Giving kids the social skills they need to succeed
by Jack DiMento The most meaningful way that I believe I’ve improved the lives of others is by working for an organization that drastically improved mine. In the summer of 2011, I began attending a camp in Natick, Creative Adventures, that was designed for children who needed help developing their self esteem and social skills. The author – shown here in July […]
» Read moreWhen the quarantine started back in March, I never thought “Oh good. Think of all the opportunities we’re going to have to improve our skill sets!” That never happened and I want to be clear about that. But, now with 4 months of this brave new world under our belts, many of us, by necessity, have found ourselves happy to […]
» Read moreI’ve been working with kids for a long time. When I started running group therapy sessions, Ronald Reagan was winding down his second term. I was a 25 year-old graduate student, living with roommates in a crummy apartment. A few weeks ago, I turned 57. I live with my wife and teenage daughter in a house in the suburbs. Almost […]
» Read moreYour child may need to have explicit conversations with you about feelings that might come up for them (and for you!) before you begin to have a conversation about race.
» Read moreMy career as a fortune-teller is doomed. When the COVID-19 quarantine was just getting started, I figured that kids with neurodevelopmental issues like Autism Spectrum Disorder and ADHD were going to have an especially difficult time of it. Gone was the routine, structure, and predictability that these kids rely on to guide them through the day. Taking their place would […]
» Read moreBy Stewart Pruslin, M.Ed As we all (I assume all of us) now have kids at home for the next couple of weeks, I wanted to share a couple of conversations I had with my 12 ½ year old son Kevin about recent coronavirus events. These conversations definitely helped put him at ease but are just my own individual account […]
» Read moreFor the past few weeks, we’ve been exploring a few simple, practical things you can do in order to help your organizationally challenged middle schoolers come to grips with the increased executive function demands they encounter in their schoolwork. In the first installment of this series, we discussed time and time management, focusing on strategies aimed at maximizing the effectiveness […]
» Read moreLast week, we journeyed along the “space/time/memory continuum back to the days of middle school. In that blog entry, we focused on time management issues, particularly as they relate to long-term assignments and projects your child may be undertaking. This week, we shift our attention to the matter of space. Specifically, is there a straightforward way in which parents can help […]
» Read moreI’ve met very few adults who look back on their middle school experience with anything resembling fondness. Newly raging hormones, along with healthy doses of social awkwardness, complication, and occasional nastiness can make those years a slog. You’re caught in a weird space between childhood and adolescence and it’s hard to figure out exactly where you fit in. When my […]
» Read moreFew things frustrate me more than wasted potential. Seeing smart, capable, hardworking people who, through no fault of their own, are denied opportunities to live their lives to the fullest, motivate me to come to work as a counselor each day. When I met Sam Farmer about 2 months ago, it occurred to me that he could easily have become […]
» Read more