Helping Your Preteen Cope With Feeling Left Out As our kids get older their friends' opinions begin to mean more to them. This shift in perspective can make feeling left out or being excluded by their peers a crushing experience. What can a parent do to help guide their preteen through the emotional ups and downs that are part of this phase of growing up? TweenParent.com has some strategies for parents to guide their children through this tricky social phase. Read More
Tips for Safe Trick-or-Treating and Halloween Activities As Halloween approaches, parents should get ready too. The stores are chock full of costumes for wee trick-or-treaters including some that could be a safety threat. Here are some tips from Consumer Reports for buying or making safe Halloween costumes... Read More
More than 120 students and families from Palm Lane Elementary School PTA in Anaheim, CA, helped launch a new holiday called School Year’s Eve, created by National PTA and Conde Nast Publishing. Everyone got to spend the day at Disneyland to celebrate the back-to-school season. For details visit schoolyearseve.com and tell National PTA how you celebrated!
PTA Briefs What's New on the PTA Great Idea Bank? The PTA Great Idea Bank just passed 1,000 members. See what people are talking about and what ideas are being shared at PTAgreatideabank.org. Go to PTAgreatideabank.org for more ideas and discussion.
 PTA Reflections: Get Involved
PTA Reflections is celebrating 40 years of achievement in the arts. Each year, students from preschool through high school submit inspiring, heartwarming, thought-provoking, beautiful pieces in dance choreography, film production, literature, musical composition, photography, and the visual arts. Be part of this great program and help unleash students' artistic talents. Read More
Make Healthy Changes This November: PTA Healthy Lifestyles Month Your family may have just settled into the groove of the school year, but consider whether some healthy changes could make that groove even better. Take a second look at what you put in your child's lunch box every day; could some easy substitutions make a more nutritious meal? How about your family's level of physical activity? Could you make time for a family walk after dinner, or a game of soccer in the park this weekend? November is PTA Healthy Lifestyles Month, and we encourage you to take a look at the resources at PTA.org/GoodChoices to find some simple ways to be healthier each day. Also, plan to participate in your school's PTA Healthy Lifestyles celebration. You can offer your talents and time as a volunteer; or if something isn't already planned, why not take the opportunity to step up as a PTA leader? Planning tools and activity ideas can be found at PTA.org/HealthyLifestyles. Stay tuned throughout November for stories about this year's PTA Healthy Lifestyles Award recipients. You'll hear about efforts to get dads and kids active together, a program that's teaching parents how to speak up for healthier school environments, and a special opportunity for families to share their favorite healthy breakfast dishes.
PTA PSAs on Television and Radio Keep an eye and an ear out for PTA's Gateway Public Service Announcements (PSAs)—and be ready for people to ask you about your PTA experience and the work PTA does. The Gateway PSAs include television and radio spots, as well as Web banners, that emphasize how PTA helps parents enrich their children's learning and lives. The PSAs were delivered to select markets across the nation in July, and now, your PTA can send them out as well. Learn more about the campaign at PTA.org/GatewayPSAs.
Tune in to PTA Radio! The latest edition of PTA Radio is is available online. Our featured topics and guests are: Building Strong Parent-School Partnerships - Aracelli Simeon Luna, National Parent-School Partnership Director for MALDEF, offers strategic best practices and goals for fostering strong partnerships between parents and schools Free Resources for Volunteer Leaders - Karen Bantuveris, CEO of VolunteerSpot.com, shares fascinating tips to help leaders maximize volunteer efforts. Tune in today!
PTA Asks You - What is One Thing Your School or PTA Could Do to Improve Student Achievement? Helping students achieve their full potential is one of the most important goals for parents and PTAs, and there are a number of simple and forward-thinking ways to reach it. How would you like to see your school and PTA handle the challenge of student achievement? If your response is selected for publication in the December 2009-January 2010 issue of Our Children magazine, 'Student Achievement 2.0,' PTA will send you a $25 gift card. Deadline for submission: Monday, October 19, 2009. When submitting your response to forum@pta.org, please include - Your name,
- The name and town of your PTA,
- Your position in your PTA, and
- Your home mailing address so we can send you a gift card if your submission is published.
By sending an e-mail, you'll be granting PTA the right to publish your response, which may be edited for grammar, length, and/or clarity.
Quick Parent Tips - The No. 1 secret of parenting: Understanding your child's perspective. Here are some tips from the Blogcritics website.
- How do your rules lose power with your children? Some ideas and possible solutions from Dr. Randy Cale.
100 Ways to Help Your Child and School Succeed There are many ways that you can help your child succeed! A few small activities each week will pay huge dividends over the course of the year. Here are a few that you can do this week: - Participate in organizing and planning ways to recognize and appreciate volunteers. - Participe en la organización y planificación de medios para reconocer y evaluar a los voluntarios.
- Respond to school surveys/questionnaires on the effectiveness of volunteer programs. - Responda a las encuestas y cuestionarios escolares sobre la eficacia de los programas para voluntarios.
PTA in the News
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