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Most of us can remember feeling dread in the moments before taking a test, and the fears, self-doubts, and what ifs that flourish in those moments: What if I get stuck on a question? What if I don’t know the answer? What if I freeze and forget everything? Today’s students have the same fears and doubts. But they also experience those emotions more frequently and sometimes more intensely. Why? Because in addition to their classroom tests, there has been a steady rise in the number …

Today, more and more students seem to be experiencing separation anxiety. That’s not terribly surprising, however, given everything they’ve lived through in recent years. According to the Child Mind Institute, several contributing factors are behind the rise in separation anxiety: Many kids have grown accustomed to spending more time at home with their families. They have experienced disrupted school schedules and routines. They are more wary of others after m …

About 10 years ago, I signed up to run the Disney Marathon. I had run shorter races - 5ks, 10ks, even half marathons, but I had never fathomed the full 26.2 mile race until I experienced how amazing running my first race at Disney World was. I immediately signed up to run the full. I knew it would take a lot of motivation to train (and then run) 26.2 miles. Disney races are high-energy, with fun character stops, entertainment, and dazzling medals. I knew the journey, the race itself, …

We’ve all had those evenings where there just doesn’t seem to be enough time to do everything we’d like to get done. Many kids rush from school straight to extracurricular activities, and dinner becomes an afterthought as families scramble to make time for schoolwork and getting ready for the next day. With multiple children in a family, everything is multiplied. Enter Opal Octopus, whose busy schedule and inability to say no have her juggling too much on her plate. Opal uses these tips …

As a school counselor, I often share with parents one of my favorite quotes by Catherine M. Wallace: “Listen earnestly to anything your children want to tell you, no matter what. If you don’t listen eagerly to the little stuff when they are little, they won’t tell you the big stuff when they are big, because to them all of it has always been big stuff.”But where does that leave tattling? We certainly don’t want to encourage an influx of tattling in our classrooms, or in our homes -- there …