Articles by Steven Schlozman, MD, Judith Edersheim, J.D., M.D. and Gene Beresin

October 23, 2013

By Gene Beresin, Executive Director

Kids at Risk for Violence: Warning Signs of Aggression

Some kids will become violent as adolescents. Many have a very short fuse, exploding over the smallest thing. Others, like a ticking time bomb, harbor pent up anger until something pops. And then there are the scariest kids—the ones who silently plan to harm others, and then don’t just fantasize, but really hurt others, verbally […]

September 23, 2013

By Gene Beresin, Executive Director

Over-Scheduled, Stressed-Out Families

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.” A contemporary belief is that it’s our job as parents to make our beloved children successful, and to do so we must start focusing on skill development as early as possible—if not by playing Mozart […]

By Gene Beresin, Executive Director

Is It Safe to Use Stimulants to Treat ADHD?

It’s not unusual for parents to bring their kid with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) to a child psychiatrist and say: “We really want you to help, but do not want any medications.” What causes someone to say this? It’s not often we would go to a doctor and say, “Take care of me, doc, […]

By Gene Beresin, Executive Director

Adult Children Moving Back Home: The Boomerang Generation and the New Normal

Intro music written and performed by Dr. Gene Beresin. Outro music performed by Dr. Gene Beresin. In the past when children went off to college or left home, parents needed to adjust to living as “empty nesters.”  The expectation was that this was the way life would continue.  But in a major economic and social […]

By Gene Beresin, Executive Director

Tips For Parents Sending Kids To College

College is quite a milestone in family life. For parents and college-bound youth, it represents the real beginning of adulthood. Prospects of autonomy, independence and REALLY leaving home come to mind. It’s an incredibly exciting and long-awaited achievement. Though thrilled to get going, most new college students are also more than a tad stressed. Many […]

By Gene Beresin, Executive Director

The Adolescent Brain: Primed for Thrills and High On Life

Teenagers are convinced they are ready to take the reins, no longer wanting to be held back by overly-cautious adults who don’t really ‘get it,’ who don’t understand the urgency of whatever situation is brewing at that moment. Most teenagers have learned the mechanics of the adult world (driving, using credit cards, living a life […]

By Gene Beresin, Executive Director

My Child Is Being Bullied Because Of Religion

There is a saying with regard to prejudice and human behavior.  It’s a shrinky phrase (by that, I mean that it’s loaded with jargon), so I’m going to tell it first, and then we’ll translate it through, sadly, an increasingly common example. Here’s the phrase: “The narcissism of small differences.” Sigmund Freud himself coined this […]

By Gene Beresin, Executive Director

Are Teenagers Responsible?

Ask any parent of a teen whether his or her child is responsible, and a wry smile will appear. If you could see the internal images and memories behind that smile, they would look like this: wet towels on the floor, a car left without gas on a workday morning, a forgotten homework assignment, a […]

September 20, 2013

By Gene Beresin, Executive Director

Grounding Your Teen For a Month for Missing Curfew

Chloe just got her driver’s license.  With this, her father tells her, comes great responsibility.  She will be expected to run errands. She will be expected to take her little brother to karate class. And, though she can now drive herself to her friends’ houses on the weekend, her curfew still stands—be home at 11:30pm […]

September 19, 2013

By Gene Beresin, Executive Director

What Is Resilience?

Although resilience is not a new subject, it has recently enjoyed renewed attention as clinicians work to understand how children and adolescents remain whole in the face of difficult times.  Even The Wall Street Journal, hardly a periodical that one would normally associate with child emotional health, ran an entire op-ed earlier this year that […]