50% of all mental disorders surface by the time children are 14 years of age. 75% surface by the age of 25 (Victoria State Government, 2022). What do these two statistics have in common? These are the years young people are in formal education. Thus, mental disorders are often presenting for the first time when …
Continue reading “How Educators Support Mental Health in Classrooms”
180 days. Teachers have our children 180 days of the year. That’s 180 mornings when some kids just do not want to wake up. That’s 180 afternoons of teachers rushing kids out the door with all — or at least most — of their belongings. It’s 180 days of standing in the sun, rain, dust, …
Dear Parent, I feel overwhelmed. School is going to start soon and I need you to know what is happening inside of me. I am very excited because there is so much about to happen. I get to start over with a new teacher. I’m going to see friends that I have not seen all …
Do you ever feel like a terrible parent? Do you have moments when you lost your patience or “blew up” that you look back on with shame and guilt and think, “I’m totally messing my kid up!”? You are not alone. Parenting is hard and, as fully-human beings, none of us do it perfectly. We …
Fostering resilience in teens can be scary for us as parents as we learned in Part 1 of this blog post. By providing them with the appropriate supports, we are helping them to launch successfully into adulthood. Early development of resilience. The fundamentals of resiliency start in infancy and continue on into early childhood. During …
Continue reading “Raising Them to Leave Us Fostering Resilience Pt. 2”
Raising my four girls has been the hardest, yet most rewarding job. Although I do not view it as a job, but my biggest priority. Somehow (and without a guidebook) parents must take these tiny human beings and mold them into productive members of society. Gulp, that’s a big responsibility to swallow. We also need …
Continue reading “Parenting Your Teen Through Mental Health Struggles”
As a parent it can be really difficult figuring out how to help your child or teen who has experienced some type of trauma. We can’t take their pain away. Or make them forget their pain. We can’t ignore that it happened. So how do we help them? What do we do to make …
There are many relationships that happen through being a foster parent. If I had to name them all, it would probably take up most of this blog. Then there are relationships with friends and family that were there before we became foster parents. When I became a foster parent in 2016, I heard about all …
Continue reading “How Fostering Challenged My Relationships”
After a separation or divorce, relationships can be difficult. We may find ourselves separating from our children by getting lost in things like work or even lost in new dating experiences. However, this is a crucial time to show to your kiddos that love still exists, relationships are good, and each should still be …
Continue reading “How to Stay Connected to Your Kids Post Romantic Relationship”
