Parenting Journals

Category: Education

  • Program to Prevent Teen Pregnancy with Virtual Babies Backfires

    By Lisa Pecos It may seem like something out of an 80s sitcom, but giving teen girls lifelike baby dolls to care for as a way to dissuade them from getting pregnant is something that has been going on for years. A recent study out of Australia, however, has found that this may actually have […]

  • 5 Fun Ways to Help Enhance Your Child’s Learning Potential

    As parents, you are your child’s first teacher. While you may already be actively involved in their education, there are still things you should be doing at home to help them evolve academically. You’ll need to be the motivator and support system that helps your child to not only retain the information they’re learning now […]

  • Delaying School Start for Summer-Born and Premature Children

    Delaying Start of School for Summer-Born or Premature Children Lowers Academic Performance, Says Study; Some Parents Disagree Children who start school a year later due to summer birthdays or premature births may do worse academically later on, according to a British study published recently in the Journal of Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology.

  • Helping Your Child Prepare for Tests

    12 Tips to Help Your Child Do Well on Tests Other than making sure your child gets plenty of study time to prepare for a test, are there specific things that you and he or she can do, to insure they do their best on a test?

  • Seven Ways to Encourage and Improve Your Child’s Academic Success

    So, you think you may have the next Einstein or medicine Nobel prize recipient in your home … or perhaps you simply want to ensure that you give your child the best chance to succeed in life by helping them get a great education. Whatever your motivation, many parents are interested in finding ways to […]

  • What Are Good Foods to Eat for a Child Who Plays Sports?

    When it comes to food, the great thing about it is that we all have very similar nutritional needs: for the most part, what’s good for one person is good for everyone, and what’s bad for one person is bad for all. Some people, including a lot of the experts, would have us believe that […]

  • Important Steps to Prevent Sports-Related Injuries

    The following is a break-down of what parents need to know, to help their children remain free from sports-related injuries. Education Doctors treat around one million sports-related injuries in American school-age children every year. For parents, it is important to learn basic ways to avoid injury when their children practice sports, whether it’s at school […]

  • The Advantages of Homeschooling

    Once upon a time in the United States, all children were taught either at home, or through apprenticeships, where they learned a trade with which they would later earn a livelihood. But in the mid 1800’s, public schools began proliferating throughout the country, and most children subsequently started attending public schools. In recent decades, however, […]

  • Keep Your Kids Learning Through the Summer

    No student remembers every single thing she learns in school. Even over the course of a school day, many things will go in a child’s ear and out the other. And as any parent who is active in the educational process knows, kids are wildly inconsistent with their learning. They learn some things with little […]

  • Parenting Tactics That Damage Your Child’s Self Esteem

    Be aware that even though you feel you are doing your very best raising your child, sometimes your parenting strategies can be damaging to your child’s self-esteem and the parent-child relationship. Your child needs to grow up with a healthy level of self-esteem to be more resilient to the lessons learnt and the knocks taken […]

  • Does My Child Have OCD?

    Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is an anxiety disorder and is characterised by repetitive and unwanted thoughts. These obsessions create actions made by the sufferer as they try to eradicate the anxious thoughts which are compulsions. OCD cases vary from mild to severe and manifest in different ways. With children suffering from OCD their obsessive thoughts can […]

  • Is My Child A Bully?

    In the UK alone approximately sixteen children a year commit suicide because of the trauma they endure due to bullying. The offending children who have tirelessly bullied their victims know exactly what they are doing but it seems that sometimes, the people in authority such as school teachers claim they did not know the bullying […]

  • Are You Worried About Your Child’s Speech?

    You may be concerned that your child is having difficulty with his speech. There are common problems that are often diagnosed and this is a guide to how you can detect them, how to help your child and also how you can seek professional help.

  • Developing Your Child’s Handwriting Skills

    By Lisa Pecos With the rise of computers and electronic gadgets as tools for all types of school-related activities, kids spend far less time writing by hand than they used to. As a result, many people fear that the ancient art of handwriting is bound to become a thing of the past. While this is […]

  • Tips for Helping Your Child with Homework

    By Lisa Pecos All parents want to see their children succeed in school, and studies have shown that kids whose parents are more involved in their educations are more likely to do well. Thus, helping your child with his or her homework should be a no-brainer, but it is not always so simple. In the […]

  • Kids and Homework: What Can Parents Do?

    By Jamell Williams When sending our kids to school, we expect the majority of their education to take place during the six or so hours per day when they are actually in the classroom. But for parents, it is important to realize that education needs to be reinforced in the home. This means not only […]

  • Spread Your Wings and Fly…

    In the early evening I would sit outside under the tree near our house and watch the birds. One day I saw a Blue Jay come and chase the other birds away if they got to close. I noticed that every time she did that, 2 little Blue Jays would fly up and eat the […]

  • It’s OK to be Different

    Our son Michael was potty trained at nine months and spoke in sentences at 12 months old. At age two, he would listen to Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite over and over. When a friend gave my husband and I tickets to see the Nutcracker one holiday season, I cringed! Mike did stand up comedy at the […]

  • How to Encourage Kids to Love Reading

    With the rise of television, video games, and now the internet and digital devices, many are worried that the old habit of sitting down and reading a good book is on its way out with the coming generation. But while the act of reading is certainly undergoing change, reading is still a fundamental component of […]

  • How To Keep The Internet Safe For Your Kids And Home

    By Liz Krause When it comes to the internet, gone are the days when parents know more than the kids – or so it seems. The fact of the matter is, although a child may know how to use the internet faster and quicker, it is the parents’ responsibility to protect them from the dark […]

  • First Day of School

    To overcome the fear of the first day at nursery, playgroup or school is a big step for your child. Talking to your child about it can help them prepare and alleviate some of their fears. They will naturally be anxious of the unknown so explain and describe where they will be going and for […]

  • 7 Ways to Improve Your Child’s School Performance

    By Lisa Pecos School is where kids acquire the bulk of their learning, but it is hard to have success at school without a solid foundation of education in the home, starting at a very early age and continuing through the teen years. Most parents are aware of the things they can do to prepare […]

  • Our Nations Most Powerful Educators; The Parents

    By Tiffany Chappelle ‘Oh, I wish I had the time!’ are the words most often uttered from other parents when I mention I read to my two sons, ages six and eight every single night for a minimum of thirty minutes. I am torn between insult by this comment, which suggests that I am not […]

  • Signs of Depression in Children and Teens

    By Marc Courtiol While childhood depression can be triggered by events such as changing schools, divorce, moving, or a death in the family, there is a genetic component to depressive mood disorders, and some children are more predisposed to these feelings than others. In past generations childhood depression was often dismissed as normal growing pains, […]

  • Children and Illness: The Main Reasons that Kids Miss School

    By Cyndra Neal Many parents can probably relate to having a child who seems to be sick all the time. Often times, parents find themselves wondering why their kids get sick so often. They may even feel like their kids are sick more often than other people’s children. The reality, however, is that most kids […]

  • Being Bilingual — Is it Right for Your Child?

    When I was going through elementary school, my mom would always have me in a bilingual classroom. She’s bilingual (English and Spanish), and when I was a preschooler, so was I. (We lived in Chile then, and when we moved back to California, she wanted me to be able to maintain my Spanish). At the […]

  • KidPort Educational Service

    We really like the internet learning resource developed by Bryan Knysh. Kidport is an educational service that helps kids hone their fundamental learning skills in math, language and science by self-reflection on the learning process itself. The course is composed of multiple learning modules that include cognitive, curriculum and experience based components.

  • 5 Parenting Tips for Communicating with Children & Teens

    There is nothing that adequately prepares us for the most important job there is—parenting. Children and teens do not come with an owner’s manual, and most of our training is on the job. With our own parents as our most prominent role models, we tend to repeat what we have learned about parenting from them. […]

  • Jane Eyre – How to Raise a Kid with Good Self-Esteem

    By David Bain Jesse Jackson once said, “Your children need your presence more than your presents”. When stated it seems obvious that a child’s early years can determine the rest of their life. What seems so obvious, however, is often ignored. Parents often forget that offering support and companionship is as important as a good […]

  • How to Find the Right Preschool

    Finding the right preschool for your child can be a challenge. With a variety of different options to choose from, parents can easily become overwhelmed when trying to decide which type of program would be the most suitable for their child.

  • Preparing for Your Child Becoming a Teenager

    As adolescents, children are attempting to acquire the skills they will need in order to achieve independence as adults. This is the time that they become their own person and create their own group of friends, and this period of transition is typically quite difficult. While some children seem to breeze through their teenage years […]

  • Math Anxiety: Are You Passing Yours On To Your Child?

    by Donna Verry Dee Karen Greenburg of Mesa Arizona hated math as a child and she sees history repeating itself with her daughter, Angela. “She’s very frustrated with math,” says Greenburg of the second-grader. “She mostly dislikes doing drills and timed tests. I think I may have passed that on to her through my poor […]

  • 21 Days To Back-To-School Bliss

    By Susan Kruger Tips for getting your school-year off to a relaxed and productive start.

  • Help Your Child Get Organized For School!

    By Susan Kruger Disorganization is the greatest complaint made by teachers and ranks as a very close second complaint from parents (rivaling fights and arguments over homework). Every teacher can tell stories about bright and intelligent students who are failing classes because they lack the organizational skills to keep track of their assignments. School counselors […]

  • Parents as Teachers Program Once Again Shown to Improve School

    By C. Dixon School readiness predicts later school achievement, and possibly life success, study says….

  • When College Isn’t a Choice

    Recently I was having dinner with several girl friends. After the frantic winter holidays, it was nice to just relax. Mary (not her real name) shared some family news that was a bit astounding for a p…

  • College Acceptance and Rejection Considerations

    I am an attorney and life coach who helps parents with young adults still living at home as well helping young adults achieve independence. With two sons in college, I remember quite well the frantic…

  • Hidden Gifts: What To Know So Your Gifted Child Isn’t Overlooked

    By David Palmer, Ph.D. School’s in session; and although most of their parents don’t realize it, millions of early elementary age kids are being screened, tested, and sorted in an attempt to find those who need gifted education support services to flourish. While it may seem that gifted kids should be able to do well […]

  • The Beliefs We Teach Our Children: The Next Step

    By Julie Redstone “A new study in the scientific journal Child Development, Nov./Dec., 2006, shows that if you teach students that their intelligence can grow and increase, they do better in school. About 100 seventh graders, all doing poorly in math, were randomly assigned to workshops on good study skills. One workshop gave lessons on […]

  • Why Plan an After Prom Party

    by Lori Heatherington From the time I enrolled my daughter in elementary school it seemed that the world was out to ruin her innocence. Her know-it-all six year old friends with older brothers and sis…