Author: Nanika Coor, Psy. D.

Often parents describe their frustrations with their child in terms of what they perceive to be their child’s purposeful non-compliance and annoying behavior. I’ve heard statements like: “She just doesn’t make good choices!” “He’s just trying to get attention.” “They just want their own way all the time!” “She acts out for no reason!” It’s understandable. When you’re repeatedly faced with kid behaviors that are anywhere from mildly challenging to very concerning, you can be so exhausted and frustrated that through the lens of your activated nervous system you mostly see negativity. It’s hard to consider any other explanation for…

Hey Project Parenthood listeners! I’m taking a week away from the podcast, but I’ll be back next week with a brand new episode. In the meantime, I wanted to share an episode of Savvy Psychologist, another fantastic show on the Quick and Dirty Tips network. If you don’t already listen to Savvy Psychologist, the start of a new year is the perfect time to start. Savvy Psychologist is your window into the world of psychology and how it can help you meet life’s challenges. Host Dr. Monica Johnson is a licensed psychologist ready to tackle any subject, from how trauma…

Needing help with limiting a child’s screen time is pretty high up on the list of issues parents have these days. The Covid-19 pandemic has meant more time at home for safety reasons, and parents have had to be creative in helping their children manage so much unstructured time indoors. Parents who had to work full-time while their child’s school was shut down often used screens to occupy the kids so they could get work done, or just get a parenting break. As the pandemic wears on indefinitely, parents are wondering about collaborative ways to regain some screen time boundaries…

Your child came into existence with an instinct to seek closeness to a special person who will provide comfort, protection, and help with overwhelming emotional experiences. Your child also has an inborn drive to follow their curiosity and desires for learning and mastery. As children develop, they move between these two needs, seeking attachment or mastery, hundreds of times each day, usually without much warning. It takes a sensitively attuned caregiver to understand what a child needs. And even when you can guess what they need, it’s not always easy to meet it. It can be slightly uncomfortable or profoundly…

When you find out that you’ll be parenting a new child, all sorts of thoughts begin to float around in your head. You fantasize about a child you’ll have a lot in common with. A child you can share the things in life that have brought you joy. You look forward to attending music recitals, sporting events and proudly applauding your child in the school play, or spending lazy afternoons making art together. Maybe you’re a parent with strong political views and you can’t wait to share your worldview and beliefs with the children you bring into your life. There are…

Whether your child is a newborn or just graduated from college, you’re going to deal with situations that, as a parent, you simply cannot change. From questionable personal style and daily annoyances to mental and physical health issues, disappointments, divorce, death, random disastrous acts of nature, and even global pandemics! So it’s natural that you’ll sometimes find yourself stuck in a spiral of thoughts like “How could this be happening?!” and “Why do such unfair things happen to me?!” One way to pull yourself out of the anxious agitation that clouds your ability to cope is to draw upon the…

If you’re listening to the Project Parenthood podcast, you might be hoping to learn some respectful parenting tools and collaborative ways to encourage your child to behave in ways that are more acceptable to you. And sometimes collaborative parenting tools can be a quick fix for less entrenched behaviors. But in my private practice, by the time families seek my services, the cycle of anger-triggering child behaviors and angry parental reactions has resulted in an adversarial atmosphere. And that kind of dynamic isn’t conducive to collaborative parent-child interactions, so respectful parenting tools usually lead to resistance instead of cooperation. You…

Since 1992, when the city of Berkeley, CA officially replaced Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples’ Day, it’s been a day to recognize and honor the continued resilience of Indigenous Peoples who experience the historical and ongoing traumas of colonization, genocide, stolen lands, harmful misconceptions, and systemic racism. It’s also been a day to acknowledge the continued existence of Indigenous Peoples, and to celebrate Indigenous contributions and culture. The dominant culture’s perspective on parenting derives mostly from research done by middle class white men on middle class white college students and families, then extrapolated to all people as default “best practices”.…

Like many parents who want to shift from control-based parenting to collaboration-based parenting, you likely just want things to get better, to feel easier. You want both you and your child to feel good about your interactions. When you use some respectful parenting tools that you’ve learned, your child responds with less resistance than usual—and you feel encouraged! Maybe things can change! When the next challenging situation arises, however, that same approach doesn’t result in cooperation. Since she’s back to being the same challenging kid she was last week, you decide that clearly this respectful parenting stuff doesn’t work with…

Finding out that your child has a neurodevelopmental diagnosis such as ADHD, autism, or dyslexia can feel like a total departure from what you thought life with your child would be like. Parents often have a difficult time accepting and understanding the reality that their child’s brain works differently than the “typical” brain. It can also be a struggle to know when and how to educate their child about it. To help lessen the anxiety that can come with tackling this issue, here are 7 tips for conversations with your child about being neurodiverse in a neurotypical world. It begins with…