Sissy Goff is a counsellor at Daystar Counselling in Nashville Tennessee. She has decades of experience counselling families and girls, particularly in the area of anxiety. Although anxiety has always been there, it is on the rise (see these stats from Ontario which we discuss briefly at the beginning), and it’s not just because we’ve changed the definition. Social media is identified as a particular pressure. 

She’s just written a book called Raising Worry-Free Girls and an accompanying workbook called Braver, Stronger, Smarter (a workbook for girls aged 6-11). Her work with girls focuses on using Cognitive Behaviour Therapy. For an easy to understand description of CBT check out this information from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto or this from the Mayo Clinic. Other good resources for parents which I (Dr Rob) recommend often is the book Keys to Parenting Your Anxious Child by Dr Katharina Manassis and the workbook What to Do When You Worry Too Much by Dawn Huebner.

Towards the end of the interview, Toni asks Sissy about the concept of a “healthy mind platter”. Sissy attributes this to Dan Siegel who has written many excellent books on children and parenting. We mention a few by name: The Whole Brain Child and No-Drama Discipline. All of his work is mentioned on his website.

Lastly, Sissy also mentions her colleague David Thomas who does a lot of counselling with boys and he is our guest on Episode 6! 

For more information on Sissy and the work she has done and continues to do, visit her website raisingboysandgirls.com which also links to all of their podcast episodes. You can also find Raising Boys and Girls (@raisingboysandgirls) and Sissy Goff (@sissygoff) on Instagram.