Blog

As children transition back to school, this video discusses tips for parents around resetting the routine and having conversations about the change. For more practical parenting strategies, visit the Center for Child Counseling . Click here to see the video.

By Eric Moskowitz, Bostonia, July 28, 2021 Near the end of the strangest school year of her life, Julia, a Newton North High School freshman, found herself scrolling an Instagram feed full of her friends posting COVID-vaccine selfies. Some boasted that they felt like superheroes, newly powerful. One said she could finally exhale, calling it her “first deep breath” in over a year. Neither captured what Julia was feeling as she worked up the nerve to get her first shot. “I was really nervous...

By Veronica Chambers, The New York Times, August 18, 2021 The spring and early summer of 2020 was a tough time for me and many other parents. The deaths of George Floyd , Breonna Taylor and the spotlight on previous victims such as Elijah McClain broke our hearts again and again as we watched graphic videos of police-involved killings and stayed glued to the news. There were days that I woke up crying and went to bed crying. I tried to hide these tears from my daughter. But she had just...

Research links adverse childhood experiences, known as ACEs , such as abuse, neglect or experiencing or witnessing violence, to health and well-being challenges in adulthood. But in her research, Dr. Christina Bethell , director of the Child and Adolescent Health Measurement Initiative at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, found that many people who experienced ACEs also had positive experiences as children that made a difference in adulthood. Here, Dr. Bethell discusses...

By Amber M. Northern and Michael J. Petrilli, Fordham Institute, August 2021 America’s hardnosed focus on academic achievement in recent decades has not improved schools nearly enough. Part of the recent move to incorporate other educational goals, such as perseverance and self-discipline—often under the banner of “social-emotional learning” (SEL)—is a response to our schools and students still being off-track two decades after passage of No Child Left Behind and almost four decades after A...

ORLANDO, Fla. (Ivanhoe Newswire)—From fear to stress, the global pandemic has forced children everywhere to deal with a wide range of emotions and feelings. Some might act out, while others learn to keep their cool. But a new study shows how parents respond to their child’s emotions matters a great deal. When your child loses control, how do you act? A new study finds that a parent’s response to big emotions can impact kids’ behavior. Researchers followed 207 children in kindergarten, first,...

By Guest Author, 8/11/21, positiveexperiences.org/blog Following the recent release of their new app for mothers, Drs. Barry Zuckerman and Cyndie Hatcher spoke with HOPE Research Assistant, Loren McCullough about how the questions, information, and parent videos provided in Small Moments: Big Impacts (SMBI) can brighten the outcomes of parents and children. Dr. Cyndie Hatcher also discussed her experiences working with parents in primary care settings, and her use of SMBI’s resources to...

A while back, at the bookstore with my three sons, I started flicking through a kids’ magazine that had the kind of hyper-pink sparkly cover that screams: “Boys! Even glancing in this direction will threaten your masculinity!” In between the friendship-bracelet tutorials and the “What Type of Hamster Are You, Really?” quizzes, the magazine featured a story about a ’tween girl who had been invited to two birthday parties scheduled for the same time. Not wanting to disappoint either friend,...

By Claire Cain Miller, The New York Times, August 9, 2021 Brianna McCain left her job as an office manager when the pandemic started, to care for her two young daughters. By last spring, she was ready to go back to work. But she hasn’t been able to, because her children are still at home. She has been searching for a job with flexible hours and the ability to work from home, but these are hard to find, especially for new hires and for hourly workers. She can’t take an in-person job until...

Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, there have been tremendous disruptions in family routines, employment, and finances. Families have had to adapt to new routines because of changes in their children’s schools, after-school activities, sports, and play. In a prior snapshot , we noted that more than one third (40%) of respondents indicated that their household financial situation was worse than it had been before the pandemic. Family disruptions and financial stress may have affected...

As their father fights to live, my children and I learn how to grieve. One night last fall, as I sat in bed with my 9-year-old son, Cohen, he looked up at me through tears and asked, “Do you think Daddy will have a long life or a short life?” It was a big question from a little boy, but not an unexpected one. Two years ago, my husband, Chris, was diagnosed with the progressive neurodegenerative disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or A.L.S. Doctors said he had six to 12 months to live. He...

By Jonathan Haidt and Jean M. Twenge, The New York Times, July 31, 2021 As students return to school in the coming weeks, there will be close attention to their mental health. Many problems will be attributed to the Covid pandemic, but in fact we need to look back further, to 2012. That’s when rates of teenage depression, loneliness, self-harm and suicide began to rise sharply. By 2019, just before the pandemic, rates of depression among adolescents had nearly doubled . When we first started...