Suzanne Stafford

Blogs by Suzanne Stafford

Stress Counseling Can Slow Aging: Strengthening the Mind-Body Connection

In the stone age, tiny holes were drilled into human skulls in order to release evil spirits and cure an individual of a disease. These tiny holes, called trepanation, were a reflection of a belief in a relationship between the mind and the body, a belief that has been wrestled with throughout the history of… Read more »

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A Parent’s Shorthand Guide to the College Transition

High school graduation is a culmination of emotions, a push-and-pull of opposing feelings on the human psyche. There’s a mixture of anxiety and excitement, happiness and sadness, regret and expectation, and relief and concern. And this doesn’t just apply to the grad either; parents are equally if not oftentimes more immersed in this emotional tug-of-war…. Read more »

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Exploring anger

Exploring Anger: What It Is, What It Does, and When It’s Appropriate

It’s happened to everyone: that internal switch that gets flicked on without a moment’s notice and just like that… all you can see is red. For different people, anger manifests itself in many different forms, at different times and because of different triggers. There is no set equation for anger, no exact variables, and no… Read more »

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Taking Advantage of Summertime to Get to Know Your Child

Summer’s finally here, and while that may not mean a lot to the majority of the working population, children everywhere are rejoicing in the newfound (however temporary) freedom of their three-month vacation from school, homework, and all things academic. While you probably aren’t afforded the same release from work, as a parent, summer is the… Read more »

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Infidelity in the 21st Century

On May 9th, Former California Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger and his wife, Maria Shriver, announced that they would be filing for divorce. While exact reasons were unknown at the time, only days later on May 16th, The Los Angeles Times revealed that Schwarzenegger had fathered a child with a household employee more than a decade earlier…. Read more »

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Remember the Kids: Easing the Adjustment of Divorce for Children

In 1967, in order to study the relationship between stress and physical health, researchers Thomas Holmes and Richard Rahe examined medical records of more than 5,000 patients. In order to determine whether stressful life events could cause illness, they developed a stress scale or “social readjustment scale” which assigned numerical scores of 1-100 to stressful… Read more »

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Fight Obesity Early

It has long been known in the medical community that breast-fed infants are less likely to be overweight, some studies reporting a 15-20% decrease in childhood obesity is possible simply from switching infants from formula to breast milk. However, a new study shows that in addition to the extra risk formula-fed babies are subject to,… Read more »

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Sleepovers: Are They Appropriate for Every Child?

One of the most pivotal coming-of-age experiences in  children’s lives is their first sleepover, perhaps the first night they spend away from their parents and embark on a journey to independence and creating their own life outside the realm of their family home. With the first sleepover comes many worries for the child: what to… Read more »

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Self-Control May Be a Key Factor to Success

The age-old expression “Good things come to those who wait,” seems to hold true even in scientific research. However, “good things” may not merely be a present to those who are virtuously patient, as the expression posits, but may in fact be a result of an individual’s personality and behavioral traits correlated with patience. According… Read more »

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"Tiger Mother" Techniques Have the Right Intention but Wrong Tactics

Amy Chua, a professor of law at Yale University, recently published a book describing her strict child-rearing techniques and experiences titled Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (Penguin Press, 2011). Chua, a mother of two daughters, ascribes to a traditional Chinese parenting style that demands nothing short of perfection from her children: allowing nothing below… Read more »

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