Leah Frankel Consulting

08/30/2021

As many children and teachers are returning to school, I feel that it’s a good time to share my list of favorite books for all adults who play a role in any child’s life! What books did I miss?

What do you need to know to help your child? These books are my favorite books for families in my practice.

04/13/2021

Who is ready for another round of “harmful and gendered messages in children’s items”?

Yes, of course any child can wear anything they want! Dresses can be for anyone. That’s not the main issue here. Even if these brands chose a “ boy” to represent dresses, the problem is that there is such a dichotomy shown between the items marketed towards the gender norms we’ve created and what that means as we move forward. We see little “girls” smiling sweetly and submissively in pretty dresses and little “boys” with their backs turned or strong posture, weapons out.

These play choices create a world in which feminine is mild and masculine is wild. Who does this serve?

The point here isn’t just about the toys themselves, it’s about our engrained beliefs, our subconscious expectations, and the messages we may be unintentionally passing onto our children.

What should we do? Well, I think we should make sure we’re intentionally limiting violence and weaponry in children’s toys in general. Less media-influenced toys. I think we should encourage all make believe (which probably will end up including some swords but children certainly don’t need them to be made and sold to them) and bring normalcy to children exploring all different kinds of roles. I think we should see more variety of elaborate and beautiful costumes and more animals, dragons, beasts, and characters for all children to enjoy in their own creative ways.

We need to expand our ideas of gendered play, we need to bring in more creativity and options and do away with the silos that perpetuate harmful norms.

That’s just the beginning 🤷‍♀️
✌️ 👑

10/30/2020

I’m honored to be featured this week at One Simple Activity! One Simple Acitivty is a great website that shares great ideas for you to do when your child, and helpful blog posts!

You can read more about a few ways to recognize if your child is feeling worried and a few of my favorite ways to help them on today’s featured blog post 🙂

Featuring Leah Frankel, MSW, LCSW, CLC Leah Frankel has always loved working with young children and families and gets great joy from her work in private practice where she specializes in helping young children and their families thrive through life's ups and downs. Leah moved to St. Louis to p

08/19/2020

I love this reminder.
Specifically as it relates to children. I think that all too often, adults falsely believe they are the ones teaching the children.
Instead, we can reframe that notion so that we begin to see how much children can teach US.
I believe that as we grow and develop, we gain many important skills but, sadly, we also lose many. For example, I notice that many children are far superior observers, more perceptive, harder working, more creative and imaginative, better at noticing and expressing feelings, and more open minded than most adults even on their best days!
I look to my children to teach me how to be flexible, silly, not so self conscious, willing to try and try again, enjoy the moment, trust my gut and listen to my body, and ask good questions.
What can your child teach you today??
✌️

07/04/2020

I’ve seen this post a lot and it always makes me nod in agreement.

I’ve been thinking of this lately because I know the weight of the world right now is resting on our shoulders. No matter how well we’re carrying that weight, it has to be influencing our children, too. Oftentimes, stress/anxiety/grief/loss will look like clingy-ness in children. They may be having a harder time going to bed, doing things on their own, wanting more touch and attention, wanting to be treated like a baby, etc.

My suggestion? Give them exactly what they need as much as possible. They want to be carried all of a sudden? Carry them. Now they suddenly want you to feed them? Feed them! Used to put on their own shoes but now cry for you to do it? Do it! All of our emotional buckets are empty. Your child may be asking you in their own way to help them fill their bucket.

I actually believe that when we take a moment and realize we’re helping our children through something horrible by just caring for them a little extra, we may find our own buckets filling up, too. And my informed guess is that the more we respond to the tricky behavior with EXTRA attention and care, the more the crabby, clingy, controlling, behavior will lighten up.

Also, a child’s experience with a pandemic (and current political uprising) can also come out as physical symptoms (upset tummy, headaches, etc), and of course, defiance and more boundary-pushing and control issues. These things are also calmed and soothed by EXTRA attention and responsiveness. Now is not the time to ignore “bad” behavior.

Are any of you struggling with new or unusual behaviors with your children? What’s working? What’s not?

03/18/2020

During this unusual and difficult time, we welcome our little baby, Noah Oren, into our family and into the world. He joined us on Monday, 3/16 at 1:02am.
We feel incredibly grateful to have the joy and wonder of a new baby, acutely aware of how trying this time is for the world around us.
We’re just wishing for a little light for everyone in this darkness.
Stay well, everyone! 💕

03/14/2020

As a mental health professional, I can’t stop thinking about how COVID-19 is affecting the mental and emotional well-being of parents and their children (and everyone else, of course).
There’s so much good stuff out their to guide how we talk to children about what’s going on, and how to take care of our own sanity in this time of fear, anxiety, and confusion. I hope for all of us to have the ability to seek out that good information and use it to navigate how we handle this difficult time.
As families may find themselves in highly stressful, isolated, and anxiety-provoking situations, my concern for the well-being of children is heightened. We know that stress and lack of support (isolation) are major risk factors for the mistreatment of children.
My hope is that all parents are able to find patience and compassion for their littles ones as we face this highly stressful time and as our children may face boredom, confusion, a potential upset in their typical routines, disappointment, and all the potential behavioral outcomes of being exposed to such a high level of fear and confusion in their environment. Children are sponges of their environments and we must treat them with kindness as they soak up all this hardship.
The hardest part is that I don’t know what to offer parents who are, or will be, struggling. I just have a lot of hopes: that everyone has at least one person in their life to turn to when they’re feeling helpless, that we can get energy from being proactive, that we can help one another in any possible way, that we can allow ourselves to feel our feelings and acknowledge what feels hard, that we can all take action on things we have control over and breath deeply into the things we don’t, that we can think of others more than ourselves when it comes to our public health behaviors, and that we all learn something meaningful from this.
✌️

03/11/2020

I’ve always loved a good pair of scissors. It sounds like a joke but I’m actually serious. I have fond memories of carefully cutting out coupons, all kinds of string, paper, and other materials for projects, and also, one of my all-time favorite activities...paper dolls!! Anyone else play with paper dolls?
Such a good activity but I feel like they don’t exist anymore 🤔
Anyway, Eli has been wanting scissors and I’m so pleased to have a pair for him now. We’ve done a lot of cutting recently.
The thing about scissors: gives children a sense of responsibility, helps with motor skills, perception, creativity, self-sufficiency, and perhaps my favorite: healthy control! Teach and model safety but let kids have at it! 😊

03/10/2020

Choose kindness.
Kindness may seem fluffy or unimportant in the grand scheme of things but I take it more seriously than almost anything else. Yes, in every day life but also in how I view the world. Kindness can be a driving force to all the good in this world—without it, do we stand up for the vulnerable? Protect the powerless? Speak up for those without a voice? I believe in small acts of kindness and also big acts of kindness and today my big act of kindness is voting.
I’m voting for opportunities, for basic human rights, and for social and environmental justice. Not just for me. Truthfully, mostly NOT me but instead, for the most marginalized, underserved, and oppressed populations and for all the silenced and ignored voices out there.
Choose kindness in every possible way, every day.
Vote today and every chance you get!

02/21/2020

Sometimes I “joke” that toys and activities we have for Eli are really for me.
It’s not really a joke. Most (all) the things we play with are things I enjoy myself and it may sound weird or selfish but actually, children really benefit when a parent finds enjoyment in playing together (at least one toy or activity—parents don’t need to be full grown children like I am).
So think about what you find a little joy from and fully engage in that with your child whenever you can. Some parents highly dislike pretend play but don’t mind doing puzzles, some may like to paint but hate the mess of legos, others may enjoy reading books but aren’t into building...we don’t need to force ourselves to like something or be inauthentic (kids know anyway) but we can try our best to engage in play and find some joy in it.

02/13/2020

I think we all feel this but we don’t always remember it.
Not too long ago, I was getting Eli into his car seat. He can do his own top buckle but I usually do it for him but that day I asked him, “Eli, do you want to do the top?” And he said, “yeah, I do! It makes me happy when you let me mommy!” It was such a surprising and sweet little statement to make and really sunk in.
I wish I noticed more little opportunities to make someone feel even just a moment of happiness. I think it’s way easier than it seems, especially for little ones.
So, let’s all try to let our children buckle their own buckle, kneel down to their level when you’re speaking to them, let them slow you down to try something on their own, take a moment to be silly with them, let them step in the puddle, stop what you’re doing and listen with undivided attention, sneak a treat into their lunch, do something(s) today.