This podcast episode provides important lessons antibias and antiracist practices as well as how to address some uncomfortable conversations with kids, in the moment, when biased things are said.
This podcast will focus on the key skills kids need to thrive in middle school and beyond as well as how parents and educators can help. In this interview with school counselor and psychotherapist, Phyllis Fagell, LCPC, author of Middle School Matters, we discuss how to talk to middle schoolers when so much is changing in their lives- physical, social, emotional—and when they are riding the line between needing their parents and wanting to individuate. How do we stay connected but also step back and allow them to shine? How do we shift our role to manager to coach? And how do we encourage our children to take risks in this low-stakes period of life when everything seems big, scary and consequential? Dr. Robyn Silverman and Phyliis Fagell discuss all that relates to middle school matters.
Having a conversation about death and dying is not typically a conversation people are excited to have with their kids. And yet, we all know it’s necessary. A friend of mine came over to me at a party the other day. She had just found out that her mother-in-law had stage 4 cancer. While dealing with her own whirlwind of emotions, knowing that I provide tips and scripts to have these tough conversations with kids, she asked me; “What do I tell the kids? What if they ask me if she’ll die? What do I say when she does?” The concept of dying can be scary, sad, confusing, angering and upsetting for many of us. Our own emotions, our concern about our children’s emotions- how they are going to take the news- how they are going to cope with life when someone they love dies- how might they grieve—what’s normal- these can make us worry about having the conversations in the first place. Not to mention, our confusion over what to say and how to say it can make this topic on how to talk to kids about death and dying- a real tough one.