Children may not understand every headline, but they understand when the world feels unsafe.
They hear the tension in our voices. They catch pieces of conversation at the dinner table, in the car, and in the background of the evening news. They notice what is said at school, online, and among friends. Even when they do not fully understand the details, they still feel the weight of fear, division, and […]
Mud, Moods, and Family Magic
The snow softens. The grass peeks through. Coats are still on, but they’re unzipped. Families return to sidewalks, parks, and trails. Kids run ahead. Parents linger a little longer. The world starts waking up—and family life does too. That is the gift of March: light, fresh air, and a chance to reconnect. After a long […]
Vallentine’s Day: Love, Self-love and the people that matter
Valentine’s Day commemorates St. Valentine, who tended to Christians and soldiers and performed secret marriages that were against Roman law – putting his life in danger for others. He became a martyr in the Christian religion. February was also the time when Romans held festivals for fertility and matchmaking. Over time, the Christian stories of St. […]
DOTTIE KELLY KEYNOTE FOR UNIVERSITY MASTER’S PROGRAMS
SUPPORTING CHILDREN THROUGH DIVORCE & FAMILY TRANSITIONS What Graduate Counseling Students Need to Know THE HEART OF THIS TALK Divorce and family disruption can create profound psychological and emotional wounds in children. Graduate counseling students need more than theory — they need a grounded, trauma- informed understanding of why these experiences affect children the way […]
DOTTIE KELLY KEYNOTE FOR ENTREPRENEURS
UNLOCK YOUR INTERNAL SYSTEM Why Imposter Syndrome Isn’t a Personal Failure — It’s a Pattern You Can Change THE HEART OF THIS TALK Entrepreneurs don’t fail because they “lack confidence.” They get stuck because their internal parts are working overtime. Using the Internal Family Systems (IFS) model, Dottie teaches founders how to recognize […]
Holiday stress and the Highly Sensitive kids
The holidays are a time for families to come together. It is a time for amazing food, activities and external stimulation. In many families it is also a time of gift giving, party planning and invitation accepting. There are parties and gatherings every week in December full of music, kids, food, lights and a lot of […]
BULLIED KIDS
I was in fear every day and never knew when the abuse was coming. When I was in catholic elementary school I needed to be hypervigilant for every slap, punch, and head slam into the black board. My aggressive part came into being then and I retaliated every physical assault back on sister. She didn’t […]
SCREENS and KIDS BRAINS
American Academy of Pediatrics has found that the screen time with kids is so passive that the white matter of the brain does not develop. It appears that passive watching is more destructive than the amount of time spent on the screen. The part of the brain most impacted is the white matter. This is the […]
Storying: Playfulness and Wonder
In her book Writing the Natural Way, Gabriele Lusser Rico introduced the concept of “clustering” also known as “webbing,” as a creative technique to return to the playfulness and wonder of childhood storying. Traditional schooling programs our brains to write in a prescribed way that follows a sequence of events. When writing for school we write from the […]
BURNOUT AND KIDS
Most of us relate burnout to adults with their busy schedules, stress at home and work and feeling of exhaustion. Kids can also have burnout. Kids also experience mental, physical and emotional exhaustion from school pressure, academic pressure, peer pressure, athletics and extracurricular activates. All of which can create a day full of scheduled demands. […]