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New research finds that chronic bullying is related to lower academic achievement, a dislike of school, and low confidence by students in their own academic abilities. Investigators tracked hundreds of children from kindergarten through high school and found that nearly a quarter of kids in the study experienced bullying. While pop culture often depicts more frequent bullying in high school, the study found that bullying was more severe and frequent in elementary school and tended to taper...

Mental health problems continue to carry a heavy stigma. People who experience them are often feared, excluded, shamed and discriminated against. Overcoming that stigma is a high priority, not least because it’s a barrier to engaging people in treatments that might help them. People suffering from mental health problems are not the only ones to experience the stigma of mental illness, however. Those who treat them sometimes share the burden. Just as the shadow of death falls on workers in...

In Chicago, where the number of shootings last year soared, it's often young people who become both perpetrators and victims. The Cook County Juvenile Justice Center holds about 200 to 300 young residents awaiting trial at the Temporary Detention Center. Among these residents are Leonard and Nigel, both 17 years old. Because of the rules of the juvenile court, Nigel and Leonard's full names and specifics about their cases can't be disclosed. The two, along with several other detainees, were...

Practicing mindfulness, we see the suffering that is caused by the destruction of life everywhere, and we vow to cultivate compassion and use it as a source of energy to protect the lives of people, animals, plants and minerals. When we see suffering, compassion is born in us. People often use their anger at social injustice as a basis for action, but that is unwise. When you are angry you are not lucid, and you can do many harmful things. According to Buddhism, the only source of energy...

Visit advancingparenting.org to learn about a small nonprofit organization pioneering passive/public parenting education. Read about what we do, why we do it, and our plans for the future. Parenting tips on cars will be read 1000s of times by 1000s of people of all ages. This is the essence of passive/public parenting education.

What's the best time for students to have recess? Before lunch, or after? What happens if it rains? If students are misbehaving, is it a good idea to punish them by making them sit out recess? Those are just a few of the issues addressed in new guidelines designed to help schools have good recess. The recommendations come from a group called SHAPE (Society of Health and Physical Educators) America and from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Recess might seem simple — just open...

In case you don't know what makes for healthy sleep habits, a U.S.-based expert panel has defined them for you in a new report. The key indicators include: sleeping at least 85 percent of the total time spent in bed; falling asleep within 30 minutes or less; waking up no more than once a night; and being awake for 20 minutes or less after initially falling asleep. The National Sleep Foundation report also outlined research needed to identify and describe more indicators of good sleep quality...

Note: While we don't all share the same politics or faith perspectives, I think there are some universally wonderful messages in this post . I've heard lots of my friends struggling about how to show up in the world, how to improve the world and how to balance life and work and health and home. So much is urgent and upsetting and serious which is many of us feel upset and urgent are so serious. If we're contending with ACEs or toxic stress or adverse community events and environments, past...

There are numerous entities in this community working on initiatives to close the faucet spewing a toxic mixture of conditions that negatively impact poor families and the children in those families. These efforts are mostly designed to plug the pipeline of adverse childhood experiences that result in children not reaching their full potential. That means stabilizing families by developing strategies to meet a family’s specific needs. Agape Child and Family Services received a major boost in...

Legislators from both sides of the aisle found points of agreement on health care issues Saturday as they discussed Medicaid, child services and mental health care, and the need for better community psychiatric services in North Carolina. A capacity crowd of 400 filled UNC-Chapel Hill’s Friday Center for the 39th annual Legislative Breakfast on Mental Health, which featured a panel of two Republicans and four Democrats who agreed that more uninsured people in North Carolina need health...

If you asked 17-year-old Newark, N.J. resident Naseer Wilkerson to describe what his neighborhood looks like at night, he couldn’t do it. That’s because he hasn’t seen it for years. He maps the most direct route, Monday through Friday, between the apartment he shares with his mom to his high school a few blocks away and then over to his friend Daniel’s house to do homework or play video games. Naseer—a Boy Scout and an aspiring video game creator—says he avoids being outside as much as...

We are doing a great job of passing our prejudices down to our kids. That’s the key takeaway from a newly published study , which finds considerable bias against Arab Muslims among Americans between the ages of six and 11. Arab Muslims — whether described as American citizens or immigrants— were seen in negative, stereotyped terms, in spite of the fact only 11 percent of the kids knew the word “Muslim” referred to a religion. Negative assumptions predated even rudimentary knowledge of the...