Talking About Death and Difficult Subjects Reading Activity
Children are often curious about understanding the death of a pet or family member. You can read your child an age appropriate book or the story below about the death of a father when a child is a preschooler or early elementary student. When children lose a young parent to death, they can become very fearful that they may lose other significant family members at a young age. It is critical that we reassure our children when they hear about a friend or family member.
The story below is written by Michele McDevitt, a GenParenting guest blogger, who sadly has significant experiences working with grief and young family members. After reading the story, you can answer the comprehension questions and submit a comment to GenParenting.com. [Read more…]
Mary Ann Burke, Ed.D., Digital Education Expert, is a substitute distance learning teacher for Oak Grove School District in San Jose, California and the author of STUDENT-ENGAGED ASSESSMENT: Strategies to Empower All Learners (Rowman & Littlefield: 2020). Dr. Burke creates digital language arts and substitute teaching K – 12 activities for teachers and parents. She is the Cofounder of the Genparenting.com blog. Burke is the former Director II of Categorical & Special Projects for the Santa Clara County Office of Education that supports 31 school districts serving 272,321 students in Santa Clara County. She is also a previous Director – State & Federal Compliance for Oakland Unified School District, the former Director – Grantwriter for the Compton Unified School District, and was the initial VISTA Director for the Community Partnership Coalition in southern California. Much of her work focuses on creating innovative digital trainings and partnership programs for teachers and families to support students’ learning. These programs were featured as a best practice at a National Title I Conference, California’s Title I Conferences, AERA Conferences, an ASCD Conference, the NASSP Conference, and statewide educator conferences.
A Parent’s Response
the backyard, my friend’s son, Nathan, stumbled and fell hard on his knee. The knee was severely bruised and bloody. Shockingly, Nathan withheld any emotion although he was in extreme pain. My friend and I were alarmed that he was too self-conscious and afraid to express his true emotions. When approaching Nathan about his injury, my friend responded to his distress by:
It is difficult when we see our middle and high school children disengaging with school. They could be struggling academically, socially with their friends, or in their relationships with their teachers. Possibly, something going on at home may be weighing on their mind and causing them to lose focus. This disengagement sometimes reveals itself as problematic behavior. When the behavior is addressed in a punitive way without looking deeper for the reason behind it, behavior will get worse.
Our middle school’s teachers have dedicated themselves to promoting literacy in all subject areas this year because many of our students are not reading and writing at grade level. Our 7th grade teachers decided to have their students participate in the NaNoWriMo National Novel Writing Month last November.