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As a family you may encounter some debilitating events or disorders that you need to cope with and consider as a family. Read the following articles to learn about different family issues that may arise.

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Magnet High Schools

This page provides relevant content and local businesses that can help with your search for information on Magnet High Schools. You will find informative articles about Magnet High Schools, including "High School Athlete Mental Health", "High IQ Offers No Protection from ADHD Effects", and "Leaders Have High Emotional Intelligence". Below you will also find local businesses that may provide the products or services you are looking for. Please scroll down to find the local resources in Lewiston, ID that can help answer your questions about Magnet High Schools.

Continuation High Schools

This page provides relevant content and local businesses that can help with your search for information on Continuation High Schools. You will find informative articles about Continuation High Schools, including "Teen ADHD Linked to Delayed High School Graduation" and "School Failure Depresses Girls". Below you will also find local businesses that may provide the products or services you are looking for. Please scroll down to find the local resources in Lewiston, ID that can help answer your questions about Continuation High Schools.

Terminally Ill Counseling

Terminally ill counseling helps terminally ill patients with the emotional issues and practical matters associated with terminal illness. Counselors may discuss hospice care, hospital enrollment, and any end-of-life decisions. See below for more information and to gain access to qualified counselors in Lewiston, ID who provide counseling for terminally ill patients.

Giving Your Kids a Realistic View on Life

Do we really want our kids believing that life is like that … one gumdrop and ice-cream card after another if that’s what you order? What happens when she loses her job because the housing market is in the toilet and so therefore has to start scrubbing down her own toilets and eating grilled cheese for dinner?

12 Things You Want Your In-Laws to Know

When you get married, like it or not, you marry into each others' families. Most of us have no idea what that means until we’ve been married a while. We assume that because our intended is the epitome of wonderfulness, their parents are great as well. If you are lucky, your new or future in-laws already know that Good In-Laws….

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10 Highly Effective Study Habits

Students grapple with many issues in their lives, and because of all of the competing things for your attention, it’s hard to concentrate on studying. Please read on for more detailed information in the following article.

12 Things You Want Your In-Laws to Know

12 Tips for Choosing Toys for Your Child

There are always new and colorful toys for the choosing. Many do have good play-value. But there are some basic toys that a well-stocked playroom should have to encourage children’s development.

5 Tips If You Love Someone with Mental Illness

Mental illness is often a family issue. Parents, siblings, spouses and extended family provide housing, care and support, emotional and financial, sometimes to the point of becoming proverbial case managers. It's hard enough when the chronic illness is something everyone recognizes, like diabetes. It's a whole other thing when the disease is a mental illness which is ripe for misunderstanding, , misinformation and stigma.

6 Ways to Show You Care

Wondering how you can show someone in your life that you care about them? Here's a few suggestions that may help you do just that. Please read on for more detailed information in the following article.

7 Myths of Perfect Parenting

Common myths about what it takes to be good parents both inspire and overwhelm them. Whether as a professional counselor or a family friend, I usually find myself talking to them about some or all of these myths.

8 Tips for Building Healthy Parent/Teacher Relationships

It's astonishing but true: Many children spend more of their waking hours with their teachers each weekday than they do with their parents. What you can learn from both experiences is the importance of a strong parent-teacher partnership, especially when a child is having a hard time.

A New Family Therapy for a New Family

Traditionally, people have entered into marriage and family counseling in an effort to settle their differences. The therapist gets the family’s story and gets to work, focusing on negative, unhealthy relationship patterns that exist within the family. In other words, the therapist will ask each family member to tell the others why they are so annoying.

About Family Therapy

Family therapy views a person’s symptoms as taking place in the larger context of the family. Just as a particular department in a business organization may suffer because of the problems in another department, a person with depression may be responding to larger family issues. For example, a depressed adolescent’s symptoms may be related to her parents’ marital problems.

Abused Children Face Higher Cancer Risk

A study shows those individuals physically abused in childhood are more likely to develop cancer than those who have not been abused. The study’s findings showed the association between childhood abuse and cancer remained significant even after controlling for three major potentially confounding factors: childhood stressors, adult health behaviors and adult socioeconomic status. Read on.

Adolescence: a Time of Growth and Change

Changes in the parent-child relationship are normal and necessary during the teen years. The child’s “declaration of independence” and its realization result in a pulling away from parents. This can be accompanied by a rather predictable and usually short-lived depression as the child experiences sadness from the loss of the old tie to parents and a new separateness becomes established.

Advice for Parents When Buying Video Games

As the holidays approach, parents wonder if the video games requested by their children are appropriate. A new book coauthored by Iowa State University psychology professors aims to answer this bothersome question.

Aging Means More than Getting Old

The fact is, we are all progressing in age and moving through the normal stages of life we have come to know as aging. Each stage has tasks to be accomplished before moving on to the next stage. Although there will, of course, be some variation in how these stages are broached, particularly as increasing numbers of people are electing singlehood as a lifestyle, the general sequence of events continues to hold for many others.

Alternatives to Health Insurance

In some cases, creative private-pay arrangements may be possible with psychiatrists and other providers. Parents have traded services or products for care, and others have arranged payment plans or reduced fees based on financial need. The larger the provider, the more likely it is to have a system in place for providing income-based fees. The smaller the provider, the more receptive she is likely to be to informal arrangements, including barter.

Baby Einstein Revisited

The controversy over educational programming for very young children may have reached a crescendo when the Walt Disney Company decided to refund products they had been advertising as brain boosters.

Baby Talk Helps Infants Learn to Speak

Most adults speak to infants using so-called infant-directed speech: short, simple sentences coupled with higher pitch and exaggerated intonation. Researchers have long known that babies prefer to be spoken to in this manner.

Basic Needs of Children

Times are changing fast, and so are we. But children’s basic needs are one thing that hasn’t changed over the years. Besides food, clothing, and shelter, children need to feel loved, need to feel safe and secure, and need to know that their parents are interested. Children will act in a way to make sure they get their needs met.

Breast-Feeding vs. Bottle-Feeding

Now here's a topic that's guaranteed to raise the ire of those who are committed to either position. I've enjoyed the impassioned debate, largely because I'm thrilled to see people on both sides who are committed to their children’s nutrition. I’m concerned, however, when parents are made to feel like failures if they do not follow a particular approach.

Building Responsible Kids

Developing responsibility means becoming trustworthy or accountable for one’s actions. Encouraging your child to become responsible should start at an early age. It will take a lot of work and patience on your part, but it will be worth every minute of effort, both for you and for your developing child.

Causes of Domestic Violence

Domestic violence may start when one partner feels the need to control and dominate the other. Abusers may feel this need to control their partner because of low self-esteem, extreme jealousy, difficulties in regulating anger and other strong emotions, or when they feel inferior to the other partner in education and socioeconomic background.

Childhood Stress Raises Allergy Risk

Children who survive traumatic events are at a higher risk of allergy and asthma, recent research suggests. Stressful events during childhood are increasingly suspected of playing a role in the later development of asthma, allergic skin disorders, and allergic “sensitizations.”

Child-rearing Improves Married Happiness

Although having children to rekindle a shaky marriage often has disastrous results, a new study finds that rearing kids makes married people happier. Read on to learn more.

Children and Choosing a Pet

Pets are part of many children’s lives. Parental involvement, open discussion, and planning are usually necessary to help make pet ownership a positive experience for everyone. A child who learns to care for an animal, and treat it kindly and patiently, gets invaluable training in learning to treat people the same way. Careless treatment of animals is unhealthy for both the pet and the child involved.

Children and Grief

When a family member dies, children react differently from adults. Preschool children usually see death as temporary and reversible, a belief reinforced by cartoon characters who die and come to life again. Children between five and nine begin to think more like adults about death, yet they still believe it will never happen to them or anyone they know.

Choosing Euthanasia for Your Pet

Euthanasia is the induction of painless death. In veterinary practice, it is accomplished by intravenous injection of a concentrated dose of anesthetic. The animal may feel slight discomfort when the needle tip passes through the skin, but this is no greater than for any other injection.

Click or Clique: Positive and Negative Teen Social Groups

It's perfectly normal: Preteens and teens group together and often hang on tight. As they push for increasing independence from their parents, they turn to their peers for guidance, acceptance, and security. Please read on for more detailed information in the following article.

Close Bonds of Fatherhood Start in Infancy

When the children were two to five years old, five early parenting behaviors—parent-child household-centered activities, parent-child child-centered activities (for example, reading to kids), parental limit setting, responsibility (such as making doctor’s appointments), and demonstrating affection—were measured for both parents. If you want to develop close bonds of fatherhood, you should start in infancy. Read on.

Cognitive Therapy Helps Ease Back Pain

People with chronic lower back pain can reap as much benefit from cognitive behavioral therapy as they do from physical therapy. Low back pain sufferers reported improvements in function and levels of pain whether they received 10 weeks of physical therapy or underwent 10 weeks of cognitive therapy, compared to those who received no treatment, researchers says.

Continuation High Schools

Cooperating with Family

Cooperation is a learned skill, not a genetic gift or character trait. The key to having cooperative kids is to model cooperation ourselves and to meet little kids where they are developmentally in how we approach them. When we break the big concept of COOPERATION down into small, doable steps, little children soon become pros.

Cooperative Co-Parenting for the Divorced

These good people need to learn how to be good co-parents even though they never found a way to be good for each other. If they are going to help Annie and her younger brother successfully negotiate the teen years, they need to finally reach some closure on a failed early marriage and learn to work as a parenting team. If they’ll let me, I’ll work with them on some basic ground rules. The rules won’t solve all the problems. They won’t necessarily help them forgive themselves and each other. But they will get the kids out of the middle and reduce the amount of stress between them. I think they love their kids enough to give it a shot.

Coping with a Dysfunctional Family

How does a person live and cope with a dysfunctional family? The following articles provides advices from Nancy Bachrach, author of the memoir "The Center of the Universe". Read on and get more information on how to deal with a dysfunctional family.

Creating Lasting Resolutions

It’s not always easy to keep New Year’s resolutions. Sometimes there just doesn’t seem to be enough time, energy or willpower to accomplish everything. Don’t despair! If you spend some time reevaluating the way you make resolutions, this year can be different. Here are some tips that will help you make resolutions that last.

Criticizing Family Members

In fairness to your husband, I'm only getting your side of the story. But bringing other people into your problems (like the other woman and his parents) isn't helping the two of you build a strong and trusting relationship.

Dads, Daughters and Body Image

We’ve already talked about how moms and daughters can help boost each other’s body image . However, moms aren’t the only influential ones. Dads, too, play a pivotal role in shaping their daughter’s body image. And parents today have a lot to contend with; our society isn’t getting any easier on girls (or boys).

Dealing with a Family Member who Steals

I think the hardest thing for a parent to recognize is that their parenting has been ineffective. Yes, there are many theories and there are some therapists who would suggest that this is your son’s problem. But there are an equal number that would suggest this is a parenting problem. Children such as your son who enter inpatient behavior programs always do very well.

Dealing with an Alcoholic Family Member

My step son is an alcoholic. He has been in the court system for the past 3 years. He is 40 years old. our son destroyed his car while drunk, hitting another car at high speed. The Fairfax court system only sent him to an ASAP program even though this was his 3rd DWI. He admits he is an alcoholic. He was informed by us that drinking was not allowed in our home. Any suggestion?

Death of a Spouse Leads to Poverty for 1 in 5

One in five people who lose their partner will fall below the official poverty line in that country. The largest change in income affected those whose spouse was working at the time of death. Read on.

Deciding to Hospitalize a Loved One for Psychological Problems

During most hospital stays, patients participate in lots of group therapy every day as well as individual therapy. The doctors will also probably make recommendations for medication since she seems to be so seriously depressed.

Defining Domestic Violence

Domestic violence is a common reality in our society. It occurs in all social classes, ethnic groups, cultures and religions. Most people don’t realize how common it is, because very often victims of abuse keep quiet.

Determining if You are in an Abusive Relationship

Below are some questions and checklists to help you determine if you are in an abusive relationship. Answer the questions honestly. If you answer “yes” to any of the following questions, you may be a victim of abuse.

Discipline for Infants

Discipline is teaching. But to teach effectively, you have to understand how your child is thinking at different stages of development.

Domestic Violence Doesn’t Discriminate

No one knows exactly why some people are abusers. Researchers agree that abusers may share certain characteristics. For example, many grew up in violent homes themselves. Many abuse alcohol or other drugs. If you are afraid that your partner may have abusive tendencies, you should trust your instincts.

Domestic Violence Linked to Clinical Illness

New research discovers a physically abusive relationship influences health in a far wider spectrum than initially believed. In addition to mental trauma and musculoskeletal injuries, women abused by intimate partners suffer higher rates of a wide variety of doctor-diagnosed medical maladies compared to women who were never abused.

Dyslexia: Improving Reading and Writing Skills

How can a person improve their reading and writing skills when they have dyslexia? The following tips may be of help: Try using a computer when you write. Try using a computer when you write things. Programs such as Microsoft Word fix spelling and grammar. When you type words incorrectly and you have done a spelling check, write down the words with correct spellings on a separate paper. Then start to memorize it. It’s a good way to learn how a word is written.

Enjoying the Winter Holiday Season

No matter what your faith or cultural background, as the holiday season approaches, you may notice, as many people do, that instead of feeling a sense of warm anticipation, you feel a sense of dread.

Evaluating a Childcare Program

One of the challenges faced by parents who’ve decided to use a childcare program for their infant or toddler is separating the good programs from the bad or even unsafe ones.

Finding and Keeping a Healthy Life Balance

Take time to reflect. Discover what key ingredients are missing in your recipe for balance. Exercise? Fun? Time just to contemplate the meaning of life? Develop a plan that includes all the elements you need to feel whole, and determine the proper proportions. Talk your plan over with a peer, a mentor or better yet, a “personal board of directors.” Enlist their help in refining and sticking to your plan. Establish a three-month time frame in which to live your plan. Here are some key ingredients to consider.

Finding Meaning in the Holidays and Christmas

The holidays aren’t about presents or Santa Claus. They aren’t meant only for children (as some believe), but rather all of us. They aren’t about seeing the family and having to sit through the stress of another family dinner.

Getting Support While Going through Divorce

The feeling of being alone and isolated can be devastating. Support from friends and family is crucial. If you are in need of support, here are some suggestions.

Giving Your Kids a Realistic View on Life

Giving Your Marriage a Second Chance

An assessment of your marriage — its history, current reality and future possibilities — is usually not a rational calculation of pros and cons. It emerges from feelings like “I feel trapped,” “I just can’t take it anymore,” “I feel like I am dying emotionally.” Or you feel it through your children — “this marriage is not good for them” — which means that it is not good for you.

Growth and Change Through the College Years

The first task or vector of college student development is developing competence. Although intellectual competence is of primary importance in college, this vector includes physical and interpersonal competence as well. The student who attends college seeking only credentials for entry into the work world is sometimes surprised to find that his or her intellectual interests and valued friendships change as a result of his or her personal development through the college years.

Handling Strained Relationships with Parents

My husband hates his mother with a passion I’ve never seen before. He is 56 & she is 83 yrs old. He said he hated her his entire life. She came from a very poor childhood & had little to no manners. She never ate so she’s always been around 95 pounds. She had hearing problems when he was a child but would not wear a hearing aid. Any suggetion?

Helping a Family Member Get Help

Despite the prevalence and our increased understanding and acceptance of mental illness in society today, many family members still harbor fears and uncertainty. How to help someone close to you who has a mental illness.

Helping Children Grow Up with a Healthy Mind and Body

It is easy for parents to identify a child’s physical needs — nutritious and balanced meals; adequate shelter and clothing; sufficient rest and physical activity; immunizations; and a healthy living environment.

Helping Children Learn Relationship Skills

One of the most important things adults can do for young teens is to help them develop the sophistication to think about what is behind other people’s behavior. Even very young children can learn to look behind aggression, selfishness, and hurtful remarks to find the insecurity and fears of being left out that are usually their source.

Helping Kids Cope with Your Amicable Divorce

What can the kids make of it when the reasons for the divorce aren’t so obvious? Adult reasons aren’t always appropriate to share with kids. The reasons you can share may seem lame to them.

HIV Prevention & Heterosexual Men

Safer sex guidelines can be at odds with some perceived male roles.5 For example, masculinity and sexuality are sometimes defined by having sex with multiple partners, in contrast to safer sex guidelines that call for reducing numbers of partners. A study of HIV positive male and female heterosexuals found that before diagnosis of positivity, men had far fewer monogamous relationships than women (4 percent vs. 55 percent). After diagnosis, none of the women, but 14 percent of men reported having multiple partners.6.

Hofstadter’s Law and Realistic Planning

We’ve all experienced how a project expands to fit the time available. But why do we tend to underestimate the length of any given task? By the evening, the goals on our morning’s to-do list seem laughable.

Homesickness

Sleepovers and vacations at relatives’ houses are ways that some kids get used to being away from family. And please don’t scold your family either. Your folks are so concerned about your education, they’ve been willing to take on the challenges of home schooling. They’ve done the best they know how to get you out in the world — including supporting you in being a cheerleader.

How Children Develop Empathy

To empathize with someone is to understand what he is feeling or, more properly, to understand what you would feel like if you were in his situation. It is an extension of self-concept, but it is far more complex. It requires an awareness that others think of themselves in ways that are both similar to and different from the way you do, and that they also have emotions they associate with those thoughts and images.

How to Drive with Kids without Driving Yourself Crazy

Take heart, parents, for there is a way to make car travel with kids manageable. There is even a way to make it fun! Here’s the key: Traveling successfully by car with children under the age of 10 means doing it at a kid’s pace and from a kid’s point of view. Enjoyable car travel with kids can’t happen if you’re worried about making “good time,” if you want to cover 500 miles a day, or if you insist that there won’t be stops along the way. Enjoyable travel — yes, it can be enjoyable — means accommodating your kids.

How to Handle a Demanding Parent with Schizophrenia

The illness has probably destroyed his mother’s life but it should not be allowed to destroy his life or your life. Your husband does, however, have a moral obligation to help her to the best of his ability but it would be wrong to do this at the expense of his life, your life and your marriage.

How to Handle a Family Member Who Steals

Please have a heart to heart talk with him. You can let your brother know that you understand he wouldn't hurt you on purpose and that you miss him. Tell him you are worried that he is trying to tell you something.

How to Handle a Spouse Who Yells A Lot

Your husband’s yelling and embarrassing you in front of others, is a way for him to overcome his own insecurities and his need to feel in control. You pointed out his work issues and they would fit the pattern that I have suggested to you. He feels out of control at work, and thus he needs to regain his equilibrium by displaying his power at home. I would recommend you find a good marriage counselor as soon as possible.

How to Handle an Abusive Sibling

Your parents seemed to know that something was amiss with your sister very early on but did little to stop her from behaving inappropriately.

How to Help 13 Year Old Having Trouble Making Friends

I am actually seeking help for my 13 year old son. My son is a sweet, caring boy. But has a very hard time making friends at school. The few he has had in the past has moved away. He has different interests than most boys. He really has no interest in sports, which most boys his age are very interested in. I can tell he has been depressed about it lately. Any help?

How to Like Your Kids

Anna and other moms with likable kids seem to instinctively follow certain principles of parenting . They recognize that kids are neither intrinsically good or bad, and it is up to us to help them become enjoyable people. Understanding and implementing these principles is not rocket science, and making the effort to do so is a wonderful investment in your happiness, and in theirs.

How to Talk With Your Teenagers

Developmentally, our teenagers are facing huge changes physically, mentally and emotionally. In order to grow up they must begin to separate from us. And although it may not seem so, this process is at least as painful for them as it is for us.

Humor as a Key to Child Development

The things that children find funny tell us a great deal about their level of development and what is on their minds. There is a connection between the 2-year-old who bursts into a fit of giggles upon hearing the nonsense phrase “bottle, battle, bittle” and the young adolescent who laughs at the bawdiness of an off-color joke.

In Defense of Thank-You Notes

Gratitude doesn’t come naturally to most children. We have to teach them. Gratitude is too often put off by adults. We have to take the time. It is up to us to gently explain to our children that kindness is not something to take for granted; thoughtfulness is something to be valued. Thank-you notes are a way to appreciate that someone made the effort to make or purchase, wrap, and deliver a gift. Even if the gift isn’t a thrill, the effort matters.

Kids not Get Along with Step Parents

Being a parent of teens is complicated. Being a stepfather of young girls who are turning into women is even more so. That’s not new information. But just how hard it can be. Please do everyone a favor and get the help you need to do it well. The result will be a happier and healthier situation for you all.

Kleptomaniacs

In an article about apologizing, I confessed to stealing a friend’s hair brush when I was six. Dr. Klass consulted child development experts. Here is a summary of what she learned: Most children will take something that’s not theirs at some time.

Loss of a Pet

Children are capable of understanding, each in their own way, that life must end for all living things. Support their grief by acknowledging their pain. The death of a pet can be an opportunity for a child to learn that adult caretakers can be relied upon to extend comfort and reassurance. It is an important opportunity to encourage a child to express his or her feelings.

Magnet High Schools

Maintaining Fitness Resolutions & Goals

This is the time of year when gyms are flooded with new members. The people who are faithful gym-goers and go year-round call these new members either ‘January People’ or ‘Resolutioners.’ January People/Resolutioners are people who decide that the new year is the time to get in shape. This year will be when they lose weight and get healthy.

Making Homework a Priority

It’s a fact: Kids who get support from their parents for doing their schoolwork do better in school. And kids who do better in school generally do better in life. Parenting well means making homework a family priority. Here are a few tips to help you think about and support your child’s efforts in school.

Managing Unhappy Relatives at Holiday Time

Almost all families seem to have at least one member who has made a career of being unhappy. In their distress, these people accuse, complain, sigh, and make it difficult for others to enjoy the moment. In their misery, it’s hard for them to let others be happy. In their loneliness and pain, they seem to do everything possible to stay lonely.

Managing Your Time

Our resistance to the notion of time management is that we view it as an end in itself. We try to convince ourselves that there is intrinsic value in cramming multitudes of activities into small amounts of time. And this idea is about as appealing as fingernails on a chalkboard.

Married with Disabled Children

In the case of marriages with disabled children, there are some unique variables. A disabled child is a child with multiple needs. Parenting a disabled child usually involves learning about and dealing with multiple specialists, multiple systems, and multiple expenses that parents of typical children never have to even think about.

Mental Component of Parkinson’s

Parkinson's disease is a movement disorder characterized by tremors, rigidity and slow or altered movements. As Parkinson’s disease progresses, up to 40 percent of patients may experience what is called Parkinson’s Psychosis , in which they experience changes in cognition. Read on.

Model Success to Create Successful Students

The path to being a college honors student starts in toddlerhood. Here are some of the ways that parents of those good students set (and keep) their children going in the right direction.

Modeling Responsibility for Kids

Why can't you be more responsible? How many times have we said it, thought it, wished it about our own children and heard it coming from the mouths of other parents? We want our kids to be responsible with a capital R. We want our kids to be the kind of people other people can depend on.

Moving with Kids

how can adults make a move easier on the kids? By being actively involved and by involving them. Read on.

Moving with Teens

Sometimes it’s best for the teenager to move with the family. Sometimes it’s best to find a way for the teen to finish out high school and join the family later.

Negative Consequences of Spanking

In general, spanking can lead to emotional and behavioral problems, increased aggression, and use of violence to solve problems. Although many adults were spanked as children and do not view any negative consequences in their own lives attributed to spanking, it may be different for their children.

Parenting Tips on being Role Models for Children

It is as simple and as complicated as this: Think hard about what kind of person you want your child to be when she or he grows up. Then to do your very best to be that person.

Parenting Well Through the Teen Years

Parenting well isn’t about what is easy. Pooh-poohing her concerns, giving her a pep talk, or attributing her distress to newly erupting hormones does her a disservice, deprives her of information that she doesn’t know that she wants, and cheats us both of an opportunity to be closer. Parenting well takes thought, and time, and (here’s the impossible part) experience we often don’t have. Parenting well through adolescence takes everything we’ve got.

Picky Eaters

When it comes to food, young children are notoriously finicky. Many parents find that their preschooler's idea of a gastronomic delight is peanut butter and grape jelly on cheap, packaged white bread that has the crusts trimmed off and has been cut diagonally — never into rectangles.

Potty Training a 4 Year Old

Hopefully they will both say that he's fine and he's just a strong willed child but it's always best to make sure nothing is medically or psychologically wrong. They may then give you some strategies and suggestions on working with him.

Preparing Children to Leave Home

Kid's Leaving home isn’t an event, it’s a process. The process begins from the moment children leave their mothers’ bodies and continues until they leave the parents’ home and assume the responsibilities of adulthood. For the child, growing up and, for the parent, letting go, is the central process of family life. Children develop more and more skills and push for more and more freedom. Parents develop more and more trust in those skills and loosen supervision.

Promoting a Positive Body Image

Does this sound familiar? You’re standing in front of your full-length mirror scrutinizing your hips or thighs, and whispering to yourself how you should really lose some weight ASAP. However, as you’re engrossed in self-criticism, what you might not have expected is that your little girl — or older daughter — isn’t too far away, watching and listening and internalizing what you say and do.

Recognizing Signs of Child Abuse

Unthinkable as it is to imagine someone intentionally hurting a child, about 1 million children are abused every year in the United States. And these are only the reported incidents — many more are unreported and undetected, often because children are afraid to tell. When mistreatment becomes abuse, children are injured, neglected, and emotionally damaged.

Recovering from Childhood Neglect

The longterm effects of childhood neglect are many and serious. Have you fallen in and out of love with people who can’t love you back? Do you believe that you are essentially unlovable? If you never felt loved by your parents, you may not know what it really means to love and be loved.

Riding the Emotional Roller Coaster of Divorce

Divorce is an emotional roller coaster, that’s for sure. There is no way around it. People can tell you that these emotions come and go, and that, with time, they become less intense, and they are right. And yet, it’s hard to take comfort in their advice when the roller coaster is throwing you this way and that way, up and down, and you are just trying to hang on.

Role of a Therapist

When a therapist “mothers” her client, she is, in essence, declaring the client to be unable to care for her- or himself. Some therapists may view “mothering” (or, more generally, “parenting”) as an “in-between” step on the road to client independence. Unfortunately, in today’s society, there is less time for such in-between steps. Insurance companies have become more and more stringent about the number of sessions allowed to clients. As a result, insurance-reimbursed therapy sessions have become a more precious commodity than ever before.

Sexist Jokes May Be Linked to Domestic Violence

New research suggests sexist jokes and accompanying humor have something to do with mental mechanisms that could predispose violence and battering against women. If you want to know more about the links, keep on reading for details.

Success in School Begins at Home

Children who succeed in school generally have parents who understand the importance of their support and who have found ways to instill a positive approach to the tasks of learning, including homework. These lucky kids have parents who are as excited about what is being taught in school as the kids themselves.

Summer Camp

Kids who are fortunate enough to go to summer camp are lucky indeed. Assuming that the program is safe and well run, summer camp can open a whole new world of friendship, interests, skills, and independence for your child. Whether camp is a day program offered by the local recreation department or of the “ sleep away” variety, whether your child goes for one week or four, there are opportunities at camp that simply aren’t available in most schools.

Symptoms of Domestic Violence

Abusive relationships have a powerful psychological impact on the victims. Victims of an abusive relationship may experience some of the following emotions and behaviors.

Talking to Your Children about Divorce

One of the most painful and important events in the divorce process is telling the children about your plans to end the marriage. In this act, the marital problem moves beyond the marriage, affecting loved ones and tearing the fabric of the family. Telling the children marks an ending of the “old” family and the beginning of “new” family relationships.

Talking to Your Teens about Acquaintance Rape

How do we as parents help our kids navigate the shoals of modern teen sex? Read on to know how to talk your teen about acquaintance rape.

Teaching Kids how to be Loved and Loving

One of the most important things we can teach our children, perhaps the most important thing, is how to be loved and loving. We can’t protect them from the many difficulties, even tragedies, of life. But we can teach them how to surround themselves with support and love. People who are loved have people around them to celebrate the good times, to share life’s triumphs, and to manage the rough spots.

Teaching Manners Breeds Empathy in Children

Manners are a codified way each culture has for keeping things pleasant even when we’d rather not. The specifics may differ from country to country or region to region but the intent is much the same. Every language has words of courtesy. Every culture has generally understood rules for polite interaction. Training in those codes starts very, very young. As we teach our kids the words and rituals, the manners, of our culture, we are laying down the foundation for genuine empathy later on.

Teaching Your Baby Sign Language

Parents say that signing is rewarding and aids bonding because of the need to make more eye-to-eye and tactile contact. Also, as children age, it may be easier and perhaps kinder to reprimand the child in public using sign language, saying “no” for example, and equally can become a way of giving praise privately.

Teen Drinking: Limits vs. Punishment

How do we set limits on our teenagers so that the limits are actually protective and not just a reaction to anger? It’s easy to take teens’ provocative behavior personally and react with punitive measures, anger, panic , shaming, lecture, or blame.

Ten Tough Issues with Kids & Divorce

Children have an especially difficult time with divorce. Many times, parents neglect to consider the ramifications of the effects of the divorce on their children. Understanding how children will view the divorce and the resulting parental relationship is an important component to helping minimize the emotional turmoil of divorce for children.

Terminally Ill Counseling

The Best Way to Get Teens to Learn

When teenagers understand that learning helps them attain an intrinsic goal (e.g., self-development, personal health, etc.), they are more likely to become interested in the topic and grasp its conceptual aspects than if they are motivated to learn only to attain extrinsic goals (e.g., financial success, physical attractiveness, etc.).

The College Drop-off and the Long Drive Home

For most parents, the feelings are very mixed. There is joy and pride in the miracle of having raised this wonderful young adult. There are regrets for the plans and good intentions we never realized: the trip we didn’t get around to taking, the interest we didn’t manage to cultivate, the days we wished we had done better. There is worry about whether we have adequately prepared our child for what is to come.

The Common Pattern of Domestic Violence

In 1979, psychologist Lenore Walker found that many violent relationships follow a common pattern or cycle. The entire cycle may happen in one day or it may take weeks or months. It is different for every relationship and not all relationships follow the cycle—many report a constant stage of siege with little relief.

The Emotional Challenges of Interfaith Marriage

Interfaith marriage usually occurs between one person who is Jewish and another who is Christian. However, there are increasing numbers of young Catholics and Protestants intermarrying. Generally, this is viewed as less difficult for the young couple because of a commonly shared theology and culture. Nevertheless, even among Christian sects, interfaith marriage poses serious problems and creates crises for the couple and their respective families.

The Gift of Giving

Like most values, social interest isn’t something we can just assume children will understand. Teaching our kids that making a gift is an act of thoughtfulness, not just something to get out of the way, takes time and patience. Modeling, coaching, and actively involving our kids in the art of giving instills the habit.

The Pain and Promise of Divorce

As the divorce process unfolds, especially within the first several months, you will probably go through a series of emotional extremes. The divorce, as it tears apart the fabric of your marriage, will probably tear you up as well. You will be astounded by the intensity of raw pain that can sweep over you, sometimes quite unexpectedly.

The Physical and Emotional Injuries of Domestic Violence

All victims of domestic violence can be physically and emotionally injured. However, because of general strength differences between men and women, women are six to seven times more likely to receive serious physical injuries than are men.

The Purpose of Baby Talk

You’ve probably noticed how adults often talk differently to babies than to other adults or even toddlers. They raise the pitch of their voices and do other things we would consider inappropriate or insulting in normal adult conversation.

The Value of a Child’s Bedtime Routine

Bedtime routines help children learn to transition from the busy activity of the day to settling down for sleep. Bedtime is a time to teach children how to soothe themselves and how to relax. Help them learn a few relaxation tricks like tensing and releasing muscles or thinking about a favorite place. This is a gift they’ll use forever.

Tips on being Single and Dating

The feelings of loss that accompany the ending of a dating relationship are common and need not be feared. It’s your mind’s way of letting you know how close that person was to you and reminding you that life is challenging and often unpredictable. Losing a significant relationship in your life is not much different from losing a person to death.

Toddlers & OCD

My 20-month old son is displaying a behavior that is becoming increasingly noticeable to others – he organizes and “lines up” toys or items he plays with, and will spend up about 30 minutes doing this. Whether it be toy cars, books, crayons -whatever there is more than one of, he will line them up, stack them up, or arrange them – and he will do it over and over in different combinations. Any suggestion?

Toddlers and Preschoolers Who Bite

For hours after the incident, I could still see the impressions of the other preschooler’s front teeth on the bridge of my four-year-old son’s nose. Please read on for more detailed information in the following article.

Understanding Domestic Violence

Domestic violence constitutes a pattern of abusive behavior that includes the use or threat of violence and intimidation for the purpose of gaining power and control over another person. A violent event is seldomly an isolated incident, but part of a pattern which increases in both frequency and severity over time.

Understanding the Effects of Domestic Violence

Child abuse and domestic violence often occur in the same family. Researchers have found that 50 percent to 70 percent of the men who frequently assaulted their wives also frequently abused their children.

Waiting for College Acceptance Letters

It’s been quite a year. Only last summer you were looking at colleges on the Internet, exploring catalogues in the guidance office and maybe even doing a grand tour of the colleges you thought you might want to attend. You took the SATs, maybe two or three times. You wrote the essay. You filled out forms. You collected recommendations. You put it all in the mailbox months ago.

What to do with Your Teen when Moving

Here are a few of the considerations you’ll need to talk through with your student before you agree to leaving him or her behind.

What’s Your Baby’s Temperament?

Days or even hours after their children are born, parents reach conclusions about their temperaments. They may describe their babies as fussy or easygoing, sensitive or curious. Please read on for more detailed information in the following article.

When a Sibling is Disabled

Recent research has shown that while it adds to stress, it doesn’t necessarily lead to damage. It can lead instead to creative problem solving and personal growth. Children who have disabled siblings can gain a greater appreciation of the value of different kinds of people and become more understanding of human differences.

When Parents Disagree on Discipline

Any child who has spilled a glass of milk or tried to negotiate a later bedtime is aware of the subtle differences in her parents' styles of discipline. One parent is often a bit quicker to yell or to forgive. One may be more sensitive to appearances and propriety, while the other may focus on results. The blending of those two styles forms the family’s approach to raising children.

Where to Seek Help with Domestic Violence

If you think you are in an abusive relationship, you can go to a number of people for help. Be careful, however, to keep your search a secret from your abuser. If your abuser learns that you are reaching out, he may try to stop you, be angered and abuse you even more.

Who Are the Victims of Domestic Violence?

Domestic violence can happen in any relationship, regardless of ethnic group, income level, religion, education or sexual orientation. Abuse may occur between a married people, or between an unmarried people living together or in a dating relationship. It happens in heterosexual, gay and lesbian relationships.

Why People Stay in Abusive Relationships

It can be difficult for many people to understand why a person would stay in an abusive relationship. But there are many reasons. Strong emotional and psychological forces keep the victim tied to the abuser. Sometimes situational realities like a lack of money keep the victim from leaving. The reasons for staying vary from one victim to the next, and they usually involve several factors.

Your Baby’s Developmental Milestones: Look for Stages, Not Ages

Most books on child development include charts of some sort outlining the normal milestones that children reach as they grow older. Please read on for more detailed information in the following article.