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As we inch closer and closer to September and the start of a new school year, students may be starting to feel some anxiety about the academic challenges that lay ahead. I consider the first day of school as a kind of academic โ€œnew yearโ€™s dayโ€ – a new class, a new curriculum and very often, new educational challenges await. Whether your child is starting junior kindergarten, grade 5 or grade 9, the first day back to school can be daunting! A good way to ease some stress about starting a new school year is to set some academic goals or targets at home before they hit the classroom.

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Being organized and on top things can be daunting for parents, let alone our kids! While research shows that kids can benefit from set routines at home and at school, including better behavior and better academic performance, sticking to a schedule is sometimes easier said than done. Letโ€™s face it, we all have unique lives, with different pressures, obligations and stresses that rule our day-to-day. Teaching our kids to be organized isnโ€™t easy, but it is something that we should at least try to encourage. Some negative effects of not being organized that students can suffer from include losing confidence in their ability to handle things, self-blame, a decrease in academic performance, challenge avoidance and more.

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When my daughter was diagnosed with a tree nut allergy 3 years ago, it changed the way I looked at food forever. I always thought of myself as health-conscious, especially when it came to my kids, but now I was constantly scouring the ingredients list of everything that came into my home! We had to be very vigilant which meant that buying baked goods from bakeries and grocery stores became impossible as most could not guarantee that their products had not come into contacts with any nuts. While nut-free products and bakeries are becoming more popular and accessible, I wanted to provide healthy, nut-free snacks for my daughter that I could make at home and that tasted GOOD! And so these nut-free, no-bake energy bites were born!