Your daughter is frantic because her younger brother took one of her belongings and won’t admit it, but you’re about to leave for school. Usually you would stop, listen, and work it out, but you haven’t got the bandwidth or the time. Instead, you say, “We have to leave and talk about this later.” Not an ideal way to start the day, but during our Oct 20, panel discussion on “Helping Children Ride Waves of Frustration,” psychotherapist and parent coach, Samantha Watson-Alvarado

Although they are responding to different stages of development, the parent of a family with a two-year-old and another with a ten-year-old in our school community may have more in common than they realize. Both have to get their children out the door in the morning, and at the end of the day they pick up a child who may express frustration about an incident still buzzing like a bee in their minds. At home they both might have to navigate transitions from play time to dinner

My daughter recently begged me to let her stay for aftercare. I complained to my mom, a former Meher Schools teacher, saying it felt wasteful since I had no need for her to stay. Her response was, “Students make some of their strongest memories in aftercare.” It dawned on me that she was right. A Meher Schools alum myself, my most solid memories from elementary school are from aftercare. Elementary aftercare can be a bit mysterious for non-alumni parents. We develop familiar

Who wears a suit and tie to school in fourth grade? This may sound like the beginning of a riddle, but the answer reveals how children discover that the ways they decide to present themselves can dramatically change the way the world responds to them. When a fourth-grade boy sported a suit and tie last week for picture day, his teacher Claire Amley-Martinez was impressed. In our casual culture, students with nice shirts and freshly combed hair are delightful photo day sights,

You’ve been looking forward to a special treat all morning. As an adult, your off-site break might include a latte and scone. However, if it turns out the coffee shop is closed, you might feel deflated but able to move on with your day. To contrast with a different stage of development, imagine you are a five-year-old in Room 7 who is anticipating being first in line, a heady accomplishment promoting powerful feelings of self-efficacy. When the time comes to line up, you make

Babies learning to walk don’t compare themselves to others or say, “I’m taking way more steps than anyone else my age.” Their first steps, tentatively letting go of solid surfaces, take great courage. But with a little practice, they waddle along like small boats on a rocky sea with single-minded focus: the determination to move forward. Soon their walking turns into running. Anyone who has ever seen the pure exhilaration of a toddler running away from a parent can’t help but

“Someone pushed me, and I didn’t push back, I found a teacher,” a four-and-a-half-year-old boy proudly announces to his father at the end of the day. His excitement indicates his sense that this was a huge step forward in his development. Stopping and getting help mid-dispute demonstrates what we call self-regulation, the ability to manage feelings and respond rather than react. In a few years, he and his classmate will have learned to resolve a heated argument themselves wi

“I let my kids choose one activity this fall. My kindergartener has a weekly swim class he loves, and my third grader is crazy about Jumping Jack Rabbits, her three-week track class. I tell them I don’t want our lives to feel hectic.” As the fall season with its shorter days sets in, we often reexamine priorities and schedules and how busy we want to be. In our area, it’s popular for children to be involved in an abundance of extracurricular activities, and parents sometimes

“Can you be patient and make space for your friends?” This is a question elementary art teacher Ms. Lara Cannon asks children to help teach them the new etiquette she has created for her first-through-fifth-grade students in her classroom. She shows them how simply standing back and making space allows each person room to remove their apron without crowding. Ms. Lara is convinced that children can learn new manners at any age but does not want her new art etiquette to be simp