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Ep. 358: Dr. Marcy Willard – Child Psychologist and Creator of CADEY Dr. Marcy Willard is the founder of Clear Child Psychology. Clear Child Psychology partners with families to provide diagnostic assessments, clarity and a customized roadmap for supporting their unique child. Their goal is to free families from the burden of unknowing and to connect kids with the he...

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Hello parents!
Anna Kroncke, PhD and Marcy Willard, Ph.D. did a FREE course for parents of kids with ADHD, from preschool through high school.

Please check it out and share with friends. Here's a description of the class:

Finally! Someone gets it. Having a kid with ADHD is hard. Therapists and treatments are rare and often ineffective.

Packed full of the latest research and insights, this free course is like getting a dedicated session with an ADHD expert. This course would cost you hundreds of dollars in the office. The ideas offered here are the exact same strategies we would provide in our clinical practice. But as an introduction to our programs, this course is completely free.

These are proven, research-based strategies. Want to help your child now? A better life for your family starts here. MMarcy WillardCClear Child Psychology

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A great day for our company! Rated in top 50 in Colorado for growth and Top 3 for AI innovation. Congrats team!

Depression in childhood and teen years is persistent sadness, loss of interest in activities; as well as, feelings of hopelessness, irritability, and frustration.
What To Do:
Increase emotional awareness: Help your child recognize their emotions by drawing emotional faces, role-playing, and acting out different emotions. Start with positive feelings and move to sadness, worry, and other negative emotions. When you are watching youtube or tv together, ask your child what different characters in the story may be feeling.

Improve coping skills: Practice skills such as deep breathing, relaxation, reading, listening to music, taking a walk, jumping on the trampoline, talking to a friend, youtube progressive muscle relaxation and practice with your child.

Optimism: If your child is a pessimist, the Optimistic Child has some good suggestions. For now, there are a few basic ideas for ways to foster more optimism in your child. It is important to see how your child is ‘attributing’ negative events in life.

Changeable – People who see events as permanent are pessimistic; those who see events as changeable have a more optimistic outlook.

Specific – People who see negative events as global and pervasive have more of a pessimistic view; those who see negative events as specific are generally of the optimistic view.

External – Finally, those who see negative events as internal and general personality traits (“I am such a slob”) are more pessimistic. Those who see events as internal and behavioral (“This room is a mess, but I can clean it up”) tend to be more optimistic.

When bad things happen in your child’s life, help him or her to see the glass as half full by looking at these events as changeable (not permanent), specific (not global), and behavioral (not personality traits). [3], p.64

Mindfulness: Mindfulness involves recognizing and accepting feelings and allowing them to just be. This practice involves scanning the body to notice any tension and working to let that tension go. Awareness of the present time and accepting thoughts and feelings are important in mindfulness practice. It may help to remind your child that feelings are like clouds. We can watch them pass without getting too caught up in their current form.

Watch for fact-finding: Often when we feel sad we think about every event that has ever gone wrong in our life increasing our sadness. Instead, try acknowledging the current feeling of sadness without adding to it by connecting that event with other unpleasant circumstances or events.

Spend time together: Read together, watch movies, and visit the zoo or the park. Just take time to be together. Be careful of your tone and your own irritability around your children.

Listen to your child: When your child shares symptoms or negative self-statements like “I hate myself,” hear them. Never say “no you don’t.” Instead, say, “I hear that you feel really awful right now. I’m here to help. Together we can try to make it better.”

Get your child involved: Guide your child to take part in pleasant events that he or she used to enjoy. If your child used to like dance class, is she interested in trying a new class? If your child used to play guitar, does he want to get involved in a local music school or band?

Support your child in identity formation: Older children and teenagers tend to be in the phase of identity development. It’s your child’s chance to really decide what he or she stands for, and what is important. Help your child truly explore who he or she is by:
making a collage
taking an art or pottery class
picking up a new instrument
identifying places he or she would like to visit
checking out some books of interest at the library
Build healthier habits: Patiently work with your child on eating, sleeping, exercise, and social patterns. Healthy habits help foster resilience and overcome depression symptoms.

Joint attention in childhood is the skill of focusing on objects or activities that are of interest to others. For example, if a parent says, “Wow, that’s a beautiful bird!” while looking up in the sky, the child will look up to enjoy seeing the bird too.
What To Do:
In order to help your child with joint attention, it is important to know what it is at a foundational level. Parents can significantly impact a child’s joint attention through direct teaching, practice, and reinforcement of these important social skills.

Joint attention has two parts, which are initiating and responding.

Imagine a child who is at the park and notices an ice cream truck. If the child looks at mom, smiles and jumps enthusiastically, we call this initiating joint attention.

Now imagine a child is quietly playing on the swings at the park when the ice cream truck comes. The child doesn’t see the truck, but notices other kids are all excited about it. When this child goes over to see what the other kids are looking at, we call this responding to joint attention.

Initiating joint attention has three parts that work together to build social connection, as follows:

Noticing an object of interest
Changing attention to another person
Changing attention back to the object
For example, a child sees a bunny in a field, looks at mom, and then looks back at the bunny while pointing. This is an example of good initiation of joint attention. Essentially, the child saw something and brought it to their mom’s attention.

In a counterexample, a child watches a window washer who dropped in front of a window. The child stares at the window washer but does not point it out to mom. This child is not initiating joint attention. Essentially, the child saw something and did not bring it to anyone’s attention.

Responding to joint attention has the following two parts:

Noticing another person’s interest by following the gaze or point of another person
Following their gaze or point to an object of interest
For example, imagine that the kids are all on a field trip at the museum. If the teacher points to the dinosaur and the students all look at it, they are responding to joint attention.

In a counterexample, all the kids in the class notice a clown outside the doorway and start pointing and commenting excitedly. A child who does not turn to look at the doorway is not responding to joint attention.

Joint attention is the most basic and generally considered the most important social skill. We simply cannot learn how to socialize if we aren’t paying attention.

“To help your child initiate joint attention, notice what your child is noticing.”

Say something like, “what are you looking at, buddy?” If your child says, “the boat” you might say, “oh, that’s a really big boat, isn’t it?” If your child responds by agreeing or commenting, immediately respond. You can say, “thanks for showing me” or “it is so fun to look at the boats together.” What is happening in this interaction is that you are showing your child that you like to be brought into their world and you are interested in hearing their perspectives.

If you want to help your child respond to joint attention, try to get your child’s attention in the gentlest way. For example, if your child is playing with a toy and you really want to show them the boats out the window, you can say, “Hey, look at those boats” or simply point to the boats and see if your child looks. If your child does look at the boats, immediately praise this behavior. You can say, “Oh, I am so excited you like boats too” or “I am so glad you are here with me, and we can enjoy these boats together.” Again, you are showing your child that it is important to join other people in their experiences.

If you are doing these activities and your child is truly not responding, treatment may be needed. Early intervention, meaning getting help while your child is still young, has the best outcomes for improvement in this area.

Organizing (also known as executive functions) in childhood refers to the child’s set of thinking skills that include planning, initiating tasks, self-monitoring, paying attention, and using effective problem-solving approaches.
What To Do:
DO keep instructions simple when you can. Give one direction at a time, have a structure and definition for tasks you expect your child to complete. If you say ‘clean your room,’ have a chart with clothes hanging in the closet, Legos in the Lego bin, and the bed made.

DO use a lot of charts and visuals. Having a chore chart, a bathroom routine chart, or a homework chart that allows you and your child to see the tasks, check them off and earn praise or reward is a great idea for a child who has trouble with organization.

DO give immediate positive feedback and reinforcement to your child whenever you can. Keep in mind the idea that we should have five positive things to say to our child for every negative or critical statement we make.

DO help your child maintain a calendar and a schedule. Start early with a calendar with the school or preschool schedule, plus holidays, plans for days off, dentist appointments, etc. Have your child help draw the icons, mark off days to a fun trip, etc. This experience will help them later on with longer assignments and planning.

DO use timers and reminders/warnings about time to shift. Even though you do it every night, use a timer to signal the end of free time or TV time and give warnings before expecting your child to shift to PJs, brush teeth, etc. Wait out the protests. Echo that you get it, that you know it is hard to stop doing fun things.

DO have an organized space used only for homework/ work assignments. Whether it is a desk in the bedroom organized for schoolwork or a small lap desk with a lid that can store pencils, paper, calculator, etc., help your child have a dedicated space. Do not have your child do assignments in a noisy room with TV, music, etc. If your child does need music to focus, try instrumental. Set the stage with a routine for getting work done.

DO have a space for the backpack or school bag. Have a system to check for assignments and a place to put completed work. Have a section or folder of the backpack for assignments and another section for what to turn in the next day at school. After your child has had a snack and a break, review the backpack and address anything that needs to be done for the next day.

DO reward your child for engaging in quarterly clean and organize sessions. Go through the desk, closet, and dresser regularly so that your child’s life is not covered in clutter. They will not be organized if they can’t find anything themselves.

DON’T be vague in your directions. Be specific. So do not say, ‘clean up this mess of a room.’ Give specific tasks and give them one at a time or provide a shortlist.

DON’T expect your child to figure it out on their own. Organization and planning are such challenging tasks. Your child needs you to help them figure this out and practice these skills.

DON’T be afraid to ask for help from an organization coach or tutor if organizing is too much for you. Some adults also really aren’t good at being organized. If it is a huge pain, hire the help.

DON’T lose your temper and make threats or statements you don’t mean. Say you are taking a break and leave the room. If you do not feel calm, it will not go well.

Fluid reasoning is the brain’s ability to take in new information without the benefit of practice or experience. Fluid reasoning is often referred to as abstract reasoning or ‘novel problem-solving.’
What To Do:
Connect to background knowledge: When children struggle with fluid reasoning, they tend to benefit from help with making connections to background knowledge.

For example, if the child is learning about a new country, it can be helpful to talk to them beforehand about similarities to his own country or culture.

When learning about geometry, parents or teachers might show the child everyday household objects with the same shape (for example, a ball for a sphere, a cereal box for a rectangular prism).

Checklists for step-by-step procedures: ask your child’s teacher or break things down for your child in step-by-step instructions

Model problem-solving strategies: do a ‘think aloud’ while showing a child how to solve a problem [2]. For example, in math, a parent can say, “First, I will read the directions carefully. I will make a picture and write a number model. Next, I will solve the problem.”

Get help for performance anxiety: Anxiety may be the problem if your child’s fluid reasoning is impaired due to refusal to try new approaches. In that case, your child may worry about how they will perform on new tasks and thus may be resistant to learning new strategies or techniques.

This concern would be related to performance anxiety or self-efficacy, which is your child’s belief in their ability to perform well on a particular task. This issue may require an evaluation or therapy to determine if anxiety is an issue and help your child learn coping skills.

Get help for general anxiety: Your child may have generalized anxiety, whereby all uncertainty makes them nervous. Learning something new may be intimidating because they do not know if something bad may happen in this unpredictable situation. Some resources can help your child with anxiety [3-5].
If the problem is more anxiety-related, your child should get better at fluid reasoning after learning coping techniques.

Memory in childhood is the ability to remember important information that the child needs for their learning and day-to-day life.
What To Do:
School consultation: If your child is in upper elementary, middle school, or high school, remembering assignments is very important. The first thing to do is likely to request a consultation with the school. There may be support available from the school counselor or academic interventionist at your child’s school.
Help with planner: If your child is struggling, it can be a useful strategy to sit down with teachers and talk about how to support your child using a planner. Some children will do much better when they have a physical planner that parents and teachers can check daily. Although a digital planner is fine, it will be necessary that both the child and parent can easily access and add items to the planner each day.
A home-school communication notebook: If your child often forgets homework or gets in trouble in class over missing work, you may want to request a ‘home-school communication’ book. This is a simple spiral notebook with a section dedicated to each day. The parent can write a note about how homework went that night. The teacher can describe how the school day looked and give specific instructions for assignments and materials needed for the next day.
Online homework systems: If assignments and grades are posted online, it will be important that you know how to use the system. Often, it can be confusing to access systems like Infinite Campus and Schoology until someone teaches you the process. At the very beginning of the school year, make sure you have the login information for your child’s school accounts. If your child is struggling with remembering assignments, get in the habit of checking these online systems each night.
Understand how your child learns: Learning styles can have a significant impact on your child’s memory and success in life. Understanding how a child learns can allow adults to provide the right type of support for your child’s memory.

Intelligence in childhood is a child’s overall ability to understand, reason, and problem solve.
What To Do:
An IQ test can help identify your child’s specific areas of strength in intelligence and their specific areas of weakness. Most often, children have areas that are stronger and areas that are weaker. Understanding this balance can help a parent encourage learning in areas of strength. Parents can figure out how to accommodate for or support a child’s weaknesses.

At Cadey, we believe in a growth mindset. Some aspects of intelligence are highly heritable like fluid reasoning. Yet, other areas, like verbal comprehension, are impacted significantly by our environment. The language we use, books we read, and exposure to different learning experiences make a difference for our children. There are also other types of intelligence like emotional intelligence that do not relate to traditional IQ.

DO seek an IQ test if you are wondering about your child’s intelligence or if your child has unexplained learning challenges. The most commonly used IQ test is the Wechsler intelligence scale. Many schools may have a psychologist who can administer this without you visiting a private psychologist. This test can tell you what your child’s overall skills look like and provide a profile of strengths and weaknesses.

Please note: It is important to be aware that IQ scores do not tend to stabilize, meaning stay the same, until around age 7 or 8 (around the third grade). Therefore, if your child is tested in pre-school or early elementary school, the score may not remain stable through grade school.

Memory for learning in childhood is memory that is specific to what is learned in the classroom. This concern is often related to academic challenges and learning disabilities.
What To Do:
Cramming may not work for many children. Taking the information in too fast with too little practice may lead to immediate availability but not to the proper storage of the information in the long term. Studying over a more extended period, such as a bit each day, can help some children and adults retain more information. In psychology, we call this difference “distributed practice” versus “mass practice.”

The research is clear. Distributed practice (a little at a time, over time) is far superior to mass practice (cramming all at once). The ultimate goal is to get the important information into long-term memory so that it becomes part of the knowledge base. When we store information in long-term memory, we can build on it with new knowledge and learning.

Therefore, repetition and distributed practice are critical to helping your child remember information for school. Find a quiet place and set aside a bit of time each day.

Use multi-sensory learning strategies

Make songs, write multiplication facts in the sand, and draw the states in chalk on the driveway. Use multiplication for baking a favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe by selecting a times table to work on and then adding in the chocolate chips in multiples of that times table.

All of these activities can take something abstract or unapproachable and anchor it in the mind.

Make learning meaningful

Help your child relate new information to what they already know. This process can be challenging, particularly with rote information like spelling facts or multiplication tables. Using a whiteboard, write the words in giant letters to increase gross motor activity. Make funny songs or stories with spelling words, and act out the script you create over and over with your child taking the lead in a play.

When studying state government, visit your state capitol or watch a movie with characters that capture your child’s attention.

Go to the zoo to learn more about animals from Africa, or check out a large and engaging picture book of animals at the library.

It may take a lot of creativity to develop new learning strategies, and some books and articles are referenced below in the resources section to help you with memory strategies.

Keep an eye out for emotional symptoms

Having a learning challenge like this can be frustrating for a child. It will be important to watch for mental health symptoms of anxiety, depression, or low self-esteem that may be related to learning frustrations.