Zenith Behavior, West Hills, CA (2025)

04/22/2022

If you don’t already, I highly recommend following IG and her podcast. “There’s no doubt about it, plastic and the harmful chemicals that come along with them are getting into your food.

EP: 3 is available NOW on and (link on highlights: podcast). We discuss what to do about it and how I transformed my home into a (mostly) plastic free zone and how you can do it too. Easily, step by step, with the big impact steps first. I promise it’s not as stressful and overwhelming as it sounds. We will just take it one step at a time, together. And I’m here to answer all your questions as you go.

So, this week we discuss a lot of surprising but also disturbing health facts about chemicals in your food from packaging. There are ways to avoid it though and I will go over some of the best strategies I know. If you’ve listened to my toxins series so far tell me below 👇🏻 , what changes are YOU making ?

If you found this podcast valuable it would mean a lot if you could share and rate it . This helps me receive feedback and know if this series is helpful to you.”

08/29/2021

By prioritizing your child’s social and emotional development you give them the foundational skills to achieve their full potential 🙌🏾🙌🏼🙌🏿

Social and emotional health begins with safe relationships at HOME 🏡

Ultimately YOU are giving your child the capacity to identify, manage and communicate emotions effectively. You are setting the ground work for your child to engage in ✨HEALTHY✨ relationships.

Not only does having strong healthy relationships with primary caregivers support and build a self-awareness of emotions, it ALSO contributes to positive and effective social interactions within our community! 🌎

When a child is able to effectively regulate themselves they are better able to learn in school, build a positive self-esteem, demonstrate empathy, and obtain their goals! 👏🏻👏🏼👏🏾👏🏿

Yes, you are you building the foundation for your child’s well-being, but you are also molding our future society ♥️

08/25/2021

Just another back to school photo for your feed 😂🍎 So excited to start on my doctoral journey and share my knowledge with all of YOU! 🙌🏻♥️

05/29/2021

You have just spent hours in the kitchen making a delicious meal for your family and company. You sit down at the table to finally enjoy your hard work and visit with your guests. 🍷🍝

However, your 4 year old has other plans and is already done and can’t seem to sit still for even 10 minutes before he wants to leave! 😩

Kids are meant to move! It’s unrealistic for us to expect that children are able to sit at a table or desk for extended periods of time. 💯💯💯

✨You can expect for your child to sit for approximately 2 minutes per year of age as a good rule of thumb. Of course their will be exceptions on either side of the scale.✨

In order to teach your child sitting skills and build their tolerance, use a visual timer! There are many great visual timers on the market and even a little sand timer will do. Time is abstract to kids and this will give them a concrete visual of how much time is left. 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

Another tip for our sensory seeking kids, is to use a sensory seat pad. This will allow your child to receive sensory input and sit for longer periods of time! 👍🏻

Drop a 🙌🏻 if you’ll try this at home!

03/30/2021

A lot of people may be excited to jump back into life, others may have more difficulty and take longer to transition back to “normal”. 💜

✨Hold boundaries that make YOU comfortable!✨

🔑 Consider personal boundaries like a fence. Some people have low fences or none at all! Their neighbors can freely go in & out of their property. Other people may have high fences that you can not even see in to the property!

Whatever your boundary is, YOU are the gatekeeper. YOU determine who can come close & who you want to let in. 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

During this transitional time, you & your children may be faced with both PHYSICAL & EMOTIONAL intrusions on boundaries.

⭐️ For children, physical boundaries can be difficult. Remind your child that we are still practicing social distancing. You can use the space bubble metaphor & pretend that they and others have a bubble around their body that you don’t want to pop.

⭐️ You can further practice this at home with an item like a hula hoop if they are having trouble understanding personal space.

⭐️ For yourself, use I statements when setting your boundaries. “I am still practicing social distancing. I am going to stand a few feet away.”

Emotional Boundary intrusion can be a little more difficult. 😫

Some family & friends may be more comfortable with the transition back into “normal” life. You may feel pressured to have play dates, or visits with extended family, or go to events that you do not feel ready to attend yet.

⭐️ Use clear language when setting boundaries. Try your best not to be vague such as, “maybe” or “let me think about it.”

If you have poor boundaries you may be feeling burnt out, taken advantage of, responsible for others happiness, saying “yes” when you do not want to, and feelings of guilt. 👎🏻 Whenever your boundaries are violated, it causes internal anxiety & stress. 🌪⛈😫

Sometimes people will not adhere to your boundaries & make you seem irrational. Instead of questioning yourself, accept that some people will make you feel difficult for wanting healthy things for yourself & your family no matter how logical your boundary is.

Healthy people will be respectful of your boundaries ❤️

03/29/2021

As more & more people get vaccinated we are able to catch a glimpse of the new “normal”. You may be feeling anxious & apprehensive of the changes for yourself & your children.

If you are feeling anxious it is likely that your child is feeling it too.

Here are three things to remember if you & your kiddo are feeling anxious about transitioning back into the world.

✨ACKNOWLEDGE✨ By becoming aware & acknowledging anxiety, you are able to see the negative impacts through a different lens. Perhaps you have been losing your cool at your child or partner more frequently. When you realize that you have been feeling anxious, you are able to see that it plays a part in your impatience & irritability. Same goes for your child. Maybe your kiddo is having a harder time with transitions or is having tantrums more often. Could it be that transitioning to a new routine is causing anxiety?

✨What you KNOW vs. how you FEEL✨ Anxiety can be tricky & fool us into fearing things that are not based in reality. So take a moment to reflect. How likely is it that this fear is true? Is this a fear that you have control over? What CAN you control? If you are noticing the anxiety in your child, validate how they are feeling & navigate through these questions with them in an age appropriate way. By doing so, you will be able to make decisions more confidently for you & your family.

✨MANAGE✨ Now that you are aware of the anxiety, you can use this to motivate you to make a positive change. Keep things SIMPLE as you build on to your new routine. Prioritize what is most important to get back to, such as family visits, play dates, & extracurricular activities. Introduce one new thing to your daily routine for a week before you add a new one. Find ways to incorporate self-care.

This past year has been overwhelming & stressful for most of us. However, it is a tiny blip in our life’s journey so far. For our children however, a year has taken up a larger percentage of their lives. Children are resilient, but be mindful of this as you are making your transition back into life. This transition may bring up anxiety for them & they may need to go at a slower pace than you realize.

03/23/2021

15 MINUTES QUALITY PLAY TIME:
1️⃣ Promotes healthy brain development 🧠
2️⃣ It is how kids learn best 🤓
3️⃣ Strengthens relationship with parents and caregivers 💕

🔑 Quality Play Time > The times that you lose your cool 😤

Think of time with your child as a relationship bank account. Every time that you play with your child, you are making a deposit into your bond and relationship. 👍🏻

Every time you lose your cool, you are making a withdraw. 👎🏻

However, if you have a made enough deposits of quality time and other positive interactions, you will have a cushion and will never be negative in your relationship account. 🙌🏻💕

🆘 “Okay, okay...I know play is great for my kids. I know that I need to be more engaged...but what do I do!? HOW do I play with my child? I don’t know how to play anymore!” 😫

The great thing about PLAY is that it has all of these amazing benefits, AND it doesn’t need to be an elaborate activity that requires preparation OR money! 🤯🤯🤯

Our tips to help you with engaging in quality play with your child:

⭐️ BE CURIOUS - Start by being curious about what your child is doing in their play. How do they play? What do they like to play with? Curiosity and paying attention to your child’s interests will help guide you.

⭐️ JOIN IN - Simply join in on whatever your child is already playing with! You don’t need to go out and purchase new items. You don’t even need to set up some elaborate activity. Whatever your child is drawn to and playing with naturally, join in.

⭐️ LET YOUR CHILD LEAD - Allow your child to take the lead! If you are unsure of HOW to play, mirror your child. Who better to guide you than a child’s imagination! Imitate how they play and soon enough your play will be reciprocal.

⭐️ NO COMMANDS - Try not impose your agenda or commands during this time. Our children’s day is full of directions and “no, do it this way”. Play time is their time to shine! Instead of giving suggestions, narrate their play, “I see you put the purple block high on top of the blue block!” “Wow, you made the car go fast!”

How do you make deposits in your child’s relationship account? Tell us below! 👇🏻

03/22/2021

🚨ANNOUNCEMENT🚨

I am BEYOND excited to announce the newest member of Zenith Behavior, Karina Mercado! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

Karina is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. She works with parents and children in the areas of social-emotional development, managing challenging behaviors, child abuse prevention, stress management, and much more.

Karina has worked with children of all ages utilizing a variety of evidenced based therapeutic models such as DIR Floortime and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.

In addition, she is trained in Child-Parent Psychotherapy, which is geared towards improving the quality of the relationship between children and parents who are overcoming trauma.

Karina is the perfect addition to Zenith Behavior as she demonstrates a passion for empowering parents and caregivers to build a strong social-emotional foundation for their children.

✨Karina will be contributing to the content and responses on Zenith Behavior from a MFT lens.✨

Welcome Karina! 🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻

03/16/2021

Attention seeking has come to have a negative connotation. I have found that when people hear “attention seeking” the focus is put solely on the behavior of the child in a detrimental way.

However, if you reframe the thought and use the words “connection seeking” the perspective completely shifts and the responsibility of the parent comes to the forefront of thought.

Attention is a function of behavior. There is no way around the fact that our children do many things for our attention.

However, a lot of times when children are lacking the attention or the CONNECTION that they need, you start to see more challenging behaviors. When their cup is low, even negative attention will do.

💜 By offering 15 minutes of uninterrupted quality play to your daily schedule, you are filling your child’s cup with CONNECTION. Therefore, they are less likely to seek it out in more challenging ways.

✨Try reframing your thought of attention to connection this week and see if your perspective shifts. And include the 1:1 connection building play to your schedule.

Thank you for being the inspiration behind this post.

Let me know your thoughts 👇🏻💭

03/14/2021

Your child is throwing an epic tantrum again. You are fed up and your frame of thought starts to go south...”he’s so spoiled”, “he’s acting like such a BRAT” 😡🤬

👏🏻 BEHAVIOR 👏🏻 IS 👏🏻 COMMUNICATION 👏🏻

The best thing to do (after you ✨PAUSE ✨) is to stay CURIOUS about your child’s challenging behavior.

⚡️Remember, the behavior is just the surface. What is at the ROOT of the behavior?⚡️

Here are some tips on identifying the ROOT of your child’s challenging behavior.

💫Cognitive Development- What stage of development are they at? Are your expectations too high or demanding? Are they not challenged enough?

💫Triggers- Are they hungry? Are they tired? Have they had a chance to let off steam?

💫Social Development- Where are they in their social development? Have they learned the skills to interact appropriately yet? Have they had experience?

💫Antecedent Events- Are they trying to escape a task? Are they lacking connection and attention? Is the behavior pleasing to their senses? Are they trying to gain access to something?

💫Emotions- Are they sad? Stressed? Scared? Frustrated?

💫Temperament- Does your child naturally have bigger outbursts? Are they more sensitive and withdrawn?

💫Sensory Needs- Does your child need more sensory feedback? Run around? Swing? Swim? Jump?

💫Inadvertent Reinforcement- Has the Behavior been inadvertently reinforced in the past? Maybe you’ve said “no” but usually give in after a few minutes?

There’s a lot more to Behavior than meets the eye. Stay curious and meet your child with empathy. You’ve got this 💪🏻

03/11/2021

What happens if your child gets lost? Do they know what to do in an emergency? Do they understand that they have control and power over their body? 🧐💪🏻

🚨Here’s a list of important topics to discuss with your child and make sure that they know. It’s never too early.🚨

⚡️Full name (theirs and yours)
⚡️Phone numbers
⚡️Address
⚡️How to call 911
⚡️Identify safe people (police, security, teachers, etc.)
⚡️Street and car safety
⚡️Anatomical names of body parts
⚡️Identify “tricky” adults (adults don’t ask children for help)
⚡️“What if...” scenarios (have a plan in place)

✨SAVE THIS POST TO REVIEW LATER✨

03/10/2021

V ᴀ ᴄ ᴄ ɪ ɴ ᴀ ᴛ ᴇ ᴅ 💉 ʀᴏᴜɴᴅ ᴏɴᴇ

One step closer to being able to hug you all!

I am feeling hopeful & immense gratitude for science today ❤️

03/09/2021

You’ve had a long day, zoom call after zoom call all while trying to entertain your child. It’s dinnertime and you just want to RELAX 🧘🏼‍♀️🍷

You give your child dinner on the purple plate (yesterday’s favorite) instead of the yellow one. TOTAL meltdown mode. You can’t take it...and you start yelling back, “IT’S JUST A PLATE! EAT YOUR DINNER!” 😩😤😡

First of all, it’s okay. We have ALL been there. You are only human. 💜

Let’s see how we can improve these moments and understand why yelling is just going to create more situations like these in the future. No one wants that! 👎🏻

Starting at birth, parents and caregivers help their children learn how to regulate their emotions through a process called co-regulation.

When young children grow up with co-regulation during those BIG and STRONG emotions, they begin to internalize strategies for self-regulation.

Examples include, a parent rocking a baby to settle them, a caregiver hugging a toddler that is hurt, a parent patting their toddler’s back when they are scared…and even a parent validating that receiving dinner on the purple plate can be frustrating!

CO-regulation leads to SELF-regulation. 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

Here are some tips to help you demonstrate co-regulation for your child.

💫Ask yourself: Is this reaction the most productive way to respond to my child’s behavior?

💫Am I feeling irritated already? Am I feeling out of control or rushed? Am I being triggered by this behavior in some way?

💫Voice - When you speak to your child, use a calm, but firm voice. If you yell or respond in an angry and impatient tone, your child’s fight or flight response is going to be activated. They are going to feel the need to defend themselves in whatever way seems fit.

💫Body Language – Are you standing over your child in a threatening manner? What is your posture, your facial expression or hand gestures conveying to your child?

💫Wait it out – Give your child a moment to internalize your calm. Sometimes this requires waiting it out. Co-regulation requires patience. After all, your young child’s brain is still under construction.

✨For more parenting tips, download digital handbooks at link in bio✨

03/07/2021

You dread outings with your little one. You know that an inevitable tantrum is going to occur and you’re sweating just thinking about it. 😰😰😰

You try your best to control the situation but end up resorting to yelling, punishment and bribery 🙅🏼‍♀️

Try these evidence based strategies instead to get you through!

✨Set up contingencies beforehand ✨

A difference between bribery and reinforcement is that with reinforcement you set up the expectations BEFOREHAND.

You are rewarding DESIRABLE behavior after they occur instead of offering a reward after an undesirable behavior occurs to try and STOP it.

✨Add songs, silliness and fun whenever you can ✨

KIDS 👏🏻 LOVE 👏🏻 SILLY 👏🏻

If there was one thing I could teach parents, it would be to embrace this concept. It’s such an easy and useful tool that not only WORKS but improves your relationship with your child.

✨Give your child some control and allow choices ✨

Kids crave control. Give them choices & control for the little things to gain BIG rewards.

✨Provide praise for DESIRABLE behavior & make relationship building comments ✨

Praise can go a long way for a lot of kids. Make sure to be specific when providing it. “Great job using walking feet and staying with me!” Is a lot better than, “Great job.”

Let your child know that you enjoy their company! Use relationship building comments and keep your own energy & triggers in check.

You’ve got this! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

Zenith Behavior