Receiving a tearful phone call or a sad note from your child away at camp can pull at your heart strings. Dealing with homesickness is often a source of stress for parents. It’s very common. Camps have been dealing with it for generations. Homesickness is a normal response when separated from a familiar environment… View [...]
When summer rolls around, many parents prepare to send their children to sleep-away camp. Before making a decision on a camp, though, you should consider what kind of camping experience will benefit both your child and family. Jonathan A. Slater, MD, associate clinical professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at Columbia University in New York, [...]
As summer camp season nears, you may wonder if your child is ready to handle so much time away from home. Relax, experts say. Homesickness is as natural at camp as making new friends or getting the midnight giggles. "Younger kids tend to get more severely homesick than older kids, because they have less previous [...]
Dealing with an angry child is doubtless among parenthood's least favorite experiences—yet all parents go through it. "Anger is as legitimate an emotion as joy or sadness, and it's the most common way children express feelings of frustration," says Sal Severe, PhD, an Arizona psychologist and author of several parenting books, including How to Behave [...]
No doubt about it—TV, interactive video games, and the Internet can be excellent sources of education and entertainment for kids. But too much screen time can have unhealthy side effects. That's why it's wise to monitor and limit the time your child spends playing video games, watching TV, and on the computer and the internet… [...]
The Internet can be a wonderful resource for kids. They can use it to research school reports, communicate with teachers and other kids, and play interactive games. Kids who are old enough to punch in a few letters on the keyboard can have access to the world. But that access can also pose hazards… View the [...]
Parents of the 10- to 17-year-old crowd are often bewildered by their scions' immersion in the virtual world. "You might peek into your kid's room, and your kid is on MySpace and they're talking on the phone and they're texting and IMing and there's music coming from the iPod--basically, you're seeing kids who are so [...]
For most children and teenagers, using the Internet has joined watching television and talking on the phone in the repertoire of typical behavior. In fact, 87 percent of 12- to 17-year-olds are now online, according to a 2005 Pew Research Center report. That's a 24 percent increase over the previous four years, leading parents and [...]
Parents planning to ground their teenagers at home for their latest antics might want to consider dropping them off at the mall instead. Being away from the computer may put quite a damper on their social life, according to new research suggesting that teens who use the Internet to communicate may have better friendships than [...]
An estimated 750,000 American teens and young adults are problem gamblers according to researchers at the University at Buffalo's Research Institute on Addictions. Problem gambling is defined as gambling associated with three or more negative consequences, such as gambling more than you intended or stealing money to gamble. The national telephone survey of almost 2,300 [...]