The marvellous thing about the Internet is the amazing diversity of opinions, creative ideas, insightful takes on different issues and the boundless potential for self-expression. When it comes to kids and risky activities, it's also one its downfalls.
Parents and educators are often shocked to learn of the existence of pro-ana (pro-anorexia), pro-mia (pro-bulimia) and pro-cutting websites. Although these sites sometimes pretend to be support communities, their tips for hiding scars or discrete ways of vomiting up meals belie their underlying intent. And research has demonstrated that the images of skeletal bodies and open wounds serve as powerful triggers for young people struggling to stop these destructive behaviours.
It's not just a matter of free expression. Health Canada data shows that eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of all mental illnesses, with somewhere between 10 and 20% of sufferers eventually dying from complications.
Educators often struggle with the way the Internet offers a much wider community of influence for kids than they used to have. It used to be that if your kids had a good group of friends, a supportive community and a good school, you might feel comforted about what they'd be exposed to. But Google has changed that, for good and for bad.
Which is one reason many are cheering Tumblr.com's proposed new policy, which will prohibit blogs that promote self-harm. They are soliciting feedback and opinions, so I strongly urge you to read the following, check out the full explanation , and then email them your support ( policy@tumblr.com ).
1. Implement a new policy against pro-self-harm blogs. Here's draft language we are planning to add to our Content Policy:
Active Promotion of Self-Harm. Don't post content that actively promotes or glorifies self-injury or self-harm.  This includes content that urges or encourages readers to cut or mutilate themselves;  embrace anorexia, bulimia, or other eating disorders;  or commit suicide rather than, e.g., seek counseling or treatment for depression or other disorders.  Online dialogue about these acts and conditions is incredibly important;  this prohibition is intended to reach only those blogs that cross the line into active promotion or glorification.  For example, joking that you need to starve yourself after Thanksgiving or that you wanted to kill yourself after a humiliating date is fine, but recommending techniques for self-starvation or self-mutilation is not.We aim to begin implementing this policy next week.  Of course, we will allow any affected blogs a grace period in which to edit or download your content.
2. Start showing PSAs on search results for related keywords. In addition, we plan to start posting "public service announcement"-style language whenever users search for tags that typically go along with pro-self-harm blogs.  For example, when a user searches for tags like "anorexia", "anorexic", "bulimia", "bulimic", "thinspiration", "thinspo", "proana", "purge", "purging", etc., we would show PSA language like:
Eating disorders can cause serious health problems, and at their most severe can even be life-threatening. Please contact the [resource organization] at [helpline number] or [website].So that's our plan. We'd like your feedback. If you have any comments or suggestions, please email them to policy@tumblr.com .
In other news, I've got a couple of blog posts in the works. One is about the wonderful day I spent at McGill University , hosted by the Centre for Educational Leadership (CEL), speaking with teachers and school administrators about bullying and other risky behaviours. I learned so much from these men and women and I look forward to sharing those stories. The second is about the fabulous presentation I heard from motivational speaker Scott Fried about the secret lives of teens.
My editorial piece in today's Montreal Gazette criticizes the Quebec government for taking the easy way out with its proposed anti-bullying legislation, Bill 56. Designed to appease parents, it also seems to place the blame on schools for not handling this complex issue properly. But lack of funding and resources, coupled with short-sighted, short-term solutions, have made it difficult for schools to deal with the problem of bullying.
When the government asks our kids to "right their wrongs" (according to the English slogan to be used in their planned $1 million ad campaign), I would ask Beauchamp to consider doing the same. To give this antibullying legislation hope of succeeding, she needs to consider some of the following things:
Help schools out with antibullying plan templates that have been developed through best practices. Offer them resources assembled by a panel of experts commissioned for this task. Schools can use these to put their plans together, so it doesn't become a costly (and ineffective) makework exercise for school staff with no training in this area. Templates already exist for school social-media policies, bullying prevention and handling policies.
Put money into support services. Bullying doesn't happen in a vacuum. Bullies need more than punishment - they need help to understand the consequences of their actions and rehabilitate. They need consistent, patient support from teachers, guidance counsellors and, sometimes, mental-health practitioners to learn impulse control, good judgment, empathy and conflict resolution. The students who are bullied often need help as well. Being labelled a victim can be incredibly disempowering, and it's likely these children were already vulnerable. Ideally, these support services will be active in prevention: teaching tolerance and conflict resolution, particularly for students identified as at-risk for bullying or being bullied.
Invest in digital citizenship education. Banning Facebook on campus is the equivalent of sticking one's head in the sand. Since today's bullies often make use of cellphones, email and social media, students need to be taught how to use these powerful communication tools safely, with respect, dignity and awareness.
Think long-term. Antibullying initiatives are too often knee-jerk responses that don't take social costs into account: reduced school performance, psychological problems, impact on family members, health-care costs, legal costs and schoolyard bullies who grow up to become workplace bullies. If the government is serious about using our tax dollars to right the wrongs, they need to move from these reactive policy inoculations to innovative long-term thinking.
"Protecting students from high-risk activities should begin as early as kindergarten. It's never too early and rarely too late to build resilience in students by teaching strategies for dealing with conflict and the temptations of high-risk activities."
The first time I stepped into a university classroom as a teacher, I felt like a television. After more than 5-10 minutes of lecturing - no matter how interesting the subject - their gazes began to glaze over. Even those students who were engaged in the material seemed to quickly forget I could see them sitting there at their desks.
They picked their noses. Played with their various piercings. Doodled in their notebooks. Activities that would be openly insulting if I was speaking to them one on one.
I quickly learned to jazz up my material with media clips, punctuate lectures with frequent discussion questions, group work, pair and share activities. I moved around the whole classroom, worked hard to modulate my voice and throw in joke. I'd leave each class thoroughly drained but satisfied that I'd kept their attention.
I thought of this as the Sesame Street / MTV effect. These students had been weaned on non-stop entertainment, on rapid jolts of audio-visual stimulation. They were not accustomed to sustained periods of focused attention. Video games seem to accentuate this tendency to prefer hyper-kinetic media forms.
I'm very sensitive to this with my own children. I have no problem with some exposure to the Wii's, Nintendo DS's and iPads that fill their days. I let them eat their Cheerios with Elmo and Dora, and move on to Wizards of Waverly Place and (eventually) Glee . But I was always insistent on time also spent with real books, on the kind of art projects that make your fingers dirty and adventure games played outdoors with flesh-and-blood friends (not just onscreen with avatars).
As they get older, the struggle to keep this balance is harder and harder. Most of their homework is done online (often in very creative ways). There's no more trudging over to a library to look things up in books. Everything is online. Instantaneous. Rendered in live-streaming, HD-quality video. Teachers instantly email them feedback and answer questions on Saturday afternoons.
Although I still work very hard to make sure they do spend some time outside (not just skiing on the Wii) and meet their friends face to face, I've come to the conclusion that we need to maintain a more balanced understanding of the time our kids spend online. It isn't fair to lump it all under the rubric "screen time" as if Photoshop were the same as Phineas and Pherb.
Because it's not.
A couple of years ago I interviewed Michael Hoechsmann, then a professor in McGill University's Faculty of Education (and now at Lakehead University), for an article in Montreal Families Magazine about whether socializing online was actually bad for our kids.  Dr. Hoechsmann, himself a father of two teenaged boys,  urged parents to make a distinction between using a computer for production and consumption. When his children are writing on a blog or posting a poem, for example, "I consider it the equivalent of time spent drawing or building a model." However, '"If they are just doing consumption online [such as watching YouTube videos or playing a game], I consider it only a slightly more active version of watching TV."
Some of the things our kids can do online are downright amazing. They have access to the most powerful, creative and productive technologies ever produced. The potential for learning new things, stimulating their growing brains, developing new interests and exploring new talents is phenomenal.
So I thought that instead of joining the mob decrying the impact of computers and the Internet on our children, I'd use this post to remind us that used judiciously, in moderation, technology is pretty damned amazing.
One of my older daughters has devoted time over the past year to writing her own novel. It's almost 150 pages long now, and she has enjoyed the writing as much as the research she can do instantly on her iPad. I can't imagine time better spent.
As both she and her twin sister enjoy different kinds of creative writing, both girls are members of a website called Figment.com , where young writers can post their work and enjoy a moderated, copyright-safe feedback forum of other kids and teens.
A similar site called Deviantart.com invites teens to post their original artwork (the right-click is disabled so images can't be copied) and invite moderated feedback.
All of my girls have spent hours on a free, user-friendly animation building website called GoAnimate.com , where kids can build all sorts of interesting cartoons. You can check out one of Sophie's earliest animations here . Kids can build their own stories with graphics, movement and audio and send them to their friends. They can also use them for homework assignments and class presentations.
Kids who are really into animation should check out the National Film Board of Canada's excellent StopMoStudio  workshop online. The scant 19-minute video has some of the NFB's experts demonstrating their techniques. And once they've been inspired, they should go to the NFB's PixStop stop-motion animation. Available for free on iTunes, this iPad app was originally developed for classroom use, so it has plenty of tutorials and a very intuitive interface.
Other cool animation apps for Apple products include iStopMotion for user-friendly stop-motion animation for iPhone, iPad and Mac, as well as the point and click StopMotion Recorder  for iPhone. Users can use the onion-skin views to reposition the camera and integrate Instagram-like features (such as noir, sepia and Lomography).
Do your kids love computer games? Let them try and build their own on My Doodle Game , where they can design the landscape, put in their own challenges and choose from a wide-variety of characters and obstacles. This is a great example of creativity, problem-solving and sequencing.
Have a reluctant reader at home? Check out ReadingRewards.com , a safe social network devoted to reading, which incorporates gaming elements to encourage kids to read, review and recommend books to others.
Curious about the world? Dealing with homework questions mom and dad can't help with? Direct kids to the award-winning HowStuffWorks website and get lost in a fascinating, informative virtual place where it's hip to be smart. Aside from articles, there are quizzes, games and podcasts on what Apple called one of the "best apps of 2011."
These sites and apps offer just a hint of the amazing, innovative and creative potential of the web. It's not all Facebook, YouTube and World of Warcraft out there. Challenge your kids to check out some of these creative and production-oriented sites so you can cut them a little slack if they want to spend hours in front of their screens.
A couple of weeks ago, I had the privilege of addressing all the principals of a major Quebec school board on the subject of bullying. It's a subject everyone is concerned about these days, particularly given the recent high-profile bullycides in Quebec , Ontario and around North America .
Parents are worried about it. Kids are hyper-aware of it. The courts are trying to figure out legal guidelines for it. Teachers and school administrators are unsure how to handle the blurry link between cyberbullying that may occur off-campus after school hours but cross over into the school yard and classroom.
It isn't just that high-profile bullycides have placed the issue front and centre in the media, nor is it merely an issue of bullying becoming the scarlet letter of the moment. The truth is that the issue itself has morphed from a fairly standard of bullying has changed mostly because of the uncertainties over how to handle the harassment that can occur online. Schools are unsure of their liability and accountability for those kinds of events. Parents are either unaware of what's going on. Kids still don't tend to trust adults to handle these issues, and are uncomfortable with the implications of powerlessness that comes with the term "victim," so they are unlikely to speak up. And everyone is much more sensitive about these terms than they used to be in the bad old days when bullying was mostly seen as normal (if unpleasant) kid behaviour.
My presentation to these principals covered the emerging legal landscape of cyberbullying, the current best practices for handling bullying incidents, suggestions for policy templates and engaging all stakeholders in awareness and prevention: parents, students, teachers and staff. In the course of our discussion, I heard some recurring points that are worth sharing.
What happens outside of school affects what's going on inside. And vice versa.  Why do principals and teachers care about what kids are doing on their Facebook pages, cellphones, email and Formspring accounts? Because all that energy (positive or negative) gets carried over into the hallways and classroom. Snarky or cruel comments online can mean depressed, anxious or agitated students in school. It can lead to physical confrontations. And when the rumour mill gets whipped up into high gear, nobody is paying attention to geography or math.
Stay connected. School administrators need parents to keep up their supervision and guidance. Their students - your children - need consistent supervision, clear guidelines, consequences for misdeeds and open dialogue about the challenges of growing up in a wired world. The school cannot control what goes on at home, but it relies on you playing your part. At minimum, you should know what accounts your child has, keep track of their passwords, regularly review texts and comments made online.
Support school initiatives for bullying prevention and digital awareness. Schools, like governments, rely on the participation, engagement and support of their stakeholders. That includes you. Take an active role in committees and initiatives that aim to educate and prevent. At very least, show up to meetings and information sessions geared to getting these programs going. If you don't speak up now, you are relinquishing your right to complain later.
When the school calls to discuss an issue, take a deep breath and really listen. The call home to a parent to discuss a bullying incident is one of the hardest tasks a principal, guidance counsellor or teacher has to make. Whether your child was the aggressor or the target, you will serve their best interests if you can briefly put your emotional reaction aside and really listen to what they are trying to communicate. This is hard to do. But if you leap up to question, defend, make excuses or accuse, you are not being your child's best advocate. You are only complicating the issue.
Get the story. Discuss the next steps. Remain open to suggestions. There will be time later to get the other sides of the story and investigate. Right now your school needs you to listen with an open mind.
Be honest with yourself. Have you noticed a pattern of bullying behaviour with your child over the years? This doesn't have to be physical - it can also be taunts, excluding friends, creating a lot of social "drama."  Don't write it off as "kid stuff" or typical of boys or girls, or being particularly spirited. Don't make excuses, saying the school doesn't "get" your kid like you do. If other kids are being hurt or tormented, it's time to take action. And a parent can do much more than anyone else to stop this cycle.
In this month's Montreal Families Magazine cover story, I explain to my eight-year-old why she can't have a Facebook account. Even though she really, really want one. Even though it's not fair and I'm the meanest mommy in the whole world (for that moment anyway).
Maya sidled up to me the other day to watch a funny video I had found on Facebook. When the giggling subsided, my 8-year-old daughter became unusually quiet. This is usually a sign she's got something brewing, so I mentally steeled myself for the ensuing debate. After a few seconds, she looked at me with a determined expression and asked: "Why can't I have a Facebook account?" It was not the first time she had asked me this question. And we both knew that I had a well-developed list of reasons for saying no. But this time my precocious third-grader had her arguments at the ready.  Eyes narrowed and brow furrowed, she launched into her opening arguments. She only wanted to play games on it. A number of her friends are on Facebook (actually, we only personally know two her age). Her two sisters were allowed to have Facebook accounts when they were 11, and were they really that much more mature than she is now?
Concerned about what your kids are doing online? Unsure where to start with rules, expectations and limits? Wondering what is appropriate at what ages? Do you feel like you need to know more about the risks and challenges for teens of various social media and new communication technologies? Come and join us at Ometz West Island for an evening of practical information, suggestions and take-away resources.
If you spend any amount of time around kids and teenagers, you might have noticed the often casual use of harsh and demeaning language: F-cking retard. F-cking faggot. Stupid b-tch. A-hole.
(My use of strategically placed dashes isn't about prudery; it's an attempt to avoid keywords that might bring people to this post when they really wanted something .... um... juicier.)
Girls good-naturedly refer to their good friends as sl-t or wh-re without thinking twice about it. Both sexes have a whole slew of slang terms referring to genitalia that get thrown around without any actual malice intended.
There's nothing new about this. Kids have always wanted to shock their parents and teachers, push limits, challenge authority. When little kids start finding toilet words amusing, we often tell parents to let them know it's not appropriate language, but to mostly ignore it.
If you ignore it, they'll eventually get bored and stop. Or so the theory goes.
It's mostly the same with teens. I'm a realist: if you really think your 14-year-old isn't tossing off a few f-bombs now and then, you are seriously deceived. For many of them, the word is noun, verb, adjective and adverb. An all-purpose mode of expression. True for some adults as well.
What can we do as parents and educators? We can at very least make sure they understand context. You don't unleash this kind of language with parents, teachers, their friends' parents or Grandma. Or whatever.
But there are some terms that just go too far, words that cut through the usual rhetorical barrage of adolescence. These words have underlying meanings that are offensive, demeaning, stereotypical or violent.
Case in point: in the past few weeks, I've had a few parents mention how the word "rape" has crept into their kids' expressions. One reader wrote in to say she heard her 8-year-old son tell another kid he was going to "rape him" if he didn't score in that weeks game. It was said in a friendly, jocular manner, as if to say, I'm going to mess you up (but not really).
She was upset and shocked. She didn't know what to say to her child, who almost certainly didn't understand the real meaning of what he was saying. I've heard similar examples from other moms.
In my view, it's not OK for kids (or anyone) to use the word "rape" in this way. It demeans and cheapens the horrific personal experiences of sexual assault victims. It diminishes the violence. Situates rapists within our culture (albeit on the fringes).
When young kids toss around the word "rape" when referring to a hockey game - even if they do not yet know what sexual assault is - they understand that there is an element of danger, of crossing boundaries. The term crosses over into common usage precisely because of the frisson that accompanies what isn't allowed.
This is something that can't be ignored. Parents who hear this need to speak up. Explain what it really means. Tell their kids why it's wrong to use such a powerful, fraught word in a casual way.
"That kid's a retard," one of them was saying loudly. "A total fucking retard." The boy looked about 16; he had white blonde hair about the same shade as Geoffrey's and ears that stuck out like Dumbo's from his face. He thrust his hands and tongue out, rocking back and forth with a Frankenstein like gait. "I can't stand him. I mean, how fucking retarded can you be?"
Then he saw me.
It took a moment for it to register, that the blonde woman standing glaring at him was the same woman who spent almost every weekday afternoon at the toddler pool with her daughter. All the lifeguards know who Johanna is, especially after she had a particularly explosive diaper in the pool last month. And while they may not be the brightest bunch, they are clued in enough to realize she has Down Syndrome.
The boy's eyes widened and his mouth opened and closed again and again, like a crazed dying guppy. I watched as he slowly lifted his right hand, waving it back and forth at me in a pathetic attempt to say hi.
Hallie acknowledges that before she had a child with special needs, she didn't give much thought to the way people used the word retard. Now she dreads the day her preschool-aged daughter is old enough to understand the derogatory way it can be tossed around.
I also find it interesting how teen girls throw around words like b-tch, sl-t and wh-re. They may think it makes them seem like liberated young women, comfortable with their own sexuality. It actually has the opposite effect; the jocular way it gets thrown around works like a confirmation of the opposite meaning. It's a way of reassuring a friend that they really aren't a sl-t, that they are still accepted. It's a kind of policing of adolescent girl sexuality, a series of reminders about the consequences of going too far.
Unlike cultural reclaimings of words like "queer" or "dyke" by people in the LGBT community, teen girls continue to use these words in negative ways. They are totally comfortable throwing it in someone's face, demeaning another girl by suggesting she is too free with her body. It can be devastating.
So what should parents do? We need to continue to have conversations with them about the words that come out of their mouths. And, as always, we need to watch what comes out of our own mouths. We need to think about and discuss the underlying meanings of terms we throw around. How they can be insulting. Ignorant. Disempowering. How they can set the stage for exclusion and worse. Much worse.
Ever wonder what you might say to your younger self, if only you could pass on the wisdom you've accumulated throughout your teens, twenties, thirties or beyond?
This isn't the same thing as writing out a mini-lecture to your own kids, full of rules, warnings and admonishments. It's about taking the time to think through the hard lessons learned through experience, the insights gleaned from our regrets, the pride in choices well made or effort exerted. It occurred to me that this was a worthwhile exercise for anyone, parent or not, who worked with kids. You might also learn something about yourself.
If you're willing to try it, let me know ( info@risk-within-reason ). Feel free to forward and share your notes to your younger self with your partner, your friends, or a friendly parenting blogger and educational consultant. Or fold it up and tuck it into a hiding place where no one else will find it. Or write and burn it. All good.
Dear 12-year-old me,
Hi there. It's me, only older and with a few more lines on our face. And maybe a few extra pounds. But things are actually pretty good where we're at right now. We're happy. Really happy. We've gone one to do some wonderful things and meet some fabulous people. And maybe make a few mistakes along the way.
Mistakes are mostly OK. That's how everyone learns. You just hope they don't have irrevocable consequences and no one gets hurt by our ignorance or stubbornness. But see, that's what I wanted to tell you. Looking back from middle age, there's a few things I would love us to have known when we were 12. When everything seemed new and exciting and shiny. And a little scary.
Now that we have 12-year-old daughters of our own, it all seems so much clearer. I know they have to make their own mistakes, just like we did. But it's hard not to try passing on some of the stuff we picked up along the way.
First thing, grow a backbone. Don't worry so much about what everyone else thinks. Do what feels right. About the way we look. About our interests, beliefs and choices and even what we want to do on Saturday night. Honestly, from our perspective 28 years down the line, it won't matter if we stayed home with some good books now and again instead of suffering through outings we went on out of some misplaced social anxiety.
For the few short years of high school, it seems so important to fit in, and have people approve of what you wear or who your friends are, or who you date. But as soon as you get past those years, you see that the people who rise above that are the truly interesting, original thinkers. The ones who go on to do amazing things with their lives, contribute to the world and find their own standard for happiness. It really does get better.
Don't ever do anything that feels wrong just to be cool. Nothing good ever comes from drinking too much or trying drugs. You're never going to impress those popular kids anyway, so just forget them. They aren't worth it. Some of them will grow up to be just as irritating as adults as they were as teenagers: any 40-year-old woman I've known since childhood who still doesn't smile at me out of courtesy when we pass in the grocery store aisle deserves my pity, not my outrage.
Cultivate our interests. Really interesting, successful people are well read, well-travelled, curious about others. They pay attention to what's happening around them. They are engaged with the people the meet for their unique contributions. People genuinely like to be around them for who they are, not just what they can offer on a practical level.
Don't worry so much about boys. Mom was right about this one. Have a fulfilling life, friendship circle and career - don't wait for a man to come around and complete it. (That being said, and as an aside we wouldn't have listened to anyway, I'd take a more critical look at Ted G. when we're 16. Behind those blue eyes was a pompous idiot, but it took us 10 years of reflection to figure that out. Mom was right about that too, although she had the self-discipline to let us figure it out on our own.)
Cherish our friends. Forget the drama. We don't fully appreciate how wonderful our high school girlfriends are until years later. Keep an eye out for each other. The boys that seem so important in high school are just memories now, but we still speak to almost all of the wonderful women those girls became.
Don't wish any of this time away. It's hard to see when you're 12, but time totally runs away from you. We spend so much time wishing high school would end and our lives would finally start that we sometimes forget they already have. Even dark November Mondays or exam weeks, or the 5 days before summer break. All of those are days to be cherished. Because you know what? We never get to be 12 years old again.
Don't give up math classes in grade 10. Probably the biggest mistake we ever make. We work hard to be a top-tier student, and although we totally love that grade 11 North American Literature course, not taking pre-calculus has some far-reaching implications down the line. I know math can be a big of a slog for us, but it's one worth taking on.
Aim for great, not just good. We like to be comfortable, but it never works out when we settle for good enough. Takes us a while to figure this out, but we do get it in the end.
Don't stop writing in our journal.
Listen to mom about almost everything (except the dress she'll recommend for Jamie's bar mitzvah).
There are a few other things I'd love to throw in:
forget the perm in 9th grade - BAD IDEA
take all of our meagre savings and buy stocks in a company called Apple. Or Research in Motion. Or Google.
carefully check the destination sign for each car on overnight trains to Switzerland so we wake up in Geneva, and not somewhere else
do NOT eat that turkey sub from D'Angelos in October 1994
avoid roommates with OCD and heroin junkie boyfriends when we get to grad school
wear sunscreen every day
These extra hints should probably be against the rules. But since I'm making up the rules, and we won't listen to them anyway, what the hell.
And last but not least, take a moment every day to appreciate everyone who loves you, even if they just seem really annoying, incomprehensible and stupid to our 12-year-old eyes. Honestly, this is the most important thing we will ever learn.
It's been a pretty unremarkable mid-January Monday morning. We woke up in darkness to temperatures nearing -20C. The distractions of the weekend receded into the past, our minds all focused on the work commitments, homework assignments and errands of the week ahead.
We try to eat breakfast together most mornings (or at least be in the kitchen together for a few fleeting moments, since getting our 12-year-olds to eat anything in the morning is an uphill battle), but this morning my husband was out walking the dog when the rest of us converged over toast, cereal and breakfast smoothies.
There were no arguments or battles (of the "she's wearing my shirt!" or "I forgot there was a geography test today" variety), but not much in the way of laughter or shared warmth. A cold, dark Monday morning kind of mood.
It's mornings like this that I like to hold on to those memories of happier family togetherness. Hard to imagine that a little over a week ago we were enjoying three days of time, just the 5 of us. No cellphones for the kids. No friends to compete with. No restaurant outings, Wii games or work commitments hanging over our heads.
The nice folks at Smuggler's Notch Family Resort in Vermont had invited us down so I could check out their new family activity and their impressive adaptive skiing program for kids and adults with physical and cognitive impairments. We took advantage of the time to get in some skiing together. Even the snowboards got left behind. Just the 5 of us, together around the fireplace, riding on chairlifts, enjoying the outdoor hot tub, indoor waterparks.
It was really special.
We are very fortunate to have a place north of Montreal to go for skiing and summer fun, and we have a wonderful community of friends up there that make it all more enjoyable. We love those group skiing outings, pooled lunches at the Cafe and packs of happy children racing each other down the mountain.
But it's also nice, every once in a while, to focus in on our children. To really listen to what they have to say. To let them pick the runs, decide when it's lunch time. It was also wonderful to explore a whole new mountain together.
These are the things we need to hold on to as vacation shifted back into work and school and the messy business of day-to-day life. At very least, it got us through another Monday morning.
risk(within)reason - Alissa Sklar, Ph.D.
Bring risk(within)reason to your school or community organization!
Click the workshop tab to see descriptions of the informative, entertaining and practical seminars for parents, educators and teens.
Email info@risk-within-reason.com for more information.
"What a crucial conversation, and what a talented speaker! Dr. Alissa Sklar's presentation to Akiva School's parent body was full of clear, relevant, down-to-earth facts presented in a highly engaging manner. No jargon, no scare tactics - just solid information and excellent advice. A no-risk program for parents." -Frances (Cooki) Levy, Head of The Akiva School ("The Power of Positive Parenting: Preventing Risky Behaviors for All Ages")
"Alissa is the consummate professional and speaks with great authority. We hope she will be one of our feature speakers at many future workshops." Kelly Wilton, editor and co-publisher of Montreal Families Magazine
Montreal Families Magazine's Featured Blogger
Error: Twitter did not respond. Please wait a few minutes and refresh this page.
Do you need help for your child?
RiskWithinReason is intended as a support and information resource. If you need counselling for your child, consider contacting a trained child psychologist. Your family doctor or CLSC can recommend one, or you can also visit Collage Therapies at http://www.collagetherapies.ca/en