Articles by Ellen Braaten, PhD and Gene Beresin

April 25, 2019

By Gene Beresin, Executive Director

Understanding ADHD – Shrinking It Down

Tune in wherever you get your podcasts – just search for “Shrinking It Down.” We all get distracted and disorganized. Today, it seems more than ever with digital media consuming our lives. We bet you’ve even wondered, at some point in your life, whether you might have ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). Heck – do […]

April 24, 2019

By Gene Beresin, Executive Director

Managing Sibling Conflicts: The Obvious and Hidden Battles

A lot has been written on sibling rivalry, particularly about name calling, arguing, provoking, physical fighting, and other forms of overt hostility. Almost every article suggests that this is inevitable and normal. In drawing comparisons, writers often reference the animal kingdom – baby birds throwing weaker siblings out of the nest, carnivores snatching a sibling’s […]

April 18, 2019

By Gene Beresin, Executive Director

It’s the Time of the Season for… Mental Illness – Shrinking It Down

Tune in below or wherever you get your podcasts – just search for “Shrinking It Down.” Flowers are blooming. People are smiling. On the surface, it seems as if spring is the sweetest season of all. And while it is rejuvenating and joyful in many ways, it’s also associated with the highest rates of psychiatric […]

March 27, 2019

By Gene Beresin, Executive Director

Discipline and Punishment – Shrinking It Down

Listen wherever you get your podcasts – just search for “Shrinking It Down.” Punishment. It’s not the most fun part of the job, but parents know they have a responsibility to discipline their kids when they do something that’s not right – stealing, hitting, staying out past curfew. But how do you make the punishment […]

March 20, 2019

By Gene Beresin, Executive Director

Admissions Scandal, College Pressure, and Mental Health

You can also listen to this podcast on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher, TuneIn, SoundCloud, and most podcast apps – just search for “Shrinking It Down.” On today’s show, Dr. Ellen Braaten joins Gene and Steve to think deeper about our American culture that’s contributed to issues like the recent college admissions scandal, as well as less extreme (and less fraudulent) […]

March 7, 2019

By Gene Beresin, Executive Director

Cannabis and the Teen Brain, featuring Jodi Gilman, PhD – Shrinking It Down

Welcome to today’s “pot-cast”! Marijuana is on everyone’s mind, especially the parents of tweens and teens, as it becomes legal in more states – not just for medicinal use, but for recreation. We’ve learned from alcohol that teens are going to have easier access to cannabis the more state laws ease up, even when the […]

March 6, 2019

By Gene Beresin, Executive Director

9 Tips to Help Toddlers to Sleep On Their Own (and Enjoy Being Alone)

Recently, I was teaching a seminar for child psychiatry fellows on the topic of Donald Winnicott’s Theory of Emotional Development. About a third of the group had young children. Winnicott is less known by many parents. As a pediatrician, and later a child developmentalist, he was the first to describe some things we all appreciate: […]

February 26, 2019

By Gene Beresin, Executive Director

Digital Media and Body Image

Este artículo está disponible en español. When it comes to social media and body image, there are a lot of questions. Gene Beresin and I have worked with individuals struggling with eating disorders, largely girls and young women and their families for years. As the psychiatric director of an inpatient medical stabilization unit for malnutrition, I […]

February 22, 2019

By Gene Beresin, Executive Director

Oscars Special – Shrinking It Down

You can also subscribe to this podcast on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher, TuneIn, SoundCloud, and most podcast apps – just search for “Shrinking It Down”.  Why on earth are two child psychiatrists talking about the 2019 Academy Awards? It’s not just for fun, even though it’s fun, too. But, rather, because there is so much in this year’s nominated films […]

February 8, 2019

By Gene Beresin, Executive Director

Another Shooting – An Important Moment to Comfort and Talk With Our Kids

Perhaps the hardest, certainly the saddest, and without question the most frustrating thing about sharing this blog post is that we have shared it now again and again over the past several years. Please do not allow the frequency of the recent, awful events to ever seem routine. The statistics that we share are still […]