The holidays are a wonderful time to gather and celebrate with family. But they're also one of the most likely times for oppressive gender norms to creep in -- and, possibly, one of the most dangerous times of the year for your daughter's (and son's!) psyche.
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10 Things to Remind Your Daughter to Do Every Day That Are More Important Than Brushing Her Hair12/14/2015
It doesn't matter if you say her brains matter more than her looks if your actions tell her otherwise.
The Economist recently published The model minority is losing patience, which shared the story of Michael Wang:
MICHAEL WANG, a young Californian, came second in his class of 1,002 students; his ACT score was 36, the maximum possible; he sang at Barack Obama’s inauguration; he got third place in a national piano contest; he was in the top 150 of a national maths competition; he was in several national debating-competition finals. But when it came to his university application he faced a serious disappointment for the first time in his glittering career. He was rejected by six of the seven Ivy League colleges to which he applied. Go Ahead and Let Your Tween Dress "Slutty" for Halloween - Just Make Her Build the Costume Herself10/2/2015 How One Rapper Brought a Whole 5th Grade Classroom to Tears (and Why UW-Madison is Awesome)8/19/2015 As a Paved With Verbs Life Coach and College Admissions Counselor, it is my job to know everything that's happening at every university at all times. Which is how I came upon this (warning: it's sort of a tearjerker -- but, like, totally happy tears):
What an amazing collaboration! Bringing mindfulness -- a centuries-old practice -- into the classroom seems to improve both academic performance and emotional well-being.
This week, The Atlantic published The Coddling of the American Mind: How Trigger Warnings Are Hurting Mental Health on Campus. Obviously, I agreed wholeheartedly -- I am all about the interpersonal basis for abnormal psychology. I've written all about developing resilience and coping skills in high school and college students.
Besides, it's basically the exact same thing I said about little girls and body image when the well-meaning parents and educators threw a big, fat hissy fit over the size of Lily James's waist when the Cinderella trailer came out last March.
Jack Rossi just returned from a family vacation to Boston -- and found a letter from his two elementary school children's principal saying that his kids' absence was not excusable. (Even though the primary purpose of the visit was to attend the funeral of a family member...) It read:
My, how the world has changed!
We've all heard about how difficult it is to get children into "the best" preschools these days -- how you basically have to get your kid on "the list" when you're still pregnant. And, of course, we've all heard parents brag about how many numbers, letters, and words their impossibly-young-year-old knows. In fact, a lot of kindergartens now recommend that kids know letters, numbers, and even basic addition and subtraction before the start of the school year (meaning kids show up having learned fractions). Which, in this psychologist's opinion, is counterproductive. The best way to give your child a creative, entrepreneurial mind has nothing to do with flashcards. But we'll discuss this more later. That's not how it used to be! Here's a checklist to see whether your child is ready for first grade, taken from Your Six-Year-Old: Loving and Defiant, by Louise Bates Ames, Ph.D., in 1979:
Do kids in your neighborhood play outside every day? Or do they, like the average American child, spend up to eight hours per day in front of a screen? (In other words... they sleep, eat, go to school, and not much else.) Using some technology is great -- it can be fun, relaxing and even educational. But, when used excessively, it kills creativity and curiosity. It prevents kids from developing crucial social and emotional intelligence. It makes them bored... and it makes them boring.
Moreover, unsupervised outdoor play is one of the most important ways in which kids develop social and emotional skills, like resilience (something most kids with helicopter don't learn these days, which is one of the reasons that something like 15% of kids are being medicated for depression, and some 33% have reported feeling "too depressed to function"), self-regulation (a skill that is highly correlated with good grades, higher test scores, higher lifetime earning potential, lower incarceration rates, etc. etc. etc.), emotional intelligence, charisma, negotiation and leadership skills, autonomy and independence, and more. When the Goblet of Fire spat out Harry Potter's name, the Boy Who Lived knew he was in trouble. He was competing against people who were bigger, stronger and more experienced at magic than he was -- in situations that were literally life-or-death. On the eve of the first challenge -- the dragons -- Professor Moody gave Harry the best advice anyone's ever given anyone:
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Eva is a content specialist with a passion for play, travel... and a little bit of girl power. Read more >
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