This blogpost is part of a series on understanding the intersection of race, privilege, and parenting. Click here to view all the items in this series. Note: If you’re a person of a non-dominant culture (a term I use to avoid centering whiteness, and to acknowledge the power differential present in systems of structural racism)…
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Are you feeling overwhelmed and stressed by the intense prolonged, family time created by the pandemic? Many American parents are having trouble adjusting to this new normal. Everyone’s stress levels are high, but the extra strain of parenting young children has been magnified by isolation. For those working from home, there are the constant interruptions…
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Could more screen time actually benefit my child? Remember playing the telephone game at school and summer camp? The leader would give a message like, “There’s supposed to be a storm tonight with thunder and lightning.” Everyone whispered the message to the person next to them and by the time the statement got to the…
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“Please put your shoes away.” “I don’t want to.” “Put your shoes away now.” “No!” “If you don’t put them away you can’t watch cartoons tonight, and maybe we won’t have dessert either!” ~sigh~ (A conversation like this has never happened in your house, right? Didn’t think so. Mine either😉) When we ask our child…
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I’m guessing you’re feeling somewhere between ‘just keeping it together’ and ‘sheer panic’ right now. Perhaps you previously had one or some of your child(ren) at home with you…and now they’re all around all the time. Or maybe you work outside the home and now you’re trying to do that inside the home…while being attacked by…
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Back in college, a good friend and I had our hearts broken at about the same time. I remember being embarrassed by how physically sore I felt. It wasn’t cool to have your heart broken. I knew I was supposed to tell myself the break-up was ‘for the best’ and bounce back, but I felt…
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Trauma from events like Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) can dramatically impact both individuals and their families long after the event itself is over. Even people who have experienced things that you wouldn’t necessarily think was a huge deal (which psychologists call “little t trauma”) can elevate a person’s risk for a wide-range of social, emotional,…
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Helen Keller said: “Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.” Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) hadn’t been formally named and studied yet back in Helen Keller’s day (the landmark study was published in 1998), but she still recognized both trauma and resilience in the world. We all…
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‘Building a foundation for life-long learning’ is a common phrase to find in school mission statements, yet student motivation is an ongoing concern in public education: children’s engagement with learning actually decreases as time spent in traditional school increases. For parents of preschoolers, this news may be surprising. After all, our young children have an…
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Have you heard of Gitanjali Rao? She’s from Colorado, and she was named America’s Top Young Scientist in the Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist Challenge in 2017 – at age 11. She’s a brilliant kid. Her award-winning project was an inexpensive device that detects the presence of lead in tap water faster than currently used…
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