Anna Kaminsky earned her PhD in Developmental Psychology from the University of Toronto and completed a post-doc internship at our centre. She also worked at The Hospital for Sick Children and at The Hincks-Dellcrest Centre. Anna currently works as a medical services manager at the CAMH. "Kaminsky" is Anna's pen name. You can follow her on Twitter at @AnnaKaminsky1.
Being a teenager is difficult: Adolescents, especially younger adolescents, face a challenging combination of emerging social pressures, physiological changes, and a strong need for independence. As a result, most kids between the ages of 10-15 experience an increase in negative emotions, including anger. It’s not uncommon for kids in this age group to lash out (sometimes dramatically) over issues ...
The benefits of raising a responsible child go far beyond having help with household chores and enduring fewer conflicts about boundaries. When kids are inspired to behave responsibly, they develop better problem-solving skills, greater impulse control, and improved self-confidence. Taken together, these qualities allow them to adjust to change, overcome grief and setbacks, and stay motivated to achieve their goals. ...
Few things in life are as frustrating as dealing with an aggressive, unruly teenager. With that being said, however, remaining patient, calm, and empathetic is essential when communicating with any adolescent. Your teenager is dealing with heightened emotions, sensitivity, and impulsivity as a result of changes in his developing brain; as such, he needs level-headed guidance now more than ever. ...
Parents try many different strategies in order to encourage their children to behave well: They reason with them, they reward them, they sometimes even nag or cajole them… But what if we’re overlooking the most effective way of connecting with our kids and teaching them self-regulation skills? According to numerous experts on child development, we are—and the answer ...
Many parents who criticize their children have good intentions. They often hope that by pointing out their child’s errors, they can help her (or him) overcome problem behaviours, learn the skills she needs to succeed socially and academically, and develop a strong sense of personal accountability. They intend, at base, to guide their child. Unfortunately, parents don’t always ...
The ability to communicate well and learn verbally is strongly emphasized both at home and at school. However, useful though verbal skills are, there’s another extremely important area of learning that many experts feel we’re neglecting: Spatial skills. The term “spatial skills” is used to describe the ability to accurately interpret and remember the spatial relations between objects. ...
As numerous schoolyard rhymes tell us, tattling is an incredibly unpopular phenomenon among children. It’s not exactly a favourite behaviour at home, either: Most parents know all too well the frustration of having a child frequently seek their intervention because a sibling has taken his toy or violated another minor rule. These parents know that their child could probably ...
In recent years, the rise of cyber bullying has drawn attention to the many diverse forms bullying can take. At the same time, however, parents and teachers remain under-informed about many aspects of this harmful behaviour pattern. Not only does this make it more difficult to understand the trauma many children and teens endure, it limits our ability to give ...
Too often, the emotional side of giftedness is overlooked; for all that we laud the intellectual complexity of giftedness, seldom ...
With climate change becoming an increasingly common theme in politics, news, and even entertainment, it’s no wonder more young ...
While most of the issues adopted children face while growing up differ little from the challenges experienced by non-adopted children, ...
