Grade School

Healthy Body, Healthy Mind

“When you feel good, you have a much better chance to make good decisions.” – Ming Sun

The divide between mind and body has been debated for centuries. As we learn more about how our physical health influences our mental well-being, this divide becomes harder to find.

What Is A Nonverbal Learning Disability?

A nonverbal learning disability (NLD) is a syndrome that includes challenges in visual-spatial organization, nonverbal problem solving, and social skills. Despite often having strong verbal abilities, children with NLD have trouble understanding humor and adapting to new situations.

9 Ways to Know If Your Child’s Mental Health Clinician Is Right for Them

As parents, we all want the very best for our kids – the best teachers, coaches, and health professionals, among others.

About one in five of our children, teenagers, and young adults will experience a mental health issue and ideally receive mental health care.

Anxiety to Agency: Empowering Kids to Address Climate Change

Somewhere around last few years, I started fielding questions about climate change in my work as a child psychiatrist. 

“Have you seen the Mad Max movies?” kids would ask. “I mean, that’s where we’re heading.

Q+A: What’s Wrong With Our Daughter’s Mood?

Question: What’s wrong with our daughter Maura? She just told us, “Sometimes I just feel like hurting myself.”

Maura, a 13-year-old girl, came into my office because she told her parents, “Sometimes I just feel like hurting myself…I want to jump out the window or suffocate myself with my pillow.

How to Prepare for a Parent-Teacher Conference if Your Child Has ADHD

It’s that time of year again. Kids are back in school. Teachers are getting to know your child, and your child is adjusting to the routine of being a student. Is a parent-teacher conference far behind? If you’re the parent of a child with ADHD, these conferences can fill you with dread.

What Is Family Therapy?

Family therapy emphasizes the idea that a child lives and grows in relationship to others, particularly in relationship to members of his or her own family. There are many different family therapy approaches.

Helping Kids Fit In At School

For a good part of third grade, I sat by myself in the school cafeteria during lunch.

I don’t exactly recall feeling lonely during those isolating moments with my peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich, but I certainly feel sad as I look back today.

I just didn’t fit in—and that’s a truly awful feeling.

Q+A: Should I be nervous? My preschooler’s teacher recommended I have him evaluated for an anxiety disorder..

My 3-year-old son Justin has been in preschool for five months and he won’t stay unless I sit in the classroom with him. His teacher told me today that this isn’t fair to the other children and that I need to get him evaluated for an anxiety disorder.

Why Chores Are Important for Kids

Chores.

We all remember them.

Some were associated with allowance, others simply mandatory. For many kids, and I bet for most of us, they were often an intrusion on other more important things to do.