Holidays are supposed to be a wonderful time for the whole family. Kids are out of school. Relatives come to town. We need no excuses for eating good food, lingering too long at the table, and falling asleep in a comfortable chair at three o’clock in the afternoon. All so we can get up and do it all over again a couple of hours later. That’s the ideal. However, there’s
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past five years, you’ve heard all about self-care. It’s all the rage. Self-care posts are big on social media. You can see your friends taking yoga retreats, asking for recommendations for mani-pedis, posting about how much they loved the massage they got, or trying to recruit you to join them on their 10-day Shaketastic! weight-loss/cleanse/new you challenge. That’s all great –
Parents of teens are used to seeing changes in their kids. They watch them grow from the cutest infants imaginable who need literally everything done for them to little humans who can walk, talk, and tie their own shoes. They watch them go off to preschool or elementary school, where they make friends, discover hobbies, try sports, and maybe have their first crush. It’s filled with ups and downs. Long
If you have a friend or loved one who’s in treatment for a mental health disorder, or in recovery from an alcohol or substance use disorder, you probably want to help them in any way you can. And you should help them, if you can, because the fact you know about what they’re going through means they trust you with that information, and they want your help. The holidays can
If your teenager is living with a mental health or substance use disorder, you may not have thought of starting treatment over the Christmas holidays. At first blush, you might not think it’s a great idea. Away from family, away from the familiar, away from the rituals that make holidays important. Good points, all of them. We want you to think of Christmas break from a different point of view,
In just over a week from now, families all over the country will pack up their suitcases and visit relatives near and far. They’ll take a break from the hustle and bustle of the workaday world to spend time with the people closest to them during this season of gratitude, giving, and too much delicious food. But before they get to the good part – all that family and food
The stories about alcohol and drugs we read in the press are almost always negative. For years, news about alcohol and drugs either revolved around celebrities checking in and out of rehab or the next new drug parents needed to know their thrill-seeking teens might try. More recently, the press is all about the opioid crisis. And for good reason: the opioid crisis is real. People are dying from opioid
Every three years, high school students from over sixty countries take a series of standardized tests designed to assess their proficiency in core subject areas such as mathematics, reading, and science. The test is part of a larger effort, called the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), which helps education policymakers compare their students and education systems with those in other countries around the world. In order to level the
If you have a teen, you may wonder why they always seem to be sleeping. Or tired. They might have a hard time getting up in the morning, and you’ve heard reports that they’re falling asleep in class. Or they may come straight home from school and take a nap. True, school keeps them busy. And true, they may be involved in many extracurricular activities, which can keep them later
Professionals working in clinical medicine and general healthcare have known about the long-term effects of early trauma on the development of chronic disease in adulthood for over twenty years. Until recently, however, most of these professionals worked in mental health, and understood early trauma in terms of its impact on psychological issues – mood and anxiety disorders in particular. These professionals established the trauma-informed approach to care that gains momentum
