Are you considering hiring a nanny? Here are 8 tips to guide you through the process. Time: What is your time frame for hiring a nanny? Generally hiring a nanny can take anywhere from 2 weeks to a month. It depends on your availability to screen nannies, check references, coordinate interviews, and conduct a background […]
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Autism Speaks’ free 100 Day Kit offers critical information and an action plan for families in the first days after a child’s diagnosis. While countless websites are geared toward some aspect of the disease, the 100 Day Kit compiles the essentials from the nation’s largest autism science and advocacy organization, Autism Speaks. Many parents feel […]
As parents, we can help our child negotiate the school year with these 9 strategies that help reduce stress for your child and for your family. 1. Define success on your own terms. The prevailing culture focuses on measurable achievement (GPA, ACT scores, college admissions, sports an extracurricular accomplishment, and so on) in defining […]
Sharing bad news is never easy, but telling the kids that you and your spouse are divorcing is a particularly heartbreaking time. Whether they’ve seen it coming or not, this is a family chat they’re not likely to forget. That’s why it’s so important to get it right. Child psychologists and social workers generally […]
A mountain of research supports the impressive benefits of unstructured, spontaneous play in children’s lives, benefits that accrue to personal success and effectiveness. And yet, most of our kids aren’t getting enough play. Most are too busy taking lessons or practicing sports or sitting in front of screens. We’re facing an epidemic of Play Deficit […]
When a child has a bad school year, parents often feel helpless—full of love and concern, but unable to act effectively. That’s largely because a child who has problems at school could be struggling with a variety of issues. Declining grades are a red flag, but the parent has to know what part of the […]
If your child tends to be a worrier or anxious, you can help your child cope by creating a “tool kit” filled with activities that calm the mind and the body. Bubbles Any good “bubble-blower” will tell you that the art of blowing bubbles is taking deep breaths, which, according to Debra Kowalczyk ,a counselor […]
Part of the description of Garrison Keillor’s Lake Woebegon is that “all the children are above average.” Like a lot of jokes there’s truth to it: no child is merely “average.” Each is unique, with problems to overcome and strengths to develop. But when grades are calculated, there are indeed students who spend an […]
Your odds of being struck by lightning in a given year: 1 in 750,000. Your odds of naturally conceiving quadruplets: 1 in 729,000. Lightning struck the Flores family, Mexican immigrants who live on Chicago’s South Side, when they found out that Guadalupe, 35, was carrying naturally conceived quadruplets. The stunning news sent Guadalupe into a […]
