Tips of the Month — Families

Whether it's soccer, baseball, gymnastics or any of the sports our children participate in, we want them to enjoy athletics. We want them to have a good time pursuing the activity they love. But the joy of competitive sports — whether during elementary, high school or college years — easily dissipates when youth find themselves unduly stressed by their own perfectionism, a burdensome sense of obligation to fulfill the expectations of parents or coaches, or a loss of balance…

It ought to be easier to raise pro-social children — kids who are helpful and kind and empathic — since the impulse toward pro-social behavior is something we’re born with. Yet so many youngsters seem to miss the mark. Two aspects of how we raise our children may be getting in the way.

As we help our sons and daughters get ready to return to school, let’s reflect on our own readiness to promote our kids’ best emotional development during the school year. Consider these dimensions:

Settling youngsters down to sleep at night isn't always easy. Recent research suggests that the amount of exposure children have to bright light in the hour leading up to bedtime — whether emanating from light bulbs or electronic devices — can have a big impact on sleep-related behavior.

Nearly 3% of teenagers between the ages of 13-18 — boys as well as girls — struggle with food, weight and body image issues severe enough to constitute an eating disorder.1 Such disorders (anorexia, bulimia, binge eating) seriously affect both physical and mental health, and in some instances can be life-threatening. 

"Do you have the patience to wait till your mud settles and the water is clear?" Lao Tzu How many times a day do your children say or do something that bothers you — words or actions you know are wrong or simply irritating? And how often do you quickly correct or scold? If you’re like most parents, you intervene fast. Are you reacting or responding?   Our best parenting rarely happens when we react. Reacting comes from the emotional brain, shaped by evolution to move…

In a world with few easy solutions, here’s one that might make your children’s homework time instantly more productive: Create a No Smartphone Zone.

Researchers at the University of Texas and the University of Michigan reviewed fifty years of studies representing the findings across more than 160,000 children. What they found was that the more children are spanked, the more likely they are to show aggressive and anti-social behavior and to manifest mental health and cognitive difficulties. These researchers concluded that spanking harms children in ways not unlike the harm from physical abuse.