Your Kindergartener’s Social Skills Matter More Than Their Academics
A study conducted in 2015 concludes that it doesn’t really matter if your kid is a star athlete or an academic wizard in kindergarten. In fact, the greatest measure of a child’s success at age 25 is their social abilities. With all the standardized testing, it’s easy to see why so many parents get wrapped up in test scores and comprehension levels, but our children’s socio-emotional development is where we should really be focusing our attention. Of course, it’s important to keep in mind the neurodiversity of children –including kids with ADHD, kids on the autism spectrum and highly sensitive children — and understand that social skills vary and and happen at different paces.
Read More
A Day In the Life of a Child With Slow Processing Speed
Understood.org published this great example of some of the surprising ways processing speeds can affect the day to day life of a child. Read the full piece about Sophia, a third grader, here.
Read More
Helping Kids With ADHD Manage Screen Time
ADHD can affect how kids use technology. See how common problems like too much screen time or too little sleep can affect kids with ADHD—and get practical tips on how you can help.
Read More
School Mornings Without the Stress
This article from the Child Mind Institute is timely as we all adjust to the rigors of the new school year. Beth Arky writes about how to get your kids up and out the door with the least amount of conflict.
Read More
How to Raise a Reader
Kids become lifelong readers for all kinds of reasons. Sometimes there's one key book that captures a kid's imagination and opens him or her up to the exciting world of fiction. Other times, a teacher who assigns great books in class sparks a hunger for more big ideas and fine writing. In some cases, parents influence kids' appreciation of books by sharing their own love of literature and modeling reader behavior -- always having a book to read, taking books on vacation, reading before bedtime, making regular trips to the library and bookstore, etc.
Read More
Why the Best Parental Control Is You
If your kid's online, there have probably been times when you've wanted to track everything they've texted, see their entire social media history, or just shut off the internet entirely. Those are the times you wish for the perfect parental controls -- something that will grant you all the access and authority you want without making a bad situation worse. The truth is, while clicking a few buttons on a hardware device or downloading a monitoring service seem like no-brainers, the most effective parental control is free and knows your kid very well.
Read More
How to Raise a Lifelong Learner
Babies and toddlers find everything fascinating: It's often enough just to play with sand, stack blocks, and even just stare at their hands. Parents can build on this natural inclination in lots of ways. First, you can share their wonder at the world. If your kid is amazed by a spider web or delighted by the garbage truck, let yourself mirror that enthusiasm and build on it by asking questions and noticing things: "The truck's wheels are circles. What other shapes do I see?" or "I wonder what kind of spider made this web."
Read More
25 Phrases To Inspire Confidence In Your Child
As a parent, our words become the internal language in the minds of our children. With healthy self-esteem, your child will flourish. In an era where kindergarten is the new first grade, children are being pushed to develop academic skills from an early age. Yet all the intellectual skills in the world are of little value without the confidence to put them to use. This is why, as a parent, we should prioritize building healthy self-esteem and confidence first and foremost.
Read More
New Research on Emotional Regulation and Academic Achievement
A new study was recently published that broadens our understanding of how emotions relate to academic achievement. It’s old news that emotions play a role in students’ achievement and school functioning, but this study uses a different lens by looking specifically at emotional regulation rather than simply positive or negative feelings in students.
Read More
Why Watching TV and Movies Is Better Together
Parents tend to worry about exactly how much screen time is appropriate for kids. The guidelines can be confusing -- and there's no magic number that's right for all families. The truth is what kids are watching and how they're watching are key parts of the equation.
Read More
3 Approaches to foster Social Emotional Learning (SEL) in the classroom
As 2018 kicks off, we see the importance of working together now more than ever. Not surprisingly, this has been a major topic in the educational world as well. The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) is on a mission to promote Social and Emotional learning
Read More
Some Old-News Updates on Best Practices
Two articles you may have missed in The New York Times reiterate some important points about how to help children with two very different but very common difficulties – anxiety and disruptive behavior.
This great summary article is sourced from the Yellin Center for Mind, Brain and Education.
Read More
Encouraging Good Sleep Habits
ddly, most of our understanding of sleep comes not from knowing what happens when we sleep but from noticing what happens when we don’t. Sleep is a powerful restorative process. It helps us function better physically, emotionally, and metabolically. It helps us consolidate and form our memories, and has a direct effect on our attention and behavior.
Read More
Mindful Parenting: How to Respond Instead of React
Our bodies and brains are wired to react to high stress situations as a safety net. If our brain perceives a threat, it signals the amygdala, body’s “alarm” system, which tells our body to act without thinking. The amygdala responds to situations with the fight, flight, freeze response. This is to protect us, but our stress receptors cannot distinguish between real dangers or false dangers. In everyday parenting, our stress response often gets triggered unnecessarily by events that are not actually life threatening. Our bodies are reacting to our kid spilling cereal all over the floor in the same way we would react if we were being chased by a bear.
Read More
99 Sensory Activities for Any Child
"All kids can be affected by sensory processing issues. Certain situations just make them freak. So it makes sense that exposing kids to a variety of sensory activities in a calm, playful manner can alleviate some of these problems." There are some great ideas in this article!
Read More
10 Tips on Talking With Children About Stressful News
These tips from Janine Francolini, Founder of the Flawless Foundation, are a good reminder of ways we can talk to our children about stressful things going on in the news cycle.
Read More
6 Parenting Practices You Probably Don’t Do, but Should
In a world consumed by technology and the pressure to boost children’s academic standings, perhaps it’s time for American parents to ask the questions posed by Linda Åkeson McGurk, a Swedish-American journalist...
Read More
4 Ways to Help Your Child Get Enough Sleep
Children need sleep, plain and simple. We all do. Without enough sleep, we get cranky and, with time, unhealthy. But for children, it’s especially important because the effects of sleep deprivation can lead to lifelong problems.
Read More
Creating Strong Relationship with Teachers
Nothing is more important to parents than to have a good relationship with the teachers of their children at the start of another school year.Teachers also realize that involving parents in teaching children has a big payoff. They are encouraged to meet parents early and to contact one another the minute they see the need.
Read More
