Remember when receipt of a coffee mug emblazoned with “Best Mom Ever” or a T-shirt proclaiming “Best Dad Ever” was enough to validate someone’s skills and aptitude as a parent? In the 21st century, it seems that the ante has been raised. In the eyes of society, parents barely qualify
Tag: Family
When treating clients struggling with substance abuse, Lindsey Chadwick would like her fellow counselors to keep in mind the toll that addiction takes on children. Addiction affects the whole household. Children feel the effects differently — but as acutely — as adults, says Chadwick, a licensed professional counselor and manager
The role of fatherhood has changed over the years. Hundreds of years ago, the father was the most important parent for raising the children, then he became the breadwinner, and today an expansive volume of research details a general lack of involvement by fathers in their children’s lives. Plenty of
The amazing feature about kaleidoscopes is the endless, ever-changing scenes and complex patterns they reveal to anyone who takes the time to look. The gentlest of rotations invites a new and oftentimes completely different perspective on the same set of colorful shapes. Working with children, adults and families involved in
Children in schools today come from increasingly diverse and complex families. As illustration, more than 1 million families are impacted annually by divorce. In fact, approximately 13.7 million single parents are raising 21.8 million children, and 1 in 3 Americans are stepparents, stepchildren, stepsiblings or part of a stepfamily. Furthermore,
Counselors play a fundamental role in the well-being of children and adolescents, including serving as advocates against abuse. We are trained to assess and intervene if clients are experiencing sexual, physical or emotional abuse or neglect. Children are a particularly vulnerable population given their size, power status and general lack
Counselors’ skills and expertise as mediators, relationship builders and client advocates are critical to improving the lives of children in foster care and providing support to both foster and biological families.
For decades, white Americans have adopted children of color here in the United States and from other countries such as South Korea, Guatemala, China and Ethiopia. In many cases, these children are raised in white families with no awareness of the culture they came from. This was particularly true in
“W hat are you?” That is a question commonly asked of individuals who are multiracial. As a society, we have gotten used to checking off a metaphorical — and often literal — “box” when it comes to questions of race. We seem to expect everyone to “just pick one.” But the
According to census data, there were roughly 125,000 same-sex couples raising approximately 220,000 children in the United States in 2010. Since that time, increasing numbers of same-sex couples have declared committed partnerships, capturing the attention of policymakers and bringing the issue of legal recognition of same-sex partnerships to the forefront of