A tragic fire touches the Windward School community in Connecticut this week killing three children and their grandparents. How to explain tragedy to children and help classmates and a community grieve is written by Harold S. Koplewicz, MD, President of the Child Mind Institute, child psychiatrist and director of the New York University Child Study Center. I’ve [...]

Parent and educator guide to using the Penn State tragedy to describe sexual abuse to kids and teens; Safety tips to prevent abuse and signs of sexual abuse The Penn State child sexual abuse case has adults on full alert. “How could this have happened to those boys?” “Why didn’t anyone spot those signs sooner?” [...]

REALITY CHECK: If your child has experienced a serious trauma please don’t overlook the possibility of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder has been in the news a lot these days because of our military returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, but PTSD isn’t just for adults. Each year over 3 million children are [...]

Parenting advice I shared on the TODAY show on how to talk to kids about troubling news and reduce their fears and jitters about world events Tsunamis. Radiation leaks. Earthquakes. Nuclear meltdowns. Air strikes. If you are feeling a bit jittery about the news lately, imagine how our kids must feel. We know that constantly [...]

Parenting advice to reduce our kids’ worries about a sometimes mean, scary world and curb the “Mean World Syndrome” Terrorism. War. School shootings. Pedophiles.  Recession. Suicide bombings. Cyberbullying. Kidnappings. Global warming. Tsunamis. Earthquakes. Sexual abuse. It’s a scary world out there for us, but how do you think the kids are faring? Let’s face it-we [...]