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Tag: child development

Raising revolutionaries: What to do when your kid wants to change the world

Raising revolutionaries: What to do when your kid wants to change the world

April 28, 2019 | Posted in: High School, Middle Years

Youth activism is having a moment. In March 2018, more than a million people joined the student-led March For Our Lives to support stronger gun control legislation. A year later, millions of students once again walked out of schools all over the world to participate in the Global Climate Strike for the Future. Richard West, […]

Encouraging risk-taking in your kids

Encouraging risk-taking in your kids

March 14, 2019 | Posted in: Elementary, High School, Middle Years

I want my children to take more risks. I don’t mean I want my daughter to steal a car or my son to run away and join a carnival. I am talking about the healthy risks that will allow them to grow into well-adjusted, successful adults. Homo sapiens, like other primates, has an extraordinarily long […]

Grief and loss: How to help your child process life’s difficult moments

Grief and loss: How to help your child process life’s difficult moments

March 12, 2019 | Posted in: Early Learners, Elementary, High School, Middle Years

It’s a moment no parent wants to experience: In my daughter’s folder was a sealed letter from the principal. The words “tragedy” and “loss of life” jumped out at me, and I felt a knot build in my throat as my daughter watched me read. As I read more carefully, I felt at first relieved, […]

School libraries help to bridge digital divide

School libraries help to bridge digital divide

February 13, 2019 | Posted in: Elementary, High School, Middle Years

My love of reading was instilled in me by my mother, who is an avid reader, but my elementary school librarian was the person who opened my eyes to the wide world that was within my grasp through the library. I still remember the first time I read Shel Silverstein’s collection of fanciful children’s poems, […]

Do you live in a child care desert?

Do you live in a child care desert?

February 11, 2019 | Posted in: Early Learners

One of the biggest challenges for busy families is often finding child care. Child care facilities, such as a licensed daycare or pre-school, can often be outside the financial means of working families. For many parents working in the retail, service or manufacturing industries, it may also be hard to find child care outside the […]

Math and English lessons during Gym? It’s not as strange as it seems

Math and English lessons during Gym? It’s not as strange as it seems

February 6, 2019 | Posted in: Early Learners, Elementary, High School, Middle Years

My memories of physical education class consist of my classmates whacking me in the ankles with floor hockey sticks, my (poor) attempts to perform on the uneven bars and hitting tennis balls well beyond the top of the enclosure surrounding the high school tennis courts. Yours may be similar. But Abram Lansing Elementary School students […]

Is my child gifted? Talking to schools about talented students

Is my child gifted? Talking to schools about talented students

February 6, 2019 | Posted in: Early Learners, Elementary

One of the earliest videos I took of my daughter shows her as a toddler, playing with wooden blocks and haltingly counting to 20. I was bursting with pride, both at her ability to stack the blocks so carefully and precisely, and at how she had finally mastered her numbers. In that moment, I felt, […]

Making the transition to kindergarten a success

Making the transition to kindergarten a success

October 10, 2018 | Posted in: Early Learners, Elementary

I’m standing at the end of the driveway, waiting with my five-year-old daughter, Ava, for her first bus ride to school. “Are you coming Mommy?” she asks. Her eyes widen as I shake my head and force a smile. “No love, not this morning” She turns to my husband. “Daddy, are you coming?” As he […]

Bringing the lessons of restorative justice home

Bringing the lessons of restorative justice home

October 4, 2018 | Posted in: Elementary, High School, Middle Years

Ask most children what will happen if they break the rules, and you’re likely to get an answer along the lines of, “I’ll get in trouble.” But for educators like Pete Mody, the question is, “Will that really help?” Mody, who is the principal at South Glens Falls High School, is one of many educators […]

Do it yourself: The benefits of putting kids in charge of the morning routine

Do it yourself: The benefits of putting kids in charge of the morning routine

September 13, 2018 | Posted in: Elementary, Middle Years

When I was a kid, I don’t remember my mom ever packing my school lunch for me. I’m sure she did from time to time, but for the most part, she made sure that we had things in the kitchen that I could easily grab and throw into my lunch box. I wasn’t the most […]