Ask Marja
By Marja Brandon
This is an article about suicide
[Editor’s note: Our archives contain several years of excellent articles, most of which remain relevant and important to today’s young people and the adults who work with them. This one is a “Director’s Choice” that we are reposting this week.] I suppose that is a trigger warning, yet I don’t like the term…
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Reality(?) TV
I have a guilty pleasure. I watch reality television. I know, I know…and the only thing I can say in my defense is that until recently, I almost exclusively limited myself to cooking shows with a strong preference for ones where the contestants were kind to one another (think early seasons of The Great…
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For What It’s Worth…
As parents, we spend a lot of our time worried about our children’s mental health. Is their self-esteem (how they think about themselves) strong enough to withstand the risks and challenges that are coming? But how do we help our kids find their self-worth and keep it? How do we help them never need…
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No magic bullet for the bullets…
Dear Marja, I sit here across from the TV, and I hear screaming, crying, yelling, grief. Gun violence at another school, this time in Georgia–12 or so kids, babies really, shot by a 14-year-old. A 14-YEAR-OLD. Gun violence, again, but it isn’t just guns. I think it’s a mindset we have got to change,…
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Kindness
[Editor’s note: Our archives contain several years of excellent articles, most of which remain relevant and important to today’s young people and the adults who work with them. This one is a “Director’s Choice” that we are reposting this week.] So work has been crazy, as the days before school opens always are.…
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ADHD Kids May Not Be Doing Alright These Days…
[Editor’s note: Our archives contain several years of excellent articles, most of which remain relevant and important to today’s young people and the adults who work with them. This one is a “Director’s Choice” that we are reposting this week.] …particularly if they have a phone, access to screens, the news, or are…
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It gets better…
There are those moments many of us experience as parents when parenting feels hard, even painful. Our children, our tweens or teens, may become surly, disrespectful, or sometimes even downright mean to us. Surely, this behavior is not what we had in mind when we held that delightful bouncing baby in our arms not that…
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Power of Words…
Your words have power…even beyond what you might already realize. Sure, we know a lot about tone, inflection, and volume, and we think we are aware of our word choices, but are we really? Beyond enabling communication, words can be weaponized or used to empower. Used carelessly, words can cause damage we neither intended nor realized.…
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New Year resolutions? Maybe….
So every year I hear, see and read about people’s New Year resolutions toward self-improvement or toward a goal, for about a week or two, and then I hear, see and read about how they have fallen by the wayside, a victim of great intentions without follow-through, or more accurately, poorly conceived follow-through. I see…
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What’s all this about independence?
Starting at about age 18 months, my son’s favorite phrase became, “NO! By myself!” It didn’t matter what my request of him was–could I help going up the stairs, could I pick him up, could I help with a meal, could I help getting dressed? The answer was always the same, “NO! By myself!” While…
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Boys will be boys…
Really? Did you just read that headline and have that reaction? Or did you sigh, and think, “You don’t need to tell me that…”. As the parent of two now wonderful men (ages 26 and 33), I can safely say, at some point, I have had both reactions and then some! While my work in…
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Barbie is back on the big screen…but she first talked in 1992…and what did she say??
Talking Barbie came out in 1992. Her epic first words were, “Math is tough!” And with that, we continued down a path of gender subject-matter bias that has plagued us for decades. In fact, according to research, there is no cognitive biological difference between genders when it comes to math performance. So what is going…
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How to talk when we talk about hate
As parents, we all struggle sometimes with how to explain things we hear to our kids. We want our kids to understand what they are hearing and seeing. More importantly, sometimes we need them to understand so that we can protect them. As a parent of four, I am no different. Of late, however, I…
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Learning Disabilities, Learning Differences and Neurodiversity, Oh My!
As a kid growing up with learning differences, especially those not diagnosed until I was older (19!), I have learned a few things about what works and what gets in the way as a learner and as a person whose brain works differently. Back then, there was never a discussion of being “neurodiverse,” in fact,…
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Sugar and Spice?
Our girls are not doing very well right now; in fact, they are struggling. While this is a sweeping generalization, allow me to both explain and expound. It is true that most adolescents (and I would even include tweens) suffered and saw a mental health decline during COVID and have been slow to rebound in…
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Risk-takers, Innovators and Teens, oh my!
I am sure you have heard (or experienced) that children become greater risk-takers during adolescence. As parents, we may stay awake at night worrying, but should we? To answer that question, and to truly understand how to turn this concern to an advantage, we must first understand a bit about the adolescent brain. During adolescence,…
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Of Dogs and Kids
I’ve been spending a large part of my time recently training and learning to train my partner’s new service dog, who is still a puppy, only about a year old, which, in dog lifeline, makes her an adolescent. It is remarkable how much she and human adolescents have in common. In fact, I have been…
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Gaming the Educational System
I did not grow up a “gamer.” I never played D & D. We had an Atari (I am that old), but I had no thumb intelligence. I had no interest in PS anything, Nintendo, or any of the other game systems. I watched, observed, and studied kids playing lots of games through the years…
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Red leather pants. . .
I wear them every year on my birthday and have since I turned 40 (this year I turn 62, so it’s been a bit!). Let me explain why this tradition is so important to me, even if it mortifies my own four kids. As a woman now in my 60s, I resent the image of…
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Teaching Consent About More Than Just Sex
Although we have heard more about “consent” recently, nearly every time it is in reference to some kind of sexual situation. Consent is vital to understand in terms of actually having sex; however, all children need to understand the concept of consent well before they reach the age of consent in order to truly make…
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True Confessions of a Dyslexic…
A dyslexic head of school?? Surprised? You shouldn’t be, but most folks are. The perception of dyslexia in society is one of people crippled by the inability to spell, read, or write. In fact, ask someone what dyslexia is, and they might say something like “switching ‘d’ for ‘b’.” While this perception may have some…
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How to Teach Problem-Solving (to a Kinder or a Teen or Anyone in Between!)
As parents and teachers, we hate to see our kids struggle with problems. So when they come to us for help, our natural reaction is to do just that–help them find solutions to their problems. Too often, however, we give into our helpful nature (and desire not to see those we care about suffer in…
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6 Strategies for Managing Back-To-School Anxiety
You know it’s August when the “Back-to-School” sale commercials flood your screens. Some kids cannot wait: time back with friends, teams, activities, excitement, and much-needed structure. Others, however, are more anxious: a new place, a new grade, COVID protocols, concerns about school safety. Whether your child has started school or is getting ready to return,…
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Back to School Anxiety…the good, the bad, and what a parent can do
Losing sleep before school starts? This may describe both you and your kids. You may be counting off the things you still have left to do, the items you still have to get organized or purchased, the tutors lined up, the rides, the after-school programs, oh, yes—the rides back from those, the lunches, the forms,…
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Resilience gets personal…
My best friend’s daughter killed herself last spring. Our families had grown up together. We were on vacation with her parents when it happened and got the news together. And no, we didn’t see it coming. I know we can’t stop kids from killing themselves, but I feel compelled to try, no doubt like every…
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Note: All information on TeensParentsTeachers.org is for educational purposes only. For specific medical advice, diagnoses, and treatment, consult your doctor.
