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Children and teenagers have been spending more time online during the COVID-19 pandemic to attend classes, connect with their peers, and entertain themselves. As a result, a lot of kids and teens are more active on social media and apps. This allows them to connect to a wide network of people, which unfortunately, may also expose them to cyberbullies. According to a report on cyberbullying published by Verywell Family, cases of cyberbullying have increased by 70% since the pandemi …

Visit any school in the country and it would be unusual to not see this posted somewhere in the building. These words are a reminder of the effects teachers have – effects they may never have the opportunity to actually see. And, while teachers understand the importance of the academic skills their students need to master, the importance of social and emotional competencies is becoming increasingly evident. To fulfill this need, many educators are becoming acutely aware of the need for t …

What if you could know both sides of the story? What if you could know the “why” and not just the “what”?I spent quite a bit of my youth feeling insecure and jealous of my sister. The adults in our lives compared us, and I seemed to fall short. To my young brain, she was the favored child in the family. I took my anger out on her, which did not earn me the daughter-of-the-year award. Then the most important person in my life died: our father. I was seven and did not understand what death actuall …

After waiting for a while in a crowded deli line on my lunch break, it was finally my turn. “I’ll have a ham and cheese sandwich, please,” I said, proud of my politeness. “Good morning, sir,” the obviously perturbed worker said. I deserved that. I quickly said, “Good morning, ma’am,” excused myself and repeated my order with a smile. Given how crowded the place was, my New Yorker-brain cut to the chase and dispensed with the greeting. This deli, however, was located in Paris, France, not i …

If there’s one thing we learned from COVID, it’s that having staff work from home is a viable option for many businesses, and many employees find themselves navigating a new way of working for the long term. But working at home, whether it’s temporary or permanent, comes with its own set of challenges. Here are some tips to help balance work and home life when you are a work-at-home parent of young children.Working with ToddlersWorking at home seems like a dream. However, add a couple of …

What are you waiting for? It feels like we are waiting for a lot these days. Yet maybe “waiting” isn’t the right term. Maybe we aren’t waiting for the weekend or for the next paycheck or for summer. Maybe we are looking at it the wrong way.  What if instead of waiting, we are living? There are still things going on as we wait for something. When we wait with kids, we try to get them to notice the moment—to sing a song, play a game, be active. Sometimes we …

For over 150 years, the phrase “20/20 vision” has been used to reference visual clarity or acuity. That’s from where the commonly used phrase, “Hindsight is 20/20” comes. And here we are winding down the year 2020, when so much is up in the air, it’s hard to look at this past year and think of anything as particularly clear. But if we look hard enough, we can see that 2020 has provided us with the opportunity to look clearly upon our own lives and self-reflect on things for which we sho …

The world-wide pandemic changed many things in our lives. One of those big changes was school closures which thrust parents into a new role as educator and therapist. This may seem scary and you may want to react in a big way. When you stop to think about it, as a parent you are one of the best possible teachers for your children. Not only do you know them so well but you spend many more hours a day with them. Instead of just thirty minutes of language or social skills practice, with …

When I was 11, I walked over to the corner store to buy a soda. I paid with a twenty-dollar bill, and the guy mistakenly gave me back some ones and a fifty instead of a ten. I ran up to my dad and said, “Guess what? I just got paid to buy a pop! It’s my lucky day!” My dad looked at me surprisingly and said, “You’re keeping it?” I replied, “Heck yeah! He’ll never know.” Then he said, “But you will know. You’ll know today, and tomorrow, and forever. You just sold out your integrity for forty …

It’s heartbreaking to learn your child has been the victim of bullying. No matter how you learned this information, be thankful you have it. We sat down with school counselor Jennifer Licate, author of the new easy-read chapter book He’s Not Just Teasing! and the Navigating Friendships book series, for steps parents can follow when they find out their child is being bullied.Q: After the initial shock of finding out your child is being bullied, what do you suggest a parent sho …