All Entries in the "Parenting Pep Talk" Category
Getting Kids Ready for Summer Camp
Some children brim with excitement at the thought of camp while others groan and plead with parents to stay home. Parental responses also range considerably. Many parents are confident about their child’s ability to manage the transition while others are apprehensive. Choosing a camp, particularly a sleep-away camp, can be a challenging experience in itself. [...]
Parenting Pep Talk: Getting Along With Your College Kids Over The Summer
The first summer home after freshman year can be exciting and fun but also challenging for both parents and college kids. Your child has spent the past year in a relatively unstructured environment with few rules. As long as grades are kept up, parents might have little insight into their college kid’s actual behaviors. It [...]
Parenting Pep Talk: How to Keep Parental Arguments Under Control
Disagreements and arguments are a natural part of relationships and marriage. Parents will inevitably disagree about a variety of issues throughout their relationship and parenting years, and it isn’t necessarily a bad thing for children to witness some dissention. Lessons can be learned from respectful conflict resolution, but hostile fights that involve screaming and name-calling [...]
Parenting Pep Talk: Does My Child Need Medication or Therapy?
When children are diagnosed with ADHD, depression, or anxiety disorders, parents have to make some tough decisions. Should we medicate? Try therapy? Do both? Medication is often immediately considered in extreme cases. If a child is too depressed, or too hyper or anxious to learn coping strategies and make gains during therapy sessions, medication might [...]
Parenting Pep Talk: Parenting Lessons from the Business World
The Wall Street Journal recently published an article examining factors that make happy families happy. Bruce Feiler, author of the article and book The Secrets of Happy Parenting, explains how families can utilize workplace strategies to create a happy household. “Agile development,” a system of group dynamics that organizes workers into small teams, can be [...]
Parenting Pep Talk: Helping Children with Bipolar Disorder
Bipolar disorder, otherwise known as manic-depressive disorder, is a serious mental condition that affects children’s functioning in school and at home, and it interferes with most relationships. Symptoms of bipolar disorder are more easily recognizable in adults than in children. It is characterized by intense episodes of depression and mania (i.e., heightened energy and excitability) [...]
Parenting Pep Talk: Be Smart With Your Smartphone
Parents are often frustrated by the amount of time their children spend staring and tapping away at their iPhones. While it’s true that teens spend a lot of phone time on Facebook or texting, smartphones can be put to good use. Many applications (apps) help individuals independently manage day-to-day tasks, handle schoolwork, cope with health-related [...]
How Chores Help Children
Typical children as young as 4 or 5 have the ability to help maintain a wholesome household by doing chores such as putting their clothes away, helping to set the table, and making their own beds. Most children consider such chores to be their parents’ job, and many parents refrain from asking them to pitch [...]
Should Parents Stay Together For The Sake Of Their Children?
Most parents considering divorce ask themselves, “Should we stay together for our children? Which would harm them more, having parents who are unhappily married or ones who are apart?” All parenting experts agree that in cases of abuse, the non-abusing parent should take the children out of that environment at least temporarily while the abusing [...]
Valentine’s Day: Life Lessons for Children of All Ages
As Valentine’s Day approaches, some children are filled with excitement while others are filled with dread. Most adults can recall both painful and joyous memories of past Valentine’s Days and can relate with either feeling. It’s impossible to prevent children from experiencing the inevitable mishaps associated with romantic crushes or relationships, but parents can use [...]
Why Sleep is so Important for Adolescents and Young Adults
Like diet and exercise, sleep is critical to staying healthy. New research indicates that lack of sleep affects our mood, health, performance, and it increases the risk for unintentional injuries and death. The National Institutes of Health has identified adolescents and young adults (ages 12-25) as being particularly at risk for problems associated with sleepiness. [...]
No One Factor Explains it All: The Danger of Labeling People
It’s natural to ask “why” when horrendous acts of violence occur like the recent shootings in Newtown, Connecticut and this past Saturday’s shooting in Aurora, Colorado. As of now, little is known about the mental status of the most recent perpetrator, but no doubt speculations will surface quickly as they did in Adam Lanza’s case. [...]
Talking To Children About Shootings
The shooting in Newtown, Connecticut last Friday left a community devastated and many parents wondering how to address such a horrific event with their children. When exposed to violence, even on television, children can have all kinds of emotional responses. Before broaching the subject with children, find out what they already know. Consider their developmental [...]
Parenting Pep Talk: Fighting Childhood Obesity
The prevalence of childhood and adolescent obesity has tripled since 1980, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Physical problems that historically affected only older, overweight adults are now affecting children. Ailments such as high blood pressure and cholesterol, asthma, apnea, fatty liver disease, and type-2 diabetes are just a few. Excess weight [...]
Interfaith Families: Navigating the Holiday Season
The holiday season can be a lot of fun, but it can also be tricky for interfaith families. Many couples successfully navigate their cultural differences before having children, but parenthood causes a shift in the established balance. Suddenly choices have to be made on behalf of a child. While there is no perfect formula for [...]
Parenting Pep Talk: What To Do About Temper Tantrums
Temper tantrums are common among young children who are still learning to effectively communicate. Screaming, crying, throwing things, and breath-holding are techniques children use to vent their frustration and anger. Tantrums are distressing to both children and parents, and the easiest way to stop a temper tantrum is to give your child what he wants. [...]
Parenting Pep Talk: Maximize Reading Time
Parents are well-aware that children need to be read to before they can read on their own. If you want your children to obtain maximal benefits from story time, however, it takes more than simply reading aloud. “Reading-aloud extras,” according to researchers, help children develop better vocabularies, reading comprehension skills, sound awareness, letter recognition, and [...]
Parenting Pep Talk: Seven Ways to Improve Parenting
October’s Monitor on Psychology, the monthly magazine published by the American Psychological Association, presented seven research-based ways to improve parenting. When used consistently, these strategies help parents manage children’s’ behaviors, improve the parent-child relationship, and reduce stress. Here are the insights from leading child psychology and parenting experts. Embrace “labeled” praise. Provide children with specific [...]
Disciplining Babies: The When and The How
Parents must try to see infant behavior from the infant’s point of view in order to effectively discipline babies. The world is new and exciting and it’s the baby’s job to explore. Exploration is indicative of healthy development and a stimulating environment. But there are times when parents must set limits. Parents need to keep [...]
Free Range Parenting: Gone Too Far?
There is a new type of play group happening in Central Park every Wednesday. It started September 12 and runs eight weeks. The group is called “I Won’t Supervise Your Kids,” and it’s the invention of Lenore Skenazy, author of Free Range Kids and mother of two. Skenazy greets the children and then waits for [...]
Talking To Children About Shootings
Shootings at schools, religious institutions, movie theatres, on the streets of New York, and most recently at a Pathmark in New Jersey have some children worried about their safety. Parents wonder how to address these events with their kids. When exposed to violence even on television children can have all kinds of emotional responses. Here [...]
Parenting Pep Talk: Preparing for Back to School – Strategies for Success
For parents and children, the end of summer signals an inevitable shift in routines and demands. Whether your child is beginning preschool or returning to college, you have to be mindful of the transition to make it a smooth one. Here are some tips for helping your child – and you – begin the school [...]
Do Reward Systems Help or Harm?
Parents naturally want to encourage their children and to reward their successes. Some reward with praise, others with possessions, and some with cash. Many parents notice positive behavioral changes when rewards are given, but often times the changes are short-lived and the system backfires. This is evident in research conducted with children regarding their grades [...]
Aspergers and Sexuality: What Parents Need to Know
Adolescents and teens with Aspergers can be more naïve than their peers about sexuality and dating. Aspergers syndrome is associated with a number of social challenges, including difficulty developing peer relationships and a limited ability to understand what others are thinking and feeling. By the time most non-Asperger individuals begin navigating the road to a [...]
Parenting Pep Talk: How To Talk To Your Toddler
Parents of toddlers often struggle to communicate effectively with their children. Demands for attention, tantrums, and power struggles are very common and can be frustrating. Toddlers are beginning to learn language and to assert their independence, but their relatively limited communication abilities force toddlers to rely on heavily on adults. Toddlers often feel frustrated and [...]
Parent or Friend: What Does My Child Need From Me?
Being a good parent is similar in many ways to being a good friend, but you have to respect some key differences between them. Both relationships require mutual respect, compassion, and room for individual differences, but only parenting involves a responsibility to guide, to advise, and to set limits with consequences for misbehavior. The parents’ [...]
Keeping Kids Out Of Trouble In Summer
Despite all the stressors inherent in the school year – tests, papers, etc. – the school year has its advantages. There is structure, a routine. Five days a week parents can go to work knowing that their children are cared for and are occupied for a specified amount of time. The summer can be more [...]
Parenting 20-Somethings: Where Do You Draw The Line?
Parents and children often struggle with the relationship changes that take place as children enter their 20’s. Twenty-somethings can expect continued financial support while rejecting parental advice. Many finish college and move back home, assuming their parents will care for them in the same way they did before college. Once again, they have a stocked [...]
Helping Children with Special Needs become Competent Adults
While all parents struggle, parents of special needs children have amplified challenges and unique, all-encompassing concerns. Will my child fit in socially? Will he be able to handle academic demands? Is college possible? Will he be able to live independently? Can we afford all of our child’s needs? These among others are common questions that [...]
Recognizing Depression in Kids
Children and teenagers can suffer from depression, and although some symptoms are similar to those experienced in adult depression, others are manifested differently. Parents who know how to spot depressive symptoms in children are better able to recognize when their own children need help. Depression can have serious negative effects on a child’s health and [...]
