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The Kids Who Feel the World Most, Sensory Sensitive Beings
Some children move through the world with the volume turned up. Lights are brighter, sounds are louder, and feelings run deeper. Other children are turned up differently and need more movement, more pressure, and more input just to feel like themselves. If you're raising a sensory kid, you already know how much these differences shape your days. What you may not know is how hopeful the research is. Doing Harder helped more for sensory kids Researchers call this differential s
Cary M Hamilton
6 days ago4 min read
The Girl Staring Out the Window, ADHD Hiding In Plain Sight
Girls with ADHD are often skilled at masking. They copy a friend's notes, stay up late redoing work, and people-please their way through the day. Many get diagnosed with anxiety or depression first, because that's what shows on the surface.
The ADHD underneath keeps running the show.
Cary M Hamilton
6 days ago3 min read
Not Spoiled. Not Picky. Not Dramatic. It's Sensory
I have felt that stare. One day I wasn't paying attention to everything we had already done: store to store, loud, bright. My son hit his limit in the middle of Target. He screamed, curled into a ball, and slammed his head into the floor. The looks from other shoppers were critical, judging, and disturbing. I knew he was in a meltdown, not a tantrum. I held him and told him, "I've got you, love." Then I looked up at the strangers, smiled, and said, "I've got this." What I mea
Cary M Hamilton
Oct 133 min read
Volume Ten: The Emotional Side of ADHD Nobody Talks About
The same brain systems that manage attention also manage emotion. Executive function includes the pause between a feeling and a reaction, and in ADHD those systems mature later, often by several years. Your nine-year-old may be working with the emotional brakes of a six-year-old.
Cary M Hamilton
Oct 133 min read
You Have Eight Senses. Your Child Is Using All of Them.
October is also Sensory Awareness Month, and I want to start with the senses nobody taught us in kindergarten. Most of us learned five. Your child's nervous system runs on eight, and the three we skipped explain a lot of what people call "behavior problems."
Cary M Hamilton
Oct 84 min read
This Fall Feels Different — And I Don't Think It's Just You
It's not just the kids this year
Every fall carries some version of transition stress — new teachers, new routines, the jump from unstructured summer days back into a schedule.
That's normal, and most kids move through it in a few weeks.
However, this year there's more sitting on top of the ordinary stuff. Families are watching the news and feeling the economy in ways that show up at the dinner table even when nobody says the word "budget" out loud. School safety has become
Cary M Hamilton
Aug 315 min read
Why Boredom Is a Mental Health Skill (Not a Problem to Fix)
Every summer, I hear some version of the same worried question: "My kid keeps saying they're bored. Should I be doing more?"
Usually, the answer is no.
Mental health isn't the absence of discomfort. It's knowing what to do with it. And boredom, as uncomfortable as it feels for both the kid experiencing it and the parent watching it happen, is one of the earliest places a child practices that skill.
What boredom asks of the brain.
Cary M Hamilton
Jul 53 min read
Why Summer Is the Best Time to Stay Consistent in Therapy
Every June, we get some version of the same question: "Can we just pause therapy until school starts back up?"
It's a fair question. Summer feels like it should be a break from everything — schedules, structure, stress. However, when it comes to your child's therapy, summer isn't the season to step back. It's actually one of the best times to lean in.
Here's why, and here's what's changed about how we're approaching summer scheduling this year.
Cary M Hamilton
Jul 53 min read
Understanding Mental Health in Every Brain
Mental health is your ability to handle stress, connect with others, make choices that feel good to you, and move through life feeling like yourself. It's not the absence of hard feelings. It's knowing yourself well enough to understand what helps when things feel hard. For some kids, that's moving their body. For others, it's quiet time alone. For some, it's talking things through. For many neurodivergent brains, it's a combination—and it changes depending on the day.
Cary M Hamilton
May 73 min read
Parenting When the World Feels Unsafe: Helping Children Stay Regulated During Collective Stress
When the world feels like it’s stopping again, children don’t just watch—they feel it in their nervous systems because it is happening again.
Not a pandemic—at least not the same kind. But that feeling. That pit-in-your-stomach, world-tilting-sideways feeling that parents know too well. The one where you wake up, check the news, and think, "How do I possibly explain this to my children today?"
We're six years past March 2020, and our bodies remember. Our children's bodies
Cary M Hamilton
Feb 218 min read
What to Expect When You Bring Your Child to Play Therapy
If you're reading this, you've likely made the brave decision to seek support for your child. Maybe you've noticed they're struggling with big emotions, navigating a difficult transition, or simply need some extra support. You want to help them, and you're wondering what happens when you walk through our door. That's exactly what we're here to talk about today.
Cary M Hamilton
Jan 2512 min read
After Resilience: Why My 2026 Word is Sovereignty
Last year, I asked you to choose a word for 2025. I chose resilience.
I had no idea how much I would need it.
What Resilience Cost Me
And somewhere in all that getting through, I lost something.
I lost me.
Cary M Hamilton
Dec 29, 20253 min read
Setting Boundaries for Joy: Finding Gratitude & Glimmers This Holiday Season
We are all about encouraging boundaries in relationships because they foster healthy connections and improve self-esteem and self-compassion. But here's what we're learning about boundaries and mental health: when we protect our time and energy through healthy limits, we create the capacity to actually notice the good moments—what trauma therapist Deb Dana calls "glimmers."
These small moments of warmth, connection, and joy are everywhere during the holidays, but we can o
Cary M Hamilton
Nov 27, 20256 min read
FALL into Your Interoception Sense
Our interoception sensory system works to bring awareness to the inner workings of our body and regulate our internal physical states
Celia Courser and Cary M. Hamilton
Nov 16, 20214 min read
The information contained on this site, blog posts, videos, and interviews are for general education purposes and do not constitute professional advice. If you are a provider, it’s important to seek training, continuing education, or clinical supervision. If you are a parent, I encourage you to seek direct help from a qualified provider for your child and family. All identifying information, including names and other details, has been changed to protect the privacy of individuals.
*The photos used are personal or are stock photography models and do not represent specific individuals in any way.
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