Everyone talks about the first day of school. Almost nobody talks about the month after it. The first month of classes is coming to an end. Whether your child is at the same school they have attended for the past five years or starting freshman year at a brand-new college, acclimating can be hard. The schedule is set, the workload is real, and plenty of kids still don’t know where to sit at lunch or who to text on a Friday night.

Come September, there is a lot of change at once. A new schedule, a new classroom, new friends to make, and all the pressure that comes along with the school year. That much change arriving together is a lot to carry, for kids and parents both.

"No-phone summer" is having a moment. Parents are forming groups to delay smartphones and buy back a little unstructured time. Good instinct. But taking the phone away is the easy part. A kid with nothing better to do will always find their way back to the screen.

There's a question I've started asking every family I work with sometime around now: "What does a bad week actually look like for your kid?" Not a crisis. Not a catastrophe. Just a bad week. It's a more useful question than it sounds. Because most parents can describe the last crisis in vivid detail.

Every May, I notice the same thing. A kid who's been grinding through the school year, showing up and holding it together, hits the first week of summer and just deflates. The structure falls away, and so does everything that was built around it.

A lot of people come into therapy feeling stuck. They understand their patterns. They know where these patterns come from, can explain them, and have probably talked about them many times. But when real-life situations arise, they still react the same way, especially in relationships,

When learning feels playful, it becomes more effective. Children absorb information more quickly, need fewer repetitions, and retain new skills more naturally. Research consistently shows that integrating play into learning increases engagement and leads to deeper, more durable outcomes.

At BODA, growth has never been about scaling quickly. It has always been about scaling thoughtfully. Every therapist who joins our team shapes the experience our clients have. The tone of the room. The level of care. The standard of accountability. That is why we move carefully when expanding.

The new year often brings a sense of renewal and motivation to grow and change. I feel this energy myself, noticing a more consistent effort toward my New Year’s intentions. At the same time, meaningful change requires more than accountability and discipline alone; it also calls for...

The therapeutic alliance is one of the most important parts of the work. It’s a strong predictor of positive treatment outcomes in individual therapy, and it speaks to a core truth: engaging in psychotherapy is a deeply human experience. I spend a lot of time thinking about...

We live in a rapidly changing world where technology continues to redefine what it means to feel connected and human. Many people now seek belonging through AI chatbots or online communities like Discord. But as digital interactions grow...

We live in an increasingly complicated world. Technology has unlocked incredible opportunities — but it’s also added layers of complexity that demand intention and care to navigate. With AI now woven into nearly every part of daily life,...

One of the simplest tools we teach at BODA is the 5-4-3-2-1 grounding exercise. It’s a quick mindfulness technique that brings you back into the present moment, cutting through cycles of stress or anxiety...