As a psychologist living and working in Toronto, where 51% of residents were born outside Canada, I deal with immigration related psychological issues on a daily basis. As an immigrant who came to Canada with a young child over 30 years ago, I can certainly relate to challenges facing immigrant parents and their children. I hope this article will help parents understand ...
There is no one way in which children react to divorce; depending on the age of the children involved, the circumstances of the divorce, and their individual natures, the impacts of this major life-change can vary widely. That being said, there is a great deal parents can do to mitigate the potential harm of a divorce; as is the case ...
When a child has a learning disability, assisting him or her in finding academic success often becomes the primary focus of parents and educators. While this is admirable and helpful to the child's well-being, it is no less important to manage how the learning disability may be affecting the child's emotional life as well. Though not all children with a ...
The word “spoiled” has been used so extensively that its meaning seems, for many parents, hopelessly vague and indefinite. The concept is blurred both by generational differences and by the fact that the term “spoiled” can also have positive connotations—it's often associated with being indulged at Christmas and on birthdays, for instance, or with the attention of doting relatives. ...
Over the last two decades, ideological polarization has become a prominent threat to democracy, education, and society as a whole. ...
Parenting is one of the most demanding jobs one will ever have. A parent’s desire to do the right ...
While most of the issues adopted children face while growing up differ little from the challenges experienced by non-adopted children, ...
Trust is one of the most fragile facets of any human relationship; it can take years to build and just minutes to break. For parents, losing trust is an especially complicated and painful phenomenon; not only must parents deal with their own feelings of betrayal when a child does something so unthinkable that the foundations of trust are shaken, they ...
Children, as any parent knows, can be baffling and unpredictable; they may tantrum seemingly out of nowhere, or develop stubborn behaviours (such as hitting a sibling or adamantly refusing to tidy up after themselves) and maintain them irrespective of the consequences and the pleas of adults. When such events occur, parents are invariably left wondering, “Why? Why is my child ...
Pause… Breathe… Smile… those are the 3 magic words I constantly try to hone in with my 5-year-old. Do they work? With reminders and on a good day, yes. Otherwise… not so much. Surprisingly, while trying to teach these to my son, I ended up using these words as my own personal motto to help stay calm and in control. As ...
While there is no way to make divorce “easy” on a child, there are ways to keep a divorce from damaging a child in a severe, lasting way. To the eyes of a vulnerable child, there is a world of difference between two parents separating amicably — while reassuring the child that he or she will remain important to both of ...
