Dr. Diane Ross-Glazer completed her undergraduate work at UCLA, and has a doctorate in Early Childhood Education from the University of Southern California. She is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist with over 25 years experience working with children and their parents. In addition, Dr. Ross-Glazer is a credentialed teacher for grades K through 12, and has taught at Pepperdine University in Los Angeles. Currently, she runs a psychotherapy support program in Los Angeles for parents who have experienced a prenatal or perinatal loss.
Dr. Ross-Glazer lectures on parenting and child development, speaking on topics ranging from toddler temperament to teen sexuality. She has been quoted in articles in The Los Angeles Times, Child Magazine, Parents’ Magazine, Parenting, Good Housekeeping Ladies’ Home Journal, Glamour and American Baby. She has also appeared as a child development expert on news and talk shows.
My three-year-old daughter was throwing one of her famous temper tantrums—in public, of course—and all I, the parenting expert, wanted to do was to ask whether she could hold it down for a minute while I consulted a parenting book. Obviously, she was not swayed by my fair-minded efforts to be logical and reasonable. Instead, I was left sweating profusely, praying for divine intervention and waiting for her meltdown to subside.
If I had ever wondered what drove most parents into therapy, I now had the answer: desperation. How naïve I had been to think that my thriving practice was solely a reflection of my therapeutic skill. In truth, there was an unending supply of frantic parents, all searching for answers. Much to my chagrin, I was now one of them.
Why couldn’t my daughter be reasonable and thoughtful? Was it too much to ask that she show some appreciation for my patient guidance and rational discipline? Why did she always have to be so sensitive and difficult? Why wouldn’t she listen to me? I knew only too well what the consequences would be if I let our relationship continue on its current path. I did not want to spend my daughter’s youth locked in combat only to have us emerge as strangers, or worse, enemies, when her childhood was over.
