I have spent 25 years learning how families heal. I learned the most from my own.

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My professional title is Dr. Sandra Munoz, Psy.D., LMHC. My clinical training is the foundation.

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The last 17 years — building programs, leading a nonprofit, writing for families — is where I learned what parents actually need at scale.

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But the work I do now did not start in a graduate program. It started with a moon elf.

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When my daughter was two, I made up a magical character named Fiddleswerth who lived on the moon. He left her notes. He sent her dreams. He was our small private language for love. Then, when she was five, her father — my first husband — died.

 

Suddenly Fiddleswerth was not a game anymore.

He became how I helped a grieving five-year-old look up at the night sky and feel held instead of abandoned. We pointed at the brightest star. We whispered goodnight to the moon. Some nights, that was all we could do. Some nights, it was enough.

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That season taught me what every parent eventually learns: information is not the same as tools. I had degrees. I had a license. I had twenty years of training. What my daughter actually needed was something small enough to fit inside the worst day of her life.

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Twenty years later, that is still what I build. Tools small enough to fit inside hard days.