Teaching kids to identify their body alarms and learn healthy ways to control anger   “I tried to stay calm, but it was too late!” “I wish I could tell when I’m about to explode.” “Don’t keep telling me I’m going to lose all my friends because of my temper. I can’t help it.” Your [...]

Parenting tips I shared on TODAY for kids who procrastinate, dawdle, cut corners or just take the easy way. It’s the makeover no parent should put off! Sound like  your kid? “I don’t care!  I quit – this is too hard.”  “Why don’t YOU do it?” Is his backpack a disaster, homework always a battle and everything [...]

Parenting advice to help kids learn to self entertain and enjoy their own company! Do beware: a new trend shows our Micromanaged, Over-structured, “Plugged-In” Generation can’t stand boredom.   There is a concerning new trend with twenty-first century kids. Perhaps because they’re been programmed and scheduled and micromanaged and adult supervised, many seem to have a [...]

Why ADHD boosts vulnerability to bullying; solutions for parents and educators of special needs children. I had pleasure of speaking with Peggy Dolan from the Edge Foundation who does wonderful work on coaching students with ADHD. Here is our interview and the two part series on bullying and ADHD that Edge posted on their site with permission to duplicate. [...]

11 proven and surprising benefits of child-directed (aka unscheduled and spontaneous) play for our stressed-out, over-supervised kids. Okay folks, I’m concerned. Over the last few weeks I’ve been reviewing studies involving children and play. “Shocked” and “disturbed” are the two words that describe how I feel when reading those reports. Every study reaches one sad conclusion: [...]

Parenting advice if your child has anger issues or bullies due to inability to handle impulses. Tips to help  kids find healthier ways to control intense feelings, aggression and inappropriate outbursts Loses control Fights Shouts and screams Ticked off at the littlest thing Quick to anger Low frustration threshold Sound familiar? They are typical behaviors [...]

REALITY CHECK TIME: Bullying, depression, eating disorders, ADHD, stress, early puberty onset, plastic surgery and Botox are all on increase and in younger kids. Here is my pick of the top troubling child and teen trends, the research that shows why we better keep a closer eye on our kids, and what parents, educators and child-advocators [...]

Have a child/teen with anger issues?  Part I of a two part series on parenting advice to help kids find healthy ways to control intense feelings in a stressed-out world. Hint: Tips work for adults, too! Clenched teeth. Rapid breathing. Red face. Teaching kids a new way to cope with their intense feelings is not [...]

Parenting advice to help you know the signs of ADHD, the difference between ADHD and ADD, what to expect age by age, and when to seek help for your child. A government survey released this weeks finds that one in ten children in the United States have ADHD (or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder). That number [...]

New research shows that children who can pass up a marshmallow are more likely to succeed as adults. But why? Here’s the secret every teacher and parent should know… The Famous Marshmallow Test and Implications on Our Kids’ Later Success In 1960, Walter Mischel, a psychologist at Stanford University, conducted the now famous Marshmallow Test. Mischel [...]

Michele Borba, Ed.D. REALITY CHECK  Reports say that Attention Deficit Disorder (or ADD) affects up to nine[ii] percent of school-age children, but even then the medical field fears that only half of those have been properly diagnosed. Parents currently spend[i] over one billion three hundred million each year on buying one of the three leading [...]