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Hello Reader!

I'm glad to be back! The holidays are great and all but me, I like a routine.

As you know, this month (and next) we're doing a study on the book Parent-Led CBT for Child Anxiety. So far we've looked at the first two chapters and I wanted to share some info from that first chapter with all of you. (If you're a member and want to see the live, you can head here to catch the recording.)

The book starts by sharing the research explaining why the focus needs to be on parents and there's a whole list of research-backed reasons. These include:

• Parents control the child's environment so they will be the one organizing and supervising the child's need to confront the things that make them anxious;
• Faster learning (because parents are more motivated, have more developed brains, and don't need to spend as much time on rapport building);
• Parents can generalize learning so that they can take specific examples and bring them to new situations much more easily than kids can (so once they learn the skills they know how to grow and expand them);
• Parents benefit from the support, too, since child anxiety adversely impacts them;
• Working with parents protects the children from feeling responsible to be the ones to create change in the family;
• And children CANNOT change unless the family system changes and parents need to do that change.

Says the book:

And there you have it! I posted about this on Instagram, too.

In the site

• SO MUCH new stuff in the site! Much like I curate goofy links here in the newsletter (see below), I am curating USEFUL links on the site! These are links to resources like webinars from other organizations on parenting and/or anxiety; research and how to apply it to your life; and videos to explain or explore useful concepts. These are all tagged to make them easy to find and while NONE of them is necessary to the program, for those of you who like to dig in or want to do more, there they are. I search the child anxiety internet so you don't have to!
• Also I've added a link to manage your account through Stripe. (Some folks who have been in the membership longer manage your account through Mighty Networks so you can keep on managing through your profile.) For anyone who joined more recently, you can go here to change your credit card or change your subscription but the link is also in the menu of the site. That's on the sidebar on your computer or click the three lines in the upper left hand corner to open it on your phone. The reminder email that you get before your card is charged says that you need to contact me to cancel but you do NOT. You can cancel through that link. Stripe says there's no way to change the wording on the emails (for now) so just know that you can manage your account through the portal.
• The January Stress Reset happens next Saturday the 14th. Head here to RSVP or grab the Zoom link! But remember all live events are right here. That includes tomorrow's 10am EST live when we'll be looking at the third chapter in our book club, Psychoeducation and Individualizing the Treatment Model, and Friday's drop-in office hours.

Links for the week

• ​The Dark is Rising is one of my favorite winter books and the BBC has an excellent radio play that you can access here. I was very happy to hear that they include one of my favorite lines in the first chapter, “The Walker is abroad. And this night will be bad, and tomorrow will be beyond imagining.” (Spoiler alert: all is fine and this book is exciting but not scary, at least not as scary as the Harry Potter series.)
• My husband is always confused by expiration dates (sell by? best by?) and this article helped him give up on trying to make sense of them.
• Consider the lost art of paper airplanes. I'm sure you've got some used paper around the house destined for the recyling bin so why not head here first?

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See you in the site!

P.S. Not yet a member? Want to grab a time to talk to me and ask about the program? Here's my scheduling calendar!