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By Lizzie Tribone, Talk Poverty, October 5, 2021 When Jennifer Brown left Minnesota Correctional Facility-Shakopee on a work-release program, it had been six-and-a-half months since she had seen her son, Elijah. The last time they’d been together was when she gave birth to him, under the watch of two prison guards, in a hospital near the prison. Brown had forty-eight hours with her newborn before she had to hand him over to a family chosen by Together for Good, a religious nonprofit that...

By Shanicia Boswell, The New York Times, Oct. 15, 2020 Tips for creating safe spaces and developing emotional intelligence in your children. “Did you learn your lesson?” my mother asked. Those five words have been etched in my mind since I was a teenager. I was a good kid but, between boys and shenanigans with my friends, I was always pushing the boundaries. This time, I had received a speeding ticket for rushing to get home before my curfew. When I told her what had happened, my mother...

By Richard Schiffman, The New York Times, Aug. 6, 2020 Highly sensitive children, like orchids, thrive in the right environment, experts say. The new mother from a rural area near Burlington, Vt., noticed that her toddler’s behavior didn’t seem to fit the descriptions in the child-rearing books she was reading. Her daughter would burst into tears when she heard a loud bird call or a person singing out of tune, or if she wore scratchy clothes. And she always demanded to be carried by her...

By Emily Bramhall, Housing Matters, October 6, 2021 For students who are also parents, completing higher education in an in-demand field can lead to greater opportunity and financial stability . Though a growing number of young parents are enrolling in higher education programs, postsecondary institutions are often structured to serve recent high school graduates who do not have children depending on them. Parenting students juggle costs of tuition, housing, and child care while attending...

Of all the sad statistics the U.S. has dealt with this past year and a half, here is a particularly difficult one: A new study estimates that more than 140,000 children in the U.S. have lost a parent or a grandparent caregiver to COVID-19. The majority of these children come from racial and ethnic minority groups. "This means that for every four COVID-19 deaths, one child was left behind without a mother, father and/or a grandparent who provided for that child's home needs and nurture —...

Juleus Ghunta’s empowering book Rohan Bullkin and the Shadows—A Story about ACEs and Hope , vibrantly illustrated by Rachel Moss, is a much-needed story of a boy who experiences Shadows that interfere with his ability to read because they make his mind “flicker like a hurricane,” go blank, and sometimes race and “refuse to shut down.” This is an affirming, normalizing contextualization of how bad events and scary experiences, now understood from the science of adverse childhood experiences...

By Anna Maria Barry-Jester, Kaiser Health News, October 5, 2021 The tipping point for Dr. Paula Braveman came when a longtime patient of hers at a community clinic in San Francisco’s Mission District slipped past the front desk and knocked on her office door to say goodbye. He wouldn’t be coming to the clinic anymore, he told her, because he could no longer afford it. It was a decisive moment for Braveman, who decided she wanted not only to heal ailing patients but also to advocate for...

By Chloe Caldwell, The New York Times, Sept. 3, 2020 Getting a pandemic puppy seemed like a bad idea for a blended family. Until we did it. Even as a child, I never wanted a dog. When I was a longtime single through my 20s, a friend once asked me who I’d rather be with: a partner who had a dog or a partner who had a cat. I said, “a kid.” My stepdaughter, Louise, is 10 years old and like many girls her age, she has a nurturing and maternal streak. She’s attuned to the needs of her parents,...

By The HOPE Team, 10/5/21, positiveexperience.org/blog A year ago, we posted a blog with ten ways to help children have positive experiences during the pandemic. Now, we know that most families have struggled – successfully – to create positive experiences for their young children during this terribly disruptive time. Although we had hoped that the pandemic would be behind us, we are still living with COVID-19. Progress has been stalled by the rise of the more infectious delta variant and...

Due to relatively recent student-led school shootings and youth suicides, bullying has come to the forefront of the public eye. Several campaigns have evolved to prevent youth bullying in schools, but in reality, many people have forgotten that kids aren’t the only ones capable of bullying. Adults often engage in the act; and unfortunately, some adults in trusted positions, such as teachers and child care workers, focus their mean-spirited behaviors on children. For this reason, every parent...

By Claudia M. Gold , MD, September 25, 2021 Carla’s bright flamboyance stood in stark contrast to her quiet 3-month-old infant, who lay on a blanket on the floor, his eyes transfixed by the light in the ceiling. ‘I think he’s autistic” had been her opening words when she called to make an appointment in my behavioral pediatrics practice. We sat beside him on the floor. With her bright flowered dress and bangling necklaces matching her high lilting voice, she leaned into her son’s face, with...

By Alison Gopnik, The Wall Street Journal, Sept. 16, 2021 Parents may worry that babies surrounded by face masks will suffer in their development. Studies suggest there’s no cause for concern. Parents worry, and Covid-19 has given them lots of things to worry about. Here’s one: How will babies be affected by being surrounded by people in masks? Will they have trouble connecting with their parents and other people? [ Please click here to continue reading. ]