The holidays are a busy, bustling time filled with activities and traditions. With school on break, traveling as a family or having family travel to you, and all the other out-of-the-ordinary things that come with the holidays can sometimes make things stressful for parents, kids, and especially kids with sensory issues or other special needs. … Continue reading Surviving the Holiday Family Gathering
Use the Healthy Eating Toolkit to Build Healthy Habits at Home and School
Every parent wants their child to eat well and develop healthy habits, but with today’s busy lives, helping your child build those skills can be a challenge. Action for Healthy Kids has created a Healthy Eating Toolkit for parents and educators to help improve student learning, behavior, and emotional health. The toolkit is made up … Continue reading Use the Healthy Eating Toolkit to Build Healthy Habits at Home and School
Help for Parents Supporting Their Child’s Math Skills
You have probably heard that you should be helping your child learn math at home through everyday activities. But perhaps you have been reluctant to do so, either because you didn’t know where to begin, you find the new math curriculum is confusing, or you have always thought that you were “bad at math.” For … Continue reading Help for Parents Supporting Their Child’s Math Skills
Helping Your Teenager Get More Sleep
Teenagers need about 9 hours of sleep to function at their best, but only about 8% of American teenagers are getting the sleep they need and, according to a recent study in the Journal of Adolescent Health, more than half (59%) are suffering from severe sleep deprivation, meaning six or fewer hours of sleep most … Continue reading Helping Your Teenager Get More Sleep
Getting to Know Your Child’s PE Program
Physical Education (PE) at school can help children build lifelong healthy habits to exercise. Illinois was the first state to mandate daily Physical Education (PE) with at least 100 minutes per week, and in 2015, Illinois adopted Enhanced PE standards. But in 2018 that requirement was cut to three days with no minimum time requirement. … Continue reading Getting to Know Your Child’s PE Program
KIDS Can Help You Support Your Kindergartener
Every year, about 150,000 Illinois five-year-olds have their first day of kindergarten. The Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) has recently begun measuring kindergarten readiness as a way to improve this critical first year of school. The measure, known as Kindergarten Individual Development Survey (KIDS), uses teacher observation of daily classroom activities like playing, working, … Continue reading KIDS Can Help You Support Your Kindergartener
Helping Your Incoming Middle Schooler Prepare
Moving from elementary school to middle school can be a scary time. Whether it’s worrying about being a 20-year-old sixth-grader still trying to figure out how to open the lock on their locker, concerns about moving from class to class on their own, or how to deal with walking down the eighth-grade hall, middle school … Continue reading Helping Your Incoming Middle Schooler Prepare
Celebrating Apollo 11
Fifty years ago tomorrow, humans first walked on the moon. For some of us, it may have been one of our first memories of an historical event, with our parents waking us up a few hours after our bedtime or letting us stay up late to see those first steps. The Apollo missions also inspired … Continue reading Celebrating Apollo 11
How to Respond to Your Teenager
The teenage years are often fraught with tests of a parent’s patience. As they struggle with their growing independence, they often say things that make a parent’s hackles rise. All Pro Dad details how to handle six things that teenagers often say that help you avoid an angry confrontation, turning it into an opportunity for … Continue reading How to Respond to Your Teenager
6 Summer Reading Challenges
With school out for the summer, your kids are probably looking forward to free time, swimming, and spending a lot of time with games, apps, and more online. Getting them to put aside all those fun activities and spend some time reading this summer can be a challenge, but reading is the most effective tool … Continue reading 6 Summer Reading Challenges
Teaching Your Kids Safe Online
Our children are often referred to as digital natives—people growing up immersed in a digital world. And while they may be comfortable with technology and online activities, they are not born knowing how to be safe in that digital world. Just like our parents taught us how to be safe running around unsupervised in our … Continue reading Teaching Your Kids Safe Online
Preparing for and Surviving a Tornado
This spring has seen a significant number of tornadoes across Illinois and the country. Today’s guest post comes from Ready.gov on how to prepare for, survive, and recover from a tornado. Tornadoes can destroy buildings, flip cars, and create deadly flying debris. Tornadoes are violently rotating columns of air that extend from a thunderstorm to … Continue reading Preparing for and Surviving a Tornado
Summer Food Programs Help Fight Child Hunger
As school lets out for the summer, families’ thoughts turn to vacations, outdoor activities, and picnics, but for some, there is also thoughts of how to feed their family. For those families taking part in the free and reduced lunch program, the end of the school year means the end of the ten meals per … Continue reading Summer Food Programs Help Fight Child Hunger
Helping Your Child Improve Their Messy Handwriting
Children are expected to have messy handwriting when they’re starting out, but if your child is struggling with their handwriting skills when most of their classmates seem to have it mastered, it can harm their self-esteem and motivation to do well in school. If your child is struggling with handwriting, Understood has a couple of … Continue reading Helping Your Child Improve Their Messy Handwriting
Helping Your Child Get Organized
At times, parenthood feels like an endless battle against chaos. From messy rooms to backpacks stuffed with papers, our children sometimes appear to have never heard the words “neat” or “tidy.” When that chaos is resulting in missed assignments, forgotten lunches, and lost homework, it can be difficult to help them get organized. An article … Continue reading Helping Your Child Get Organized
Sun Safety
With the weather finally warming here in Illinois, families are spending more time outdoors. Today’s post on sun safety comes from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention(CDC). It is also available in Spanish. The sun’s ultraviolet (UV) rays can damage your skin in as little as 15 minutes. Follow these recommendations to help protect … Continue reading Sun Safety
Are You a Rescuer or a Helper?
If you’re a PTA parent, chances are you are pretty involved in your child’s education. But how you get involved matters in your child’s ability to handle problems on their own once they head out into the world. The two main approaches are often described as Rescuers and Helpers. Rescuers Take responsibility for solving the … Continue reading Are You a Rescuer or a Helper?
6 Myths About Suicide
Suicide is once again in the headlines with the recent suicides of two Marjory Stoneman Douglas students who survived the mass shooting in Parkland, FL and the suicide of the parent of one of the children killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting. Parents can play an important role in preventing suicide by directly asking … Continue reading 6 Myths About Suicide
That Google Doc May Not Be Your Kid’s Homework
Today’s teenagers aren’t passing notes in class any more—at least not physically. And while it looks like your kid is diligently working away at their homework, they may actually be chatting with friends. That’s because kids are now getting around the inability to have their phone out in class, the use of blocking software at … Continue reading That Google Doc May Not Be Your Kid’s Homework
Help Answering Your Kid’s Tough Questions
Every parent has dealt with tough questions from their child. And they often pop up unexpectedly—when you’re tucking them into bed or when that little voice pipes up from the back seat. National Public Radio (NPR) has partnered with Sesame Workshop’s child development experts to create a podcast called Parenting: Difficult Conversationsto help you answer … Continue reading Help Answering Your Kid’s Tough Questions
One Voice Illinois 