It's happening on a horrifyingly regular basis: innocent people in malls, supermarkets, churches, schools, any public place, are being shot by gunmen armed with high powered weapons, fueled by hatred and/or psychotic delusions to commit ghastly violent acts. It is traumatic for adults to hear about these massacres; how do we parents talk with our children about them? GCP [...]
In this week’s Ground Control Parenting with Carol Sutton Lewis podcast episode, we tackle tech questions that many parents are asking these days: how do we help our children manage and balance their ongoing tech use when they still seem to need their devices now more than ever? How can we find out more about these videos and apps [...]
This week on Ground Control Parenting with Carol Sutton Lewis: Dr. Mary Schmidt Campbell, President of Spelman College. Dr. Campbell recalls wonderful parenting moments from her childhood and talks about how she raised her three sons to pursue their unique paths. This conversation is chock-full of great parenting advice! You can listen to it starting TOMORROW, July 29th on Apple [...]
This week on Ground Control Parenting with Carol Sutton Lewis: Depelsha McGruder, Founder of Moms of Black Boys (MOBB) United. Inc. and MOBB United for Social Change. On top of her exciting day job, Depelsha leads these sister organizations with over 175,000 members that are dedicated to positively influencing how Black boys and men are perceived and treated by [...]
Today's Thoughtful Thursday presents the poem "What Shall I Tell My Children Who are Black (Reflections of an African American Mother)" by artist, poet, author, and educator Margaret Burroughs (1915-2010). It was written in 1968, but could well have been written this week. In it Burroughs addresses the issue of how to raise black boys up to be confident [...]
Here we find ourselves returning yet again to the question of how we should talk with our children, especially our sons, about another horrifying murder of a black man at the hands of a police officer. What should we say to them about the death of George Floyd, and about the protests that have followed? Children of All Ages: [...]
Continuing the conversation about mental health in the Black community: I grew up hearing that our people didn't have time for mental health issues. If you had trouble coping, you had to snap out of it or push through, on your own or with God's help. Therapy was for other folks. I know some of you must heard this [...]
For years many of us have heard (and said) that Black people don't commit suicide. But the data on this reveal an alarmingly different truth, especially about our young people. Over the last 10 years, the suicide rate for Black teens 15-17 has increased drastically, from an overall rate of 3.9 suicides per 100,000 per year in 2007 to [...]
Let's face it, unless you happen to be a gamer yourself it is easy to take a fairly hands-off approach to your son's gaming habits. You probably have set limits on screen time, maybe you've banned games that are too violent or otherwise disturbing. But here's why you should pay closer attention to his gaming activity: to keep him [...]
GCP has been writing about how to talk with our children about mass shootings for too many years. Sadly, we are running an edited version of this post again below. Our children are learning to live in a world where schools and other familiar places we all visit can be targets, and we have to help them cope [...]