To Drug or Not to Drug: Why One Mother Chose to Medicate her Child

To Drug or Not to Drug: Why One Mother Chose to Medicate her Child

Many parents have strong opinions about medicating their children. It is rare that parents consider medication as a first line of treatment and the majority of parents hope to avoid psychopharmacological treatment entirely. One mother, Kathy Hennessy, shared her experience of choosing to medicate her child  in a recent article in The Washington Post, Why I decided to drug my child .  

Ms.  Hennessy shared her experience, which started with her thinking her son was just ...

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Goal-Oriented Positive Thinking Trumps Pie-in-the-Sky Optimism

Goal-Oriented Positive Thinking Trumps Pie-in-the-Sky Optimism

Positive phrases, such as “If you can dream it, you can do it,” can be detrimental to children and decrease their ability to meet their long-term goals. According to a recent article on MindShift, a website co-founded by NPR which covers current research on education and learning, "while inspiring words might provide a moment of motivation, it turns out they can have an adverse effect on achieving those goals."

Dr. Gabriele Oettingen, of New York University, reports ...

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Where Angels Fear to Tread: Starting the Conversation about Suicide Prevention

Where Angels Fear to Tread: Starting the Conversation about Suicide Prevention

Dr. Hart recently authored her second article in a series on Suicide Prevention for Educators in the National Association of Community College Teacher Education Program's (NACCTEP) Newsletter. NACCTEP is a national association which supports training and preparation of K-12 educators. The series provides early career educators the knowledge they need to both accurately identify students at-risk for attempting suicide and information on how to effectively intervene. 

Knowing how to effectively intervene once you have determined a student is at-risk for attempting suicide is crucial. Teachers need to ...

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Understanding Adolescent Self-Injury and Accessing Help

Understanding Adolescent Self-Injury and Accessing Help

When a parent learns that their teen is cutting themself, they are typically as confused as they are heartbroken. They are often aware their teen is "having a tough year" or "is a little out of sorts." Some parents report they had thought their teen was experiencing typical teen angst, and describe the emotional challenges they faced during their own adolescence. Nearly all the parents I have worked with feel ill-informed or equipped to parent a child who has cut themself, and are eager to better understand why their child has begun to intentionally self-harm. 

A recent article in the New York Times, Why Teenagers Cut, and How to Help , interviews ...

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Screen Time and the Impact upon Social Skills

Screen Time and the Impact upon Social Skills

Studies have found evidence that excessive screen time can lead to increased rates of obesity, irregular sleep patterns, hyperactivity, and conduct problems in children. A recent study found that with a combination of decreased screen time and increased social interactions children were better able to ...

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Identifying Students on the Edge: The First Step in Suicide Prevention

Identifying Students on the Edge: The First Step in Suicide Prevention

Dr. Hart recently authored her first article in a series on Suicide Prevention for Educators in the National Association of Community College Teacher Education Program's (NACCTEP) Newsletter. NACCTEP is a national association which supports training and preparation of K-12 educators. 

Teachers know their students. They are able to identify typical vs. atypical developmental behaviors within the age group they work with and they are able to identify significant changes in their students. Educators are uniquely positioned ...

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Am I Creating a Validating Environment?

Am I Creating a Validating Environment?

The emotional environment in which a child is raised impact’s their ability to manage their emotions, control their behavioral urges, and feel confident in their ability to accurately assess their environment. Children raised in an environment in which they don’t feel accepted or understood are at higher risk for mood disorders, such as depression and anxiety, oppositional behavioral disorders, and substance use.

Invalidation is when ...

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Spanking and the Impact on Brain Development

Spanking and the Impact on Brain Development

Spanking, or corporal punishment, has long been associated with increased rates of depression, substance use, aggression towards others, oppositionality towards authority figures, and an increased tendency to identifying benign actions by others as hostile or malicious. 

Recent studies have found that in addition to the well-established impact spanking has upon children's emotional and psychological well-being, it may also be correlated with...

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Choosing to Respond

Choosing to Respond

Parents often feel ineffective at managing their children’s behaviors and, as a result, become increasingly agitated when trying to set limits or implement consequences. Becoming emotionally escalated during these interactions actually makes the parent less effective and exacerbates the parent’s sense of helplessness.

When an individual is making decisions from an emotionally reactive position ...

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Highlight the Benefits of Honesty to Increase it in Children

Highlight the Benefits of Honesty to Increase it in Children

Teaching the benefits of honesty is more effective than teaching the negative consequences of lying, according to a recent study which explored means of increasing honesty in children.

Dr. Kang Lee, a professor of human development and applied psychology at the University of Toronto,  has spent over a decade studying honesty and dishonesty in children, according to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal. In June 2014 Dr. Lee published a study in Psychological Science which looked at the impact morality based stories have upon the probability that a child will be honest.

According to Dr. Lee ...

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