Middle school is a challenging time for kids, and talking with your tween about what’s going on in their life is especially challenging for parents. Dr. Atilla Ceranoglu, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at Harvard Medical School, explains the challenge with pets. Infants and toddlers are puppies—you can cuddle and hug them endlessly. But teenagers … Continue reading 3 Mistakes to Avoid When Talking with Your Tween
Help Your Child Spring Ahead
Illinois PTA has often highlighted the resourcesand researchdone by Learning Heroes. As the annual state assessment, now known as the Illinois Assessment of Readiness (IAR), approaches, Learning Heroes has released a new resource for families called Spring Ahead. Spring Ahead provides tools and information to help families support their child as they get ready for … Continue reading Help Your Child Spring Ahead
Creating a Social Justice Reading Group for Children and Their Families
Seeing an increase in intolerance shortly after the 2016 election, National Education Policy Center(NEPC) director Kevin Welner and associate director Michelle Renée Valladares were discussing how to address the issue with their young children. They decided to collaborate other parents and their children to create an intergenerational social justice reading group. The aim was to … Continue reading Creating a Social Justice Reading Group for Children and Their Families
New Report Digs Into the Causes of the Disconnect Between How Families Think Their Child is Achieving and How the Child is Actually Achieving
Last year, Learning Heroes released the results of their parent survey that showed that nearly 90% of parents regardless of race, income, geography, and income levels believe that their child is working at or above their grade level. Yet national data shows that only about one-third of students are actually performing that well. This year, … Continue reading New Report Digs Into the Causes of the Disconnect Between How Families Think Their Child is Achieving and How the Child is Actually Achieving
Winter Activities for Kids
Whether you’re a “frolic in the snow” or “cozy up around the fire” type of winter family, iMom has lots of suggestions for winter activities with kids. It’s a list of lists with all sorts of things to do with your kids for New Year’s Eve, the Super Bowl, or the “I’m bored” times. Among … Continue reading Winter Activities for Kids
Making Time for Your Kids
A parent’s life is busy, and the holidays are busier than usual. If you’re having trouble finding time to spend with your kids, All-Pro Dad has a list of ten ways to make time for your children. Among our favorites are: Commit to a family mealtime each day. Identify one thing on your weekly schedule … Continue reading Making Time for Your Kids
Helping Your Child Cope with Stress
Life can be stressful at times, even for kids. Concerns about grades, peer pressure, friend issues, bullying, traumatic events, and more can lead to stress. Some stress can be productive—cortisol, the “stress hormone,” increases blood sugar, metabolism, and memory function, and provides a temporary boost to physical and mental ability. Those brief periods of stress … Continue reading Helping Your Child Cope with Stress
What Do Top Students Do Differently?
When asked why the top performing students do so well at school, there are a couple common answers—high IQ and hard work. Douglas Barton and his team at Elevate Education wanted to find out if that was actually the case by spending 13 years studying the most effective practices used by the top students in … Continue reading What Do Top Students Do Differently?
Supporting Your Teen at School
Your child spends almost one-third of their day at school, which makes it an important influence on their life. In the teen years, that influence likely grows as their friends opinions begin to play a more central role in their lives. One of the most powerful indicators of teenagers’ success in school is their connection … Continue reading Supporting Your Teen at School
8 Actions Parents Can Take to End Bullying
It can be difficult as a parent to help your child through being bullied, and even harder when it turns out your child is the bully. Add in cyberbullying, which wasn’t even possible when most of today’s parents were kids, and it can be easy to feel at a loss about what to do. With … Continue reading 8 Actions Parents Can Take to End Bullying
Helping Your Child Deal with Peer Pressure
When your child first heads off to school, you are the most important person in their world and they look to you for guidance. Their teachers in the early grades fill that role as well. But by the time they turn 11, children start caring more about what their other kids think of them than … Continue reading Helping Your Child Deal with Peer Pressure
5 Key Skills for Academic Success
There are a lot of different skills that your child needs to develop in order to be successful at school. Great Schools! has a new article out on how to help your child learn the five key skills they need to succeed. The article recommends starting with a simple conversation with your child—what are their … Continue reading 5 Key Skills for Academic Success
New Tools to Help with Preparing for College
Planning for college can be confusing and overwhelming, whether your child will be the first in your family to attend or not. The Illinois Student Advisory Council(ISAC) has a student portalloaded with tools to help your family through the process. Some new resources and tools have recently been added to the site. ILCollege2Career debuted at … Continue reading New Tools to Help with Preparing for College
New Survey Reveals How Teens’ Social Media Experiences
Common Sense Media, a non-profit dedicating to helping kids thrive in a world of media and technology, has just released a new report detailing their survey of teenagers and their experiences with social media. The report, Social Media, Social Life: Teens Reveal Their Experiences, covers a nationally representative survey of over 1,000 kids ages 13 … Continue reading New Survey Reveals How Teens’ Social Media Experiences
Healthcare Transition Toolkit for Children with Disabilities
If you have a child with a disability, you have probably become very familiar with navigating and supporting their health care needs over the years. However, once your child turns 18, health laws turn much of the responsibility of that care over to your child. Youth with intellectual and developmental disabilities often face a variety … Continue reading Healthcare Transition Toolkit for Children with Disabilities
Ordinary Trip to the Grocery Store with Your Kid? Explain as You Go
Today’s guest post comes from Laura Schlachtmeyer at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), with suggestions on how to help your child develop money management and math skills. We all know our kids are always watching and learning (even when we wish they weren’t). This applies to the way you use and manage money as … Continue reading Ordinary Trip to the Grocery Store with Your Kid? Explain as You Go
School Bus Safety Tips
As kids head back to school, it’s a good time to give them a quick refresher on school bus safety. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) regulates school bus safety and notes that children are far safer riding on a school bus than they are in the family car. The following information is from … Continue reading School Bus Safety Tips
Give Your Child a Quick Readiness Check for This School Year
Surveys show that 90% of parents believe their child is performing at or above grade level. However, their teachers indicate that only 39% of students start the school year prepared for grade-level work, and other indicators such as the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) agree with them. Learning Heroes has created a quick readiness … Continue reading Give Your Child a Quick Readiness Check for This School Year
Help Deciphering What Your Teen is Saying
Just about everyone’s grandmother even understands that LOL is “laugh out loud” and OMG is “Oh my God,” but teen slang continues to grow and change, so here are some places you can go to decipher what you overhear your teen talking about with their squad. The Teen Slang Dictionary for Parents(from Very Well Family) … Continue reading Help Deciphering What Your Teen is Saying
End-of-Summer Activities
If you’re hoping to catch the last of summer’s sun and fun, there’s still time to celebrate the season (while avoiding those back-to-school displays at your favorite retailers). Teachers and parents alike will want to check out the Every Kid in a Park program from the National Park Service. Every 4thgrader in the United States … Continue reading End-of-Summer Activities
One Voice Illinois 