About Claire
I am a child development specialist with over 35 years of experience working with children and families in a range of capacities. Trained as a clinical social worker and psychotherapist, I began my career as a child and family therapist. When I was asked to lead the parenting education work at the highly esteemed organization, ZERO TO THREE, I couldn’t pass up the chance to make a more “macro” impact. In my 20+ years in this role I led the organization’s effort to translate the science of early childhood for parents and professionals—to empower them to nurture their children’s healthiest development through the development of hundreds of resources and trainings on a wide range of topics including: early brain development, positive parenting, and understanding and coping with challenging behaviors.
As part of my professional development work at ZERO TO THREE, I trained pediatricians and pediatric residents on how to integrate more attention to behavior and development into their visits with families and to provide more support to parents, overall, within that setting. This ultimately led me back to my greatest passion—working in the trenches with families—when one of the practices where I was providing training, Children’s Pediatricians and Associates (CP&A), asked me to provide child development and parenting guidance to the families they serve.
Today, I spend the majority of my time providing consultation to families with children primarily eight years and under. 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 even though my kids are on the cusp of 30.
In addition to working with families, I continue to train pediatric residents and provide consultation to local preschools on understanding and responding to the needs of the children in their programs, especially when it comes to understanding and effectively addressing challenging behaviors.
I am also excited to be embarking on a new endeavor as an advisor to Little Otter Health, a start-up that is providing personalized, state-of-the-art online mental health care for children 0-12. Little Otter Health was founded by Dr. Helen Egger, previously of Child psychiatry at NYU Langone and Duke University, in collaboration with a team of experts in child mental health.
My approach is collaborative: parents are the experts on their children; I have expertise in early childhood development and parenting. I see my job as guiding parents to do the detective work of decoding their children’s behavior to understand the root cause—what is driving the child’s actions—by putting together the pieces of the puzzle: how a child’s stage of development, temperament and experiences in her family and the world shape her behavior. With this insight, I am able to help parents think through what their children need from the caring adults in their world to develop strong coping and problem-solving skills in order to manage the challenges they face as they grow, such as how to:
Express feelings in acceptable ways
Cooperate with rules and limits
Be adaptable and flexible
Feel confident to muscle through challenges
Form positive relationships with peers
Function well in group settings (i.e., childcare or school)