Is social media bad for teen health? It doesn’t have to be. That was the key takeaway following a talk with Upper School students by social media expert Bailey Parnell. Parnell is the founder of #SafeSocial and CEO of Skills Camp – a company that offers soft skills training to businesses and educational institutions. She presented students with some very compelling risks of social media addiction and its effects on mental health – especially with young women – but also offered advice on bringing balance to your online self by maintaining balance with your offline self.

While most schools and businesses have resumed close to normal schedules following the shutdowns of 2020, many students and adults are still dealing with post-pandemic mental health issues. 

May is Mental Health Awareness Month, but there are several ways that schools and parents can help raise awareness about mental health all year long. 

September is here and it’s hard to believe that means the first day of school is quickly approaching. Many of us are trying to soak in these last hot and hazy days of summer, while at the same time, laser-focused on getting everything done on time for our children so they’re well-prepared for the start of the 2021-22 school year.

The ongoing pandemic has certainly brought with it a continued stream of cancellations this year. COVID-19 is the unfortunate culprit of recent delays to the New Jersey winter high school sports season, in-person extracurricular activities and many organized team workouts, too. But there is some good news when it comes to these cancellations (yes, some good news in 2020!).

COVID restrictions have increased personal wellness and individualized fitness activity among athletes and the average person looking to stay healthy – and this new way of working out and wellness has many positive long-term health benefits. 

So, before you lament your child’s cancelled sports season or your own gym’s modified hours, check out how COVID has forced us all to change our perspective and personal well-being for now and, perhaps for the long haul.

Whether it be in the classroom, on the field or at home, everyone is most likely familiar with the “winning isn’t everything” phrase. If winning isn’t everything, however, how do most people generally feel about losing? 

We keep hearing the term “social distancing” as one of the key measures to combat the spread of the COVID-19 virus to others. And with state and national guidelines restricting large gatherings, what does this really mean? Must we remain quarantined inside our homes? Is it OK to have a playdate with a friend? Can you still host that birthday party this weekend? Should you go for a walk in the park?

Eating healthy doesn't need to be hard or, worse, taste bad. It also doesn't need to be part of some self-imposed stressful attempt to force New Year's Resolutions that we ultimately never achieve. It should be part of a positive, overall healthy lifestyle for #livingyourbestlife.

As part of health and wellness education at Oak Knoll School of the Holy Child, seventh- and eighth-grade students learned about healthy eating and the health of the planet. Throughout the fall, students were tasked with creating healthy recipes that they would then share with the school community. Below is just a sampling of some of the recipes created. Have your own healthy recipe to share? Leave it for us below in the comments!

Interested in more healthy recipes from Oak Knoll? Follow #healthyrecipesOKS on Twitter.

One of the most exhilarating and unifying moments of the 20th century was the Apollo 11 mission to the moon. During several hot July days in 1969, people all over the world were glued to a television or radio anxiously following the astronauts’ progress to outer space and awaiting Commander Neil Armstrong’s first words as he stepped onto the moon. Willing to put aside global tensions for a bit, we became citizens of the world as we watched Armstrong and fellow astronaut Buzz Aldrin, gleeful and childlike, bouncing and driving along the dusty and hilly and mysterious lunar surface.

As parents and educators, our focus is to protect children, to shield them from distress and to create environments that foster their growth and development. While we usually manage to navigate the day-to-day situations and stressors that children face without too much difficulty, we are often at loss when faced with having to talk to children about death. How much do we tell them? Will they be able to understand? Will they get too upset? What if they show no emotion? When do we seek outside support?

As parents and educators, we seek to put our teen’s behaviors, emotions and difficulties into mutually exclusive categories that we can readily understand and, by extension, start the processing of fixing. This assuages our own anxieties about being ineffective in our children’s lives and, replaces that inner parental angst with controllable variables in the form of actionable items and measurable gains. If your teen comes home expressing that nothing in math class is making sense, parents may act in the straightforward response of contacting the teacher or enlisting the help of a tutor, should one not already exist. This is an “easy one” as parenting goes, in that the direction is clear and there is a reasonable expectation that this intervention will fix or at least mitigate the problem.