Picking the Topics for Elementary Small Groups

happy teacher

Small groups are a great way develop relationships with students and teach meaningful lessons, all while maximizing your time by serving several students at once. What’s the downside? For me it was developing an effective system that I could repeat over and over rather than re-creating the wheel every year. The first question to tackle…

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6 steps to take charge of test anxiety

Male Student Working At Desk In Chinese School Classroom

Conquering Test Anxiety is Possible As the school year winds down, anxiety ramps up. There is anxiety over passing to the next grade and completing projects. But most of all there is anxiety over testing. The best way to eliminate test anxiety, is to put testing in it’s proper perspective.  In an education world where…

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Are Kids Less Disciplined than Ever?

Young girls playing or working on a computer

Kids and Discipline If you have any connection to the educational system as I do, it’s not unusual to hear teachers complain that children today are much harder to teach than in years past. In fact, the job of the teacher has become so difficult that the average length of time that new teachers stay…

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Where Negative Thoughts Come From and How to Change Them

stressed kid

Negative thoughts… we’ve all got them. But where do they come from? Kids and adults alike probably think that negative thoughts just happen but in actuality there are four places that they may come from. We fail at something or make a mistake: Instead of seeing failure as a necessary part of success, instead we…

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Separation Anxiety at School: Nine Ways to Overcome It

parent with child

At some point every school counselor deals with a child who doesn’t want to come to school. Every child and every situation is different so you have to tailor the solution to the particular student and their parents. Begin by collaborating with the parents, the child and the teacher. This is key. If you are…

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The 3 types of stress and how to cope

girl-doing-homework-

In today’s post-Covid world, stress has become an everyday part of life, even for young children. In the excellent book, The Self-Driven Child by William Stixrud, Phd, and Ned Johnson, the authors write about the stress that kids experience. In fact, all stress is not equal.  Some stress can be useful or even helpful. The…

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