Fall is a favorite time of year for many kids. It brings Halloween, carving pumpkins, football games and colorful leaves. There are many fun indoor and outdoor fall activities that children can participate in.

Indoor Activities

Pumpkin Carving

A favorite activity of fall is to carve pumpkins. Whether your pumpkin is short and fat or tall and skinny, there are pumpkin face designs available to suit your pumpkin. Many children like to design their own pumpkin faces as well or create masterpieces such as spiders, ghosts and witches. Carving can easily be done with the special pumpkin carving tools available in the Halloween section of many stores.

By Laurie Moore Skillings

Executive Functions Skill: Planning/Prioritization

Executive functions (EF) skills are skills required to help perform or accomplish everyday life tasks. These skills are controlled by the frontal lobe of the brain just behind the forehead. The frontal lobes are the last areas of the brain to fully develop. Executive functions skills begin to develop in infancy and continue to mature into early adulthood.

By Irene Roth

Many teenagers have low self-esteem. They don't think that they have much to offer, and they behave like victims. This is really a sad way of spending the youngest, and best, years of our lives.

Of course, the media is no help on this front, is it? No adolescent girl is ever slim or beautiful enough. Girls are always comparing themselves and their self-esteem seems to continuously get eroded because of all of these negative media messages.

By Irene Roth

During Christmas, the media is always showing footage of families being happy, decorating the Christmas tree, and drinking apple cider. The family members seem to be getting along and are happy to be together with each other. What if our family is different and it doesn't measure up to this image?

This feeling can cause a lot of frustrations. We want to not only be like the families in these commercials and movies. We want to be better than them, if at all possible. Here are a few tips to avoid such traps.

by Jean Tracy


Parents, is your child the victim of a bully? Is he shamed, hit, or teased? Perhaps your kid is the bully. Either way you'll receive 5 parenting questions in this article you can ask your kids today.

Parents Beliefs about Their Bully:

I remember parents who brought their 9-year-old son for counseling.

"What's the problem?" I asked.

Parents: "The teachers say he's a bully."

"What does he do?"

Parents: "Like all kids, he acts tough. He calls kids names and gets in fights on the playground. He wins too. The tattletales tell on him."

"What's he like at home?"

Parents: "He fights with his sister. It's normal."

If another kid is bullying your child and his parents have this attitude, don't expect their help. If your child's the bully, you have work to do.

Bully Research:

Research tells us 3.2 million children are targets of bullying each year. Even more, 3.7 million kids are bullies.

Bullying includes; threats, spreading rumors, put-downs, hitting, embarrassment, and more. Kids who get bullied often feel angry and depressed.

How to Ask Your Kids 5 Key Questions about Bullies

Parents, dilemmas introduce your kids to themselves. Who they are depends on how they think, feel, and act. You can help them get the right attitude with dilemma discussions. Discussions prepare them for real life dilemmas before the bullying happens.