About Lerner Child Development
My Professional Journey
Trained as a clinical social worker and psychotherapist at New York University after earning my undergraduate degree in Psychology from the University of Michigan, I began my career back in 1987 as a child and family therapist.
Then In 1995, I had the incredible opportunity to work alongside pediatricians as a child development specialist providing parenting support and guidance during well-child visits in a DC area practice. This was a project funded by the premier organization focused on early childhood development: ZERO TO THREE. Being on the front lines helping families get off to the best start with their young children had a big impact on my professional path.
When that project ended after two years, ZERO TO THREE asked me to lead the their parenting resources department. In this role, I led the work on translating the science of early childhood for parents and professionals—to empower them to nurture their children’s healthiest development. This involved developing hundreds of resources and trainings on a wide range of topics including: early brain development, positive parenting, and understanding and coping with challenging behaviors.
Through ZERO TO THREE, I also had the opportunity to apply what I had learned from working in a pediatric clinic to training pediatric residents at Children’s National Medical Center on how to integrate more attention to behavior and development into their visits with families. This ultimately resulted in one of the training sites asking me to provide child development and parenting guidance directly to the families they serve as they were not able to spend the time and often did not have the expertise to address the range of behavioral challenges parents raise in visits with their pediatrician. This became the genesis of the private practice I run today.
Why Parent Consultation and Not Direct Intervention to Children?
As a child therapist, more often than not, I found that it was the parent sessions that led to the greatest, positive changes for the kids. In my office, kids weren’t acting out because there were no triggers: I wasn’t trying to put them to bed, or making them do a task, or to share with their sibling, or to cooperate with getting dressed in the morning. In my office, the kids were by and large total delights; we played and had a grand time together.
Then I would meet with their parents who had a litany of complaints: their child wouldn’t listen, cooperate, go to bed at night, sit at the dinner table, clean up their toys, etc. They were being mean to siblings and sometimes getting aggressive; they would have meltdowns when they didn’t get their way; they were demanding and inflexible and running the family. And so on.
That’s when I had the “aha” that I could best help kids by helping their parents understand what makes them tick—the meaning of their behaviors—and how to respond to those underlying, root causes in loving and effective ways.
Today, I spend the majority of my time in the trenches with families of kids 10 and under (with some exceptions-I will see older kids) helping them resolve the range of common challenges including: tantrums, defiance, power struggles, sleep battles, mealtime resistance, sibling conflict, potty learning setbacks, and relationship challenges with siblings and peers. Transforming my practice in this way has enabled me to: help hundreds of families significantly reduce challenging behaviors, build stronger parent-child relationships, strengthen parental confidence in being the loving limit-setter their children need them to be, and nurturing resilience and regulation in kids.
I also write extensively about my work with children and families. Learn more about my how to access my content through my new subscription service.
You will get a good sense of the process I guide parents through that helps them solve the challenges they face by reading my blogs and especially my books. These resources are all case-based and thus reflect what works in reality, not just in theory.
My services include:
My Deep Expertise on Big Reactors (aka Highly Sensitive Children)
Over these decades, I have developed deep expertise in big reactors, aka highly sensitive children, as these kids often experience more frequent and intense challenges adapting to typical tasks, transitions, and expectations, as well as managing life’s inevitable frustrations and disappointments.
My new book, Big Reactors: Practical Strategies for parenting highly sensitive children draws on lessons learned from collaborating with parents of big reactors. As a result, it provides practical, real-world strategies for raising highly sensitive children. Big Reactors is filled with stories from the trenches that show there is no one-size-fits-all approach. Instead, these cases provide a roadmap for understanding the meaning of these deeply feeling kids’ behavior and how to respond lovingly and effectively with calm, connection, and confidence.
I bring to this work my background in mental health, my clinical experience with thousands of children and families, my depth of knowledge about early development gained from my years at ZERO TO THREE, and my personal experience raising two amazing, wonderfully complex, and spirited children who provided my most important “training.”
Truth be told, I am still learning and growing as a clinician and a parent, even though my kids are in their 30’s. It’s neve too late!