Dr. Leigh Weisz is the Founder of Coping Partners, a mental health clinic. As a licensed clinical psychologist in private practice, she was on staff and affiliated with The Family Institute at Northwestern University for several years. She has experience working with children, adolescents, families, and individual adults in areas such as child and adolescent family therapy, grief and loss, and relationship issues.
Dr. Weisz earned her graduate degree in clinical psychology from the Illinois School of Professional Psychology with a specialty in children and families. She holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology and Spanish from the University of Michigan, having graduated with honors. Dr. Weisz has practiced in community mental health, hospitals, and outpatient family medicine practice settings.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
- [1:26] Dr. Jordan Teitelbaum recalls finding two pebbles lodged in a child’s ear during his medical residency
- [2:22] How Dr. Debra Kissen uses square breathing to calm the body’s fight-or-flight response
- [3:39] Why parents should allow children to experience sadness, grief, and emotional discomfort
- [5:06] How anxiety impacts facial expressions, body language, and social connection
- [6:07] Leslie Randolph’s framework for challenging negative self-talk
In this episode…
Parenting through big emotions can feel overwhelming, especially when children and teens are coping with anxiety, grief, self-doubt, or social discomfort. While parents naturally want to remove distress as quickly as possible, children often benefit most from learning how to understand their feelings, regulate their bodies, and move through difficult experiences with support. What practical insights can families gain from experts who help young people build lifelong coping skills?
Five experts offer practical strategies for responding to physical concerns, emotional distress, anxiety, and negative thinking. Dr. Jordan Teitelbaum emphasizes being thorough when assessing children’s physical discomforts. Dr. Debra Kissen recommends practicing square breathing to calm the fight-or-flight response. Dr. Leigh Weisz encourages parents to let children process sadness and grief instead of rushing to remove it. Dr. Danielle Doucette suggests helping anxious teens practice more open, friendly social signals. Leslie Randolph advises replacing negative thoughts with realistic, supportive self-talk. These strategies help young people build stronger coping skills and confidence.
In this episode of The Coping Podcast, Dr. Leigh Weisz brings together Dr. Jordan Teitelbaum, Dr. Debra Kissen, Dr. Danielle Doucette, and Leslie Randolph to share practical strategies for managing physical discomfort and anxiety, processing difficult emotions, and developing healthier self-talk. Their insights offer parents, caregivers, and educators actionable ways to help children and teens build emotional awareness, confidence, resilience, and effective coping skills.
Resources Mentioned in this episode
- Dr. Leigh Weisz on LinkedIn
- Coping Partners
- The Coping Podcast
- Dr. Jordan Teitelbaum, D.O., F.A.R.S. on LinkedIn
- Dr. Debra Kissen on LinkedIn
- Dr. Danielle Doucette: LinkedIn | Email
- Leslie Randolph on LinkedIn
Quotable Moments:
- “By slowing down and taking less oxygen, we’re sending a signal like, I don’t actually need all this fuel because there’s not a true problem.”
- “If the parents can let them feel what they’re feeling and just listen and be there, that would give them a life skill as well.”
- “If we don’t first become aware of what we’re thinking, and don’t lean into this possibility that our thoughts are not facts, then we can’t change them.”
- “Awareness is the first step of just checking in with what goes on in that brain.”
- “The worst case scenario ain’t that bad. The best case scenario is I’m going to learn something.”
Action Steps:
- Practice slow, structured breathing during anxious moments: Techniques like square breathing can calm the fight-or-flight response and signal to the brain that there is no immediate danger.
- Allow children to experience difficult emotions: Giving kids space to feel sadness, frustration, or grief helps them process challenges and build confidence in their ability to cope.
- Validate feelings before trying to solve the problem: Listening without immediately fixing or distracting communicates safety, understanding, and emotional support.
- Help teens recognize anxious social signals: Understanding how anxiety can affect facial expressions, body language, and communication can help young people create stronger social connections.
- Replace the “bully brain” with a “bestie brain”: Challenging harsh self-talk with realistic, encouraging thoughts can improve emotional well-being and support more confident actions.
Sponsor for this episode…
This episode is brought to you by Coping Partners.
Coping Partners is a mental health practice dedicated to helping children, adolescents, and adults manage various challenges including anxiety, divorce, behavioral issues, relationship problems and much more in the Chicago suburbs.
Our practitioners are devoted to building on our clients’ strengths and bolstering weaknesses.
To gain insight and tools for getting unstuck check out our website at CopingPartners.com, email us at support@copingpartnersgroup.com.
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Episode Transcript
Intro: 00:01
Welcome to The Coping Podcast, where we share strategies for coping with the stressors of life, especially the difficulties of parenting. And here is your host, Dr. Leigh Weisz.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 00:15
This is Dr. Leigh Weisz. I am the host of The Coping Podcast, where I feature top experts on topics like raising healthy children, parenting, and so much more. Thanks for tuning in to this special best of episode. On this edition of the show, we’ll take a look back at some of our favorite moments from previous conversations. It’s brought to you by Coping Partners.
Coping Partners is a mental health practice in the Chicago suburbs dedicated to helping children, adolescents, and adults. We help manage various challenges, including anxiety, divorce, behavioral issues, relationship problems, and much more. Check out more episodes of our podcast and our website at copingpartners.com, and you can contact us with any questions you have. Now let’s take a look back at some of our favorite memories from previous conversations.
Just a quick disclaimer the information provided is for educational and informational purposes only. This is not intended to provide mental health treatment and does not constitute a client therapist relationship. The information provided is not a replacement for being assessed and evaluated by a licensed professional, and is not intended to replace mental health or medical advice.
Dr. Jordan Teitelbaum: 01:26
So again, you know, ear, nose and throat is maybe an esoteric thing because like, if I’m not having like a scope or a microscope, you really can’t see, you know, beyond what you can see with an iPhone Lite, which it’s fine, by the way. Let me also say like, that’s fine if you look at your throat. I use Q-tips every once in a while. Yeah. You know, people can just do what they want to do and they probably will anyway.
But some things people can get a little intense about. The most fun thing I remember was residency was in Columbus, Ohio. So I was 45 minutes south and I was very young in my training. So like looking at an ear and taking out a rock, a pebble in like a 5 or 6 year old took it out. So proud of myself.
The pro move, though, is to look back in and just like, make sure that ear canal and eardrum are okay. And there was a second pebble. Oh, and I was like exclaiming to the room. I was like, I found another one.
Dr. Debra Kissen: 02:22
There’s so many different emotional regulation skills. I would say like knowing yourself one for one person. A really slow, gentle breath is super helpful. But for some people who might have a sensitivity to their breath, sometimes doing like square breathing, like the idea of slowing down your breath can does send a signal to your brain. I’m okay.
So and it could be you kind of breathe. We could try together. So we’re going to breathe in for four and then we’re going to hold for four. It’s a square. And then breathe out for four and then hold for four.
And what we’re trying to work against is when we’re in fight or flight mode, we’re like, we might not even know we’re hyperventilating because it could just be like tiny little rapid breaths, but our body or we’re taking all this oxygen because our brain thinks we need to fight or free or flee. And so it’s like all this fuel because like something big is happening. So by taking in less, slowing down and taking less oxygen, we’re sending a signal like I don’t actually need all this fuel because there’s not a true problem. So it does help unless people get really stuck on their breath.
Dr. Leigh Weisz: 03:39
I think also just the emotional discomfort piece or frustration tolerance, however, we want to term that if the parents can let them feel what they’re feeling and just listen and be there, that would give them a life skill as well. So, you know, I’m thinking about grief and loss. I just had a client who was struggling with that. And, you know, of course we all, we all do when we when, when we are having to deal with something so, so sad and so difficult. But I’ve had families where like a pet fish dies and they replace the fish before the kiddo could ever know, or the teenager’s dog dies.
And the parent says to the teenager, let’s go get a new one. Let’s go to the farm. And we’re going to pick out a new one who’s going to be the same type. And come on, we’re going to go and trying to like, quickly distract the kiddo or the teenager in this case, as opposed to just letting them process that and be sad and cry and be angry. And it’s okay.
Like that’s part of life. We need to be able to do that and model it for our kids. But I think, again, parents are so uncomfortable sometimes watching their kids be sad, be depressed, be lonely, be, you know, whatever, fill in the blank that they do what they can to get them out of it prematurely. And so the kiddo or the teenager never really can fully process that experience. And, and know I can get through this.
And it was it was hard. And I know that I can do it again when I need to.
Dr. Danielle Doucette: 05:06
Part of the reason is because they’re really living their life in a state of threat and that anxious threat cue state we call it, which we also teach about. And so if you think about it, when we’re really anxious, it’s really, really hard to genuinely smile. It’s really, really hard to you know, signal friendly, cooperative intentions. What we’re signaling to the world is self-consciousness when we’re feeling really anxious as opposed to friendly intentions, which is, by the way, when I talk to when I work with teens or young adults, that’s what they want a signal signal. They want to signal, hey, I like you or, you know, and that I want to talk to you more.
But they’re so anxious, they’re not signaling that. And so it’s kind of like this vicious loop and this cycle that kind of people get stuck in. Because if you’re signaling more closed behaviors and like more flat facial expressions or constricted, people aren’t going to engage because we’re just those friendly intentions All right.
Leslie Randolph: 06:07
Okay. Absolutely. Okay. Aware. Awareness is the first step here.
Awareness. Awareness. Awareness is the first step of just checking in with what goes on in that brain. And I sometimes with my teen clients, talk about it. We have a bestie brain and a bully brain.
Yes, the bully brain is the one that’s telling you you can’t do that. Who do you think you are? What’s wrong with you? And I call it the bestie brain because you would never say those things to your best friend. But we reserve that self-talk for ourselves.
And then the bestie brain is like, you can do it. And if that seems like too much a leap, it’s you can try, right? I believe in you. There’s nothing wrong with you. Right.
And so we have this spectrum of thoughts. But if we don’t first become aware of what it is that we’re thinking, and don’t lean into this possibility that our thoughts are not facts. Then we can’t change them. And if we follow the breadcrumbs of our thoughts cause our feelings, our feelings are also what then drive our actions. So if we think about a teenager in class of I don’t know the right answer and I’m going to die of embarrassment if I say it wrong.
Chances are you’re not going to raise your hand, right. But if you think I’m willing to try, I believe in myself. It. The worst case scenario ain’t that bad. The best case scenario is I’m going to learn something.
Then probably you’ll raise your hand, right? But so it’s really important that we look at our thoughts. Yes, because it makes us feel better. We have the opportunity to change how we’re feeling. But it also then drives our actions, what we do and don’t do in our lives.
Outro: 07:50
Thank you for listening to The Coping Podcast. We’ll see you again next time, and be sure to click subscribe to get future episodes and check out our podcast page at copingpartners.com.