About Me.

Let’s face it. No matter how skilled you are, everyone struggles with raising kids at times, myself included. I’m a mom and clinical psychologist with 20 years experience working with children, teenagers, and parents. I grew up in Montreal, Canada and received my undergraduate Bachelor's degree in Honors Psychology at Concordia University, receiving an award for the highest GPA in the program. I then moved East to Nova Scotia, Canada to pursue my PhD in Clinical Psychology at Dalhousie University. At Dalhousie I focused my training on child mental health and pediatric pain. I was fortunate to be mentored by some of the world’s leading experts in these fields. I then completed my psychology residency at Alberta Children’s Hospital in Calgary, Nova Scotia where I continued to focus my training on psychological treatment related to mental and physical health. Once I completed my PhD, I took on a position as a clinical psychologist at a major pediatric hospital and also did some work in private practice for a few years. My passion is helping families to overcome these challenges in a way that is non-judgmental and meets you where you’re at. I believe that we are all trying to do our best with the resources we have, but sometimes it’s hard to know what to do. Don’t blame yourself or focus on past mistakes. It’s never too late to make changes but it’s also true that the longer we leave a problem untreated, the more difficult and longer it usually takes to resolve it. 

The best time to start was yesterday. The next best time is now.

Over the years I’ve been proud to receive consistent feedback from patients and families that they feel I’m relatable, easy to talk to, and that they never feel judged. They’ve told me that my approach to walking them through solutions step-by-step and also explaining HOW and WHY the approach works helps them have the buy-in to trust the process. Seeing youth overcome their challenges and go on to continue living fulfilling lives is one of my greatest joys in life. While I love working 1-on-1 with families in my office, I have always felt I could help so many more people on a broader scale. This passion is what led me to start this online forum where I can share tons of evidence-based tips and strategies that you as parents can easily implement on your own to overcome these struggles. If there is a topic you’d like to hear more about, please reach out or comment on one of my videos and I will do my very best to create content to address it. Let’s create a community to help each other and do this together!

My Areas of Expertise

For the past 20 years, I’ve had the privilege of working first-hand with families and youth struggling with a range of issues. I’ve also published many peer-reviewed papers in academic journals, presented my research at international conferences, shared my expertise with various media outlets, and supervised/trained many psychology students completing their PhDs. Some of the more common issues I work with clinically include:

• Anxiety and worries (e.g., phobias, generalized anxiety, separation anxiety)

• Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)

• School refusal

• Pain management (acute and chronic)

• Depression / low mood /suicidal thoughts

• Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)

• Behavior issues (e.g., tantrums, defiance, aggression)

• Fear of needles

• Fear of medical procedures or treatments (e.g., taking medication, eye drops, dentist)

• Selective mutism

• Parent-child/teen relationship conflict

• Low self-esteem

• Coping with a medical issue/diagnosis (e.g., Diabetes, GI issues)

• Bed wetting (medical term: Enuresis)

• Picky eating

• Misophonia (extreme reactions/avoidance to certain sounds like chewing, breathing, etc)

As parents, just when we think we have it figured out, another challenge pops up that makes us doubt if we’re doing it right. This is normal and we all experience this (spoiler alert: even trained child psychologists experience this too). However, luckily there are well-researched strategies to help manage all of the above. The tricky part is that without the help of a trained therapist, it can be hard to navigate all of the information on the internet. While a lot of techniques may appear to work or look promising, it’s important not to waste your time or money on things that don’t work (or that only work very short-term but don’t ultimately solve the problem). I’m here to help you sift through this because all of the advice and content I share is evidence based which means it is backed up by research/science to show that it actually works. 

Thank you for joining this community. Now let’s start now and do this together!

If you always do what you’ve always done,
you’ll always get what you’ve always got.