Your Village

Kids (and adults too) should do things for the joy of learning and growing not necessarily because we are good at them. Teach your kids to enjoy the process of learning something new and their lives will be full of wonder and joy.

Disciplining tweens/teens is very different than younger children. The shift happens slowly over time from about ages 10-12 to more empowerment. So excited to announce the latest class in support of parents of tweens/teens with positive discipline tools for empowering our young people to happy, responsible successful adulthoods!

Another write up from The Week! I'm having so much fun contributing to these! If you have a tween/teen that sometimes reverts to more childish behavior, this article has some great insights from me and other child development specialists. https://theweek.com/articles/910883/tween-big-baby

The latest class Teaching a Growth Mindset is now available!! We've been getting a lot of interest in this one, so I'm so happy to have this in the class library! Click below to see the sample of this plus the two other latest classes and to receive 25% off the lifetime of your membership. Offer Ends June 30.

I was interviewed for this article. I thought I posted it but I guess not! I can't believe I forgot to post this article back in March!

I could have recorded this almost exact message.

It's time to re-share this one. My daughter's hair is a complete tangled mess. There is no one to save her but me. Sorry Taylor! Hang strong mom and dads! We're doing a lot more and taking on a lot more tasks and finding hidden talents and resources we never knew we had. We'll see if I completely botch this or come out a beauty hero. I'm betting on being closer to botching than a beauty hero. But who is she going to see in the next month?!

In the latest episode I share coping strategies for parents during this tumultuous time for staying as sane as possible. Then to get back to a bit of normalcy, I answer a question about a toddler who screams and screeches when frustrated with some tips on how to get this to stop!

After week two of kids at home and for some of us distance learning, I think we can all use a good chuckle.

Going into week 2 of the new normal Sharing the 6 tips to buffering your kids, from last weeks episode. #parentingpodcast #momswhopodcast #parentingbeyonddiscipline #findyourvillage

This is amazing for parents of kids of 7/8+. Today the kids and I "went" to the Eiffel Tower and Nagasaki Japan to learn about the atomic bombing. There are so ...many amazing museums for art, history, science and nature. We have a list of museums we will visit over the next 4 weeks while they are learning from home. Just a few? NASA, Palace of Versailles, The Acropolis, The Olympic Museum, The White House, Ford's Theatre, US National Archives, Australian Maritime Museum, Sydney Opera House, The Holocaust Museum. Seriously, the list just goes on and on...Check it out and let me know your favorites in the comments! See more

Stuck at home with your kids and now "homeschooling" for the foreseeable future? This is an opportunity to broaden their learning in ways you don't have time (and schools don't have the bandwidth) during the school year! Two great classes, Summer Learning Loss (gives tons of fun ways to dive into science, math, art and more! Minus the outing to museums, of course!) and the newest class Learning Styles and Multiple Intelligence Theory.

While I agree wholeheartedly with the main idea of this article, open ended creative play is the job of children and where the best learning happens, I disagree that all toys are educational or that all toys are created equal when it comes to educational value. There are toys that give much more opportunity for creativity and that offers much more value in learning. In the class on educational toys I discuss what makes a toy better for learning and lots of options for every a...ge, infants to teens. But in general, the less a toy does, the more opportunity for creativity and open play. You want your toddler to make the cow talk or moo or whatever. If the cow moos already, it means your child may lose an opportunity to have the cow "talk" or "communicate" in a more creative way outside of it's electronic noise! Definitely let the children play! But also give them the most opportunity to open wide to their imaginations and creativity when they do! See more

If you are curious to learn more about the research I mentioned on the podcast this week about how the decline in free/open play is having a negative effect on children's mental health, here is one of many articles citing one of many research studies that all have very similar findings. A few antidotes? Play based preschools, set aside time every day for free play, grade schools with little or no homework (allowing for more free play time) limiting scheduled after school activities to no more than two (can be more than once a week each but no more than two activities, music and soccer, dance and scouting, two activities total), lastly, simply sit back and watch or listen to kids play and try not to intervene unless things are keying up and you feel you need to step in for the sake of physical or emotional safety.

I hope this trend continues and even moves up the grades. Learning can be and SHOULD be fun!!!