The Difference 1 Makes: Reflections on the CDC Autism Rates
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released its official autism rates this morning: 1 in 88. The rates for boys are even more frightening: 1 in 54. I've been sitting at my desk trying to wrap my brain around these numbers, because to me, they are not numbers, they are shattered lives. My son IS the 1 in 54. He was born in 1997 when rates were somewhere around 1 in 500. He's only 14. In 14 years, this is the explosion. Worst of all, our government has not yet called a national emergency.
Here is the real emergency: For every "1" in these statistics, there are two parents, four... Read More
There are many refugees living in the United States. Refugees are people who have fled their country of origin because they were persecuted or due to humanitarian reasons. The number of refugee children living in America is unknown, but many of these individuals suffer with significant 
When parents use children as pawns in their 
Resilience (from dictionary.com): 1. Power or ability to return to the original form, position, etc, after being bent, compressed or stretched; elasticity. 2. Ability to recover readily from illness, depression, adversity or the like; buoyancy; spring back.
My friends’ children, 4 and 5 years of age, are riding their bicycles without training wheels. They went out for a ride with their dad, doing well, but the 4 year old was going faster and she took her feet off the pedals because she was scared and she crashed into her dad. The 5 year old was going ahead of them on their way back home and... 
People who have suffered childhood trauma are at increased risk for psychological problems resulting from extreme stress. Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is one such condition that has been linked to severe childhood trauma. When the trauma is inflicted by a caregiver, the child’s ability to cope is significantly impaired. The effects of unhealthy coping, attachment dysfunction, and emotional regulation can affect many areas of the child’s life as they continue into adulthood. Affect dysregulation is the inability to control one’s 
Whether we care to admit it or not, the questions “Am I ugly?” and “Am I pretty?” chatter in a female’s mind throughout her lifetime. They are questions learned by girls at an early age.
A trend currently happening on YouTube speaks to this age-old phenomenon in a brand new way. Tween and teen girls are posting videos and asking complete strangers to tell them if they are pretty or ugly. Is this voyeuristic? A setup for cyber-bullying? An attention-seeking behavior? Unsupervised girls just being girls? Or are girls simply using current media communication means to do what girls, women,... 
I believe the answer to that question can be summed up in the wonderful poem that follows, by Emily Perl Kingsley…
Welcome to Holland
I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability—to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It’s like this….
When you’re going to have a baby, it’s like planning a fabulous vacation trip—to Italy. You buy a bunch of guidebooks and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy... 
Parents determine their level of parenting competence by gauging how well their children have grown and developed over time. It is important that a parent feels competent with their parenting abilities throughout a child’s life because this sense of competence directly impacts the parent’s self-esteem and well-being, which indirectly influence the child. When children are unruly and unresponsive to parental discipline, parents feel that their competence is in question. During adolescence, children act more impulsively, ignore parental guidance and engage in more externalizing behaviors than... 
Children who are enrolled in public schools in low-income communities are at a disadvantage both academically and psychologically. These children experience elevated rates of mental health problems due to their environments, family structures, and financial insecurity. At school, their opportunities are restricted as a result of a less than adequate learning environment, minimal resources, and external factors such as increased 
Binge eating is one type of eating issue that many adolescents and adults struggle with. It is believed that binge eating begins to develop in the early and preteen years. People who exhibit binge eating during their teen years are extremely vulnerable for the development of 
Special needs children require a level of attention that far exceeds that of other children. Compassion, patience, and understanding are resources that are often quickly exhausted when addressing the demanding task of caring for these special children. As children enter 
This article is the second part in a series on right use of power for youth.
Scene: ESL (English as a second language) class in Central Borneo, Indonesia. There are four 12th grade students and six 6th grade students in this class. This process lasted for three 1-hour-long class periods.
Let's review: power is the ability to have an effect or to have influence. All people have personal power, whether they know it or not. Any position of authority adds another layer of power to personal power. Positions of authority include teacher, religious leader, doctor, head of a company, government official,... 
There are several factors that have been shown to increase one’s chances of developing schizophrenia. Having a relative with schizophrenia or psychosis, experiencing auditory hallucinations, and exhibiting cognitive impairments are all markers that increase the risk of schizophrenia in children. Another less explored trait is dyskinesia, or involuntary physical movement or spasms. Children who show signs of dyskinesia often do so at a very young age. These characteristics, along with symptoms of psychotic-like experiences (PLEs), could provide clinicians with very early signs that a child may... 
Modern society conveys the idea that women should strive to be thin. Media have spent decades instilling this belief into popular culture, and many women try desperately to reach this unrealistic ideal. Relating a woman’s worth to her physical appearance and sexual appeal is known as objectification and is the catalyst for discrimination, sexual harassment, workplace inequality, and physical and sexual violence. Women who engage in self-objectification struggle with many negative psychological conditions resulting from vain attempts to achieve this ideal, including excessive exercise and extreme... 
