6 Catchphrases to Connect Your Children to Nature
In my last post exploring children’s relationship with nature, I described 8 ways that parents can nurture their children’s love of nature. Because words send powerful messages to children, you can further help your children connect to nature by associated their wonderful experiences in nature with meaningful catchphrases related to nature. Our catchphrase for sending […]
Read MoreGive Your Children Roots and Wings
A wonderful article in The New York Times about the importance of allowing your children to explore, risk, and fail. A must-read in today’s world of over-involved and fearful parents who try to protect their children from dangers that don’t exist and experiences that will actually make them more confident, capable and resilient people.
Read MoreSliding Down That Slippery Slope Toward Ski Racing
Back in 2011, I wrote an article titled “Mama, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Ski Racers, in which I described my internal conflict about whether I wanted my two daughters (then ages 5 and 3, now 9 and 7) to become ski racers. Well, now as four-year veterans of the Sugar Bowl […]
Read More8 Ways to Nurture Your Children’s Love of Nature
Children love the Earth. They really do hug trees. Kids care in the purest and sweetest way for birds, flowers, plants, and animals. To see children smell a flower, marvel at a bee buzzing around them, and jump with joy at seeing a deer are just a few of the ways that children express their […]
Read More5 Ways to Weave Gratitude into Your Family’s Life
To ensure that your children embrace the value of gratitude, you must immerse them in a culture of gratitude. You can do this by weaving gratitude into the very fabric of your family life. Our family has a “Mo’ Grat” ritual every evening when we sit down for dinner. In this case, it means “Moment […]
Read More5 Words of Kindness to Teach Your Children Gratitude
In my last post, I described five messages that parents can send to their children to instill the value and practice of gratitude. In this post, I’ll discuss how kind words can be another means through which you can convey the importance of gratitude to your children. My family’s ‘catchphrase’ for gratitude is “Mo’ Grat,” […]
Read MoreHow to Be a Great Sports Parent
I was recently interviewed by Today’s Parent for an article titled “How to Raise the Next Sidney Crosby” (it’s a Canadian magazine). It’s a good read for sports parents with some great perspectives from elite athletes, parents, coaches, and, yes, yours truly.
Read More5 Messages of Gratitude You Can Send Your Children
In my last post, I introduced you to power of gratitude in the lives of children and families. In this post, I will show you how gratitude can be communicated to your children through many conduits. That’ s a good thing because, maybe more than any other message, you’re going to have to send the […]
Read MoreIs E-Reading to Your Children Reading or Screen Time?
If you have young children , the seduction of e-readers, tablets, and smartphones to distract, placate, or assuage them is strong. The tech industry has been selling the idea that early exposure to technology will benefit children educationally. A big push has been encouraging parents to use e-readers rather than books when reading to them. […]
Read MoreGratitude Fuels Your Child’s Heart (and Your Own)
One of the most important—and often neglected—messages that you want your children to get early and often is the power of gratitude. Consider a simple “thank you.” Those two words offer a win-win for the sender and the receiver of the message. A surprising and robust finding in the growing body of research that has […]
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