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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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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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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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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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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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…

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Juuling: An Alarming Trend Reversing Decades of Health Gains

Cigarette smoking has been on a steady decline among teens for the past decade. That’s good news … but, a new craze called “Juuling” is threatening to reverse that. A Juul is a brand of e-cigarette that has become popular among middle and high schoolers, at least in part because of youth-friendly flavors and a…

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Civics in Uncivil Times

Facing down the challenges of teaching the 2016 election, with resources for preparing engaged citizens     In a chaotic and hostile election season — rupturing political parties, incessant name-calling, and growing dissension along racial and class lines — it may be tempting for educators to discourage political talk at school. But as the school…

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