The book Strong Families Successful Students: helping teenagers reach their full academic potential offers hope and insight to parents who wonder if what they are doing is “good enough” when it comes to helping their children experience success in school.
Author Dr. Stephen Gavazzi says, “Nearly every family with a teen who has problems in school [...]

[Read more →]

All parents can relate to the difficulty of tutoring ones own kids. A couple of reasons for the challenge together with some ideas of how to improve make it worth checking out Why Parents Don’t Make Great Tutors for Their Kids in the Wall Street Journal.
Most times when I try to teach my children something – [...]

[Read more →]

Can We Determine Our Own Intelligence? Richard Nisbett, a University of Michigan social psychologist, says yes. His research claims environment is more powerful than genetics when it comes to influencing IQ and achievement.
In his book, Intelligence and How to Get It: Why Schools and Cultures Count, Nisbett says, “Believing that intelligence is under your control [...]

[Read more →]

Connie Parker, founding director of Wilmington Health Access for Teens and executive director of the N.C. Association of School Based/School Linked Health Centers, reminds us that teens don’t want to disappoint their parents, which is one of the reasons they don’t share their feelings. Ms. Parker clarifies that teen “secretiveness is often not about them, [...]

[Read more →]

Boys want relationships more than just sex with the girls they date .
Reported in the New York Times, a paper published in Journal of Adolescence says the “overall findings are contrary to cultural beliefs that boys are interested primarily in sex and not relationships.”
“Let’s give boys more credit,’’ said study author Andrew Smiler, an assistant [...]

[Read more →]

“It’s amazing what can happen to underachievers when someone believes in them and is willing to help,” said private tutor and former teacher Jennifer Dutkiewicz. Of course just chanting “I am the greatest…” isn’t going to help most children, but your involvement can. The Arizona Republic article continues:
“If your child is having [...]

[Read more →]

Do you know how you’ll respond when your child’s report card comes home? Whether or not grades meet our expectations or our child’s, our response can help motivate our child and provide a chance to learn. Are social skills an issue? Does you son’s lack of organization and poor study skills translate into [...]

[Read more →]

Involved parents make a big, positive difference in children’s education. If you want to make homework work for your family, here are some ideas from MVParents.com of what you can do, organized by age.
For parents with children ages 6 – 9

Establish a consistent homework routine at a time that works for your family; stick [...]

[Read more →]

In response to the story about the teacher assigning homework to parents, the New York Times invited Sara Bennett, coauthor of The Case Against Homework, to write an op-ed. Her essay wasn’t printed, but is available online.
While all parents want their children to develop — socially, emotionally, and intellectually — school-imposed assignments on parents [...]

[Read more →]

Involved parents make a big, positive difference in children’s education. If you want to make homework work for your family, here are some ideas from MVParents.com of what you can do, organized by age.
For parents with children ages birth to 5
At this age, the best things you can do to support your children’s learning [...]

[Read more →]