Posts by Guest Author

Unlocking Potential: Why Special Education is Crucial for Gifted Kids

Though we associate special education with learning disabilities and neurodevelopmental disorders, specialized programs can also be profoundly helpful for gifted children. Gifted children not only display an advanced rate of learning, they learn differently than other children, which creates the need for a responsive education environment. Giftedness is also typified by a pattern of asynchronous development, where certain skills and ...

10 Values All Kids Should Have Before Age 10

Our values continue to evolve throughout our lifetime, but it’s our formative moral lessons - those we learn prior to age 10 - that create the foundation for strong ethics in adulthood. If you have a school-aged child, sharing your values with her will hone her ability to empathize and strengthen the parent-child connection. Imparting solid values can also make ...

Therapy Requires Commitment: Here’s What to Expect

The digital age has been defined by rapid access to information and the promise of quick, easy solutions for a multitude of problems. From one-click ordering to “life hacks,” most of us have grown accustomed to getting what we want, when we want it. The arduous nature of the therapeutic process can therefore feel overwhelming at first: Getting help for ...

How to Help Your Child Sleep Better

Throughout most of human history, children slept close to their parents for protection. Young children therefore naturally tend to become anxious when left alone in the dark; their brains are hardwired to seek the safety of adult companionship after nightfall. Small children need to be proactively shown how to relax and feel secure at night even when their parents aren’...

How to Stop Hyper-Focusing on Your Children

Kids need love and attention, but they also need healthy, calm, balanced parents in order to thrive. Though modern parenting advice tends to advocate for intense parenting styles, like attachment parenting, it’s important to draw a line between caring for children and hyper-focusing on them. When parents hyper-focus on their children, they create unrealistic expectations for themselves and inadvertently ...

The “Use It or Lose It” Effect: Research Reveals That IQ Can Fluctuate

Though we rely on our intelligence every day, the exact nature of intelligence remains poorly understood. Researchers are unsure of how to best define intelligence and how many different “types” of intelligence there might be. There’s also been a great deal of debate over the plasticity of the mind. In the past, most people assumed that one’s level ...

How to Work Productively with Your Child’s School

We all want our child’s school experience to be enriching and enjoyable—after all, by the age of four or five, our kids will be spending most of their time in the classroom. Unfortunately, as most parents know all too well, the school environment is often far from ideal. It’s not that educators don’t have kids’ best ...

5 Effective Strategies for Parenting During a Pandemic

Social distancing has increased parenting responsibilities and limited parents’ self-care resources, creating more stress and anxiety in many households. To cope with the sudden changes in routine brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, parents must adopt new parenting strategies designed to balance their needs with the needs of their children. Parents must also learn how to step into new roles, ...