Some children feel very unwanted by their parents, and even by their schools. They grow up in households where harsh words and physical punishment are handed out daily, and they attend schools that focus more on compliance than creativity....
When Nadya Okamoto’s mom lost her job, the family was technically homeless, although they lived with a friend. Suddenly, her bus rides to Catlin Gabel, where she’s a scholarship student, took two hours and brought her into contact with...
Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission has released its findings into more than a century of abuse in Indian Residential Schools. Between the 1880s and 1990s 150,000 aboriginal children were sent to institutions where they were stripped...
In the 1950s, a group of Inuit children were taken from their families in Greenland to be re-educated as model Danish citizens. More than 60 years later, they want the Danish government to apologise for an experiment that did enormous damage....
Are you baffled by your teenager’s behavior? Welcome to the club. Please step inside my office. Let’s eavesdrop on other parents: “My son doesn’t sleep at night, so he can’t wake up in the morning.” ...
Recently, I read Emily Dickinson’s “Hope is the Thing With Feathers” to my high-school students in order to set up a writing assignment. Dickinson describes hope in terms of a bird that perches in the soul, and the students...
The thing Sara Garcia remembers from the day her son, Mark, got out of prison was the hug — the very, very awkward hug. He had just turned 21 and for the past two and a half years, he'd been in solitary confinement. "He's not used to...
Major decisions are expected this month, as the U.S. Supreme Court works its way through several cases still pending before it closes out its calendar for the 2014-2015 term. Among the biggest issues hanging fire: the status of same-sex...
Hollywood's version of science often asks us to believe that dinosaurs can be cloned from ancient DNA (they can't), or that the next ice age could develop in just a few days (it couldn't). But Pixar's film Inside Out is an animated fantasy that...
By now, most Americans are probably familiar with the rights movement known by the initials L.G.B.T., but they may have a better sense of the L.G.B. part — lesbian, gay, bisexual. The T, for transgender, has eluded many people....
James Redford, director of Paper Tigers , a documentary about the journey of students and teachers at a trauma-sensitive alternative high school in Walla Walla, Washington, posed a provocative question in a recent blog : can school heal children in...
By last count, the Justice Department estimates about 80,000 U.S. inmates live in some kind of restricted housing. That means being confined to a cell for about 22 hours a day. You are going to eat, sleep and defecate in a small room that's...
Early intervention for toddlers with autism spectrum disorder helps improve their intellectual ability and reduces autism symptoms years after originally getting treatment, a new study shows. The study is the first in more than 20 years...
Far too often in society, people use their diagnosis to define them. Or other well-meaning people or professionals describe someone as “Oh, that person is bipolar” or “She’s just borderline.” I’ve even seen leading...
The size of our cities affects income inequality. Richard Florida has argued many times here at CityLab about how the “skills clustering” that happens in the nation’s largest cities—people with...