Reset
In attempting this 40 consecutive days of blogging, I’ve stumbled once before and missed one day. Then for the past few days, you could say I’ve been in face plant mode, missing many days! I deeply apologize and take responsibility. For a second I thought, How humiliating! Maybe I should just give up. Then I wondered […]
Yet
Short and powerful, the word “yet” gives you an effective tool for helping children work through frustration. Here’s how you can use it, based on suggestions from the book Choice Words. If your child tells you, “I can’t!” and shows signs of distress or anger, use the phrase, “Not yet.” Seems almost too good to […]
Empower
Yesterday, I nearly missed an opportunity to motivate a student. Not with harsh words, but with a positive statement I almost made. What? A positive statement? Compliments are bad? No, but depending on our goals, we can make subtle language changes with children. Before speaking, I remembered my weekend work with a colleague, revisiting a […]
Artplay
Artplay. OK, I made that word up just now. Perfect for this topic. Just like my hands made up this design of color tiles last week. Even if we’re not “natural” artists, allowing ourselves some time to create each month is key to recharging our batteries, stimulating problem-solving in other areas of our lives, and just […]
Wall
As parents, we want to know about our children’s lives at school. And those questions, for many kids, are dreaded ones. So sometimes they yank our chains, or shrug, or mumble. What about that one-word answer? Or the surly “I don’t know what I did!” And some other times, what they think is cool they […]
Laughter
One day last week, after a gazillion challenges in getting out the door with our curious three-year-old, we finally made it to school. “It’s like a big sticker,” I heard him say to himself. “It’s for mamas to use. I’m just going to stick it right here on my leg.” What does he have now? I […]
Purple
“Ms. Weis, Ms. Weis, the big kids won’t let me on the swings!” the student said. Supervising our students, my colleague and I knew that playground time was when all the serious social trouble happened. In asking the boy to say more, we found out that he hadn’t actually asked to use the swings. Ms. […]
