Search Results for: blog emotional preparation for school

Getting Ready for Back to School: Smooth Mornings

If there is one thing I dread about the start of a new school year, it is the mornings. I’m hoping other moms of teens can relate to the sometimes frustrating task of trying to wake a sleepy child. Although I may not be able to do much about that, I do know that I can help us get ready for the new school year by at least planning for a smooth morning. The key to this is preparing the night before. It used to be that most of the preparations fell on me. But in the past few years … Continue reading →

Getting Ready for Back to School: Family Calendar

Next week my teens go back to school. Although this school year will be a bit easier to manage (now that our oldest has moved out), I know I still need to make sure I am planning and preparing for a successful year. Now when I say successful, I mean organized and flowing. My goal is to reduce the number of chaotic mornings we have and make sure everyone knows what is going on each day. One of the systems I implemented last year and have faithfully continued is our color-coded family calendar. It is a dry erase calendar, hung … Continue reading →

Emotional Preparation for School

So it’s a new school year and while as a parent you might be a little excited about your teens going back, they may not feel the same way. Think about it. As your teen gets older, there are new problems and stresses to face. Classes tend to get more difficult and they are getting that much closer to their future as an adult. They may have had problems last year that they are sure will be worse this year. It’s important to help prepare your teen. It goes beyond taking them school clothes shopping or making sure you have … Continue reading →

Homeschooling Middle School Kids

Homeschooling during the elementary school years means teaching kids the basics. It involves teaching, reading, writing, and basic math. Homeschooling during these early years also means setting your kids in the right direction in areas of emotional and social development. Homeschooling during the high school years means preparing your kids for adult life. This means intensive academic preparation for the college bound. It means internships for trade bound students. It also means slowly transferring adult responsibilities to your children and helping them learn to step into an adult role. Homeschooling middle school students are a different animal altogether. You have … Continue reading →

Anxiety: When Meds are OK

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My 18 year old daughter just graduated from high school. As we sat and discussed all of the plans for the weekend something jumped out at me: the anxiety she had been dealing with through her teen years was not getting better, and the impact on her day-to-day functioning was going to get worse. I have been noticing symptoms of anxiety in her for years, and spoke openly with her about options. However, as someone who spent years working with adolescents with serious emotional problems, I was leery to start her on medications before she became an adult. I wondered … Continue reading →

Introduction

Dear Families.com family, I am a new blogger here at families.com but not new to the site. My husband has been the fatherhood blogger for almost two years and I am excited that I will be contributing blogs about pregnancy. My hope is to share some of my pregnancy experiences, insights, challenges, and triumphs. My husband recounted his experience of the preparation we made for the birth of our son and all that followed. I’d like to recount my experience of my first pregnancy and hopefully soon blog about a second pregnancy as it progresses! I am the second oldest … Continue reading →

Intelligent Students

Sometimes teachers expect the worst from their students. I’ve highlighted this tendency before. Sometimes these teachers have had bad experiences with some unenthralled students and sometimes these teachers are just bad teachers. Whatever the case, the beginning of the year often has teachers comparing horror stories in preparation (perhaps emotional or mental preparation) for the coming semester. The classes I most often hear horror stories from are the classes students are forced to take for a credit in an area they don’t intend to study further. For me these classes were science credits. I waited until my senior year to … Continue reading →

Changes In Teens’ Attitude About Pregnancy

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The latest news concerning teen pregnancy is a little troubling. The CDC reports that teens are less worried about pregnancy than in the past. While the percentage of teens having sex has not changed much since 2002, the attitude towards having a child out of wedlock has changed quite a bit. The majority of teens, according to the survey, believe it is okay for an unmarried woman to have a baby. Another interesting fact included in the report is about the most common methods of birth control among teens. The withdrawal method of birth control, also jokingly referred to as … Continue reading →

Young Men: “Raising the Bar”

In his talk “Raising the Bar” Elder L Tom Perry speaks to the future missionaries of the church. He begins by sharing a story about his son, Lee. When Lee was in high school he was a high jumper. He was practicing on a regular basis, and was consistently making his jumps. Elder Perry suggested that he raise the bar. Lee was afraid to do this because he might miss. Elder Perry pointed out that he couldn’t reach his full potential unless he raised the bar. Elder Perry challenges the young men to raise the bar of being prepared to … Continue reading →

Bullying Can Affect Health Later In Life

A study from Finland has found that boys who bully and boys who are victims of bullies are at higher risk for mental health disorders in their late teens and early twenties. More than 2500 Finnish boys participated in the study. At the age of eight, the boys were asked questions about bullying: if they were bullied, if they bullied others, how often it happened, and more. Parents and teachers also answered questions about the boys. A decade later, the information was compared with psychiatric information from medical exams taken between the ages of 18 and 23 in preparation for … Continue reading →