Sandra Stein, Author at Allen Christian Counseling

About Sandra Stein

Sandra Kovacs Stein was born in Calcutta, India, grew up in the Dominican Republic, and went to school in Canada, where she planned to settle after getting her Master’s degree in Speech Pathology and Audiology. Instead, she fell in love with an American and moved to Queens, New York after they married.Stein has experienced many unexpected twists and turns in her life, which have taught her to be adaptable and open to trying new things. She has enjoyed a variety of work experiences, including speech pathologist/audiologist, computer programmer, technical writer, abstractor, and transcriptionist. With the advent of digital photography, she became an avid photographer of nature and wildlife, and has used some of her photos to author several children’s picture books.Stein lives in northern Virginia, close to her daughter, three of her seven grandchildren, and four of her six great-grandchildren.

Anger Management Tips for Teens

Anger Management Tips for Teens

Sandra Stein2025-01-16T12:11:39+00:00January 16th, 2025|Anger Issues, Christian Counseling For Teens, Featured, Individual Counseling|

Anger is a normal part of being a person. It is okay to feel angry in the right circumstances and to express it in a healthy way. Anger becomes a problem when you can’t manage it, and it gets destructive or out of control. In such cases, anger management may be advised. Some signs that this might be happening to you include expressing your anger in unsafe or unhealthy ways, harming your day-to-day life, or affecting your relationships with friends and family. Why People Get Angry Examples of unhealthy ways of dealing with anger include shouting, cursing, throwing things, breaking things, being rude, physically hurting others, making threats, or getting into fights. It can also be taking your anger out on yourself by depriving yourself of things you need, keeping yourself from doing things you enjoy, or engaging in self-harm. People get angry for many reasons such as feeling judged, disrespected, inadequate, embarrassed, humiliated, or misunderstood; because they are being bullied, abused, or discriminated against; because a lot of things are building up inside them and they don’t know how to express what they are feeling; or because of something that happened to them in the past that never got resolved and they don’t even realize it is still upsetting them. Sometimes, anger is a way of covering up painful emotions hidden beneath the surface such as fear, hurt, guilt, shame, grief, frustration, or powerlessness. What Anger Feels Like Anger causes a sudden surge of adrenaline to be released into your bloodstream, which can cause physical signs such as an out-of-control burst of energy, clenching your fists, grinding your teeth, a pounding heart, rapid breathing, muscle tension, sweating, dizziness, or as though your stomach is tied up in knots. These changes are all part of the body’s fight or [...]

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How to Recognize Night Terrors in Kids and What to Do

How to Recognize Night Terrors in Kids and What to Do

Sandra Stein2024-09-24T13:03:28+00:00May 21st, 2024|Anxiety, Christian Counseling for Children, Family Counseling, Featured|

Night terrors in kids (also known as sleep terrors) are a parasomnia sleep disorder characterized by episodes of screaming and panic while the child is still asleep. (“Parasomnia” is a catchall term used to describe unusual behaviors people experience before falling asleep, while asleep, or during the period when the brain transitions in and out of sleep, such as sleepwalking, sleep talking, or night terrors, according to the Sleep Foundation). Typically, it happens two to three hours after the child first falls asleep, during the deep sleep, NREM (non-rapid eye movement) stage of the sleep cycle, and can last up to thirty minutes or more. The child’s eyes may be wide open, and he or she may look awake, but his or her brain is not. Night terrors in kids are most common between the ages of three and six, although they have been known to occur in children as young as eighteen months and as old as twelve years of age. Episodes can be dramatic and alarming to witness, but they are not usually harmful, and kids almost always grow out of them by early adolescence. What is the difference between a nightmare and a night terror? Nightmares are most common toward the end of the night during the light sleep, rapid eye movement (REM) dream stage of the sleep cycle. The child wakes up frightened but does not exhibit the physical or vocal behaviors characteristic of night terrors. He or she seeks comfort, can remember the scary dream, and may be afraid to go back to sleep. Night terrors, on the other hand, usually occur two to three hours after your child falls asleep, at the end of the deep sleep non-REM stage when the brain starts transitioning between cycles. The child is unable to transition smoothly [...]

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Anorexia and Bulimia: What’s the Difference?

Anorexia and Bulimia: What’s the Difference?

Sandra Stein2024-09-24T12:53:14+00:00May 16th, 2024|Christian Counseling For Teens, Eating Disorders, Featured, Individual Counseling|

Anorexia and bulimia are serious, sometimes fatal, mental health disorders characterized by an unhealthy preoccupation with food, dissatisfaction with one’s body shape or weight, and a compulsion to engage in extreme eating habits and/or unhealthy methods of weight control. In rare cases, a person may experience both anorexia and bulimia at the same time. This co-occurrence of the two is known as anorexia-bulimia and is most likely to occur in individuals who have a strong desire to lose weight but have trouble maintaining the extreme dietary restrictions of anorexia, so they resort to binge eating and purging to help them achieve and maintain their weight loss goal. There are many similarities between anorexia and bulimia, but they are also unique. Similarities between anorexia and bulimia Anorexia and bulimia are the two most common eating disorders. Both involve an unhealthy obsession with food and body image that tends to negatively impact every aspect of the anorexic or bulimic’s life, and they are both also frequently accompanied by other mental health disorders such as anxiety and depression. Anorexia and bulimia both deprive the body of needed nutrients and can lead to electrolyte imbalances and medical complications such as organ damage and cardiovascular issues. Left untreated, they also increase the risk of suicide or premature death. Other similarities shared by anorexia and bulimia include mood swings, a negative or distorted body image, evaluating and judging self-worth based on a perception of body weight and shape, secretive eating habits, fear of weight gain, feelings of inadequacy and a need for control, low self-esteem, perfectionism, unrealistic beauty standards, excessive exercising, hiding eating habits from others, and avoiding social events that involve food. Differences between anorexia and bulimia Although anorexia and bulimia both involve a constant preoccupation with food and an intense fear of gaining [...]

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Examples of Gaslighting in a Relationship and How to Respond

Examples of Gaslighting in a Relationship and How to Respond

Sandra Stein2024-09-24T13:02:06+00:00April 16th, 2024|Featured, Individual Counseling, Relationship Issues|

Gaslighting is a subtle form of psychological manipulation in which the gaslighter tries to make you feel as though you are going crazy by twisting reality to make you doubt your memories and perception of events. The word gaslighting comes from a 1938 play called Gas Light, by British novelist and playwright Patrick Hamilton, in which the husband makes his wife question her sanity by, among other things, surreptitiously dimming the gas lights in their house and convincing her that she’s imagining it. Examples of gaslighting in a relationship Your partner discounts your feelings by telling you that you are being irrational, overreacting, or oversensitive. Your partner denies saying or doing things, even when you show him or her proof and insists you must have imagined it or are making it up. Your partner refuses to accept your apologies and punishes you by withholding affection or giving you the silent treatment. Your partner constantly accuses you of reacting disproportionately to events and of making mountains out of molehills. Your partner often denies or changes facts you clearly recall or breaks promises he or she made, and tells you that you never remember things correctly and must have misheard him or her. Your partner pretends not to understand what you are talking about, keeps saying you are not making sense, and that you are confusing him or her. Your partner tells you blatant lies, and when you call him or her out on them, insists they are true and you don’t know what you are talking about. Your partner trivializes your needs and concerns, telling you that you are too needy or clingy. Your partner describes fabricated scenarios and insists that you said or did things that you know you did not. Your partner tries to isolate you and pull [...]

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Two Types of Anger in the Bible

Two Types of Anger in the Bible

Sandra Stein2024-09-27T11:50:11+00:00June 6th, 2022|Anger Issues, Featured, Individual Counseling, Spiritual Development|

Listen to this article To feel angry is part of being human, but uncontrolled anger can harm both the person who harbors it as well as those around him/her. There are many passages about anger in the Bible, including stories of Bible characters who lost their tempers, and what it tells us is that anger in and of itself is not necessarily sinful, but often what we do with it can lead us to sin or not. Two Types of Anger in the Bible Righteous anger Righteous anger is a reaction to sin or injustice. It’s being angry about things that are evil, and that God opposes. It attacks the sin, not the sinner. An example of righteous anger in the Bible is Jesus’ anger toward the people in the temple courts who were misusing the house of the Lord. Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money-changers and the benches of those selling doves. “It is written,” he said to them, “My house will be called a house of prayer,” but you are making it “a den of robbers.” – Matthew 21:12-13, NIV Sinful anger Sinful anger is anger directed toward someone who has hurt you or offended you in some way, with an intent to retaliate or seek revenge. Letting it consume your thoughts and actions will end up leading you down a sinful path with sometimes dire consequences. Read on to learn about some examples of sinful anger in the Bible. Lessons about Anger from People in the Bible Cain (Genesis 4:1-16) Cain was a farmer. His younger brother, Abel, was a shepherd. Both of them bought offerings to God, but God favored Abel’s offering and rejected Cain’s. This made [...]

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Sandra Stein

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