Getting School Ready

Darell Hammond, CEO and founder of KaBOOM!, grew up with seven brothers and sisters at the Mooseheart Child City & School, a residential group home outside of Chicago. There, he learned about volunteerism and leadership, and began to understand that great playgrounds make a big difference to kid

While working at a science museum, I once observed a mother, toting a daughter past exhibits on dinosaurs, oceans and machines, approach an employee. “Where is the stuff for girls?” she asked. It’s a question that would ruffle the feathers of any female archaeologist, marine biologist or engineer.

Andy, a bright middle schooler, loved math, but when it came to tests, his scores would end up in the low B/high C range, his calculations cramped, barely legible and taking up every inch of space on the paper. He understood the concepts, but Andy just couldn’t align the numbers neatly enough on the

When I packed my kids’ school lunches, I relied on the tried and true: peanut butter and jelly sandwiches; celery, overstuffed with cream cheese; a juice-box (fruit flavored!); and an Oreo cookie, maybe two. These days, that menu seems positively antiquated (so does the New Kids on the Block lunchb

We get it. You’ve been supervising study sessions, reminding your 10-year-old to finish his history report and helping your 8-year-old create dazzling science projects. Now summer is coming and hey, you need a break. Isn’t it time for swimming, baseball, biking, picnics and backyard barbecues? Fo

When your child isn’t getting enough sleep at night, neither are you. That leaves you too tired to work, to parent, to enjoy grown-up activities — and to deal with your kid’s sleep problems. What’s more, your child’s sleep — or lack of it — can affect her ability to learn. Just how much sleep do ki

We all say these words. We ask — no, make that insist — our children say them, and we expect to hear them regularly from friends, relatives, even perfect strangers. The words “I’m sorry” reverberate through homes, playgrounds, family functions and just about everywhere, just about incessantly. In

By now, most of us realize we need to pay attention to our kids’ emotional and cognitive growth. We understand so much more than we used to about empathy, compassion and emotional intelligence, or “EQ.” But what do we know about our kids’ MQ? That would be their money quotient. Do our children know