Child Development

Should I be regularly screening my child for Developmental concerns?

When you go to the pediatrician for your child’s 9, 18 and 36 month appointments, you’ll likely be asked to complete the Ages and Stages Developmental Questionnaire (ASQ). This questionnaire is used to gauge where your child is at developmentally and if any concerns should arise, your pediatrician can make referrals for services. However there […]

Screen Time Savvy: Managing Your Child’s Digital Diet with Dr. Jenny Radesky

Our Friends over at the Sparkler app sat down with Dr. Jenny Radesky the director of Developmental-Behavioral Pediatrics at the University of Michigan, and she authored the American Academy of Pediatrics’ screen time guidelines. Her research focuses on the intersection of mobile technology, parenting, parent-child interaction, and child development. Dr. Radesky chatted with Sparkler about screen […]

Understanding Attachment Styles: Nurturing Secure Connections in Parenting

Since we’ve been talking about Parenting we should also talk about Attachment styles. Our attachment starts in the womb, what our parent goes through, their emotional state, and stress all are connected to us. Attachment is the way our caregivers interact with us and how their interactions with us impacts our own relationships and how […]

Parenting Styles

No one parenting style is “right” and realistically parents don’t just parent with one style 100% of the time.  What we know about parenting styles is that each style can affect children’s behaviors, self-esteem, relationships and academic success.   So, what are the styles? There are 4 parenting styles that have been identified: Authoritarian Authoritative […]

Parent-Teacher Relationships: The Key to Back-to-School Success

This Blog was provided by Sparkler: Play for Parenting; Sparkler Blog. By Donna Housman, Ed.D Dr. Donna Housman, Ed.D is the founder and CEO of Housman Institute, which conducts research on emotional intelligence in young children and develops high-quality programs to train early childhood educators. Dr. Housman has over thirty-five years of experience as a […]

Kindergarten: Is your Child Ready?

One of the goals for Help Me Grow is to ensure that every child is ready for Kindergarten on their first day. The school year is fast approaching and that means many new families are preparing for their children’s first day of school, but what exactly should a brand new Kindergartener know? Well, Help Me […]

Mental Health in Early Childhood: A Q&A With Dr. Sarah Gray

  Tell us a little about yourself and what you do in the field. I am a licensed clinical psychologist and an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychological Sciences at UConn, with a joint appointment in Psychiatry at UConn’s School of Medicine. My primary roles are in research and teaching at both the undergraduate and […]

The Power of Play

  Of course playing is fun for kids, but it’s also essential for learning about the world and themselves; kids develop their social-emotional, cognitive, language and physical skills.   Play helps kids develop social skills, cooperation, sharing and turn taking as well as empathy and building emotional connections with their peers. Play also helps children […]

All About Camp Sparkler: Q&A with Dana Stewart

For more than 100 years, researchers have been asking: What happens to student learning during the summer months? Researchers have found evidence of what educators call “summer slide,” “summer setback,” or “summer learning loss,” especially for children from low-income families (source).   These statistics are not destiny! Summer can be a time of growth, curiosity, […]