Youth & Education - Dr. Frances Mills-Yerger [CITYSunTimes September 2010]

PVCC Offers One-Stop Shopping For Financial Aid

Financial Aid

Help is here for those wading through the time-consuming process of scholarship searches. The Office of Student Financial Assistance at Paradise Valley Community College, a Maricopa Community College, now helps students find money for college with one easy, online application: the General Scholarship Application. The process takes just a few minutes compared to hours of online searching for financial aid and determining eligibility. Applicants simply answer a few questions about their educational background, career interests, academic goals, demographics, academic standings and interest areas. The responses then are entered into a database that matches students with viable scholarship opportunities.
“We query the data they enter then point them to the scholarship that is the most appropriate,” says Financial Aid Director Kenneth Clarke. “We’ve discovered that students often don’t submit scholarship applications themselves. Now we do the search and tell them when we find scholarships that fit their profiles.”
To apply, go to paradisevalley.edu/finaid and click on “Welcome to PVCC’s General Scholarship Application.”

For more information, call the Financial Aid Office at 602.787.7100.

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CITYSunTimes Web Exclusives September 2010 | Read the full SECTION

YOUTH & EDUCATION

Giving Kids A Social Leg Up

By Frances Mills-Yerger

How well do your kids get along with others? As parents, we should offer many opportunities for our kids to develop social skills, which are crucial to healthy relationships throughout childhood and adulthood. The ability to create a social network that is constructive and can be maintained over time is a factor in building inner security and happiness in our youth. Most everyone wants to identify with their family, as well as belong to a group and have close friends.
Social skills refer to how we interact with others. Navigating socially is one of the most complex tasks that human beings do, involving many psychological systems, such as visual and auditory perception, language and problem solving. All of these systems develop during our early years (and adulthood) based on nature and nurture. When these systems do not function properly, social exchanges do not go smoothly. A kid that has a language deficit will have difficulty interpreting the social cues and communicating opinions and desire. Impulsive kids often make snap decisions that end up in misunderstandings and quarrels.
To better equip our kids socially, there are some things that parents can do. These suggestions, enacted on a regular basis, will carry over to real life settings outside of the family.

Teach kids how to listen to others and help them to see things from others’ perspectives.

Model positive relationships within your own family. They learn a lot from what they see and notice the kind of healthy connections their parents make and keep. Also, they learn a lot from their friends as well as electronic media. In the end, parents have the most influence of all.

Show your kids how to recognize and share their emotions and to recognize other’s emotions.

Teach your kids to communicate desires assertively and not with anger or whining.

Help practice problem-solving by reflecting on everyday social conflicts. Don’t jump in to solve every little upset. The parent’s job is to help the kid think through potential consequences of each choice, not to solve the problem for them.

Mentor them to develop good friendship skills by having conversations with them about how certain behaviors assist them in being a good friend. Having a variety of social activities is beneficial.

Frances Mills-Yerger, Ph.D. is a retired marriage and family therapist and is the founder, facilitator and program director of Workshops for Youth and Family based in Scottsdale, where she inspires confidence-building character through workshops.
For information , visit orho.org or call 480.882.6011.

YOUTH & EDUCATION Web Exclusives | CITYSunTimes September 2010