Building Your Parent Playlist

Many of the parents are overwhelmed with the responsibilities of parenting and taking care of young children. Whether they stay at home or work, these parents are running on a hamster wheel and getting nowhere fast when it comes to their own well-being. By neglecting opportunities to recreate and play, in isolation or with their kids, they are starving for a vacation from the “shoulds”. Addiction specialist…

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 : Parent Tips For Children With Autism

School districts throughout the country will soon welcome back students for a new academic year. This includes an increasing number of special needs children identified with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). The beginning of a new school year is an exciting yet anxious time for both parents and children. It typically brings a change in the daily routine established over the summer months. This transition can…

Back to School – 10 Ways To Reduce Back-To-School Anxiety

New situations are difficult for many children. Going back to school is a filled with new situations—a new classroom, teacher, classmates, schedule, and responsibilities. Think about how anxious you would be about starting a new job every year of your life and you will know what children experience with the start of the new school year. But there are ways to reduce your child’s anxiety…