Lerner Child Development
Guiding Parents To Navigate Their Child’s Behavior
Claire Lerner helps decode kids’ behavior and empowers parents to set loving limits, nurture emotional health, and foster social skills.Â
Claire’s expertise lies in understanding the underlying reasons behind children’s actions, allowing parents to respond effectively and empathetically. Through her guidance, parents learn to navigate the complexities of parenting with confidence and understanding. Ultimately, Claire’s approach fosters healthy parent-child relationships and facilitates positive developmental outcomes for children.
About Clair Lerner…
Clair Lerner is a child development specialist with over 35 years of experience working with children and families in a range of capacities. Trained as a clinical social worker and psychotherapist, she began her career as a child and family therapist.
Her tenure at ZERO TO THREE, leading parenting education efforts, allowed her to translate early childhood science into practical resources and trainings for parents and professionals alike. During this time, she also trained pediatricians to integrate behavior and development support into their practice.Â
Today, she focuses on providing consultation to families with children under eight, drawing from her diverse background and personal parenting experiences. Additionally, she offers guidance to pediatric residents and consults with preschools, while embarking on a new role as an advisor to Little Otter Health, a startup offering personalized mental health care for children.
Her Collaborative Approach
Parents are the experts on their children; she has expertise in early childhood development and parenting. She sees her job as guiding parents to do the detective work of decoding their children’s behavior to understand the root cause—what is driving the child’s actions—by putting together the pieces of the puzzle: how a child’s stage of development, temperament, experiences in her family, and the world shape her behavior. With this insight, she is able to help parents think through what their children need from the caring adults in their world to develop strong coping and problem-solving skills in order to manage the challenges they face as they grow, such as how to:
- Express feelings in acceptable ways
- Cooperate with rules and limits
- Be adaptable and flexible
- Feel confident to muscle through challenges
- Form positive relationships with peers
- Function well in group settings (i.e., childcare or school)