Laura S. Kastner

Dr. Laura Kastner is a clinical psychologist and clinical professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at University of Washington. Dr. Kastner is a nationally recognized author and speaker and has appeared on The Today Show, the McNeil/Lehrer news hour and many local TV news interviews. Dr. Kastner has co-authored three books with Jennifer Wyatt: The Seven Year Stretch: How Families Work Together To Grow Through Adolescence, Houghton-Mifflin, 1997; The Launching Years: Strategies for Parents from Senior Year to College Life, Three Rivers Press, 2003; and Getting to Calm: Cool-headed strategies for parenting tweens and teens, ParentMap, 2009. She has also co-authored, with Kristen Russell, Wise-Minded Parenting: 7 Essentials for Raising Successful Tweens + Teens, ParentMap, 2013.

Dr. Kastner has been a keynote speaker in hundreds of settings including regional independent school conferences, hospital lecture series, child psychiatry conferences, public and private schools, business settings and teaching conferences. Although she speaks most frequently on the subject of parenting adolescents, she also lectures on the effects of affluence on child-rearing, launching teens to college, emotional intelligence and character education.

Dr. Kastner’s books have been recommended by Drs. Brazelton, Siegal, Gottman, Dweck and Linehan and lauded for their distillation of complex theory and research for the public sector. She provides tools for parents so they learn strategies for “getting to calm” and managing hot button situations. Moreover, she demonstrates how parents can become “wise minded” by figuring out skillful and effective ways to problem solve during the challenging second decade of life.

After receiving her Ph.D. at University of Virginia, Dr. Kastner joined the faculty at the University of Washington where she teaches in the departments of psychology, psychiatry and the school of medicine. Specializing in adolescent health, the topics of Dr. Kastner's academic articles include adolescent sexuality, behavioral medicine, teen suicide, eating disorders and the teaching of interviewing skills in primary care. She has received the Distinguished Psychologist Award from Washington State Psychological Association and been named one of Seattle's Top Doctors. She maintains a private practice in which she treats children, couples and families. She and her husband of twenty five years have two children in college.

Learn more about Dr. Kastner's work and her upcoming events by visiting her website, laurakastnerphd.com. You can read more about her books at launchingyears.com, gettingtocalm.com and wisemindedparenting.com, and order her new book at parentmap.com/article/wise-minded-parenting-7-essentials-for-raising-successful-tweens-teens.