How To Cultivate A Discipline From Childhood

Self-discipline is a vital quality to have if you want to be successful in the things you attempt during life. What we often don’t realize, however, is that we learn the skills for self-discipline during childhood. Here are some ways that you can cultivate personal discipline from your childhood experiences. Take the carrot and stick approach As a child, you were no doubt rewarded for…

5 Strategies To Help Your Child Combat ADHD

Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, commonly referred to as ADHD, is a neurobiological disorder characterized by developmentally inappropriate impulsivity, inattention, and hyperactivity. People with ADHD can be very successful in their life. For example, some well-known people have been diagnosed with ADHD such as Albert Einstein (scientist), Dwight D. Eisenhower (US President), Hillary Duff (actress/singer), Whoopi Goldberg (actress), Jason Kidd (basketball player), and Suzanne Somers (actress). However, without appropriate…

Battles Over Homework: Advice For Parents

Many parents accept “battles over homework” with their children as an unavoidable consequence of responsible parenting. These battles, however, rarely result in improved learning or performance in school. More often than not, battles over homework lead to vicious cycles of nagging by parents and avoidance or refusal by children, with no improvement in a child’s school performance — and certainly no progress toward what should…

Listening: A Key to Successfully Guiding Adolescents

You know who knows more about your teen’s inner life and environment than you do? HE DOES. In their struggle for independence, kids sometimes reject parental advice precisely when it may make the most sense to them. They are so uncomfortable with how much they rely on us, that circumstances that remind them of how much they need us may stir rebellion. Parents are most effective when…

Things Your Child’s Teacher Won’t Tell You

A look inside a teacher’s mind could help you understand lesson plans and maybe even guide your child to perform better. If we teach small children,  don’t tell us that our jobs are “so cute” and that you wish you could glue and color all day long. I’m not a marriage counselor. At parent-teacher conferences, let’s stick to your child’s progress, not how your husband doesn’t…

Should Parents Really Trust Teenage Children?

Most parents feel like adolescence is the most difficult to stage to navigate, though a handful of parents actually prefer this stage above all others. The mind of a teenager is certainly a mysterious place, and their behavior often sends the parents running for the hills – or indulging in a very infrequent homicidal fantasy. Parents of all demographics who felt anxious and frustrated during their kids’…

Why Are So Many Teen Girls Depressed

According to new data recently released by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, teenage girls suffer from depression at a rate that is nearly three times that of boys their age. As if that weren’t bad enough- between the ages of 12 and 15 the percentage of girls struggling with depression triples. 1. Experience the onset of their periods First, many girls have by the…

10 Areas of Parenting Competencies And Skills That Predicted Child Positive Outcome

Good parenting has almost nothing to do with how much time you’ve spent painting backdrops for the school play or how many instruments your child plays or how much breast milk your kid sucked down. Robert Epstein Ph.D., a Harvard-trained psychologist and founder of the Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies identified 10 areas of parenting competencies or skills that either routinely predicted child outcomes (health, happiness, success)…

Back To School – Bullying And The Gifted

Why the gifted may be more likely to be bullied–and what you can do about it. For many gifted students, there is a more severe and serious issue that threatens them the first days and weeks of school.  Many of the students I see in my position have described it this way: they don’t really “belong” that they are merely “floating along” as the year progresses, not…

Back to School – Transition To Secondary School

At this time of year, some children will be starting school for the very first time, others will be starting their first year of high school. What is transitioning? For children and young people some key transitions are around school and work, as they mark milestones in young lives. Starting at a new school is a normal part of life for young people. However, it…