Growing Through the Stages: Dr. Leeshe Grimes on How Mental Health Evolves from Childhood to Adulthood

We often talk about growing up as if emotions mature on a perfect timeline, children are “too young,” teens are “too sensitive,” and adults should “know better.” Yet anyone who works closely with people knows emotional understanding does not follow age. It develops through experience, support, and whether someone had the tools to navigate their inner world at the right time.

This is the reality Dr. Leeshe Grimes works in every day. As a licensed professional counselor, registered play therapist, and founder of Elevated Minds in the DMV, she has spent years helping people understand how their emotional needs change over time, and how early experiences often shape the struggles they carry as adults.

Her approach starts with a simple belief: emotions do not have an age limit. Children feel deeply, teens question everything, and adults often return to wounds they never had the language to express. That’s why she creates mental health resources tailored to different life stages, because each phase asks for a different kind of support.

With children, she focuses on giving feelings a safe place to land. They often communicate through play long before they can explain what hurts. Creative tools help them name fear, frustration, excitement, or sadness in ways that feel natural, not forced. These early skills form the first layer of emotional literacy, something many adults later realize they never learned.

Teenagers face a different kind of emotional weight. They are navigating identity, confidence, pressure, and a world that expects maturity before they have had time to grow into it. Dr. Leeshe Grimes builds resources that help teens understand their emotional patterns, manage intensity, and trust their own voice. For many, it becomes the bridge between childhood coping and adult decision-making.

By the time people reach adulthood, the work often shifts to understanding where old patterns began. Many adults come into therapy carrying childhood lessons about silence, toughness, or staying small. Instead of pushing those feelings aside, Dr. Grimes helps them go back to earlier stages with compassion. Healing becomes less about fixing and more about reconnecting with parts of themselves that were ignored for years.

Her guidance across age groups highlights something often overlooked in mental health conversations: emotional development is not linear. A child might learn emotional expression early, while an adult may be just starting. A teenager may carry stress that mirrors adult anxiety. Each stage holds different challenges, but the need for understanding stays constant.

This is why she designs resources for every age, not quick fixes, but tools that help people build clarity, regulation, and awareness over time. For children, it may be a playful activity that helps them identify feelings. For teens, it might be exercises that strengthen self-confidence. For adults, it often involves grounding practices, self-reflection, and relearning the basics of emotional safety.

Dr. Leeshe Grimes sees these tools as investments that carry into the future. When children learn to name emotions early, they grow into teens who can navigate conflict and adults who don’t fear vulnerability. When adults finally return to lessons they never received, they create space to break patterns instead of passing them along.

In her work at Elevated Minds, emotional growth is a lifelong process, one that shifts as people shift. And when each stage is supported with the right guidance, the journey becomes less about surviving emotions and more about understanding them with honesty and compassion.