Thanksgiving is a special time of the year. It’s a time when we take stock of all the things we are thankful for, and it’s a time for family gatherings. For parents of college freshmen, it’s also time for our kids to come home for an extended break and an opportunity to assess how the first semester has gone.

Metacognition is defined as…

October is a scary month.  We’re not talking ghosts, goblins, or zombies.  Nope, there are scarier things happening in October.  Things like:

·       The end of the first quarter marking period (Oct. 28 in Fairfax County) 

·       Preparing college essays and applications

·       The omnipresent fear that your children are struggling, and you don’t know how to help

Ghosts, goblins, and zombies may not be real (well, ghosts maybe, but that’s another blog for another day) – but the school struggle is real and that we can help with.

Labor Day celebrates our workforce, but it also marks the end of summer and coincides with back-to-school. It isn’t only teachers and students who labor away at this time of year. The beginning of the school year can be an additional stressor on parents and family dynamics as well. So how about some professional development for moms, dads, and other guardians? Taking stock …

It’s that time of year.  Summer is waning, and the new school year is about to begin.  Most of our students and their families face back-to-school time with a combination of anticipation and dread.  A new school year is full of promise and a chance for fresh starts, but study skills, organizational systems, and other good habits maintained during the prior school year may have taken a back seat…

The month of July is a time to celebrate our nation’s Independence Day. It is also the perfect time to celebrate “learned independence” – one of the guiding principles of our work at Essig Education Group. What is learned independence and how is it achieved?

Happy Summer! As we all take breaks from school and schoolwork, we wish all students rest, relaxation, play, exploration, and imagination. This reset and recharge will allow our student’s brains to develop without overwhelm. Along with the restful reset, …

It’s May and the 2021-22 school year is heading into its final weeks! College students will be heading into finals by mid-month and K-12 schools following closely behind. As we head into the next stressful school activities (research papers, final papers, and final exams) it’s important to check in with our children and…

Somewhere in the recesses of our minds, most of us remember the college application process as anxiety provoking, but we didn’t live in the age of “how perfect do I need to be.” I remember the College Board stating that the SAT was a test of previous knowledge and not something that needed to be prepped for. No one would believe that statement today, but…

I remember that when my children were young, all players on their sports’ teams received participation trophies. They looked like the ones that were given for excellence in the sport, and the children didn’t differentiate participation from excellence. Their generation of now 20-somethings collected trophies for showing up at many things and now, in their 20s agree that showing up should not be awarded. Parents need to let children understand…

It’s hard to believe that we are halfway through the schoolyear. Schools have sent out progress reports, but the pandemic has changed how many students, and hopefully parents, view grades. While assessing this semester, students describe living in an odd educational mix of schools moving back to traditional classroom standards while also being more aware of and responsive to everyone’s emotional needs. A high school senior whom I work described his first semester experience beautifully when he said…

We are nearing two years of an alternate school structure that no one could have imagined prior to the pandemic which has clearly been a very challenging time for students and teachers. As we enter the next year with numbers on the rise again, it feels like we are never again going to find a rhythm, a balance that doesn’t cause stress and isolation. This, however, does not need to be what defines this year if we look at how we find resiliency in any situation.

You asked, we listened. We have been asked to develop a parenting course for years and after the pandemic and rough return to in-person school, we decided that now is the time to support parents of children with executive dysfunction in addition to coaching the children. To that end, we have developed a course on appropriate support for parents that we will begin teaching in January,2022.