Dr. Dimitra Robokos Psychological Services PLLC

02/12/2026

Sleep Hygiene for Children
By Madeline Gottlob, B.A. : Quality sleep is essential at all ages, but it plays a particularly critical role in children's development. Adequate sleep supports school performance, extracurricular participation, immune function, stress reduction, and the consolidation of newly learned information.

How Much Sleep Do Children Need?
Sleep requirements vary by age. Here are the recommended hours per night:

Ages 3-5: 10 to 13 hours
Ages 6-13: 9 to 11 hours
Teenagers: 8 to 10 hours

While falling short of these recommendations is certainly problematic, it's worth noting that excessive sleep can also have unfavorable outcomes. The goal is to help your child achieve sleep that is both adequate and high-quality.

Many children and parents struggle with maintaining healthy sleep patterns. Fortunately, there are evidence-based strategies that can help regulate sleep-wake cycles and improve overall sleep quality. Read more: https://therapyassociates.nyc/blog/sleep-hygiene-for-children

01/16/2026

Neuropsychological Evaluations for Children, Teens & Young Adults: When a person struggles in school or experiences behavioral challenges, parents and educators often seek answers.

Why does homework take twice as long as it should? Why does a bright child have trouble making friends? Why do some subjects come easily while others seem impossible? A neuropsychological evaluation can provide the clarity individuals and families need to understand these challenges and chart a path forward.

Neuropsychological evaluations are comprehensive assessments that reveal the relationship between brain function, cognitive abilities, and daily behaviors. Rather than individuals and their families feeling confused by unexplained difficulties, these evaluations identify specific strengths and challenges, often validating their experiences, restoring confidence, and enabling targeted interventions and support. Read more:

https://childtherapysupport.com/blog/neuropsychological-evaluations-for-children-teens-young-adults

01/14/2026

https://apnews.com/article/winter-olympics-success-failure-9d96981fbe07429ba8508a006b732b15

Olympians can teach us to redefine what it means to be successful. They face daily setbacks and have to learn to deal with coming up short.

01/05/2026

The way we parent plays an important role in our children's emotional development, decision-making abilities, and capacity for healthy relationships.

While no parent is perfect and every child is unique, understanding the four main parenting styles can help you make intentional choices that foster growth and positive parent-child bonds. Overall, research consistently shows that authoritative parenting creates the strongest foundation for children to thrive. Read more: https://childtherapysupport.com/blog/understanding-parenting-styles-a-guide-to-raising-confident-well-adjusted-children

12/20/2025

https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/news/publications/health-matters/the-positives-of-social-media-for-teens-and-how-parents-can-guide-safe-use

It’s easy to think of social media as the villain in every teen’s story, but it doesn’t have to be. Focusing only on the negatives overlooks an important reality: social media can help teens connect, create, and discover who they are — especially when guided to use it thoughtfully and safely...

12/20/2025

https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/were_missing_the_good_news_about_youth_mental_health

There is a lot of positive news about young people's well-being that is not receiving much attention.

12/04/2025

A Guide to Academic Accommodations: Every child learns differently. For students with learning disabilities, physical impairments, or neurological differences, traditional classroom settings can present unnecessary barriers to success.

However, schools are legally required to provide accommodations that level the playing field, ensuring all students have equal access to education. Understanding what accommodations are available and how to access them can make a transformative difference in a child's academic journey.

Considering the diversity of student needs, academic accommodations should directly target and address specific challenge areas. Four categories of disabilities that may qualify a student for accommodations are:

Visual impairment: A student who has difficulty reading small print may be offered audio versions of class texts, larger print on handouts, or braille materials. They may also benefit from being assigned a seat close to the teacher or blackboard.

Specific learning disabilities: If a student has dyslexia, for instance, which creates challenges in decoding written language, audiobooks or reading software may help make reading assignments more accessible. Specific learning disabilities may also qualify a student for extended time on tests and assignments.

ADHD: ADHD may make it difficult for a child to stay focused during long class periods, in which case a school may allow that child to take additional breaks throughout the day. A school may also consider whether a modified learning environment with fewer distractions may help a child learn better. Read More: https://therapyassociates.nyc/blog/a-guide-to-academic-accommodations

12/01/2025

The Critical Role of Play in Child Development: Children progress through distinct stages of play from infancy through childhood, each building upon the last. Play is a fundamentally voluntary, spontaneous, and enjoyable process through which children learn to interact with objects, materials, peers, parents, and caregivers in both entertaining and social ways.

As children acquire new skills, grasp concepts, and form relationships, their play becomes increasingly complex while remaining crucial to their development. Age-appropriate play at each stage supports vital growth across cognitive, behavioral, emotional, and social domains.

Not only is play enjoyable, it actually enhances brain development and structure, promotes executive function, mitigates stress, and encourages prosocial behaviors that are carried into adulthood. Play also has significant impacts on academic readiness. It inspires curiosity, which can improve memory and learning, and is associated with the development of early language and math skills. Additionally, play teaches essential relational skills such as communication, collaboration, and cooperation, which will help children adjust to evolving social environments as they age. Read more: https://childtherapysupport.com/blog/the-critical-role-of-play-in-child-development

11/12/2025

The Power of Positive Self-Talk: When we aren't interacting with others, we engage in continuous dialogue within our own minds.

From narrating our morning routine to internally debating an important decision, our inner voice shapes our everyday actions, behaviors, emotions, and perceptions. This mental dialogue varies dramatically from person to person. Some individuals possess an optimistic and self-supportive inner voice, while others tend to speak negatively to themselves. The good news? Regardless of your starting point, positive self-talk can be cultivated through intentional daily practice and cognitive reframing.

Recognizing and Reframing Negative Thoughts
To support our positive inner voices, we first need to identify negative thoughts as they arise and replace them with more productive ones. Negative self-talk appears in statements like "This will never work out" or "I can't do this." By thinking or internally making these assertions, we actually program ourselves to feel inadequate or incapable. These thoughts often come from self-blame, focusing on negative aspects of situations while ignoring positive ones, catastrophizing, and magnifying challenges. Read More: https://therapyassociates.nyc/blog/the-power-of-positive-self-talk

11/07/2025

Understanding Twice-Exceptional (2e) Children: Children with "twice exceptionality," or 2e, are a commonly overlooked and educationally underserved group.

Although not a formal diagnosis in itself, twice-exceptionality describes individuals who possess significant intellectual talents in one or more areas while also meeting criteria for a learning or developmental disability. These children might excel in math, writing, music, critical thinking, scientific reasoning, or creative pursuits. They often perform above average in one or many school subjects but struggle considerably in others. Alongside these talents however, 2e individuals experience one or more neuropsychological challenges, including ADHD, dyslexia, dyscalculia, autism spectrum disorder, sensory processing disorder, etc. When this imbalance between strengths and challenges goes unrecognized, it can lead to diagnostic confusion, emotional distress, and behavioral difficulties. Read More: https://childtherapysupport.com/blog/understanding-twice-exceptional-2e-children

11/05/2025

Why Children’s Mental Health Matters at Every Stage: Mental health is just as important as physical health, and it begins early. From the time a baby is in the womb through the teenage years, mental health significantly influences how children grow, learn, communicate, and build relationships.

As child development professionals, parents, peers, and individuals, understanding the various influences on mental health at each stage of childhood can help us better support children, families, and ourselves.

A child’s mental health journey begins before they are even born when a mother’s health, stress levels, and exposure to toxins during pregnancy can affect their baby’s brain development. As children grow, they undergo physical changes and are exposed to various environmental factors that continue to influence their emotional and behavioral development. These factors span across micro and macro levels.

From changes in neural circuits to large-scale natural disasters, youth mental health is influenced by complex biological, environmental, economic, and social factors. These elements have a particularly strong impact during childhood and adolescence, as these are critical periods of brain development. A developing and adaptable brain absorbs new information easily. That’s why many mental health conditions often begin during these stages. Research indicates that approximately 75% of mental health disorders start before age 25 (Uhlhaas et al., 2023).
Read more: https://therapyassociates.nyc/blog/why-childrens-mental-health-matters-at-every-stage

10/06/2025

Understanding and Harnessing the Therapeutic Power of Music: Music is often described as a universal language, capable of evoking emotions, memories, and connections across cultures.

However, despite its casual popularity, scientific journals from as early as the 1800’s have also recognized music for its therapeutic potential. In recent decades, research has increasingly demonstrated that music is not only an art form but an empirically supported therapeutic tool. Thus, music therapy has emerged as a recognized practice that can support individuals’ mental, emotional, cognitive, and physical health.

Defining Music Therapy
The American Music Therapy Association (2005) officially defines music therapy as “the clinical & evidence-based use of music interventions to accomplish individualized goals within a therapeutic relationship by a credentialed professional who has completed an approved music therapy program”. Here in New York at the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, future practitioners can become equipped with the education to work one-on-one with clients and implement interventions as trained music therapists. This requires both theoretical knowledge and intensive clinical experience and can be highly fulfilling work in a growing field. Read more: https://therapyassociates.nyc/blog/understanding-and-harnessing-the-therapeutic-power-of-music