Dear Dr. Linda, My daughter Zoe is in 6th grade and is really struggling. She has had a hard time since kindergarten, but this year things are worse. The school has been very helpful—she has been classified and is receiving help in the classroom, but she’s still struggling in every subject and homework takes hours.…
Read MoreDear Dr. Linda, Last year my kids had so much homework over the holiday break, it basically ruined the holidays for us. We go to my mom’s in Vermont, and all I can remember is my daughter being stressed out because she wanted to be with her cousins. Instead she shut herself up in a…
Read MoreDear Dr. Linda, My husband and I never went to college. We have three little kids, Ryan, the oldest is in kindergarten. Emma, six months old, is the youngest, and Jordan, our three-year-old is the middle child. We both feel that we missed out on becoming who we could be by not going to college.…
Read MoreDear Dr. Linda, I know you’ve written about this numerous times, but please do one more column on study skills! My kids are in 8th and 11th grade. Once again they’re bringing home not such great grades. I know they’re not rocket scientists but they do try and the grades don’t reflect the time they’re…
Read MoreDear Dr. Linda, “Math-a-Minute” is one of the worst nightmares in our house. Our eight-year-old daughter Sydney is a bright little girl but works slowly. Last year, her second grade teacher loved “Math-a-Minute,” where she had the children do 100 addition or subtraction problems within a minute. There was no way Sydney could do that.…
Read MoreDear Dr. Linda, Let me begin by saying that I value what teachers do. I wouldn’t want to spend all day teaching kids. But sometimes they act as if they have all the answers and they don’t. My daughter is in third grade and I know she has dyslexia, but her teachers tell me she…
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Dear Dr. Linda, I’m a retired teacher and grandmother of six. I read your column every week and decided it’s time to add my two cents. I’m concerned that no one is teaching our children and their parents that they need to follow rules of etiquette ranging from saying “thank you” when you hold the…
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Dear Dr. Linda, My Mother, my next-door neighbor and I have been having an ongoing conversation about the merits of reading to toddlers every night before bed. Every evening, my mother read to me and my brother when we were little, and I have to say that we both enjoyed it. It was just part…
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Dear Dr. Linda, I was listening to a podcast about the importance of developing creativity in children and why it’s essential to child development. My kids love LEGOs, but this researcher argued that LEGOs don’t develop creativity. Then the same researcher said organized sports don’t develop creativity. My kids love their sports. I thought I…
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