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My husband has been working from home for the last few months. Like many families, we have had to adjust our routines to accommodate the change. For us, this means my husband retreats to his “office,” a tiny room near the entryway of our home, for conference calls. In turn, I try my best to keep the kids quiet. Most of the time this works out well. But our house is small, and some days we all get an earful. I normally tune out the monotony of his meetings, but one particular call piqued …

We’ve all been there. It’s summer vacation and just as you’re ready to start relaxing and enjoying the dreaded summer homework emerges. While summer is a time for fun, sun and family it’s also a time when many skills that kids have worked so hard on over the school year can see a dip.Social skills are just as at risk as academics. Without practice they can slip back to old patterns and habits. But is the battle to get them to do work really worth it?The answer is yes and the good news is …

As a school counselor, I often share with parents one of my favorite quotes by Catherine M. Wallace: “Listen earnestly to anything your children want to tell you, no matter what. If you don’t listen eagerly to the little stuff when they are little, they won’t tell you the big stuff when they are big, because to them all of it has always been big stuff.”But where does that leave tattling? We certainly don’t want to encourage an influx of tattling in our classrooms, or in our homes -- there …

Social Distancing and Social Skills seem like polar opposites. The former asks us to keep our space while the latter is about the ability to communicate and interact with others.But even as we distance ourselves we are still interacting, just in a different way. Classes were moved online but kids still need to know how to take turns and stay on topic and visits to loved ones may be from between a glass door which means we need a good handle on reading facial expressions. So how do we co …

Lately I’ve heard the phrase, “We’re all in the same boat.” In some ways it seems to be true. We are all going through experiences due to the coronavirus. We are connected. The worries I have now match the worries of other people all over the world. It used to be that my worries were unique to me and my situation—isolated to my small part of the world.While we share the same worries and concerns, when you look closer, we are not actually in the same boat at all. We are in different boats, …

Working in the school system, I often hear children being asked, “Don’t you know any better?” or “Why didn’t you make a better choice?” These questions are usually met with a confused expression. Then these children look at the ceiling or the floor, searching for a response that won’t get them deeper into trouble. The truth is that there are a lot of children who don’t know better. They have often made the best choice they could, given the information, skills, and resources the …

After a long and grueling school year, many teachers enter the summer feeling as if they have poured every bit of their soul into their students, only to enter their summer vacation feeling defeated and exhausted. Typically, I spend the first two weeks of summer sleeping in as late as possible and just getting back to ground zero. I find this two-week period is essential to the productivity of the rest of my summer. After I have caught back up on sleep and not thought about the classroom fo …

H-E-L-P. Four simple letters, yet one of the most difficult words in the English language to say.  From a young age, children are told to “shake it off”, “let it go”, or “get over it”, when they experience minor physical or emotional pain. These messages can come from parents, teachers, coaches, siblings and friends. But what do these messages really teach our children? Do they model compassion? Do they make them feel valued? Do they help them feel supported, safe and protect …

Excerpts taken from full article originally featured in Teach Magazine. Consider this: You are driving in traffic, it starts raining, and you can barely see in front of you. Your music is blasting so you turn it down to focus on driving. Your brain can only process so much sensory input at a time. In this scenario, your visual and auditory sensory systems are overloaded so you eliminate one (auditory) to focus on the other. This is what it is like for someone with autism who has diffi …

Two kids + 1 bottle of bubbles = BIG problem! Sound familiar?I watched from across the driveway as my granddaughters went at it! My first instinct was to go into the house and pull out another bottle of the bubbles that was stashed in the closet, then both girls could each have their own. Boy, am I glad I didn’t do that! A few minutes later, my son stepped in… “Hey girls, that’s enough. I think this bottle of bubbles wants both of you to have a turn. Let’s compromise and flip a co …