Picture this - you just finished your second Zoom meeting of the day. Your daughter is in the kitchen attending school remotely. She is a bright kid, but tends to be get distracted and off track during her remote classes. You walk into the kitchen to refill your coffee, but really your objective is to check in on her. As you walk in, she frantically closes a couple tabs on her computer.

It’s 7:45 on a Thursday night and your son finally gives his eyes a break from the TV just long enough to remember that he has a major essay due for English tomorrow. He might not admit it, but the frantic pacing and backpack digging already reveal everything you need to know - it’s not the first time he’s had a last-minute cramming crisis. Without asking details, you sigh and abandon your own pla...

It seems like just yesterday parents across the country breathed a huge sigh of relief that the challenges of remote learning were over and summer was finally here. Now, summer is winding down, the new school year peeks around the corner, and uncertainty seems like the only sure thing. Schools are preparing for a variety of scenarios as the fall semester is rapidly approaching and many are opting ...

Editor’s note: This week, we feature guest blogger Lisa Gurdin of LSGurdin Consulting. Please read more about Lisa below. One of the hardest parts of being a parent is realizing that your child will not always listen to what you say just because you say it. This is a tough nugget to swallow. Shouldn’t children just listen to their parents? Isn’t it just enough to say, “Because I said so.”? I first...

Even though much of our work as Executive Function coaches focuses on helping students and adults work more effectively, you may be surprised to learn that we get a fair amount of questions during our presentations and talks that relate to managing a household, as well. And why not? After all, we use skills such as time management, emotion regulation, planning, and persistence in our everyday live...

Think of a time when you tried to offer helpful advice to your child about the way they study. How did that go? If your kid is like most, you probably saw eye-rolling and heard heavy sighs of frustration in response to your useful tips. Why on earth does your kid refuse to take advantage of your years of experience and just listen to your sage advice about preparing for that test?

The “real” world. When exactly did we somehow all agree to identify the non-academic world as some separate place and time in which things will finally become real? It’s time to quash this concept because, for students, school is the real world. The skills they need to get through school happen to be highly relevant to the skills they’ll need to tackle in the world beyond textbooks, pop quizzes, a...

“Please stop graduating.” I remember reading this line quite vividly in an otherwise comical card from my younger brother. It was both a sarcastic comment - he’d suffered through my high school, undergraduate, graduate and second graduate school graduations - and a serious one.  He was sick and tired of being outdone academically.  

Unless we happen to be hosting all the relatives for the weekend, I imagine that all of us have time to look up from our computers and greet our family members when they walk  through the door and take a moment to check in. Of course, parents often complain that kids won’t talk about their day anyway. Parents offer the following familiar scenario:

We all feel the need to be there for our kids. We want to spare them emotional and psychological pain. We step in as tutors, counselors, teachers, police, chief cooks, and bottle washers. Anything, no, everything our kids need remedied, we do our best to fix. As parents, we have an unending desire, an un-qualifying need to make things better for our children. We promise to be there, but we can’t a...

  What’s the difference between A and B in the following statements? A: Raise your hand if you want to talk in class. B: Every student needs a chance to contribute and be heard because every voice matters. A: No talking in the hallways. B: We respect others’ learning time by being quiet in the hallways.