Setting Expectations for Fall
Resources Tagged With: parenting
Ready or Not… Expert Advice for a Smooth Start to the School Year
written by Liza Bennigson, 
Associate Director of Marketing and Communications
The only thing certain about this school year is that no one knows what to expect. Parents, students and staff are feeling apprehensive about what the transition to full-time, on-campus learning will look like after over a year of fits and starts. We may be eager for our kids to jump right back into academics to make up for inevitable learning loss, but we also know that they first and foremost need to feel safe, secure and emotionally ready to learn. Read more ›
How to Keep Your Child Safe From the Delta Variant
It’s inevitable that when kids mix as they head back to school, germs spread. And in a pandemic year fueled by the delta variant, some of those germs may cause COVID-19. The CDC has advice for keeping your child protected from this highly contagious version of the coronavirus now and this fall: Mask up in schools and other crowded venues, and make sure everyone age 12 and older in the family gets a COVID-19 shot.
But what if your kids are younger than that? What if they develop symptoms or come into contact with someone who tests positive for the coronavirus? Read more ›
Strategies That Work: A Parent’s Guide to ADHD at School [downloadable]
For most students, the 2021-22 academic year will be starting in-person, and won’t feel like last year — but it will still feel different from years past. Despite so many unknowns on the horizon, there are challenges you can anticipate. Read more ›
Making the Move to Middle School? How to Improve Executive Functioning Skills
Executive functioning isn’t something that just crops up during adolescence. Our kids have been working on their executive functioning skills since they were babies.
“Executive functioning is a set of skills that allow kids to organize and complete tasks in a timely manner,” says school psychologist Kevin Kemelhar. These skills include initiating tasks, maintaining steam while completing them, and reaching goals. A big part of this process involves “inhibition,” where kids learn to mute their impulses to do something else (like Snapchatting their friends) while they complete the task at hand. Read more ›
How to Help Your Child Rekindle Friendships at Any Age
Cultivating strong friendships isn’t easy for every child — pandemic or no pandemic. Neurodiverse children or those with behavioral or mental health needs may require additional external support for themselves and their caregivers. Here’s how you can help your child make and keep friends — at any age. Read more ›
Too Much Screen Time? How to Help Your Kids Find the Right Balance
The way we talk to our kids about using technology can have a huge impact on their ability to become smart and well-rounded adults. After years of researching how to moderate kids’ screen time, I discovered how the most successful parents help their kids find balance. Read more ›
Anxious About Returning to “Normal Life”? Try Emotional Vaccination
For a lot of us, September will bring a return of many elements of pre-COVID adult life: working from an office, going on business trips, attending large in-person events, sending kids back to in-person school. While we may expect these transitions to be met with relief or excitement—finally, “re-entry” and “a return to normal”!—it’s critical to prepare ourselves and our families for relief and anxiety, excitement and sadness. Read more ›
Four Steps to Coax Young Adults (and Their Parents) to Greater Independence
When Julie Lythcott-Haims served as a dean at Stanford, she found that many students relied upon parents to handle the run-of-the-mill stuff of life for them. Meanwhile, members of the Millennial generation more broadly were going on record as not knowing how to be adults, not wanting to be adults and finding adulthood scary. Read more ›
36 Questions That Can Help Kids Make Friends [downloadable]
The young teen years are a ripe time for forming friendships. It’s an age when kids are particularly focused on peer relationships and social status, developing their sense of identity and social skills. Read more ›
