Parenting Journals

by Ellen Gibran-Hesse

Recently I was having dinner with several girl friends. After the frantic winter holidays, it was nice to just relax. Mary (not her real name) shared some family news that was a bit astounding for a private person like Mary. Her youngest son, Ben (not his real name) had completed his first semester in community college and wasn’t going back. Three years ago, this would have elicited an emotional breakdown for Mary.

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by Ellen Gibran-Hesse

I am an attorney and life coach who helps parents with young adults still living at home as well helping young adults achieve independence.  With two sons in college, I remember quite well the frantic last years in high school. All the tests to be taken such as the ACT, SAT, the subject matter cousin tests to those two, and the AP placement tests caused abundant stress. Of course, there were trips to colleges and universities both in state and out. Finally all the applications due right around Thanksgiving of senior year had to be sent out and test reports coordinated. Mentally fried to a crisp, we parents still endured “senioritis” and a downswing in our senior’s motivation while we planned graduation parties and events.

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by David Palmer, Ph.D.

School’s in session – and although most of their parents don’t realize it, millions of early elementary age kids are being screened, tested, and sorted in an attempt to find those who need gifted education support services to flourish.

While it may seem that gifted kids should be able to do well in any setting, parents, researchers, and specialists who advocate for this sometimes overlooked group point out that many of our brightest child minds become bored, frustrated, and tuned out - both socially and academically - without placement in a gifted program that allows them to move through the curriculum at their own pace and connect with “mental mates” who may hold similar interests.

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By Julie Redstone

“A new study in the scientific journal Child Development, Nov./Dec., 2006, shows that if you teach students that their intelligence can grow and increase, they do better in school.

About 100 seventh graders, all doing poorly in math, were randomly assigned to workshops on good study skills. One workshop gave lessons on how to study well. The other group was taught about the expanding nature of intelligence and the brain.

The students in the latter group learned that the brain actually forms new connections every time you learn something new, and that over time, this makes you smarter. The group of kids who had been taught that the brain can grow smarter, had significantly better math grades than the other group.”

Michelle Trudeau, NPR-Morning Edition, Feb. 15, 2007.

In the progressive unfoldment of the idea that “you are what you believe,” many of us have learned to apply this teaching to help create a positive outlook in our children concerning what they are capable of intellectually, and what they can aspire to in any area they choose to pursue later on. We know how to encourage our children in the ways of worldly success.

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by Lori Heatherington

From the time I enrolled my daughter in elementary school it seemed that the world was out to ruin her innocence.

Her know-it-all six year old friends with older brothers and sisters shared the world’s reality with her on a daily basis. And I, who was happy living in the land of talking stuffed animals, was in no hurry to debate the concept of Santa Claus.
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