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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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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.

There's What Parents Say And What Kids Hear

by Ashley Patek

Does it ever feel like there is a disconnect between what you say and what your kids hear? Like, somehow, asking your child not to jump on the couch or slap her brother translates into more jumping and continued slapping. Here are common parenting phrases, what kids hear, and what we can say instead to get on the same page.

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.

There Is No Such Thing As A Bad Child

by Guest Author

As a mother and trauma therapist, I can sniff out social trauma from a mile away.

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.

My Child Morphed! What To Do When Big Emotions And Behaviors Take Over.

by Ashley Patek

Is it just me or does something happen to our children when they turn three, four and five? Like all of the sudden emotions are more potent and behaviors are more exasperating. Here's why, plus 4 tips to help your child's nervous system regulate amidst all of these changes.

Virtual Calming Corner Teaches Kids About Emotions Playfully

by Ashley Patek

How do we teach social-emotional learning (SEL) to our children?

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.

Enhancing Social-Emotional Learning in Traditional and Montessori Classrooms

by Suzanne Tucker

Discover effective social-emotional techniques for Montessori classrooms and traditional settings. Nurture emotional growth in diverse educational environments.

Santa's 'Naughty List' Has Been Canceled This Holiday Season

by Ashley Patek

The holiday season is meant to be a magical time, but often it is used as leverage to control a child’s behavior. We have a real opportunity to rewrite the narrative. Here's how.

Portable Emotional ToolKit for Sensitive Kids

by Guest Author

How do you discipline a highly sensitive child? Using time-ins help children understand and mange their deep emotional world, nurturing connection and emotional intelligence. Here are 8 tips to building a portable ToolKit for your child to help them regulate not only at home but on the go.

Why Is My Child Behaving This Way?

by Ashley Patek

Power struggles ... meltdowns ... defiance. Here's what's causing your child's behavior and tools for transforming it.

The Stories Kids Want To Tell About COVID

by Rebecca Eanes

Our children grew up in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Their brains developed in quarantine. Their bodies changed in lockdown. They are emerging from this as different people, and the impact it had on them is yet to be told. Here are 4 things we can do to support our children’s social-emotional health this school year ...

3 Simple Tools To Gain Cooperation From Your Child (With Less Yelling From You!)

by Rebecca Eanes

When it comes to getting your child to listen, tricks and bribes only go so far. Eventually your kids will wise up to them, and because these tactics evoke a fight or flight response, they will rebel. Here are 3 tools to increase cooperation so that your kids want to work with you (instead of against you).

One Mama Realizes: My Child's Feelings Are About Her, Not Me

by Ashley Patek

I had done everything right, and yet my nine-year-old daughter was having her version of a tantrum. And then I realized her emotion wasn't about me ... it was about her. Here is how I helped her process her emotions.

6 Meaningful Christmas Gifts

by Ashley Patek

Rather than storing unwanted toys in the closet, this year give the children on your list meaningful memories instead. Here are six connection-based gift ideas for ages two and up that we love for the holidays.

Parenting: Control Isn't The Goal

by Rebecca Eanes

Nothing makes you feel like a failure quite like having a child you can’t control. Until you realize control isn’t the goal. Control starts to slip away as children grow, and you either have to up the ante to maintain that illusion of control or you have to accept the fact that you really don’t have control at all.

5 Therapeutic Art Activities for Emotional Health

by Rebecca Eanes

Art can help your child release and express feelings they may not know how to process and let go of otherwise. Use these 5 art activities to navigate loss, stress and transitions and to nurture emotional intelligence such as managing big emotions.

The Harm Of Forcing Manners On Our Children (And What To Do Instead)

by Ashley Patek

If we want to step away from punitive measures and towards a deep understanding of manners, and an internal motivation to practice them, it stops with “say the magic word” or “say you are sorry” or “what do you say???” And it starts with these 5 tools.

3 Ways To Transform Your Child's Behavior

by Ashley Patek

This mom was searching for a way to transform her child's misbehavior. And it was these three connection-based tools that did it.