Building Self-Understanding with Self-Talk
When she was three, my middle daughter loved to play dolls with her friends. They would reenact various everyday…
MorePosts tagged: Understanding
Paying Close Attention to Kids
At my daughter’s sixth birthday party, she invited her friends to decorate pots and plant marigolds. I watched as one…
MoreExploring Neurodivergence with Good Different
When my daughter was four, she came home from school and told me that we could no longer show our teeth when we smiled.…
MoreLooking Beneath with Kids
Everyone - young or old - have bad days. Days when it’s hard to get out of bed. Days when we don’t feel like…
MoreAffirming Neurodiversity
I was recently invited to talk with a group of interns working in non-profit settings with kids. One noted that he had…
MoreWhen Children Interrupt
Interruptions are an expected issue when working with children. Sometimes they want to tell us about their new pet or…
MoreChildren’s Understandings of Death
Death is a part of life. Even if some children do not experience it directly with a pet or family member, they know…
MoreHelping Young Children Connect Actions with Consequences
As preschoolers, my kids love playing with story blocks. Our set consisted of wooden tiles depicting various…
MoreAffirming Gender Diversity
When my children were young, we dressed them in a rainbow of hues. Some people found this frustrating because they…
MoreExploring the Gift of Rain with Sidney the Lonely Cloud
Like generations of children before them, my kids would chant, “Rain, rain, go away,” whenever raindrops threatened…
MoreRecording Lessons
When the pandemic shut down in-person gatherings, many of us pivoted to online programs. Some loved working with…
MorePromoting Children’s Voices through ‘Grand Conversations’
One of my pet peeves with curricula for children’s programs is how teacher-directed most of the activities are. The…
MoreCultivating Intellectual Humility
“Saying something doesn’t make it so.” My grandmother would issue this reminder whenever my siblings or I would…
MoreDurable Spiritual Learning
Recently, I watched several young children explore finger labyrinths for the first time. Most would race to see how…
MoreReexamining Humility as a Spiritual Virtue
Growing up, I was frequently told that good girls should be humble. I was expected to hide my intelligence and avoid…
MoreHelping Children Explore Rules
No running in the house. Look both ways before crossing the street. Treat others with respect. These common family…
MoreVisible Spiritual Thinking
My kids used to love puzzles that involved figuring out an unknown object from a close-up photo. They developed a set…
MoreCueing Spiritual Language
When my son was learning about lower case letters, he got into an argument with his preschool teacher about the letter…
MorePlease Don’t Praise the Kids
“You’re so smart!” These three words come easily to mind when children do or say something that demonstrates…
MoreTaming Anxiety
One of my children goes quiet when she’s anxious. Another talks incessantly and blows up when he gets overwhelmed.…
MoreA 5E Model of Spiritual Education
One of my eldest child’s favorite memories is a series of 5th grade class sessions where they explored scientific…
MoreHelping Children Understand Love
I have a love/hate relationship with Valentine’s Day. It's an opportunity to celebrate relationships with friends and…
MoreNeuroscience and Learning
Have you ever heard (or said) that spirituality is ‘caught, not taught’? While it’s true that good models and…
MoreWhy Children Confuse God with Santa
Santa is everywhere these days. Well before Thanksgiving, store displays and commercials were selling products in his…
MoreMovement-Enhanced Learning
Several years ago, I was leading a holiday workshop and more kids than I expected showed up. There weren’t enough…
MoreSpiritual Brain Power
When my eldest child was three, she shocked our neighbor by explaining in detail how a refrigerator works. Amber loved…
MoreHelping Kids Appreciate Facts
What is a fact? One basic definition is that facts are things that we know to be true because of experience,…
MoreEncouraging Active Empathy
My daughter came home talking about a new girl in her class. Since being the new kid can be challenging, I want my…
MoreAvoiding Seductive Details
Drawing children into learning activities can sometimes feel like Sisyphus rolling an immense boulder uphill. Just when…
MoreDo Children Believe in Halloween Ghouls?
When my oldest was four, she insisted on dressing up as Pluggie the Fire Plug for Halloween. A staple at neighborhood…
MoreWays to Check Understanding
A common way to check whether children have understood something is to give a test. But even in schools, teachers are…
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