Teen depression is notoriously difficult for parents to understand and manage; not only is telling the difference between normal moodiness and depression sometimes challenging, parents are confronted with the fact that they cannot simply intervene and protect their child as they would have when he or she was younger. While parents are an essential source of support, a teen—like ...
Mindfulness is a concept which has, in recent decades, received quite a lot of attention both from mental health professionals and within the media. Mindfulness is generally defined as a process wherein an individual learns to pay focused, mindful attention to his or her internal and external experiences, and so becomes more aware of the present moment. He or she ...
For children with Asperger’s Syndrome and High Functioning Autism (HFA), change is hard; all their lives they have struggled with the confusing and troubling nature of the highly changeable world around them — then suddenly, with the advent of the teen years, the changes become internal, too. Hormonal fluctuations, the quest for self-identity, and the pressure of trying to be ...
Dyslexia is an old name for a subtype of learning disability related to difficulties in acquisition of reading. While dyslexia is relatively well-known, it is not well understood, largely because educators have yet to agree on what dyslexia truly is. While some experts are convinced it is a simple matter of being unable to accurately process the sounds of letters (...
Every child differs in his/her developmental capacity and pace. Some children learn to speak earlier than others. Some learn ...
Autism has been in the spotlight for many years. In movies, television, and novels, autistic characters are portrayed to have ...
While most of the issues adopted children face while growing up differ little from the challenges experienced by non-adopted children, ...
If you've ever been so overwrought with worry that your patience fell short, or snapped at someone else because something unnerved you unexpectedly, you've experienced the intrinsic connection that exists between fear and anger. Just as fear can, when it is chronic, in effect bully the person experiencing it—constantly telling him what he can and cannot do—it can ...
The term “helicopter parenting” was coined in 1969, thirty years after the invention of helicopters in 1939. But the dynamic is as old as the hills. My grandma hovered over my mom and the whop-whop-whop of my parents' chopper blades formed the soundtrack of my life. To helicopter or not to helicopter has been discussed, deliberated and debated. Articles have gone viral. ...
Emerging research has demonstrated that even the use of “soft” drugs such as marijuana can have a deleterious effect on developing brains, including those of adolescents. Marijuana use directly alters the parts of the brain responsible for memory, learning, and attention, and may be capable of permanently lowering a person’s IQ and interfering with other aspects of their neurological ...
With the best of intentions, many parents get into the habit of repressing what they are feeling - bottling up their annoyance and frustration in an attempt to indulge their children's needs, energy, and enthusiasm, or to handle their bad behaviour with grace. While this practice seems noble at first (we all want to set a good example, after all), ...
