Children living with a congenital heart defect or another cardiac diagnosis carry a higher risk of anxiety, depression and difficulty at school than their peers, and the emotional work often begins long after the surgical work ends. Little Dove Psychology provides virtual therapy across Texas for children and teens adjusting to a heart diagnosis, and for the parents around them. The work is led by Dr. Meghan Kraenbring Comerford, PsyD, who treated children hospitalized for acute and chronic health conditions at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, in a practice founded by Dr. Kristin Kroll, PhD, former attending psychologist for the pediatric heart transplant team at Children's Wisconsin. Most families have a first session within about five days.
Free 15-Minute Consultations • Virtual Across Texas • Most Families Start the Same Week, Evenings and Weekends Available • In Network with Aetna, BCBS of Texas, Optum & Oscar
The medical part of a heart diagnosis has a clear shape. There are appointments, scans, a plan, sometimes a surgery with a date on it. The emotional part has no such shape, and it rarely arrives on the same schedule.
What parents most often describe to us: a child who was handling everything well and then stopped sleeping. A kid who will not talk about the diagnosis at all, with anyone. Fear that spikes before every echo. A teenager who decides the safest thing is to do nothing, and quietly drops out of sports, sleepovers and anything that raises a heart rate. Younger children sometimes go the other way and become clingy, watchful of their parents' faces, alert to every whispered phone call.
None of this means something has gone wrong with your child. It means a child is doing the normal work of absorbing something large, and that work does not always resolve on its own.
Families are frequently surprised by the timing. The crisis period, when everyone is mobilized and the medical team is close at hand, is often not when a child struggles most. The harder stretch tends to come later, once the procedure is behind you, the appointments spread out, and everyone else has moved on and started asking how your child is doing in a tone that expects the answer to be "fine."
That is also the point at which the support structure thins. The cardiology team is seeing you twice a year instead of twice a month. School has stopped making allowances. The child is left holding the experience with fewer people asking about it, which is exactly when avoidance, fear of procedures, and low mood tend to take hold.
It is a good reason not to wait for things to get worse before making a call.
We are not part of your child's cardiology care, and we do not manage medical treatment, interpret test results, or advise on procedures. With your written permission we will coordinate with the medical team, and we will say so plainly when something belongs to your cardiologist rather than to us.
What this work does cover:
For this group in particular, yes, and the format solves a real problem rather than creating one. Families managing a cardiac diagnosis are already spending a significant share of their lives in waiting rooms. Asking them to add another in-person appointment, in Austin traffic, during respiratory season, is often the reason therapy stops after three sessions.
Sessions happen from home, scheduled around school and clinic visits, with evenings and weekends available. If your child is admitted or recovering, we can keep going rather than starting over when they are discharged. Dr. Kroll built and published research on telehealth delivery for pediatric populations, including group therapy for teens with cystic fibrosis who could not safely share a room, so this is not a format the practice adopted reluctantly.
Parents of children with heart conditions are, as a group, remarkably good at not mentioning how they are doing. You learned the vocabulary, you managed the logistics, you held it together in front of your child, and you probably have not slept properly since the diagnosis.
Parent work is a standard part of this, not an add-on. Sometimes that means separate sessions, sometimes it means coaching on how to answer the questions your child is actually asking, and how to stop a reasonable amount of vigilance from turning into the kind that keeps everyone braced. Parent and family sessions can be billed as part of your child's treatment.
Yes. Little Dove is a counseling partner to the Heartfelt Dreams Foundation for families living with congenital heart defects, and we see heart families through Ollie's Branch, the mental health program of the Ollie Hinkle Heart Foundation. Dr. Comerford leads this work and trained inside children's hospitals, and the practice was founded by Dr. Kroll, former attending psychologist for the pediatric heart transplant team at Children's Wisconsin, whose peer-reviewed publications include work on congenital heart disease and family adjustment and on screening for traumatic stress in children with congenital heart disease. You can see the full record on our research page.
There may be, and it is worth asking before you assume the answer. Two foundations fund mental health care for heart families, and we work with both. Ollie's Branch, the mental health program of the Ollie Hinkle Heart Foundation, funds therapy for children with heart conditions and for the people around them, parents, siblings and grandparents included. That last part matters: most funding covers the patient only, and in heart families the siblings are frequently the ones nobody has checked on. Little Dove is also a counseling partner to the Heartfelt Dreams Foundation. Eligibility is set by the foundations rather than by us, so mention it on the free consultation and we will point you to the right application. Separately, we are in network with Aetna, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas, Optum (UnitedHealthcare) and Oscar Health.
It is common, and the absence of a referral does not mean your child does not need support. Cardiology appointments are built around the heart, and emotional symptoms often surface between visits or months after a procedure, when the medical team is no longer seeing the family as often. Parents are usually the first to notice.
Yes, with your written permission, and we are glad to. We are not a replacement for your child's cardiology care and we do not manage medical treatment. We work on the emotional and behavioral side and keep the medical team informed where that helps the plan hold together in daily life.
We are in network with Aetna, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas, Optum (UnitedHealthcare) and Oscar Health, so in-network families pay their plan's copay. Self-pay sessions with a licensed psychologist are $175. We will walk through what your plan covers on the free 15-minute consultation, and you can see the full list on our fees and insurance page.
Most families have a first session within about five days of reaching out, with evening and weekend appointments available. There is no waitlist. You can check current availability at any time.
Both. Parent sessions are a standard part of this work and can be billed as part of the child's treatment. A cardiac diagnosis reorganizes a whole household, and the adults carrying it are often running on very little.
Yes. Transition to adult care is one of Dr. Comerford's specialty areas. It is a predictable pressure point: a young adult who has never managed their own appointments, medications or insurance is suddenly expected to, often at the same time they leave for college.
No, and waiting for a crisis usually makes the work longer. Many of the families we see come in because a child has gone quiet, stopped talking about the diagnosis, started refusing school on clinic days, or become fearful of a procedure they used to tolerate.
