The Inside Guide to NYC Parenting is coming to back to Hunter College in April 2020!! If you live in or around NYC, you can join us again this year to discover answers to some of the important parenting questions I've been focusing on for years in this blog. I'll be offering resources, tips and advice on key academic issues [...]
Happy Belated Birthday to Dr. King! While we as a nation will officially celebrate on Monday, we should not forget (or let our children forget) that January 15th was his actual birthday. Today's Thoughtful Thursday will break from our normal poetry/inspirational quotes offering to ask: How are you planning to commemorate Dr. King's holiday? Here are an assortment of [...]
Is your son in grades K-5 a reluctant reader? David Banks, leader of the Eagle Academy network of all-boy public schools, wants to help him learn to love reading. Frustrated by the dismal national reading stats for African American and Hispanic boys (only 28% African American and 34% Hispanic fourth grade boys are reading at or above proficiency level, [...]
Happy New Year! The GCP vision for 2020 will be posted shortly, but before we turn to the future I want to focus on a late 2019 special event. Just as the holidays got underway, I had the pleasure of joining RIISE (Resources in Independent School Education) founder Gina Parker Collins for "Lunch with Gina", where we talked about [...]
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 [...]
It's December, and as winter storms sweep across the nation, it's time...to plan summertime activities! Believe it or not, it is not too early to start planning what your kids will be doing in the summer of 2020. Camps start filling their spaces in January, and camp consultants are already planning events to introduce parents to a variety of [...]
With Thanksgiving a few days away, everyone is gearing up for family gatherings and good eating. Whether there are just a few of you or you are having a family reunion around the table, it is important to enjoy the time together for this holiday meal. Here are some Do's and Don'ts to help make sure the holiday is [...]
GCP's on IG! We want to expand the conversation about raising our boys of color–and our girls too– so we've just launched our Instagram account. We'll post pics and thoughts about our brand of parenting, and we want to know your thoughts as well. Please follow us at @groundcontrolparenting, and please post your comments (and likes!). Hope to see [...]
Summer vacation is done (hope your family had a great one) and the school year has begun! Don't know about you, but I love the back-to-school season. A new year, a clean slate, a fresh start. Here are some valuable GCP Back-to-school do's and don'ts for you busy parents which will help your children begin the new school year in [...]