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Most people have heard the saying “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” Well, that is a big LIE! Words are being used more than ever to hurt people in the world today. Have you ever said something that you wish you could take back? We all have. In fact, there have been times when that little voice in my head has advised me, “Don’t say it, you’re going to regret it…” and I still spoke those words. Usually, an argument begins when I could have avoided i …

When I was a graduate student, I spent a number of hours observing other school counselors conducting classroom guidance lessons. One memorable lesson involved a counselor who used the idiom, “Before you judge a man, walk a mile in his shoes.” The lesson was designed to introduce the concept of empathy to first graders. While the students seemed to enjoy the lesson, there was still some confusion regarding the concept. Some even took the idiom literally. I can only imagine the interest …

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 …

When children are young, we teach by showing. We show them what money looks like when we count it. We take more abstract concepts, like addition and subtraction, and physically show them how it looks to add one apple to a group of three or subtract two blocks from a group of five. Basic counting eventually turns into algebra, trigonometry, or calculus. So, too, goes the teaching of social skills or positive character traits like being kind to others. We start simply by showing them, a …

Earlier this month, I discussed how one of my son’s middle-school teachers focused on his kindness towards others as the highlight of our parent-teacher conference, and how it inspired me to look at my own behavior and seek ways to choose kindness and reinforce the same with our children. In this week’s post, the story continues with a reflection on kindness and tips for teaching children to choose kindness. Our son has always been a kind soul. From the time he was young, he had wha …

School conferences have generally been good experiences for my husband and me. With few exceptions, we often hear about our kids’ achievements, how they seem to be doing in class or at school, and hear very positive things about their behavior.But when our son (who is now entering 10th grade) was in sixth grade, he hit a rough patch in school. He was doing fine overall, but definitely not living up to his potential in some classes. Homework had been missed, projects not done to completion, …