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Social Emotional Learning in the Classroom: Simple Tools for the New School Year

by Suzanne Tucker

Social emotional learning starts in everyday classroom moments. Explore simple SEL strategies teachers can use to build emotional literacy, support regulation, strengthen relationships, and create a classroom where children feel safe, understood, and ready to learn.

Woman kneeling to comfort a young boy, with illustrated hands exchanging a gray cloud for a red heart in the background

Positive vs. Negative Reinforcement: A Guide for Parents

by Alex Petrou

Learn how positive vs. negative reinforcement influence your parenting style and the ways positive reinforcers can support your child’s development.

Mother comforting her highly sensitive teenage son during an emotional moment, illustrating parental support, empathy, and teen mental health.

Helping Your Highly Sensitive Child Gain Confidence

by Rebecca Eanes

When our children are highly sensitive, rejection and criticism hurt more deeply. They get embarrassed easily and have strong emotional reactions, which can make them the target for bullying. Here are 5 tools to boost your child's confidence.

Woman looking at an old childhood photo of herself, surrounded by illustrated hearts and clouds

Healing From A Childhood You Don't Remember

by Ashley Patek

While we may not remember our childhood with our mind and verbal words, our body keeps the score and stores the information it receives from our formative years, namely which parts of us to grow and which to shrink. These downloads show up as patterns in adulthood and in our parenting. Read more.

Woman with eyes closed and hand on her chest, staying calm, with a flower graphic beside her

9 Mantras I Use When Low On Patience With My Kids

by Ashley Patek

Mantras can change the wiring of our brain and create a new lens to see ourselves, our kids, and the world at large. Here are 9 parenting mantras I use when low on patience with my kids.

of two young girls/ siblings fighting, one pulling hair

End Sibling Rivalry And Bring Peace Into Your Home

by Ashley Patek

Siblings are natural competitors for attachment, bidding for our love and attention. Here's 3 Parenting Do's and Don'ts when it comes to sibling relationships.

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Emergent Emotional Literacy: Why We Can Teach the ABCs of Emotions Before Children Can Talk

by Suzanne Tucker

Emotional literacy begins long before children can name their feelings or regulate them independently. Just like early reading skills, it develops through everyday relationships, repetition, play, co-regulation, and meaningful experiences. Discover how the “Name It. Feel It. Heal It.” approach helps children—and the adults who care for them—build emotional skills over time.

How to Help Kids Deal with Disappointment

by Suzanne Tucker

Disappointment is one of the hardest emotions for kids to sit with, and one of the hardest for parents to witness. In this guide, you will find 5 practical, science-backed ways to help your child cope with disappointment, build resilience, and develop lifelong emotional skills. Because emotional strength doesn't come from avoiding hard feelings. It comes from learning to move through them, with someone steady by your side.

Manage Your Emotions, And Your Child's Too: Interview With Suzanne Tucker

by Ashley Patek

You can actually be yelling at your child and be mindful. If you notice that you're yelling... pause, and celebrate. You say to yourself, 'I'm yelling, and I noticed I'm yelling' and then take a deep breath. Now you have some power. to do something different, but not if you're busy beating yourself up.

Using Art for Emotional Regulation

by Alex Petrou

A mama warrior overcomes frustration to make a teachable moment through art for her son. Three tips to incorporate art into positive parenting.

Children Will Never Forget

by Suzanne Tucker

Safe, powerful, connected. Supported, nurtured, and seen. These are just some of the ways we want our children to feel.

parent and toddler playfully laughing together

The Ultimate Guide To Building A Calming Corner And Using Time-Ins At Home

by Ashley Patek

How do you say goodbye to time-outs and introduce time-ins? This is the ultimate guide on the do's and don'ts for building and using a Calming Corner.

When Your Child Fears The Coronavirus: 8 Tips for Taming Anxiety

by Ashley Patek

As a parent, what do you do when your child has fears that feel out of their control - things like viral outbreaks and global warming? Learn 8 tips for taming fears and anxieties through connection.

Juggling Big Emotions

by Jessica Zodicoff

As a seven-year-old girl, I remember my grandpa coming over for the holidays and juggling whatever fruit he could find in our kitchen. He taught me to juggle using not lemons, but just three tissues. The fruit was too big for my little-girl hands, but like a set of training wheels, I practiced with those tissues until...

Creating a Calming Corner for Small Spaces

by Ashley Patek

Calming Corners of all sizes and styles are celebrated because what matters is that you opened the box. Here is how to make a calming space for small spaces.

What Teachers Are Thinking and Feeling About Returning To School This Year

by Ashley Patek

With fall approaching, parents and educators are looking to the next school year and wondering what’s best for everyone involved.

Positive Affirmations are Helping Kids

by Ashley Patek

These printable mantra bracelets are a great way for parents to share comforting and empowering mantras with children as young as age two on up. Because when we feel worthy and loved, we respond as if we are worthy and loved. And when we feel powerless and not enough, we respond as if we are powerless and not enough.

Teaching The Whole Learner: School Spotlight on Bloom360

by Ashley Patek

Bloom360 Learning Community, a nonprofit school in southeastern Wisconsin for Learners ages 5 to 21 with neurodiverse needs, based their entire 2019/20 school year curriculum themes around the PeaceMakers themes of Power, Joy, Balance, Love, Peace, Intuition, and Forgiveness, and the outcomes are inspiring.

Parenting Toddlers, Tweens, and Teens Using Time-Ins

by Ashley Patek

Crystal is a mama with a household of toddlers, tweens, and teens where uncontrollable sobbing and outbursts were a daily occurrence, and not just from her three-year-old.

Pretending To Be Calm Is Not Helping Our Children

by Rebecca Eanes

Many of us believe that if we can remain calm no matter what and teach our children to do the same then we have successfully mastered self-regulation. But true regulation has nothing to do with achieving a certain state. It's in noticing and responding to whatever emotion you are feeling.

Peaceful Parenting Tips: How To Do Time-Ins

by Ashley Patek

This video is for anyone who has ever struggled with parenting (all of us), for those who are working to respond to their children instead of reacting to their behaviors, and anyone who wants to raise emotionally healthy humans but isn't sure where to start.

Why Using A Behavior Chart Is Ineffective

by Ashley Patek

Before you decide to add to or continue using behavioral management charts, let's take a closer look at the undesirable side-effects. Read more.

This Twist on a Classic Teaches Children Loving Limits and Boundaries

by Ashley Patek

While some may say that The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein is a tale of selfless love, others find the story actually sends a much different message --- one of co-dependency.

A mother kneels and holds her young child’s hands against a colorful abstract background.

How To Make A DIY Calming Corner

by Alex Petrou

After a failed DIY Pinterest-inspired Calming Corner, this mama turned to Generation Mindful's Time-In-Toolkit to save her time, money, and sanity while creating a space for her tantruming three-year-old to explore her feelings.