By Jamie Tworkowski
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.
13 Reasons Why is causing a significant number of individuals to think and talk about mental health, and many of them are thinking and talking about it for the first time. That’s a good thing. (more…)
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. 
Every mom I know has a vacation horror story…sick kid on the plane, a little one that either can’t go or can’t stop going, the whole family that ended up with food poisoning. In my own experience, I have one child who was born to travel and another child that gets very thrown off by the change in routine.
It truly takes a village to raise a family. Without support of friends and family how would we know what’s “best” for our families? How would we ever be able to take a breath? Who would we share our troubles and fears about parenting with?
“You can be anything you want when you grow up!”
The SaunaPod is a modern-day evolution of infrared wraps and wood saunas utilizing near and far infrared light therapy. Both fast and slow wavelength light permeate and heat the skin from the inside out, without heating the surrounding air. Traditional saunas heat the air, which in turn heats the body from the outside at temperatures that range from 180 to 220 degrees. The infrared SaunaPod’s novel heating method coupled with the fact that the user can breathe fresh room temperature air affords special healing properties. Benefits range from skin, detox, diet, pain and stress relief. Longer treatment times and greater detoxifying effects are just a few of the benefits reaped from this state-of-the-art heating method. The longer you spend detoxifying your body, the greater the tension is released. 
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.
We’ve all had personal or professional experiences that are so meaningful that we’ll remember them forever. I’ll never forget walking through South Africa with a group of people all working to make sure babies were born HIV-free and that their mothers stayed healthy and could care for their children. I’ve also walked hand-in-hand with brain cancer survivors and cheered on marathon runners to raise awareness for many worthwhile causes.