Have you ever experienced anxiety so terrible that you felt like you spent every moment of every day worrying? That the daily feelings of panic you experienced would never go away? That basic activities that you used to do with no problem seemed entirely insurmountable?

Well I have, and it started the day we launched The Childhood Collective. Well, to be honest, my anxiety has been around for most of my life, but the launch of our business brought it all painfully to the surface.

I know with this past year, many of you might be experiencing an increase in your own anxiety and depression. When you have a child with ADHD or anxiety, parenting is A LOT. Most of the time, your own mental health gets put on the backburner so you can attend to your kids. But I can tell you from experience, when you do take the time for yourself, you can free up a lot of bandwidth to focus on so many other things in your life—including your children.

How My Anxiety Started

My whole life I would have be...

Some days it can feel like your child with ADHD has a vendetta against you. You tell them to go out…they go in. You say stop…they go. You tell them to start their homework, and they look at you and turn on the television. When our kids show defiance and go against our warnings or directions, it can feel downright infuriating. And it can make you question whether you are even a good parent.

First, let’s normalize this: you are not alone! Defiance is one of the most common challenges faced by parents and teachers of children with ADHD. As a psychologist, whenever a parent tells me that their child is defiant, I always try to dig a little deeper to find out why?

The truth is that defiance is often a symptom of a larger problem for the child or with their environment.

Today, I am sharing four possible reasons for defiance in children with ADHD.

1) Executive functioning differences

I remember testing a young girl and asking her to complete some math facts quickly for 1 minute. Af...

Over the past few months, we have been sharing lots of tools we can use to raise confident children. Let’s face it: we all want to raise amazing kids who KNOW they are amazing! 

The truth is, when you’re raising a child with ADHD, or anxiety, or learning differences… it can feel absolutely defeating when they speak negatively about themselves. Research has shown that children who learn differently often have lower self-esteem than their peers. They also receive more negative feedback than their peers, and it quickly becomes a cycle. 

The good news: there are ways we can help!

You don’t have to be a psychologist or a speech language pathologist to promote your child’s confidence! Keep these simple tips in mind to help grow your child’s self-esteem:  

1. Set reasonable expectations.

A child cannot (consistently) do something well that is outside of their developmental skill level. When children are presented with tasks day after day that are outside their skill level, they are left...

I once had a patient named Jerry (a fake name to protect his identity, but with permission to share his story from Jerry and his family).  Jerry was in high school and was very anxious anytime he went out in public. 

His mother reported concerns that they were not able to live a life they wanted because of Jerry’s anxiety. They couldn’t go to the mall, eat out at a restaurant, or go out to stores because he just felt too overwhelmed. And when he did go out, he would wear earplugs AND headphones to avoid his anxiety, neither of which helped. Needless to say, he and his family were ready for change!

I can tell you that after some therapy and LOTS of hard work, I received an email filled with pictures of Jerry at prom, which was attended by over 1,000 people. Now when Jerry goes places, he states, “I’m gonna Lori Long this sh**!"

As much as I love that Jerry made my name into a verb, I can’t take the credit. The techniques we used were from cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). And today...

This week, we were interviewed by Special Education and Civil Rights attorneys, Amanda and Vickie, over at the  Inclusive Education Project. We had a great conversation and shared more about our mission as well as tips and tricks to help parents raising kids with ADHD and anxiety. 

In the podcast, we covered a lot of different topics, including: 

1) A little bit about Lori, Katie, and Mallory and why we started the Childhood Collective.

2) School refusal and anxiety.

3) The not so common symptoms of anxiety.

4) What questions you can ask your kids if you suspect anxiety.

5) Kids do well if they can.

6) What kids really need. Hint: It isn't more punishment!

7) Why parenting children with ADHD is not at all intuitive.

8) Our online ADHD parenting course, Creating Calm, and why it is so unique.

And much more!

Check out the podcast: Empowering Parentings a Conversation with The Childhood Collective

Have an amazing week!

The contents of this site are opinions of The ...

"There are no right answers to wrong questions.” – Urusla K. Le Guin

“I tucked my kids in last night and said, ‘See you in the morning!’ and then we laughed and laughed. Saw them 16 more times before sunrise.” - Unknown

A question I was sure to never miss when first meeting a family, whether for an evaluation or therapy, was, “How’s sleep for your child?” The most common reaction from parents? An eye roll.

I get it. As a mom to two little ones, it seems unfair the discrepancy between how much I love sleep and how much they, well, don’t.

But, before I could really help any family better understand their child’s development, increase their connection, respond to challenging behaviors, or manage worries… we had to make sure that sleep wasn’t a contributing factor. We’d be fighting an uphill battle to address these issues with an overtired child.

Often times, we are able to “clean-up” sleep with some quality sleep hygiene practices. And no, sleep hygiene is not about going to bed clean (though that doesn’t hurt!). Sleep hygiene, or positive sleep...

It seems that in the past few weeks, we went from feeling like the COVID-19 virus was no big deal to much of our country shutting down indefinitely. We are all living in a state of uncertainty about the future, and we all know that uncertainty breeds anxiety.

After doing a series of blog posts related to anxiety, we thought it was appropriate to do a post this week on how Mallory, Katie, and I are managing these rapid changes in our own lives. On the blog today, we are each taking turns talking about how our families have been affected, how we are managing our own anxiety, and how we are talking to our kids about the virus.

Lori’s Family

This past week was our spring break. Fortunately, we had planned to have a low-key spring break anyway, as we have a Disneyland trip planned for early May. However, my parents were scheduled to come out over their spring break (my mom is a high school math teacher), and they had to cancel their trip. This was hard news to tell my kids, but they took...

Navigating the school system with an exceptional child can be stressful. As a parent, you’re looking to get your child the help they need, while being thrust into a new world of acronyms, policies, and procedures that can feel downright mysterious.

Back when I was still a practicing child psychologist, I lost count of the number of families who, in complete sincerity, asked me where to move in the entire Phoenix-metro area in order to go to the school that would best support their exceptional child. Countless families were prepared to go to the lengths of a significant life event (moving!) in order to make the school process even just a little bit easier!

Understanding Individualized Education Programs (IEP) and 504 Plans, their similarities, and their differences is a great place to start in your advocacy journey. While there is a lot to know about these two documents (seriously, I took a semester-long course in graduate school focused almost solely IEPs and 504 Plans), I’ve narrowe...