Children’s Mental Health
Children are constantly watching the adults in their life to gather information and learn how to feel and act during difficult or scary situations. Children are watching and listening right now, as widespread panic sets in about COVID-19. Schools across the U.S. are closing their doors for extended periods of time, leaving children with no […]
Alice Boutz
Mental Health Specialist Alice Boutz has always had a passion for early childhood and early interventions. “I’ve had two family members that have received early childhood interventions in the Kansas City area,” she said. “After first hearing about Rainbows when I moved to Wichita in 2012, I felt like it was the place I wanted […]
Written by Sara Schaller
Practicum Student with Rainbows’ Early Childhood Mental Health Team, Sara Schaller, shares her experience over the course of 6 months. When I started my second and final year of graduate school, I began to experience a whole new level of anxiety; one that far exceeded the previously experienced bouts of panic and disorientation. The reality […]
Mental Health
By Emily Jensby, LCMFT and Cindie Silmon, LCMFT Parenting can be an overwhelming job. We often worry about many aspects of raising healthy children. We make decisions such as what to feed them, discipline approaches, age appropriate toys and overall how to ensure they succeed in a demanding world. While all these things are important, one of […]
Social Emotional Learning
By: Marissa Palacios-Ontiveros, LMSW – MH Specialist and Carmen Dorton – MH Assistant Social and emotional learning is an important aspect that needs to be modeled to children at a young age. The earlier that children are exposed to social and emotional education, the earlier children will be able to learn and apply the skills. […]
Stigma and Treatment
Alice Boutz, LMSW, Mental Health Specialist Mental health problems can and do occur in early childhood. Young children express and process emotions and events in ways that are very different from adults and older children. Some symptoms of mental illness that can occur in early childhood include agitation, often talking about fears and worries, difficulty […]
The Impact on Early Childhood Development
The technological boom of the 1990s has, in many ways, transformed media and its role in the average household. Infants, toddlers, and preschoolers are growing up in an environment saturated with many forms of digital technology. “Screen time” is a term loosely used to describe sedentary activities spent utilizing television, personal computers, gaming consoles, or […]
Mental Health
Recognizing Sensory Issues in Early Childhood By: Nicole Morton, LMSW & Megan Peters, LPC – Mental Health Specialists The Child Mind Institute describes sensory issues as the inability or difficulty of “integrating information from the senses, which may overwhelm children and result in confusing behavior”. Children who are experiencing these problems may overreact or underreact to […]
Dual Diagnosis
If you Google dual diagnosis, you will find that the term is typically used for when an individual has a mental health diagnosis along with a substance use or abuse disorder. However, there is a whole other world of dual diagnosis: the world of mental health diagnosis and intellectual/developmental disability (IDD). Researchers tend to agree […]
Discipline vs Punishment
Written by Cindie Silmon, LCMFT – Mental Health Specialist Parenting can be very hard. Our hopes for our children are that they grow up to be happy, productive adults. Many parents struggle with finding the right solution for addressing their child’s misbehavior. As children grow they are naturally going to make mistakes and will challenge […]
