Food and Life

2020-12-29T13:49:10-06:00October 1st, 2020|Categories: Parenting|Tags: , , , , |

By Maren Stark Schmidt And They Call It Veggie Love… When do we learn to love vegetables? For most of us, it is usually before the age of seven. During the first six years of life children are in a sensitive period of learning that involves refining the senses, which includes, of course, taste and smell. Introduce new foods ten times. Presenting a variety of vegetables to the young child helps create a later preference for vegetables in the older child and adult. When introducing [...]

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Handling Your Kid’s Disappointment When Everything Is Canceled

2020-04-11T17:12:07-05:00April 11th, 2020|Categories: Parenting|Tags: , , |

School and events are shutting down, impacting children in unexpected ways. Here’s how to deal with the letdown. By Erinne Magee March 18, 2020 • Taken from the New York Times When I told my 10-year-old daughter that her elementary school would be shutting down for two weeks, she didn’t seem to mind. But after Lexi had time to process the news and realized a friend’s birthday party, a dance competition and the “Jump Rope for Heart” fund-raiser at school were also looped into the [...]

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Want to Raise Thoughtful, Well-Adjusted Children? Let Them Hear You Say These 11 Things, According to Parenting Experts

2020-04-11T17:29:27-05:00March 1st, 2020|Categories: Parenting|Tags: , , , |

I recently wrote about what parents should let their kids see them doing to role-model well-adjusted behavior and have been planning this follow-up piece. Why? Because helping children to grow up successful and levelheaded is about ensuring they see you doing and saying certain things. Plenty has been written about what not to say in front of your children but not so much on the opposite. So I enlisted the help of parenting experts Patrick A. Coleman, parenting editor at Fatherly.com, and Daniel Wong, author [...]

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Anxiety & Anxiety Disorders in Children: Information for Parents

2020-04-11T17:42:43-05:00February 1st, 2020|Categories: Parenting|Tags: , , |

By Thomas J. Huberty, PhD, NCSP Indiana University Anxiety is one of the most common experiences of children and adults. It is a normal, adaptive reaction, as it creates a level of arousal and alertness to danger. The primary characteristic of anxiety is worry, which is fear that future events will have negative outcomes. Anxious children are much more likely than their peers to see minor events as potentially threatening. For example, giving a brief oral report might be slightly anxiety-producing for most children, but [...]

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How to Help Kids Learn to Love Giving

2019-12-05T15:50:00-06:00December 5th, 2019|Categories: Parenting|Tags: , , |

by Jason Marsh During the holidays, opportunities abound to help kids understand why and how to help people in need, with food drives proliferating and countless organizations making pitches for end-of-year donations. And there’s scientific evidence that kids should be receptive to those messages: Research suggests that they have a deeply rooted instinct to share and to help others, from the time they’re very young—one study even found that toddlers enjoy giving to others more than they like getting treats for themselves. Kids, it seems, have a strong, natural drive [...]

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How the Outdoors Makes Your Kids Smarter

2019-12-05T16:42:05-06:00December 5th, 2019|Categories: Parenting, Raintree|Tags: , |

The freedom to move and play outside inspires creativity and improves brain function By Katie Arnold When I was eight years old, I spent an hour every autumn day after school shooting baskets in our driveway in New Jersey. I was small for my age, had little talent for the sport, and didn’t love it all that much; what I loved were the stories I made up in my head as I practiced my layups alone. I loved how my mind was free to wander [...]

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If At First You Don’t Succeed…GREAT!!

2019-12-05T16:20:14-06:00October 5th, 2019|Categories: Montessori, Parenting|Tags: , , |

By Pilar Bewley Mistakes, we make them every day. Regardless of their magnitude, they all share one common characteristic: they teach. “We learn from failure, not from success,” wrote Bram Stoker in Dracula. Mistakes are essential to our growth and development and yet in our society they are taboo. At some point in our lives most of us have passed the buck instead of taking responsibility for our errors; in our culture messing up something you readily acknowledge. Since we have such a negative view [...]

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Three Important Points for Toddler and Primary Parents

2019-12-05T16:41:10-06:00September 5th, 2019|Categories: Montessori, Parenting, Raintree|Tags: , |

1.  Quiet and Peacefulness Essential Montessori called the classroom a “children’s house,” a warm and inviting place scaled to the child’s size.  Our job is to protect and nurture this special place.  Please help us by…. Being quiet when you enter Raintree. Noise in the hallway distracts children who are working and awakens children who are sleeping in the afternoon.  Please help us follow the same guidelines the children follow during the day by being quiet in the hall. Giving your full attention to your [...]

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Seven Harmful Traits

2019-12-05T16:30:07-06:00September 5th, 2019|Categories: Parenting|Tags: , , , , |

by Maren Stark Schmidt Ever notice how a word, a phrase, a quote or a book title keeps popping up? Over the past couple of years the following Gandhi quotes keeps showing up in my studies. Every time I read these seven statements I am astounded at the wisdom conveyed in so few words. Gandhi is attributed with saying that these seven characteristics, the most spiritually perilous traits to humanity: Wealth without work Pleasure without conscience Knowledge without character Commerce without morality Science without humanity [...]

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Interruption Disruption: Why You Should Never Interrupt a Child at Work

2019-12-05T16:42:17-06:00August 4th, 2019|Categories: Parenting|Tags: , , |

By Catherine McTamaney Imagine it: you’re at your work, fully absorbed in the task in front of you. Your attention is focused on your project. You’ve finally hit a pace and you’re getting it done. And the phone rings. What happens to your work? For most adults, getting interrupted from our work means broken momentum. The rhythm of our work is disrupted. It’s hard to get back on track. If we’re concentrating deeply, absorbed in our work, the impact is even more significant. We may [...]

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