While many children may appear to bounce back quickly on the surface, the trials and tribulations faced by school-aged children can leave deep scars if not managed correctly. The challenges, setbacks, failures, and social pressures most children experience at school can gradually undermine their confidence and sense of self-worth unless their parents work with them to develop their resilience. For ...
There are many theories trying to explain why we see such a rapid increase in the rates of anxiety among children. Regardless of the explanations, the fact remains that child anxiety is on the rise and we now see more and more young children - often as young as 5-6 years old - with clinical levels of anxiety. Parenting chronically ...
For many children, the start of a new school year produces feelings of excitement and anticipation: The idea of seeing old friends again, discovering new subjects, and meeting new teachers makes the prospect of schoolwork seem more like an adventure than a chore (albeit often temporarily). For children with ADHD, however, the idea of returning to school often invokes a ...
While finding out that your child has taken something which does not belong to her is stressful regardless of your child's age, it's often particularly upsetting when dealing with an adolescent. Unlike younger children, who sometimes steal “accidentally” solely because they do not yet understand the concepts of ownership and/or transaction, teenagers are old enough to understand that such ...
While most of the issues adopted children face while growing up differ little from the challenges experienced by non-adopted children, ...
As a psychologist living and working in Toronto, where 51% of residents were born outside Canada, I deal with immigration related ...
As children grow older, their behaviours change dramatically. While a hysterical tantrum over something minor is completely normal at two ...
Dear Young Reader, Are you in trouble? Not the kind of trouble that might land you in juvie like stealing a car. But the kind of trouble that finds you in hot water with just about everyone in your life including the few friends that you might still have. It might be your parents being upset that you haven’t ...
Narcissism screams from the headlines nowadays. Google searches for “narcissism” have doubled since 2013. Writers hotly debate on the narcissism of each USA presidential candidate. Closer to home, doting parents worry they may unwittingly be raising a narcissist. As a former teenage narcissist and member of a multi-generational narcissistic family, here's a few pointers for how not to raise a narcissist ...
Anger is a notoriously infectious emotion, easily setting off the desire to react in like kind. Many of us were not taught how to effectively deal with anger during our own childhoods, so when we experience anger in a child, we struggle to react in the way we feel we ought to. Keeping ourselves calm and judicious may prove possible, ...
I recently stumbled upon the article "Music Lessons Increase IQ" written by my former UofT professor Dr. Glenn Schellenberg and published at "Psychological Science". His research studies show that 3 years of weekly music lessons resulted in 6-7% increase in IQ in 9 year olds. This research findings highlight the importance of music for developing child's brain. Music is a fundamental part ...
