How do we help girls find their voice? Katie Hurley’s office is filled with young girls who struggle with courage, confidence and friendship skills. Hurley, a child and adolescent psychotherapist and author of the recently published “No More Mean Girls,” has noticed an escalating trend: girls right now are overwhelmed with adult-directed activities. “Girls no longer have time to partake in girlhood on their own,” said Hurley. This overly structured, overly controlled milieu leaves girls…
Teens in the United States are struggling with anxiety in record numbers, and students in our classrooms are stressed out, overstimulated, and distressed. What’s causing this abrupt shift, and how can we help? Let’s take a look. Most of us feel some anxiety from time to time, which is easily connected to situational causes. However, generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is characterized by persistent and excessive worry about a number of different things, according to the…
We live in a world of screens, and tech addiction is becoming more and more common. In this digital age full of so many devices and distractions, it’s become one of the things parents worry about most: how much time should kids spend staring at their phones and computers? When it comes to technology use, what’s the right balance between privacy and self-discovery? Research continues to provide answers on how parents are navigating this world…
Dyslexia is a specific learning disability in reading. Kids with dyslexia have trouble reading accurately and fluently. They may also have trouble with reading comprehension, spelling and writing. Raising a child with dyslexia is a journey. As you move through it, you’ll gain a lot of knowledge about your child’s challenges with reading—and about the many ways you can help her succeed at school and in life. If you’re concerned your child may have dyslexia, here are…
One of the biggest flaws with traditional school transportation, says Todd Ely, director of the Center for Local Government Research and Training at the University of Colorado Denver, is that 66-passenger buses must make several stops along an indirect path. That design translates to long swaths of time with energetic children managed in triage fashion. Buses are also expensive to operate, which means most of the more than 25 million children in the U.S. who…
Everyone — from businesses to classrooms to sporting organizations — is on a quest to crack the code to perfect teamwork. Google spent years studying their working teamwork systems and determined that success wasn’t based on “who” was on a team, but on the culture created by the team — for example, a group that takes turns talking vs. one in which members speak over one another would have better teamwork. Educators are also looking…
Katie Hurley’s office is filled with young girls who struggle with courage, confidence and friendship skills. Hurley, a child and adolescent psychotherapist and author of the recently published “No More Mean Girls,” has noticed an escalating trend: Girls right now are overwhelmed with adult-directed activities. The trouble is that parents are not helping girls find their voices effectively enough. “Girls no longer have time to partake in girlhood on their own,” said Hurley. This overly…
Should childhood trauma be treated like a public health crisis? When public health officials get wind of an outbreak of Hepatitis A or influenza, they spring into action with public awareness campaigns, monitoring and outreach. A new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association suggests the response to childhood trauma should be similar. It shows how the effects of childhood trauma persist and are linked to mental illness and addiction in adulthood.…
There are many ways to encourage a child. For students of any age, honest, authentic, and persistent messages from adults that have credibility in their eyes have the most impact. The National Center on Quality Teaching and Learning has put together a list of 50 Ways To Encourage A Child, from which our recommendations will be coming. It was designed for younger students (around kindergarten age), but most of them are actually useful for K-12 in…
To see the recent educational trend of general competency in action, one need only look to our local state university, UMass Lowell, and their mission statement: “Work Ready, Life Ready, World Ready.” In the past, education has been about teaching people something. Now, it is more about making sure students develop a reliable compass and the navigation skills to find their own way through an increasingly uncertain world. As a result, some schools are now…
