It’s not just hormones A teenage girl is a force of nature, with emotions so powerful they shock even her. In this exclusive excerpt, psychotherapist Lisa Damour uses neuroscience to help parents – and anyone perplexed by teenage girls – understand what’s really going on in their heads. The following is an excerpt from the book Untangled by Lisa Damour, Ph.D. When I was in my first semester of graduate school, the professor teaching my psychological testing course handed me a stack of Rorschach inkblot tests to score. Before sending me on my way, he offhandedly said, “Double-check the age of the person whose test you are scoring. If it’s a teenager, but you think it’s a grown-up, you’ll conclude that you have a psychotic adult. But that’s just a normal teenager.” Twenty years later, I don’t need to score inkblot tests to know that healthy teenage development can look pretty irrational. Parents tell me about it every day. They describe how a minor …

How Well Do You Truly Know Your Kids? Gary Direnfeld, MSW, RSW I had the pleasure of talking with middle school students in three groups: grade sixes; grade sevens; and grade eights. Each group had about 70 students. Their teachers and principal were present for the talk. The talk was actually a dialogue between me and students, asking about the issues they grapple with as students, issues that may at times interfere with their ability to concentrate in class. All three grades identified bullying. A show of hand poll demonstrated about 90% of all students experienced some form of bullying. Interestingly, about 80% indicated they had bullied others. About 15% of students indicated that as a result of bullying, they had trouble concentrating at school. Virtually no one confronted their bully. About 3% of students would tell their parents about being bullied. Cyber bulling emerged as the greater form of bullying moving from grade six to eight. Beyond bullying, students …

Talking to Children About Violence: Tips for Parents and Teachers High profile acts of violence, particularly in schools, can confuse and frighten children who may feel in danger or worry that their friends or loved-ones are at risk. They will look to adults for information and guidance on how to react. Parents and school personnel can help children feel safe by establishing a sense of normalcy and security and talking with them about their fears. 1. Reassure children that they are safe. Emphasize that schools are very safe. Validate their feelings. Explain that all feelings are okay when a tragedy occurs. Let children talk about their feelings, help put them into perspective, and assist them in expressing these feelings appropriately. ​2. Make time to talk. Let their questions be your guide as to how much information to provide. Be patient; children and youth do not always talk about their feelings readily. Watch for clues that they may want to talk, such as …

Child Behaviour Problem? Gary Direnfeld, MSW, RSW Maybe it’s to do with toilet training, maybe concentration at school or perhaps it’s concern for drugs and alcohol. It may have to do with not listening, breaking curfew, escalating conflicts or perhaps about sex. Whatever it is, at some point you may seek help for a child related concern and the first door opened can be that of the family doctor. Your physician can bring perspective to your concern. In so doing, this alone may resolve the issue. If not, then your physician may refer you or your child for counseling. It is important to note that there are many issues that can give rise to behaviour problems. Some of those issues include: a learning disability; attention deficit disorder, distraction by problems at home and with parents (domestic violence, child abuse, parental alcoholism/drug abuse, financial struggles); prior academic absences due to recurring illnesses creating gaps in learning; prior concussions; inadvertently permissive parents …

Retrieval Practice: The Most Powerful Learning Strategy You’re Not Using by JENNIFER GONZALEZ WHAT IS RETRIEVAL PRACTICE? Retrieval practice is the act of trying to recall information without having it in front of you. Suppose you’re studying the systems of the human body—skeletal, muscular, circulatory, and so on. You could do retrieval practice by attempting to name those systems without looking at the list. Once you’ve listed all you can remember, you’d open up your book or notes and check to see if you got them right. You might be thinking, This is nothing new. The whole concept of flashcards is built on retrieval practice, and flashcards have been around forever, right? What’s new is the research: In recent years, cognitive psychologists have been comparing retrieval practice with other methods of studying—strategies like review lectures, study guides, and re-reading texts. And what they’re finding is that nothing cements long-term learning as powerfully as retrieval practice. THE RESEARCH Agarwal and her colleagues studied the …

10 important habits of emotionally healthy families by Natasha Sharma Ah, family. The very word is likely to conjure up mixed emotions in most of us: peace yet resentment, happiness yet anger, jealousy yet joy, anxiety yet safety. Family members have a way of getting under our skin while simultaneously being some of our favorite people in the world. So how do you navigate the tricky business of promoting the long-term health and wellbeing of your family? It requires ongoing effort, reflection, adjustment and flexibility. Here are 10 vital habits practiced by families that function well and are mostly happy: 1. Set clear boundaries. There are few things more important in life than deciding how you want to be treated by others—what kind of behavior you will and will not accept. Healthy families have very clearboundaries on how family members treat other members. Even children should be allowed to set boundaries between themselves and siblings/parents. Although they may not be able to assert many when …

Working Parents And Child Development Gary Direnfeld, MSW, RSW It is a common challenge that parents face: they must work while at the same time strive to meet the needs of their growing children. Caught between a rock and a hard place and needing to pay the bills, working parents often worry if their children are suffering from their lack of availability. In truth, there are some children who are suffering. Some children who do not have adequate time with their parents are at risk of living a life feeling adrift, not connected in a positive relationship in a manner that lends itself to productive behaviour. These children are at risk of unproductive behaviour that could eventually be counter to their well being and development leading, at worst, to self-destructive behaviours including social withdrawal, early onset sexual behaviour, drug and alcohol use, truancy and delinquency. It is important to know that children derive their sense of self-esteem by the quality …

This Is What ‘Self-Care’ REALLY Means, Because It’s Not All Salt Baths And Chocolate Cake By Brianna Wiest Self-care is often a very unbeautiful thing. It is making a spreadsheet of your debt and enforcing a morning routine and cooking yourself healthy meals and no longer just running from your problems and calling the distraction a solution. It is often doing the ugliest thing that you have to do, like sweat through another workout or tell a toxic friend you don’t want to see them anymore or get a second job so you can have a savings account or figure out a way to accept yourself so that you’re not constantly exhausted from trying to be everything, all the time and then needing to take deliberate, mandated breaks from living to do basic things like drop some oil into a bath and read Marie Claire and turn your phone off for the day. A world in which self-care has to be such a trendy topic is a world that is …

Deciding At What Age To Give A Kid A Smartphone Deciding At What Age To Give A Kid A Smartphone By Claire McInerny It’s the time of year when kids are thinking about their holiday wish lists. So what’s a parent to do when a child, possibly a very young child, asks for a smartphone? We hear that smartphones can be addictive, that screen time can hurt learning, but can’t these minicomputers also teach kids about responsibility and put educational apps at their tiny fingertips? To learn more, let’s look at two families: one where smartphones are allowed for elementary to middle school-aged kids, and one where they are not. Sydney Crowe is in sixth grade and has a smartphone. While she admits she mostly uses it for “playing games and watching television,” her mom, Patty, says that’s not why Sydney got the phone. Patty’s main concern was safety. When Syndey was in fourth grade, the bus missed her stop enough times …

Will ADHD Medication Change My Child’s Brain? What we know about the long-term effects of stimulants taken for ADHD By Caroline Miller If you have a child who’s been diagnosed with ADHD, you may be facing a decision whether to try medication. Stimulant medications have been shown repeatedly to be the most effective treatment for the symptoms of ADHD, helping kids pay attention, concentrate, manage their impulses, and avoid risky behaviors. About 80 percent of kids who try stimulant medications for ADHD find that they have a positive effect on symptoms. To put that in perspective, there is no other medication for a psychiatric condition that has such a high response rate. But you may have concerns about medication that affects the way your child’s brain works. And if the medication is taken for a period of years, does it have any long-term effect on the brain? How stimulants work When a child is taking stimulant medication for ADHD, the medication …