping other people's kids understand their own nervous systems. I can talk for an hour about co-regulation, about window of tolerance, about why a meltdown at 5pm is not a discipline problem but a depleted-battery problem. And then I pick up my own kid from a long day at school and by the time we're five minutes into the car ride home, I am the one who is dysregulated. Or when I know my husband is picking our son up, I try to soak in the silent car ride home

Helping Your Child Stay Present Now While Getting Ready for School There's a strange stretch every August where summer hasn't ended, but it isn't really summer anymore either. The pool days are still happening, but somewhere in the background, school supply lists are circulating, and bus schedules are landing in your inbox. For a lot of kids, this in-between window (technically still vacation, but with school unmistakably on the horizon) is when back-to-school anxiety actuall

A Parent’s Guide to Online Safety, Plagiarism, Privacy, and Responsible AI Use Artificial intelligence has arrived in your child’s life — whether or not you have introduced it, whether or not their school has a policy, and whether or not you fully understand how it works. It is in their homework tools, their tutoring platforms, the recommendation algorithms shaping what they watch and read, and the chatbots some of them are quietly turning to for emotional support. A 2024 Bar

Why two behaviors that look almost identical need completely different responses... and how to tell them apart. Your child is on the floor of the grocery store, screaming, and you have about four seconds to decide what's happening. Is this a kid testing limits because the checkout line is boring and whining has worked before? Or is this a kid whose nervous system has genuinely gone offline, who can't hear you, and who isn't choosing this? Those two situations can look almost

If you've ever repeated yourself five times before your child finally looked up from their tablet, or asked “how was school?” and gotten a one-word “fine” in return, you're not doing anything wrong. You're running into one of the most common (and most fixable) communication gaps between parents and kids. The good news: the way we talk and the way we listen are both skills. They can be practiced, adjusted, and improved... and small shifts in how a conversation starts can chang

Separating the science from the social-media oversimplification “Dopamine” has become one of the most talked-about words in ADHD conversations across parenting forums, social media, and dinner-table debates about screens, motivation, and “five more minutes.” Parents hear it used to explain everything from why a child can’t start homework to why bedtime turns into a negotiation. But the popular version of the dopamine story, that ADHD simply means a child has “too little” of t

Understanding the Link Between Worry and Organization By Dr. McKinzie Duesenberg-Marshall, PhD, LP, NCSP | Minds in Progress, LLC You've probably noticed it: your child seems smart and capable one moment, then completely falls apart trying to organize homework, start a big project, or remember multi-step instructions. If your child also describes feeling worried, anxious, or overwhelmed, you might be wondering if these challenges are connected. The short answer: yes. Anxiety

Why the overlap between these two conditions leads to missed diagnoses — and how to tell the difference. By Dr. McKinzie Duesenberg-Marshall, PhD, LP, NCSP | Minds in Progress, LLC If you've ever wondered whether your child's struggles with focus, restlessness, or avoidance are "just anxiety" or something more... you're asking exactly the right question. The challenge is that anxiety and ADHD look remarkably similar on the surface. Both can cause inattention, emotional dy

By Dr. McKinzie Duesenberg-Marshall, PhD, LP, NCSP | Minds in Progress, LLC Picture a child who can explain the lifecycle of a star but can't organize her backpack. Or a boy who reads three grade levels ahead yet melts down at the sound of the cafeteria. Or a teenager who scores in the gifted range on every reasoning measure but hasn't turned in a homework assignment in weeks. These children are not lazy, disorganized, or tempermental. They are twice-exceptional. Twice-except

Independent Play, Boredom, and Why “Underparenting” Might Be Exactly What Your Child Needs By Dr. McKinzie Duesenberg-Marshall, PhD, LP, NCSP | Minds in Progress, LLC If you have ever felt guilty for not playing with your child, for letting them sit in their boredom a little too long, or for wishing they could just (for once) entertain themselves for twenty minutes while you finish something: this article is for you. There is a growing movement in child development research a

By Dr. McKinzie Duesenberg-Marshall, PhD, LP, NCSP | Minds in Progress, LLC Writing is hard. Most parents know this instinctively when they watch their child stare at a blank page, lose their grip on a pencil, or spend 20 minutes producing three sentences that their classmates wrote in five. What parents often don’t know is that this struggle usually has a clear, identifiable cause...and that research-backed strategies exist to address it. A study recently published in The Re

By Dr. McKinzie Duesenberg-Marshall, PhD, LP, NCSP | Minds in Progress, LLC Your child's teacher has flagged concerns about focus. Maybe your child is shutting down during tests, avoiding social situations, or struggling to finish anything at home. You've Googled "signs of ADHD" and checked most of the boxes...but something feels off. Could it be anxiety? Could it be both? You're not overthinking this. Anxiety and ADHD are genuinely difficult to tell apart in children, and ev

What the Research Says...and What to Actually Do About It By Dr. McKinzie Duesenberg-Marshall, PhD, LP, NCSP | Minds in Progress, LLC It’s become a familiar summer scene: kids sprawled on the couch, phone in hand, the afternoon disappearing into a scroll. Parents know something is off...but between working, managing the house, and the sheer exhaustion of summer logistics, it’s easy to let screens absorb the hours that feel hardest to fill. You’re not imagining it, and you’re