Parents today are inundated with alarmist headlines alerting them to the myriad supposed dangers of modern life; everything from plastic baby bottles to radiation from cell phones to the preservatives in our food are purported to be cause for concern. In this fearful social climate, it's often difficult to determine what truly poses a risk and which issues have been ...
Many parents are shocked by the idea that one might be able to “test” for creativity; how, they wonder, can such a magical and intangible quality possibly be measured and quantified? The answer, of course, is “imperfectly”, but emerging neuroscientific research has given us a fairly accurate glimpse into both the regions of the brain responsible for producing creative thought ...
Talking to your children about sex is the very archetype of an awkward conversation, so many parents may find themselves tempted to outsource this task to either educators or online search engines. Likewise, they sometimes assume that the latter two resources are superior sources of knowledge anyway, or that they ought not “rush” their child and let him or her ...
In recent years, critical thinking has replaced rote learning as the priority skill in most classrooms; gone are the days when simply regurgitating information regarding historical facts and figures, geography, times tables, etc., was sufficient to be deemed an exemplary student. Instead, today's students are valued as much—or more—for their ability to engage in rational analysis of the ...
Sometimes classroom behavior problems signal giftedness. Brad and Karen were at their wits end. Their grade school children once again ...
As a psychologist living and working in Toronto, where 51% of residents were born outside Canada, I deal with immigration related ...
While most of the issues adopted children face while growing up differ little from the challenges experienced by non-adopted children, ...
It's natural for parents to desire that their children be driven to achieve; given how obsessed our culture has become with rigorous testing and tough competition for college admissions, this capacity for high levels of self-motivation may seem essential to a child's long-term success. What many fail to realize, however, is that when a driven attitude is allowed to progress ...
Most human beings have a tendency to assess things from the outside in, using measurable external factors such as performance and achievement to ascertain how intelligent (or “gifted”) a person is. Indeed, the standardized psychological tests used to detect giftedness entirely overlook the behavioural and emotional aspects of giftedness. This sets up a damaging precedent, one that leads to gifted ...
For the past few months, I am asked almost daily about the new sex education curriculum introduced by Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne and how it is going to affect sexual orientation and gender identity in young children. There is not much research on this topic, most relevant is a six year study of 12000 adolescents conducted by Dr. Ross O'Hara from ...
Anxiety disorders are found in children much more often than many people realize; ten to twenty percent of all children will suffer the symptoms of a full-fledged anxiety disorder prior to the age of 18, making this the most common mental health issue in young people. It's often overlooked, however, as it's difficult for parents to ascertain the difference between the ...
