Recent Articles
The teen discipline tightrope: A parental balancing act
By Patti Skelton-McGougan, executive director of Youth Eastside Services.Disciplining your teenager can be tricky and daunting at times. No doubt it’s one of the hardest struggles that parents face. We often wonder about the severity of the consequences—should they be the same for all teens and scen
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Online monitoring: Do you know your child's passwords?
Teens and tweens of every stripe are logging onto Buzz, Skype, email and Facebook. Should parents know their children’s passwords and monitor their communication? The debate sparks passion on both sides. Some parents believe their children have a right to privacy, as with the locked diaries and hush
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My kid isn't 'into' anything!
As Cindy Wilson’s* two kids neared the end of elementary school, she worried that they weren’t involved in sports. She had always participated in athletics and still worked out daily, so was surprised to raise relatively inactive children. Wilson had signed the two up for a host of sports teams,
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Alarming videos glamorize self-harm: What parents should know
By Patti Skelton-McGougan, executive director of Youth Eastside Services. Disturbing YouTube videos, showing cutting and other self-injury methods, are drawing millions of views and have the potential to trigger troubled youth to copy the behaviors, a study warns. Though the issue of self-harm has
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TV nation: Viewing time hits new heights
Three-year-old Maggie is in the middle of a TV-watching marathon. Though her mom has careful rules about what Maggie can watch, she watches a lot — nearly four hours every day. Kevin, an 8-year-old, watches TV in his room while getting ready for school, after school to “unwind,” and again after
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Talking honestly about drug use
By Patti Skelton-McGougan, executive director of Youth Eastside ServicesHave you been asked The Question? Not the one about where babies come from but the one parents these days dread far more—“Did you smoke pot when you were my age?” Relax. It’s ok to be honest with your kids about your past. Just
Read More »New Year's Resolutions for Kids
The American Academy of Pediatrics offers this great list of ideas for age-appropriate New Year's resolutions for kids! Preschoolers I will clean up my toys and put them where they belong. I will brush my teeth twice a day, and wash my hands after going to the bathroom and before eating. I won’t te
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Are we born racist? The talk you must have with your children
Check out our reader's reflections on race this month for personal opinions and stories. Five-year-old Kayleigh is showing her grandma around her kindergarten classroom. With obvious pride, she points out her photo on the attendance board, the soupy aquariums brimming with salmon eggs, the cozy and
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