Category: Special Needs Parenting

Psychological Issues Faced by Adopted Children

Dr. Tali Shenfield

While most of the issues adopted children face while growing up differ little from the challenges experienced by non-adopted children, arising from individual temperament and the hurdles endemic to growth and development, some adopted children also experience difficulties which relate directly to the fact that they are adopted. Sometimes these problems are relatively mild or temporary, the result of the ...

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How To Teach Your Child Use Metacognition

Dr. Tali Shenfield

If you find yourself concerned about your child's tendency to give up in frustration and proclaim himself unable to complete tasks or engage socially with his peers, the skill of metacognition — a technical term used to describe the act of understanding your thought process — may be able to help. Metacognition allows children to deconstruct challenging situations, figuring out why they ...

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The Risk of Self-Harm in Children with ADHD

Anna Kaminsky

Rates of self-harm among teenagers have risen sharply over the last two decades, and several recent studies have indicated that children and adolescents diagnosed with ADHD are significantly more likely to harm themselves than their non-ADHD peers. The reasons behind this concerning correlation are complex, but appear linked to the impulsivity, depression and low self-esteem frequently seen in teenagers and ...

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Emotional Needs of Children with Learning Disabilities

Dr. Tali Shenfield

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 ...

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Popular Articles

Understanding The Challenges Faced By Immigrant Children

As a psychologist living and working in Toronto, where 51% of residents were born outside Canada, I deal with immigration related ...

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Effective Discipline Methods for Proactive Parenting

So here you are. Your child has done something wrong or hasn’t done something they should have done. In ...

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Psychological Issues Faced by Adopted Children

While most of the issues adopted children face while growing up differ little from the challenges experienced by non-adopted children, ...

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Pause, Breathe, Smile… Repeat

Marina Heifetz

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 ...

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Should You Consider Seeking a Psychoeducational Assessment for Your Child?

Dr. Tali Shenfield

If your child is struggling behaviourally or academically, his school may recommend that he take what is known as a psycho-educational (“psy-ed”) assessment - or you may wish to seek such an assessment independently. This comprehensive evaluation is designed to measure a child’s cognitive processing abilities (including logical reasoning, memory, attention, and executive functioning), his current level of academic ...

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Helping Gifted Students with Learning Disability

Dr. Tali Shenfield

Not all gifted children automatically flourish at school; for some, academic activities seem to be a source of frustration or boredom, even as those same children will happily apply considerable effort to demanding activities outside of school, exhibiting a great deal of creative potential. While many parents and educators are quick to assume a behavioral issue when presented with the ...

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Ten Techniques for Parenting Children with Chronic Anxiety

Dr. Tali Shenfield

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 ...

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