Play, Enriching Environments, & Relationships
“Dana Keiser is a skilled clinician who uses her expertise and warm, inviting nature to put us at ease. Her willingness to listen and connect made the entire process enjoyable.”
- M., mother of three
Dr. Dana Keiser has been supporting children, families, teachers, and administrators for over twenty years as an education consultant and child development specialist. Her practice draws from professional experience in both New York City and Chicago as an educator and researcher.
Dr. Keiser completed dual master’s degrees in early childhood education and special education from Bank Street College of Education and received her doctorate in child development from the Erikson Institute.
She believes that play, enriching environments, and relationships are the pillars of a healthy childhood. Her work helps families understand ways to bolster those pillars and create more balanced family structures.
Dr. Keiser has two wonderfully complex children of her own and finds parenting to be profound, challenging, and transformative.
This informs her understanding that parenthood requires practice, creativity, humility, self-reflection, patience, self-care, boundaries, and generosity.
She also believes that emotional support from friends, family, and professionals when needed is important in the quest for harmony in the household.
“When I saw negativity and unwillingness, Dana reframed things in a way that shifted my perspective. She provided real strategies for an upcoming big life change that worked wonders.”
- C., mother of two
We help parents transform challenging behavior by facilitating an understanding of positive discipline and emotion coaching that can heal stressed relationships through positive connection.
We also work with parents to simplify and alter home environments for open ended play, and to transform daily schedules in order to better support child development.
Reflecting on and transforming our adult expectations and behavior in support of our children can have a significant impact on their success. Learning to identify and accept our own feelings so that we can tolerate our children’s feelings and provide guidance can ultimately help them better understand and regulate their emotions and behavior.
We Can Also Help:
“Dana’s expertise in parent coaching lies in her ability to listen compassionately to our concerns about, and frustrations with our children. She encourages us to continue trying despite occasional setbacks in our parenting journey.”
- N. and J., parents of three
Dana Keiser draws from the research of Dr. Elaine Aron in her understanding of the power of temperament on child behavior, and the healing role that relationships and home environments can play for the highly sensitive child (HSC).
While all children thrive in supportive environments, highly sensitive children in particular are highly attuned. They're deep processors and easily become over-stimulated which can lead to challenging behavior.
Highly sensitive children tend to have an increased reaction to emotional and sensory stimuli while struggling to regulate emotions, but they often have special talents, profound empathy, and sophisticated mastery of verbal language too. Challenging behaviors that arise due to sensitivity are often misunderstood and misdiagnosed.
By maximizing quiet time in the home, slowing schedules, using positive discipline strategies, and truly listening to highly sensitive children, we can uncover their profound talents, deep feelings and empathy, and learn to embrace their sensitivity as a superpower.
We work with parents to develop a perspective about the role of temperament in their child's challenges and then look for ways to improve environments and routines in order to create a more peaceful home life. We also help parents identify the influence their own temperamental traits have on relationships with their children.
As a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP) herself, Dana has an intimate understanding of how overwhelming life can be for highly sensitive children.
“I was struggling with my 11-year-old son. Dana immediately noticed he's a ‘highly sensitive child’ and provided invaluable, game-changing guidance on ways to better communicate with him.”
- R., Mother of two
Education Consulting
Dana Keiser works with teachers and school administrators to adapt curriculum that supports student needs, and is available for classroom observations, teacher coaching, and staff development focused on Highly Sensitive Children.
She also helps with positive discipline as a teaching strategy, attachment/separation during school entry, and broadening pedagogical scope including lessons from Reggio Emilia, Rudolph Steiner, John Dewey, and Maria Montessori.
“If you’re experiencing challenges large or small with your child, or you just want to understand your child better and learn parenting strategies tailored to your family, I highly recommend working with Dana.”
- C., mother of two
“Dana provided us with tactics we could use immediately to address behavioral issues. She was intentional about learning our family’s approach to discipline before offering solutions. Her combination of tactical and longer term strategic solutions that fit our value system makes Dana a real asset.”
- C., Father of a 1.5-year-old