Parents Scene
Gen Z is falling short of who we were destined to become
I think for most members of my generation — the illustrious Gen Z crowd — it is a relatively common phenomenon to have a parent or other older adult turn and look at you, pleading with you to “save the world” or “be the change.” As an individual who is planning to attend law…
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American kids are overmedicated
America is a lot of things: a global leader in innovation, an arms dealer, a centuries-old democracy, an abuser of human rights (sometimes). We are also a pharmacy, and if you are a toddler showing mild signs of hyperactivity, boy do we have the product for you. Meet the “focus pill.” Focus pills are stimulants intended to address attention-deficit/ hyperactivity disorder.…
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Princeton’s role in combating the drug crisis must start on campus
Drug addiction is a public health crisis in the United States. Total overdose deaths have increased in the United States over the last two decades across all demographic groups, with about 17 percent of Americans battling a substance use disorder in the past year. These alarming statistics show just how large of a problem drug dependency has become, but there’s…
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Growing Tomorrow’s Leaders Today: A Conversation with Joyce Cooper-Kahn
Introduction: Why Executive Functioning Matters When I interviewed Joyce Cooper-Kahn about the new edition of her book, “Late, Lost, and Unprepared: A Parents’ Guide to Helping Children with Executive Functioning,” she modestly credited many of her insights as a child psychologist to what she’d learned from working with her clients. One example she offered was particularly…
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Education and the brain: On grace and development
For Coach Tommy Jones January is cold for baseball, but at this preseason practice, the team sitting, backs against the left field fence in front of our home dugout, I was as warm and shamefaced as I could be. Coach Tommy Jones, as he did before every practice, told us a story about life…
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3 Helpful Scripts for Teachers with Anxious, Perfectionist Students
After “the craziest admissions season ever” last year, and as we head into what will surely be another highly competitive cycle, high school students are understandably increasingly anxious about their academics. I’ve witnessed this firsthand during my years teaching high school and middle school—seeing students vibrating from the stress and barely holding it together,…
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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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Princeton, it’s time to implement media literacy training
“Seek the truth by asking your own questions and coming to your own conclusions.” Under the gothic arches of the University Chapel in his 2011 Baccalaureate speech, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg defined a struggle that has plagued our generation: the exponential rise of online disinformation, which has consistently challenged democracies and hindered…
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Curiosity Did Not Kill the Cat
“Curiosity killed the cat.” Among the world’s most foolish aphorisms, this one stands out. It is quite likely that the lack of curiosity is more likely a fatal condition for cats . . . and humans. Yet another lousy OpEd on education graced – or disgraced – the pages of the New York Times…
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What to do when the world is crumbling
Health & Well-Being: Reframing the Anxiety Conversation
[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.] Like many schools across the country, University School of Milwaukee (WI) has seen…
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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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“No Excuse, Sir”
This is an address presented to high school students and their parents and teachers. Each time I conduct one of these awards ceremonies, I spend some time thinking about what it is that separates those who are successful students from those who are not. What characteristics do the successful possess? Though it will probably…
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The Hollowdays
“We are the hollow men / We are the stuffed men / Leaning together / Headpiece filled with straw.” – T.S. Eliot (“The Hollow Men,” 1925) It is already Christmas at Starbucks. They may call it the “holidays,” of course, just one more way of extracting all the caffeine (i.e., authenticity) and profundity…
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Pathologizing men is unproductive. We should invest in better men-focused spaces.
In her Oct. 22 op-ed, Julianna Lee ’25 argued that male-only spaces could better Princeton’s campus by building “encouragement, empowerment, and friendship for men.” Columnist Ava Johnson ’27 responded on Nov. 4, contending that male-only spaces fail to address men’s problems and “[run] the risk of breeding misogyny and bullying.” These opinions come at a time when…
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Banning books is detrimental to intellectual growth
[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.] Back in February, The Daily Princetonian’s podcast Daybreak interviewed English Professor Anne Cheng on the…
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14 Essential Conversations with Tweens: An Interview with Michelle Icard
Last month, I shared an interview I did with Michelle Icard on her new book, Eight Setbacks That Can Make a Child a Success. It occurred to me after writing that piece that Ms. Icard’s previous book on how to have difficult conversations with tweens would be a helpful resource to parents supporting their children through setbacks…
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Learning and the Brain: Bid the geldings be fruitful?
“And all the time – such is the tragicomedy of our situation – we continue to clamour for those very qualities we are rendering impossible. You can hardly open a periodical without coming across the statement that what our civilization needs is more ‘drive,’ or dynamism, or self-sacrifice, or ‘creativity.’ In a sort of…
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Learning and the Brain: On wind and roots
“He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” – Frederich Nietzsche During the early 1990s, an experiment was taking place in New Mexico called Biosphere 2. It was (and still is) a closed ecological system — air, food, community, everything had to be generated in this biodome. Though now…
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Home Is The Training Ground For Life: A Conversation With Parenting Expert Sheri Glucoft Wong
[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.] Do you wish you had fewer conflicts with your children involving screen time, homework,…
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The rotten seed of American individualism
The rotten seed of American individualism has grown into a mighty tree, spreading its branches and curling through the hearts of American citizens. It whispers in our ears lies of self-sufficiency and the lonesome American Dream, promising freedom but leaving cracks in the Earth and sowing division. It has wrapped its tendrils tightly around our everyday lives, taking root in the…
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The Road to Success Leads Through Failure: A Conversation with Author Michelle Icard
We Can’t Shield Our Kids From Failure. And We Shouldn’t. “Helicopter” parents (monitoring every detail of their children’s lives) and “snowplow” parents (ensuring no obstacles get in their children’s way) mean well: They genuinely believe that shielding their children from failure can help them succeed. But the more I read about raising successful, resilient…
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Pics or it didn’t happen
Seeing and being seen: a Penn tradition, a universal obsession “A picture-perfect night” is the best way to describe the Class of 2028’s evening gala at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, a beloved NSO tradition. The foyer was lit up in Penn’s red and blue as students snapped selfies of themselves munching on baba…
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The emerging loneliness economy
[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.] Social media and emerging technologies have created unparalleled opportunities for connection, to the…
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You may have eyes, but do you know how to see?
There’s a difference between looking and truly seeing. What color is the floor where you took your last class? Could you describe one painting in that building? Chances are you have no idea. Why would you? Life is busy, work needs to get done; you know the drill. So you go through your life…
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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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Boosting or Breaking Productivity: The Impact of Hyperfixation on ADHD
Are you ever so engrossed in an activity you love that you completely lose track of time? Does it seem like you lose sense of where you are and what’s happening around you? And when you snap back into the reality of what’s going on around you, are you disoriented? People with ADHD and…
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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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Plan ahead even if you have no plan
One random evening my first year of college, I set myself up for more success than I have at any other time during my college experience. I was a lowly political science and math major trying to consider what minors or certificates would best prepare me for a future career as a lawyer and…
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Another Generation Cometh
[Editor’s note: This speech was delivered to high school students, teachers, and parents 30 years ago. Unfortunately, its focus may be even more relevant today.] Last term, as I watched recovering alcoholic Michael Tripp speak to you during an assembly, I experienced a moment of recognition. It wasn’t a recognition of my own…
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How to Motivate Children: Science-Based Approaches for Parents, Caregivers, and Teachers
[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.] What’s the best way to motivate children? The intrinsic motivation to learn about…
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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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How Smartphones Are Rewiring Children: The Anxious Generation Review
In Jonathan Haidt’s justly acclaimed new book, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness, he repeats a Polynesian expression: “Standing on a whale, fishing for minnows.” Haidt explains that “sometimes it is better to do a big thing rather than many small things.” What’s the “big thing”…
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What’s the Score?
Well, that didn’t take long. Following the short burst of SAT-optional college admission policies spawned by the pandemic, the testing race is back at full throttle, at least at some Ivies. Among the rationales this time around is the preposterous claim that SATs actually enhance diversity. The argument goes like this: Not submitting test…
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Yale Will Not Save Her
Content warning: This column contains references to sexual violence. On April 2, University President Peter Salovey emailed the Yale community under the subject line “Your Yale, Your Voice,” asking us to complete the 2024 Campus Climate Survey on Sexual Misconduct and Resource Awareness [SHARE]. The third in a series of quadrennial surveys administered by the…
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The gifted and talented program is flawed
In the fifth grade, my family moved and I transferred to a new school district in New Jersey. In the West Orange school district, I gained admission into the High Aptitude Program, a gifted and talented program that I would get bussed to weekly. When I entered the Parsippany-Troy Hills Township School District, I applied to…
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From swiping to sipping: The digital pathway to dependency
More than five billion people use some form of social media. In the United States, 75% of teens have an active account on a social media platform. Digitization has crept into our lives and altered our world. People check social apps for news, trends, academics and to keep in touch with their peers. When we crave information, social media…
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The feminine urge to apologize
It is almost as if “sorry” is the default response for women. They apologize for having emotions and showing them, for asking a valid question and for walking in the same direction as someone in the store; they apologize for their failures and their successes. In every situation women automatically respond with an unnecessary “sorry.”…
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Unlocking the dopamine code: A blueprint for college student well-being
As college students navigating the complexities of academia, we often find ourselves contending with formidable adversaries: seasonal depression, lack of motivation and high levels of stress. According to the National College Health Assessment, approximately 80% of college students report experiencing overwhelming levels of anxiety, and nearly 40% grapple with symptoms of depression at some point during…
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How do I avoid the perfectionism trap?
Dear Dr. Saline, I recently started my first full-time job after graduating from college and feel like I’m struggling with the adjustment. I’ve had the usual ups and downs in school which come with ADHD. But now that I’m working, my tendency toward perfectionism has become overwhelming. Worst of all, I don’t think my work…
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Rejection is normal, but not normalized
After a grueling college admissions process, I was excited to begin my journey at the University of Michigan. Yet, I was surprised by the campus’s intense culture of club recruitment and internship applications. At the beginning of each semester, I applied to some clubs but was hesitant to apply to others, intimidated by the grueling…
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Play Can Save Us
The numbing ubiquity of human despair and political idiocy is enough to get a guy down. I spend far too much of my retired life with the New York Times on my lap. My privilege requires that I pay attention, despite knowing that I can’t do a damn thing about most of it. But there…
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Internet safety requires more than a Senate hearing
“I’m sorry for everything you’ve been through,” said Mark Zuckerberg, Meta founder and CEO, in the most recent congressional hearing on online child safety. Disingenuous as these words may be, they are more than just an apology from the tech mogul. They signify the culmination of failed government action, a rise in companies set on making…
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Growth Over Grades: Top Ten Takeaways from Wharton Guru Adam Grant
The central question keeping me up at night as an educator is this: How can we maximize every student’s potential? This question emphatically isn’t about making sure a student becomes “the best” at anything in particular, but rather about ensuring all students become their best selves. In his new book Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater…
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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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Overcoming Negativity Bias with Students, Parents, and Colleagues
[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.] At the end of a week, why do we focus on one difficult…
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Give Children Real Life
“This car climbed Mt. Washington.” This bumper sticker is commonly seen in New England and refers to the highest peak in the East. As implied, there is a winding road to the summit. These bumper stickers never fail to irritate, as the “achievement” is remarkably unremarkable. It’s rather like having a CD player with a…
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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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If You Prick Us
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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Playing the Get-Out-of-Jail Card: Improving Mental Health in Schools
“I’m walking. I’m walking right out of the door. I won’t ever be back.” The gray-haired teacher who was filmed during her meltdown in her classroom shouting those words to her students and doing exactly what she said became an instant nucleus of condensation for the torrent of frustration and stress felt by thousands of…
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Reading Madness
An article this week in Chalkbeat Tennessee told of Kamryn Sanders, an 8-year-old Memphis 3rd grader who walked out her school’s front door on the day her reading scores were to be revealed. She walked a mile, finally asked for help, and the police returned her to school. Kamryn was afraid, with some justification, that…
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Understanding Perfectionism: How To Make It Work For, Not Against, You and Your Kids
Honestly, it’s tough to be a perfectionist writing about perfectionism. Wait, let me rephrase that: a recovering perfectionist writing about perfectionism. See, there it is—correcting myself to get it right. I like accuracy, accountability, and setting high standards for myself. These traits can be motivating and help me accomplish my goals. But sometimes, these same…
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You don’t need to party in college to have a good time
Throughout middle school and high school, I always dreamed of going to college — getting away and doing whatever I wanted. While I certainly had friends and made the most of my time during my days back home in Illinois, I was excited for my chapter as a college student. I was looking forward to…
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Comments on Test-Optional College Admissions
Having been the dean of admission at Princeton from 1978 to 1983, I read with interest that Harvard and Yale, along with scores of other colleges and universities, made a decision to adopt a “test optional” policy with respect to those applying for the 2023-24 academic year. This initiative prompted me to write this brief…
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Putting the Brakes on Accelerating in Mathematics
“My child is bored in 6th-grade math and I would like them to take Algebra I over the summer.” This is a request that I have heard dozens of times over the past decade, which is dozens more times than I ever heard this request thirty years ago. I am a recovering math department chair…
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Evaluating the Goodness of Fit for Students Planning to Go to College
On Sunday, April 2, 2023, I read an interesting and provocative article by Frank Bruni that was published in the New York Times. The title of the article was “There’s Only One College Rankings List that Matters.” Having worked as the Dean of Admission from 1978 to 1983 at Princeton University, and having evaluated the…
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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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The Content of Character
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” – Martin Luther King, Jr. Few readers will be reading this quote for the first time. Those on the anti-racist…
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The Myth of Multitasking: How to Reduce Stress and Improve Productivity
It’s one o’clock on a Tuesday and I’m wrapping up three hours of therapy. In the next 90 minutes, I have to do my notes, check my emails, eat my lunch and leave enough time to get my beloved afternoon coffee before starting up again. It’s a tall order. Do I walk away from my…
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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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Creating Better Schools: Let’s Look to Parents
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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Poison Ivy
For months, she struggled silently with a sense of worthlessness. She had panic attacks that left her trembling. Nightmares that made her cry. She’d told only a handful of friends about the sexual assault she endured while she was home the summer after her freshman year. Now, as she finished her sophomore year at Yale…
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On Edge
Transitions take our feet out from under us, make our knees weak, our hearts hurt, especially ones we don’t plan. The loss of a beloved teacher, the disappearance of a pet, grandparents saying goodbye before a flight home. Our boy, Elias, comes without filters, without the ability to express his feelings in words, and grief…
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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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Blood on Their Hands
It was well past midnight. I awoke with a start as a silhouette appeared in my dorm room doorway. My heart pounded as a person approached, knelt at my bed and whispered, “Help me.” The person was a blond, carefree college senior whom I had befriended at several parties. We were drawn together by a…
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Opening up about my freshman year abortion
Removing the stigma of abortions is vital in the fight to achieve equitable reproductive rights. I found out I was pregnant in a Starbucks bathroom, only a few weeks after starting my first year at Penn. I was 18, and I did everything to keep it a secret. Buying a test on campus risked fellow…
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The Beatings Will Continue
“The beatings will continue until morale improves” is a rather familiar quip of unknown origin. Two recent news stories remind of just how apt the saying remains. The first was an astonishing New York Times report on the reinstitution of paddling as a disciplinary tool in a Missouri school district. Surprisingly, paddling children in school remains…
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An Education in Racism
College Admission – Failed Rite of Passage
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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BENEFITS AND DANGERS OF TEEN TECHNOLOGY USE
Extra School
In my experience as a teacher, I’ve collected memories that illustrate for me what needs to be improved in middle school education. My thesis? Schools filled with students from poorer families (low SES–socioeconomic status) need to do more to engage their students intellectually. One such illustrative memory is of a brilliant African-American economics major from…
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Beautiful Views of Terrifying Drops
Or, Gaining a Little Height on Life [Editor’s note: Oren Karp is a recent graduate of Brown University and a Fulbright Scholar teaching English in Kathmandu, Nepal. He posts an account of his life in Nepal every few weeks.] It’s hard for me not to see the last nine days as a little…
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Off To See the Wizard
On April 24, 1990, my father was killed in a Pennsylvania hospital. He was in the third day of recovery from elective reconstructive knee surgery when an error his doctors had made erupted somewhere in his abdomen. Most of his blood vessels ruptured and he bled to death. His doctors had prescribed too large a…
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Being a Good Teacher
Last week my grandchildren, Maddie and Jack, were in an out-of-school production of Cinderella. My wife, Maddie’s and Jack’s parents, and I were delighted and grateful that first grader Jack’s teacher came to the evening performance, a gift well beyond the call of duty. He was thrilled. She offered congratulations and hugged him warmly before leaving. This…
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Schools: The Persistence of Failure; Paths to Success
I have spent a lifetime in schools–as student, teacher, administrator, parent, and trustee. I am a weary veteran of the endless wars over what’s to blame for the sorry state of education. As covid and virtual schooling have made even clearer, we need to do a better job. Test scores are lousy; achievement and learning…
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Washing Dust From the Soul
“The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls.” – Pablo Picasso We are in the midst of a prolonged dust storm in America. Daily life brings reports of yet another shooting, a pandemic surge on the horizon, emotional fatigue from a year of isolation, the threat of domestic terrorism…
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Unique Challenges for Black Individuals with Mental Health Conditions
According to a 2018 survey by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), 16% of African American adults reported having a mental illness in the previous year, and 22.4% of that group reported a serious mental illness. The same survey showed that, of the nearly 5 million African Americans with a mental illness, close to 70% hadn’t received treatment (Williams, 2020). Still…
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Pity the White Folks
Tourists in the Capitol! This was Georgia Representative Andrew Clydes’s characterization of the fine folks who visited Washington D.C. on January 6th. It might have been a tad more understandable if Clyde were a Florida Congressman. I did see some slight resemblance between the merry marauders in the Capitol and some scenes from spring break…
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Let’s Dump The ABC’s — And D’s and F’s, Too
The votes are in. Experience, common sense and neuroscientists agree: People don’t learn when they are scared. Well, they learn, but they don’t learn math or history or whatever lessons schools are actually trying to teach. Kids learn to hate school or to fear Mr. Smith or even to hate themselves, and the cause is…
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Oh to Be a Girl
To be unaware of the broken glass at your feet, to leap straight through historic shards, bare, bold, free. To hail from sugar, cayenne, and so much more than nice. To envision a future beyond a shower of rice, to be shown you can be anything, to believe it, well beyond childhood dreams, to not…
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Back to school again
It seems only just a few months ago that we posted a set of tips for back to school. Yet here we are again heading into a new school year, only this time the situation couldn’t be any more different. The pandemic has forced adjustments in every facet of our lives. The fabric of our…
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Sleepwalking through School
Failure is the fate of most teachers at least some of the time. In their classrooms sit students whom, despite their most heroic efforts, they just can’t reach–like TJ, a boy who traveled from Indiana to attend an eastern boarding school and found his way into my classroom. Every fall, I struggled to get students…
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Understanding my inherited workaholism
My mind seems to be obsessed with this memory I have from second grade. I was playing with my friends at recess, telling them my dad got a new job two hours away from our home. I insisted we make a lemonade stand after school to raise money for him to stay. My naivete as…
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Mother of Black Sons
Last Memorial Day, while most were celebrating the holiday with a well-needed break from COVID-confinement, I announced to my children that they would be catching up on all the assignments that remained missing on their Google classroom logs. After some complaining, they each picked the easiest assignment they could find and went to work. My…
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Humility: We Need It Now More Than Ever
When was the last time your child sulked when you asked her to take out the garbage? How loudly did your son complain when his sibling took the last cookie? Does your daughter regularly ignore your pleas to get in the car as she and her friends giggle and stare at their phones? Or how…
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Reflecting on Peggy Orenstein’s New Book about Boys and Sex
Peggy Orenstein’s latest book, Boys & Sex: Young Men on Hookups, Love, Porn, Consent, and Navigating the New Masculinity, responds to reader demand, as well as the #MeToo movement. Her new book is based on two years of in-depth interviews with 100 high school and college students, many of whom attend or have graduated from…
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She lost her dad when she was 14. Now, she’s helping kids learn how to mourn.
CNN HEROES Mountainside, New Jersey (CNN) When Tracy Crosby’s husband died unexpectedly, she suddenly became a single mom to four young children. “The hardest thing in the world is to tell your children that they’re never going to see their other parent again,” she said. Her children would cry a lot at bedtime because they…
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Free Webinar from Families for Depression Awareness
Families for Depression Awareness is presenting a free Recognizing and Managing Teen Anxiety webinar on Wednesday, September 25 from 7:00 to 8:15 PM ET/ 4:00 to 5:15 PM PT. In this webinar, Lisa M. Schab, LCSW, a practicing psychotherapist and international best-selling author, will discuss the symptoms of an anxiety disorder, anxiety management skills adults…
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Tips for Parents: Setting Your Child on a Path for Success in the New School Year
The first day of school is already upon us. After a long summer of extreme weather and, perhaps, extreme boredom and moods by our teens, it’s critical to start thinking of ways to set them on a path of success for the new school year. According to the Cleveland Clinic, the top four drivers of…
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Reflections on Navigating the High School Admission Process
It typically begins in seventh grade. Sometime in March or April. Unfamiliar feelings. Wandering eyes. Vague insecurities. Burgeoning cases of FOMO, or the “fear of missing out.” A dim awareness that other people are watching you, wondering what you’re thinking. This isn’t the first sign of puberty. These are not the hormone-induced emotions of fragile…
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Helping My Son To Plan Ahead
My teenage son has bipolar disorder. My husband and I want him to be ready to manage his care and treatment decisions, so we’re engaging him now. I try to be well-rounded and active about mental health. I engage with my elected representatives to try to affect policy; I speak out to combat the stigma of…
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Helping Your Child Succeed in School
Many parents suffer from watching their son or daughter struggle in school. They often feel powerless to help. Daniel Franklin knows that parents can help. He believes that the relationship–the partnership–between a caregiver and child is the single most important factor in transforming struggle into success. He has written a book with the number-one goal…
Read MoreOn the Ground
If Marathon Helicopters flew over our house, as they often do, shuttling tourists around Resurrection Bay, if they passed overhead on a certain evening this week, at what seems to be our family’s witching hour, the pilot and passengers might have witnessed a mother yank the crutch right out of her boy’s hand, storm across…
Read MoreAssessments That Provide Real Insight into Learning
A math teacher described a problem he was having with his 2nd graders: “One of the goals of our math curriculum is to enable the students to articulate their mathematical reasoning. We would like them to explain, ‘The problem said two more came, so I knew I needed to add,’ but instead we get, ‘I…
Read More“If For No Other Reason But That I Said So”
(This speech was addressed to students, their parents and teachers at an academic awards ceremony.) Ceremonies like this one are a way for one generation to pass the ideals and values of a society to the next generation. On this day, your teachers sit up here as a visual reminder of the responsibility adults have…
Read MoreThe Challenges of Parent Involvement Research
Despite the validity of some studies, much parent involvement research to date contains serious methodological flaws. But it is possible that more effective parent involvement will generate cost savings by lessening the need for remedial and other special programs. National Council of Jewish Women Center for the Child Amy J. L. Baker and Laura M.…
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Raising Cain – Book Review
– March 2000 What Pipher accomplished for girls in her book, Reviving Ophelia, psychotherapists Kindlon and Thompson are trying to do for boys. Their book is an eloquent discussion of the struggles boys face as they learn to be men in our culture. From Literary Cavalcade, property of Scholastic Inc. by Dan Kindlon and Michael…
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The Most Important People
At a press conference last year, President Clinton, addressing the flap about the First Lady in her interview with Talk magazine, said, “But I can tell you this, as I think about other children in the world and in our country that have difficulties growing up, I am convinced from my own life and from…
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The Most Productive Third of Your Life
– November 12, 1999 Sleep is needed to rejuvenate the body and mind. What is the most important part of sleep? Too little sleep can be very detrimental to your health. People spend one third of their lives in an altered state of consciousness. This is required for normal growth and development, and it…
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Divorce Source
Divorce Source — Information from every state for divorcees, and their children. www.divorcesource.com
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Marriage Builders
Marriage Builders — A large site helping couples understand how to fall in love and stay in love. Marriage Builders offers a wealth of articles, an active discussion board, personal coaching services, and much more. www.marriagebuilders.com
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