By Maureen Hamilton

Ah the teenage years. They creep up on parents out of nowhere, and explode with a hard slap of reality in the face, usually in the form of moody behavior, snide comments, and flurries of rolled eyes. Children who once worshiped and idolized their parents suddenly recoil at the thought spending time with them or listening to anything they say. The teenage years can be a particularly turbulent time for mums and their daughters, and many mums, forgetting how difficult their own teenage years were, scratch their heads and wonder: why are teenage girls so difficult?

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.