October 2021

By Guest Author, 10/19/21, positiveexperience.org/blog On October 15 th , the American Academy of Pediatrics released the sixth snapshot in the Family Snapshots: Life during the Pandemic series. This snapshot highlights parent and caregiver concerns about their children falling behind in school. This is the latest in a series of articles about the results of a survey of 9000 US parents and caregivers that the HOPE team, in collaboration with the American Academy of Pediatrics , Prevent Child...

Aristotle believed, "Courage was the first of human virtues because it makes all others possible." The need for courage is paramount in today's new world. While some wish to return to 'normal' I believe it’s a time to take advantage of being out of our collective comfort zone and embrace our growth as individuals and as a society. Change takes courage and it is no coincidence that this is our first character value in the formula for Choosing Love! As American poet laureate and legend Maya...

By Caitlin Gibson, The Washington Post, October 13, 2021 P atty Sang sat alone in the living room of her Seattle apartment, riveted by the breaking evening news on her television. A White gunman had just murdered eight people — six of them women of Asian descent — in a rampage that spanned three spas near Atlanta. It was March 16, one year into a global pandemic that incited a torrent of anti-Asian racism and violence, and Patty, a 48-year-old Korean American actor, instructor and solo...

By Alyssa Lukpat, The New York Times, October 3, 2021 “Anyone recognize him?” the police in Winter Haven, Fla., asked on Facebook last month. Photos with the post showed a man walking out of a Walmart without paying for his items after several of his credit cards were declined, the police said. Among the items in his cart were boxes of diapers. “When your card is declined and you try another one with the same result, that is NOT license to just walk out with the items anyway,” read the...

Flexible Program Fees! Register by Friday, October 15, 10pm. https://www.eventbrite.com/e/176760243647 Parenting is challenging at the best of times…and these are not the best of time! Join this engaging, online series where we apply the latest brain science and child development research to the challenges of today. Learn effective strategies and approaches while you connect with others who are raising elementary school-aged children. 6-week online series Tuesdays, October 19 - November 23,...

By Jason DeParle, The New York Times, October 9, 2021 To understand the problems Democrats hope to solve with their supersized plan to make child care better and more affordable, consider this small Southern city where many parents spend more for care than they do for mortgages, yet teachers get paid like fast food workers and centers cannot hire enough staff. With its white pillars and soaring steeple, the Friendly Avenue Baptist Church evokes an illusory past when fathers left for work,...

By Lizzie Tribone, Talk Poverty, October 5, 2021 When Jennifer Brown left Minnesota Correctional Facility-Shakopee on a work-release program, it had been six-and-a-half months since she had seen her son, Elijah. The last time they’d been together was when she gave birth to him, under the watch of two prison guards, in a hospital near the prison. Brown had forty-eight hours with her newborn before she had to hand him over to a family chosen by Together for Good, a religious nonprofit that...

By Shanicia Boswell, The New York Times, Oct. 15, 2020 Tips for creating safe spaces and developing emotional intelligence in your children. “Did you learn your lesson?” my mother asked. Those five words have been etched in my mind since I was a teenager. I was a good kid but, between boys and shenanigans with my friends, I was always pushing the boundaries. This time, I had received a speeding ticket for rushing to get home before my curfew. When I told her what had happened, my mother...

By Richard Schiffman, The New York Times, Aug. 6, 2020 Highly sensitive children, like orchids, thrive in the right environment, experts say. The new mother from a rural area near Burlington, Vt., noticed that her toddler’s behavior didn’t seem to fit the descriptions in the child-rearing books she was reading. Her daughter would burst into tears when she heard a loud bird call or a person singing out of tune, or if she wore scratchy clothes. And she always demanded to be carried by her...

By Emily Bramhall, Housing Matters, October 6, 2021 For students who are also parents, completing higher education in an in-demand field can lead to greater opportunity and financial stability . Though a growing number of young parents are enrolling in higher education programs, postsecondary institutions are often structured to serve recent high school graduates who do not have children depending on them. Parenting students juggle costs of tuition, housing, and child care while attending...

Of all the sad statistics the U.S. has dealt with this past year and a half, here is a particularly difficult one: A new study estimates that more than 140,000 children in the U.S. have lost a parent or a grandparent caregiver to COVID-19. The majority of these children come from racial and ethnic minority groups. "This means that for every four COVID-19 deaths, one child was left behind without a mother, father and/or a grandparent who provided for that child's home needs and nurture —...

Juleus Ghunta’s empowering book Rohan Bullkin and the Shadows—A Story about ACEs and Hope , vibrantly illustrated by Rachel Moss, is a much-needed story of a boy who experiences Shadows that interfere with his ability to read because they make his mind “flicker like a hurricane,” go blank, and sometimes race and “refuse to shut down.” This is an affirming, normalizing contextualization of how bad events and scary experiences, now understood from the science of adverse childhood experiences...