Ashburn Psychological Services

Four tips to surviving summer with kids back from college Sharing the nest again and navigating how to function as a family when your son or daughter returns home from college can be challenging. Sure, your child will always be your child, and you may believe that you still know what’s best for them as mom and dad, but with every semester or quarter that passes they’re aging and separating from you. From freshman year to senior year of college, your kids are taking the steps they need to take to become more independent as they enter young adulthood. At [...]

Managing Anxiety Together 8 Mondays 6/20/22-8/22/22 18 and over 10:30-11:30 am High School 1-2pm Middle School 6:45-7:45pm

Having a mild life crisis as a couple?   “Probably the happiest period in life most frequently is in middle age, when the eager passions of youth are cooled, and the infirmities of age not yet begun; as we see that the shadows, which are morning and evening so large, almost entirely disappear at midday.” – Eleanor Roosevelt The Canadian psychoanalyst, Elliott Jacques coined the term “Mid-Life Crisis” in 1965. He believed that mid-life is a transitional phase rife with uncertainty and emotional conflict, pertaining to one’s sense of mortality. Later research in this area has found that to varying degrees [...]

“Yes Day!” is a recent movie that involves a mom and dad that usually say “no” to their children, but agree to a 24-hour period where their children get to do whatever they want (with some reasonable ground rules).  The family goes on an adventure with all sorts of twists and turns, and the story unfolds with fun, impulsive, and at times difficult emotional moments for them all.  In the end, the children and parents grow from their whirlwind day, and they become closer and better off as a family for having had the experience.  The movie is adapted from [...]

Meet Me in the Middle:What You Need to Know to Really Know your Middle SchoolerWhere Did My Child Go? When many of us think back to the age we wish we could take a redo, the tween and pre-teen years of middle school often come to mind. It’s a time when most kids live in the whirling limbo of two different worlds, with one foot still planted in childhood and the other tripping into all of the messiness of puberty. Change best defines this phase of life, and as we know, change is not easy…  for any of us. Parenting a middle schooler [...]

The Psychology of Your Vote 2020 A person’s political beliefs are determined by several factors.  How you were raised, your life experiences, your current circumstances, your age, and other things, all contribute to your values and beliefs and the choices you make in life – including how you vote. But what if political issues, or at least how you feel about them, are actually not entirely in your control?  What if the vote you cast on November 3rd turns out to be influenced more by your gray matter than by campaign ads, debates, career records or bus tours?  Scientific research [...]

Divorce Rates Spike after COVID-19: Some Tips for Couples  COVID-19 has had a profoundly negative impact on many married couples.  The combination of working from home, virtual learning for our children, social distancing, financial hardship, stress, less quality time to relate, illness or the deaths of a loved one, etc., has been difficult for a lot of people with divorce rates spiking as a result. Research has shown that divorce rates typically increase in response to natural disasters and crises, and even the strongest relationships can fail during unprecedented, unpredictable and overly stressful times. According to the research group Legal [...]

5 Tips to Managing Parental Anger During COVID-19 While new cases for COVID-19 in Northern Virginia are reportedly lowering, the stress of the pandemic on parents still weighs heavy.  Sure the school year has ended, but our children and teens have started the Summer off without camps, swimming pools, movie theaters, bowling alleys, play dates, etc.  This has in turn put a lot of pressure on parents (many working from home) to keep everyone on schedule.  Add to the mix, the additional demand to be there more – physically and emotionally – for our children, to be living together so [...]