What is anxiety? Anxiety is a feeling of intense worry or uneasiness that we experience when we’re facing something stressful, often a situation with an uncertain outcome. In a concerning situation, feeling a certain amount of anxiety is normal, and can even be helpful – for example, it can help us stay motivated to meet deadlines, or even keep us safe in a scary situation. Read more ›
Last night, my daughter snuck upstairs to say (another) goodnight as I was curled up on the couch, watching the news. While I did manage to quickly hide my secret chocolate stash under a throw blanket, I didn’t pause the TV in time to prevent her from the jarring sight of families desperately fleeing a bombed out apartment building in Ukraine. She looked at me, panic-stricken. “Are we in a war?” she asked. She’s nine, and I didn’t know what to say. Read more ›
Did you know that big and important changes are happening in the brain during adolescence? Here are 7 things to know about the teen brain. Read more ›
Hear what child development experts have to say about what parents, teachers and other caregivers can do to help prepare and protect kids from all the scary news out there, whether it’s fighting overseas, a school shooting, devastating wildfire or a global pandemic. Read more ›
Even after weeks of bracing for an attack amid speculation, global tensions and diplomatic attempts to stave off invasion in the Ukraine — the reality of conflict is always a shock to the system.
Perhaps among the first batch on your mind: How did we get here? What does this all mean? Or maybe, What does this mean for my life? What can I do about it? Read more ›
At a time when all life’s challenges have been amplified by the pandemic – and awareness of burnout, at home and at work, has never been higher – stress might seem to be our baseline condition. For most of us, these periods of pressure pass relatively quickly. Even serious stress can be temporary and, given the chance to recover, we usually will. Read more ›
Emergency rooms across the country have seen a surge in the number of teenage girls dealing with eating and other disorders, including anxiety, depression and stress, during the pandemic, a new government report shows.
The report offers up compelling evidence about the kinds of mental health issues that have plagued a generation of adolescents. Read more ›
There’s a picture that went viral early in the pandemic that became a symbol of how hard emergency remote schooling was for the youngest students. The image showed a 5-year-old student sitting at a small desk in his family’s kitchen, facing a laptop computer. He’s holding a pencil in one hand, pulling up the neck of his T-shirt with his other hand to wipe tears away from his eyes. Read more ›
This past fall, students and staff at close to 200 public schools in Wake County, N.C., which includes Raleigh, received an unexpected break. Schools were closed on November 12 for a day of reflection and preparation.” That same day, schools in Cumberland County, N.C., about 60 miles south, had the day off for “Wellness Friday.” Read more ›
What does it mean to be an adult? In the twentieth century, psychologists came up with five markers of adulthood: finish your education, get a job, leave home, marry, and have children. Since then, every generation has been held to those same markers. Yet so much has changed about the world and living in it since that sequence was formulated. Read more ›
