Blog

It's hard to overstate the disruptive impact the pandemic has had on people. Its effect on mental health is a big one, and for teenagers, that hit particularly hard. Kathleen Ethier knows this well. She leads the Division of Adolescent and School Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which this month published a survey that points to some very grim findings. From January to June 2021, CDC researchers collected data on the behaviors and experiences of 7,705 public and...

By Elissa Strauss, Photo: Steve Pfost/ Newsday RM/Getty Images, CNN Health, April 22, 2022 It has become harder for children to experience childhood as a time of blissful ignorance about the state of our planet. Climate change, racism, discrimination, poverty and gun violence are affecting their daily lives, giving them plenty to be upset about it and often inspiring them to fight for change. Role models such as Greta Thunberg and Malala Yousafzai prove that sometimes when kids take action,...

Podcast with Shawn Welty on refelctive parenting: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/and-reflective-parenting/id1526716278?i=1000495527066

By Bill Weir, Photo: Bill Weir, CNN Travel, April 22, 2022 Dear River, It's just over two years since you joined our Little Blue Marble ride through the Milky Way and now that you can say things like "Bill Weir I want banana smoothie," it's time to learn the difference between "Happy Birthday" and "Happy Earth Day." Both are in April, but one of them has cake and Hopalong Andy and the other, frustration with humanity. Both involve balloons, only on Earth Day we get pick their deflated shards...

By Ezra Klein, Photo: Melina Mara/The Washington Post/Getty Images, The New York Times, April 17, 2022 “We said we wouldn’t accept the levels of child poverty we have as a permanent feature of our democracy,” Senator Michael Bennet, Democrat of Colorado, told me. “And not only did the world not come to an end, but the families I talked to, who spent the money on everything from school clothes to a bicycle, were relieved of stress. That was the word they used with me. They were relieved of...

By Simon Appolloni, Image: Pixabay, Phys Org, April 19, 2022 As they become more exposed to the grim realities of climate change, today's teens and people in their 20s— an entire generation —are experiencing increased anxiety, grief, fear or guilt about the planet's future as well as their own. For teachers of environmental studies, softening the scientific evidence about what lies ahead —in terms of sea-level rise and the increased intensity, duration and frequency of storms, droughts and...

Most Americans believe there is more work to do on gender equality. As a genderqueer sociologist, a parent of a kindergartner, and the author of a book on gender creative parenting , I study the importance of disrupting sexism in childhood. Here are five ways I’ve found that parents and caregivers can fight gender stereotypes in kids’ lives. 1. Acknowledge That a Child May Be LGBTQI+ Gender identity and sexuality are diverse and personal experiences. However, medical institutions and parents...

It takes a village to raise a child (an old African proverb). This means that a child needs both the immediate and extended family to overcome adverse traumatic experiences to heal long term. Unfortunately, traditional trauma treatment often only includes the individual child. And if you do mobilize, the extended family, you are often unsure what their role is or how to actively incorporate them into trauma treatment. DATE: Wednesday, June 29 TIME: 12 - 1 pm EST COST: Free with REGISTRATION...

By Christian Caron, Photo: Cheriss May/The New York Times, The New York Times, April 12, 2022 The worsening state of mental health among children has prompted an influential group of experts to recommend for the first time screening all children ages 8 to 18 for anxiety, one of the most common mental health disorders of childhood . A draft of the new guidelines, which is open to public comment , will most likely be finalized later this year. It was issued on Tuesday by the U.S. Preventive...

By Positive Parenting Newsfeed contributors: Cyndy McGrath, Supervising Producer; Milvionne Chery; Field Producer; Roque Correa, Editor and Videographer , April 8, 2020 Please click here to access the video in English and Spanish. GAINESVILLE, Fla. (Ivanhoe Newswire)—It’s a startling number. Nearly half of the kids in the U.S. experience one or more types of childhood trauma by the time they are 17. Trauma can get under the skin and make kids more susceptible to illness. Death…divorce…...

By Paula Span, Photographs by Todd Heisler, The New York Times, April 12, 2022 This is not what Ida Adams thought life would be like at 62. She had planned to continue working as a housekeeper at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore until she turned 65. After retiring, she and her husband, Andre, also 62, thought they might travel a little — “get up and go whenever we felt like it.” She didn’t expect to be hustling a seventh-grader off to school each weekday. But in January 2021, Ms. Adams’s...

Mistakes Research shows that children with a growth mindset – the belief that intelligence is not fixed and that they can work hard and practice to improve – understand mistakes as opportunities to learn. In your visits, you can try taking a simple mistake – like closing the computer when you still need it, or dropping a bandage on the floor – and model for children how they can grow from that experience. You may say something like, “Whoops, now I know to keep it on the table next time” or...