Sick Days
I work from home, and I think that means my kids get more sick days than the average student. It’s pretty easy for them to convince me that they need a day of rest if they have a bit of a cough or a slight fever. I admit I’m probably too easily swayed and I do tend to cave in when they look up at me with big sad eyes from where they have swooned onto the couch.
Managing Television and Streaming Video in the Home
Watching TV or streaming video should be a fun and relaxing activity for kids and adults alike—but too often it's a source of family conflict. If you're concerned about television, banning it isn't a practical solution. Instead, you need to learn to co-exist with television by managing how much your kids watch, and what. With more and more ways of viewing TV available we now have access to lots of both good quality and inappropriate TV content. In this crowded television environment, the key is to provide young children with a guided viewing experience and to model and teach them the critical thinking skills they need to be active, engaged viewers.How to Talk To Your Kids About Body Image During the Olympic Games
In ancient times the Olympics were a time when all nations – all Greek nations, anyway – would put away their differences and compete in almost every human activity, from poetry to the ferocious no-rules wrestling event called pankration. Being the very best that humans could be was seen as the best way to honour the gods of Olympus. Though we’ve dropped the poetry and the blood sports, people watching the swimming or volleyball events might wonder if we're on the way to bringing back the ancient tradition of competing in the nude. Revealing outfits – like those designed by Lululemon for the Canadian beach volleyball team – may be practical for those events, but they also shine a light on how dressing for sports can make us feel about ourselves. After all, it's hard to feel good about your own body when you've just spent an hour watching the most perfect physiques in the world nearly naked.
Talking to kids about gender stereotypes
Images of men and women in the media are often based on stereotypical roles of males and females in our society. Because stereotyping can affect how children feel about themselves and how they relate to others, it's important that they learn to recognize and understand gender stereotypes in different media.
Talking to kids about hate in media
Along with images of natural disasters and violence, one all-too-common news item that can be distressing to kids is reports of hate crimes. Seeing or hearing about hate-motivated assaults and vandalism of homes, cemeteries and places of worship in media, can lead to fear and anxiety in young people, especially if they belong to a vulnerable group. In many cases, the effect will be worse because news isn't the only place Canadian kids see hate and racism: almost half see hateful content online at least once a month, and one in six sees it every day.