BY Crystal Lee
The transition to college comes with lots excitement… and, more often than not, also a hefty dose of anxiety. College is often the first time your child will live away from home and be entirely responsible for his or her life. Not only will he or she be handling more rigorous academics, but he or she will be navigating a new social scene, juggling more competing responsibilities than ever, and managing higher levels of stress. Without proper planning and support, your child may struggle or flounder.
For the smoothest transition possible, take a team approach to planning. Gather your child and all the important adults who have contributed to your child’s success in high school (e.g., parents, school personnel, psychologist) to discuss your child’s strengths and needs in all aspects of life. Remember, college is more than just academics. It takes academic aptitude, social skills, emotional resilience, and basic life skills to thrive in a college environment. (more…)
“Mean girls” is seen as a rite of passage for teens. However, bullying can cause damage to the self-esteem of each generation of girls who face it. Girls gossip, talking behind each other’s back. Supposed friends shun them and leave them out. With the advances in technology, bullying can also move into social media and texting. People can now shun you electronically – blocking you from their Instagram or Snap Chat – and then say mean things about you to a very public audience that you can’t access. Cyber-bullying is a whole new world of hurt for today’s victims. 
We’ve spent the summer enjoying long days and late bedtimes, but as we move into the school year, we have to face a dreaded routine change. Getting our kids down earlier and making sure they’re up and at ‘em, fed, dressed and ready to conquer the day is plenty. On top of that, we have to fit in afterschool activities and of course…ugh…homework. While there are myriad views on the effectiveness and necessity of homework (particularly for young students), a stress-free nightly routine can help our kids understand how they learn best, which is a tool that they will use for the rest of their lives.
Q: What are some of the best ways for parents to keep their kids safe online at home?
Right now, thousands of people are talking about the show 13 Reasons Why. We’ve heard stories of people asking for help for the first time, and stories of people who had to stop watching because the show was too triggering for them. We’ve heard from parents asking if we think the show is appropriate for their son or daughter. We’ve heard from people who loved the show, and we’ve heard from people who hated it.
Although schools consider various factors when reviewing applications, none seem to cause parents more undue stress than the ISEE. Parents always want to deflect attention away from ISEE scores and ask me: Don’t the child’s grades and extracurricular activities count? What about the interview? How about legacy and sibling status? Schools do look at each applicant as a whole, but ISEE scores are the best indictor if a student will be able to succeed academically at their school and they are often the first measure considered when evaluating candidates. This doesn’t mean that students with lower scores will not be accepted to an academically rigorous school, it just means that they will have more hurdles to overcome. ISEE scores cause parents anxiety because they are hard, cold numbers and the rest of the application is subjective. 
“You can be anything you want when you grow up!”
Today’s Kindergarten curriculum has advanced. Whether you attend public or private school, children are expected to be reading and writing stories by the end of Kindergarten. They have a certain number of sight words to be memorized. They take written tests and get graded. The transition from a play-based preschool, to an entirely academic day has challenged our children in new ways. The curriculum has changed, however, children’s developmental needs have not. Children today still require the same social, emotional, and cognitive foundational skills that were once offered over the course of Preschool and Kindergarten.
In the United States, 1:20 children experience the death of a parent by age 15. Other children face the death of siblings,friends, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. With such a high occurrence of this major life cycle event it behooved parents, therapists and educators to learn how to support grieving children. Children experience a range of intense emotions including sadness, anger, fear and guilt. They feel isolated and ill equipped to talk about the death of a loved one with peers, and often are reluctant to share their grief with surviving family members for fear of upsetting them.