The Families Connected Virtual Parent Chat Relaunch
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The Families Connected Parent Chat will relaunch September 12th as a monthly support group provided the second Tuesday of each month.
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The Families Connected Virtual Parent Chat
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The Families Connected Parent Chat has moved to Wednesdays at 10:00 a.m. and will begin its 5th school year on September 21. We hope you will join us!
Read MoreThe Families Connected Parent Chat: Insight from Our Moderator and Testimonials
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The Parent Chat is going strong with an average of 10 - 16 parents and caregivers joining us each week. Topics range from sharing concerns and strategies around helping our kids manage screen time, to supporting kids struggling with anxiety, or depression, or substance use… It’s a long list. No matter what the topic, we strive to ensure that everyone is heard and supported. And that they are not alone.
Read MoreThe Families Connected Virtual Parent Chat: Every Tuesday at 10:00 a.m.
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Now in its fifth year, the Parent Chat is going strong with an average of 10 - 16 parents and caregivers joining us each week. Topics range from sharing concerns and strategies around helping our kids manage screen time, to supporting kids struggling with anxiety, or depression, or substance use… It’s a long list. No matter what the topic, we strive to ensure that everyone is heard and supported. And that they are not alone.
Read MoreThe Families Connected Parent Chat: In Its Fourth Year and Going Strong
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Now two years in, the Parent Chat is going strong with an average of 10 - 16 parents and caregivers joining us each week. Topics range from sharing concerns and strategies around helping our kids manage screen time, to supporting kids struggling with anxiety, or depression, or substance use… It’s a long list. No matter what the topic, we strive to ensure that everyone is heard and supported. And that they are not alone.
Read MoreThe Families Connected Parent Chat: Supporting Us so We Can Help Our Youth Thrive
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Now two years in, the Parent Chat is going strong with an average of 10 - 16 parents and caregivers joining us each week. Topics range from sharing concerns and strategies around helping our kids manage screen time, to supporting kids struggling with anxiety, or depression, or substance use… It’s a long list. No matter what the topic, we strive to ensure that everyone is heard and supported. And that they are not alone.
Read MoreFamily Support & Acceptance: Critical Factors for LGBTQ+ Youth Well-Being, by Cindy Byrne
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Parents may experience many emotions when a child reveals that they may be LGBTQ+. But parents will be better able to navigate this journey if they first take a deep breath and recognize that the child is experiencing all those same emotions, plus so many more.
Read MoreADD and My Kid, Part 2: After the Diagnosis—Concerns About Self-medicating, by Laurie James
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After my oldest daughter was diagnosed with ADHD her freshman year of high school, I began to worry—and for good reason. She was fourteen and I’d witnessed what happened when someone self-medicated through high school and beyond. My adopted brother, who was four years older than me, had ADHD growing up. I watched my parents worry about him from the time he started grade school. They'd get calls from his teachers complaining that he’d disrupted class or had a hard time focusing that day. His report cards reflected his struggles, and when Mom and Dad would talk to him about that, he’d have outbursts—sometimes unable to control his emotions.
Read MoreMark Wiedenmann announces Chadwick Families Connected
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I am thoroughly thrilled to announce that Chadwick School, along with 45 other South Bay Schools, is now a partner school with South Bay Families Connected (SBFC). There is a certain strength and efficiency that comes from unity.
Read MoreLet's Stop the College Madness!, by Helen Codron
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I’m the mother of two young adults, and I remember college admissions madness well: When my kids were seniors, we were consumed with anxiety about coming college admissions decisions. When they were juniors, we were in the middle of the SAT/ACT prep and test-taking grind. Sophomore spring was spent debating just how many “rigorous” classes they could cram into their junior year schedules and just how little sleep they needed; maybe a zero period WAS doable!
Read MoreConfessions of a Reformed Helicopter Mom
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Greetings to all you SBFC parents out there! I have a difficult confession to make: I once was a helicopter parent. In my defense, ten years ago when my husband’s and my two oldest kids were teens, books with titles like, How to Raise an Adult, Grit, and The Gift of a Skinned Knee, did not dominate the parenting sections of bookstores across the country, or make the top of the New York Times Best Sellers list...
Read MoreOMG, WE JUST SENT OUR BABY BOY TO THE WILDERNESS!!!
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This is our story of sending our oldest son off to a wilderness program because we felt his addictive behavior would eventually threaten his life and at minimum, derail whatever future he could have planned. As he recently told us, he thinks we saved his life.
Read MoreBook Club Highlights - "American Girls"
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We are so thankful that Howard Barker of Clear Recovery Center was able to make it to our most recent book club where we discussed American Girls: Social Media and The Secret Lives of Teenagers by Nancy Jo Sales. Click here for a brief summary of what was discussed in the meeting.
Read MoreThe Strand Family Shares Their Story, Part 3
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Cyndi Strand of Manhattan Beach shares with SBFC the tragic story of her son Justin's ongoing struggle with addiction, and ultimately, his death in January of this year. "So now I find myself at my final chapter of my blog about our family and the demons of drugs. The havoc that is brought into the family: the fear, the sadness, the anger, and the bewilderment is paralyzing. I will briefly continue the story of our descent into the abyss of drug addiction and then offer you my thoughts looking back."
Read MoreBiggest Takeaways from 5Ws Event
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To those who attended the 5Ws of Teen Drug & Alcohol Use event at MBMS, thank you for coming and sharing your thoughts with Families Connected by completing the survey. Click here to read more and learn about the three biggest takeaways that parents shared with us in the survey.
Read MoreThoughts on the Brock Turner Case, by Franca Stadvek
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So much swirling in my head over the Stanford swimmer rape case. So many social and moral issues all wrapped into one tragic story. I find myself embarrassed and guilty because when I read about the case months ago and saw the headline, "Stanford, Olympic hopeful, rape" I thought to myself, how very sad...that poor boy's life is ruined, a stupid mistake. I didn't really give much thought or pay attention to the rest of the story. How very wrong.
Read MoreThe Strand Family Shares Their Story, Part 2
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Cyndi Strand of Manhattan Beach shares with SBFC the tragic story of her son Justin's ongoing struggle with addiction, and ultimately, his death in January of this year. "What is interesting to me as I look back to the high school years, is that I remember thinking that every family I knew was completely ‘normal’ and that my family was not. I felt so alone as we started our struggle with a child who was experimenting with drugs. I didn’t want to share with anyone this ‘ugly thing’ taking hold in my otherwise ‘normal’ home. So, as in our case, we attempted to deal with it on our own, quietly."
Read MoreThe Strand Family Shares Their Story, part 1 of 3
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Cyndi Stand of Manhattan Beach shares with SBFC the tragic story of her son Justin's ongoing struggle with addiction, and ultimately, his death in January of this year. Cyndi is writing this three part series, "Not to scare you but to make you wiser and more alert. I want no one to suffer the loss we have had to endure."
Read MoreParenting Tips from Jonathan Scott, by Sandi Gleason
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I recently attended a MCHS Families Connected event, a presentation by Jonathan Scott of Miles to Go Drug Education. He firmly believes that the majority of teens want to please their parents and that by following a few key steps, parents can dramatically reduce the likelihood that their teens will be harmed by drug and alcohol use. So what are those steps?
Read MoreLet's Stop the March College Madness, by Helen Codron
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For those of us with students in the middle of the college admissions process, March Madness has a whole new meaning! If you’ve got a senior, you're consumed with worry about coming college admissions decisions, all of which are released by April 1. I’d like to offer a different perspective, one based on my own children’s experiences and the experiences of the many students I’ve college-counseled over the years.
Read MoreUse the form below to submit your own idea to write for the South Bay Families Connected blog:
