Category Archives: Blog

What to Say to Kids When The News Is Scary

Leer en español The news can be devastating: Communities are reeling after a mass shooting killed 21 people — including 19 children — at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. That’s after a shooter, motivated by a racist conspiracy theory, shot and killed 10 people at a grocery store in Buffalo, N.Y., and another shooter in Dallas injured three…

What to say to kids about school shootings to ease their stress

If you have school-age children, chances are they’ve already talked to their classmates about the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. So what’s the best way to know how they’re feeling and what they’re thinking? Ask them. “Children’s questions may be very different from adults’,” says David Schonfeld, a pediatrician who directs the National Center for…

Identity, mastery, belonging and efficacy: Four ways student agency can flourish

Copyright © 2021 by Shane Safir. All rights reserved. Reprinted from “Street Data: A Next-Generation Model for Equity, Pedagogy, and School Transformation,” by Shane Safir and Jamila Dugan. Corwin Press, Inc., www.Corwin.com.   By Shane Safir and Jamila Dugan The BALMA project was a social experiment where three teachers—one white (Shane), one Afro-Cuban (Lisa), and one…

After the Buffalo slayings, parents struggle through talks with their children

BUFFALO, N.Y. — The mass shooting in a Buffalo grocery store that police say was committed by an 18-year-old man radicalized by white supremacist ideology has left the western New York city torn and searching for answers. For many parents, confronting the ideology espoused by the murder suspect means having difficult conversations with their children…

Americans support student loan forgiveness, but would rather rein in college costs

As President Biden inches toward an announcement on federal student loan forgiveness, a new NPR/Ipsos poll has found slightly more than half of Americans support what has been reported to be Biden’s likeliest path: forgiving up to $10,000 per person. But an overwhelming majority – including a majority of those with student loans – said…

How parents can nurture children’s self-esteem without raising narcissists

Excerpted from “How to Raise Kids Who Aren’t A**holes” by Melinda Wenner Moyer. Copyright © 2021 by Melinda Wenner Moyer and excerpted by permission of G.P. Putnam’s Sons. All rights reserved. By Melinda Wenner Moyer First, I want to correct a misconception that many parents have about self-esteem. There’s a widespread worry that if you…