Welcome to my blog!
This is where I share my thoughts, ideas, and activities to support the emotional growth of children.
[Podcast] Getting Unstuck: Shift for Impact talks to us about Reclaiming Our Students
A couple of weeks ago, Tamara and I joined Jeff Ikler and Kirsten Richert on their podcast, Getting Unstuck, to talk about Reclaiming Our Students and the huge potential for every single person who cares about children's learning to create deep, meaningful...
What’s behind the behaviour? There’s always something.
Imagine a wilted plant in a window. Your first thought to help it would probably be to determine what it needs: Does it need more water? Less water? Does it have enough sun? Does it need extra care now because you forgot about it for a few weeks? Is it a delicate...
Teaching Remotely: Building Relationship and Supporting Emotional Well-Being Online
A lot of us are back to teaching – but teaching now in a whole new way. It’s a big learning curve, one that I also am experiencing. Although I am currently teaching undergraduate students in a university faculty of education, I find myself grappling with many...
Inside Out Activity: The Frustration Monster!
This is a great activity for kids ages five to eleven. (These ages are approximate and are suggested guidelines only.) What’s the benefit? This activity can help a child think about frustration and what it feels like inside of them. It can also help...
Kids are playing “coronavirus tag.” Should we be worried?
Like many of us, my family recently learned that my son’s school would be shut down due to the coronavirus epidemic. On his last day of school before the shut down, we were chatting, when he casually told me he had been playing “coronavirus tag” with his friends at...
Rest, Rhythm, Release: Helping Kids Cope with COVID-19
Whether we are a parent, a teacher or a child-care provider, many of us are asking ourselves how we can best support the children in our care during this stressful time of uncertainty around the COVID-19 virus. There are universal strategies that we can use to help...
Matchmaking to Build Community for our Students
In my past two blogs, I have shared about the attachment rituals of collecting (creating a conscious invitation into relationship) and bridging (keeping relationship alive even while disciplining). This blog is about the art of matchmaking and how we can use it to...
The Art of Bridging: How it can keep relationship alive even while disciplining
In my last blog about collecting, I spoke about how creating a conscious invitation into relationship is a vital part of creating emotionally safe learning communities. It is relationship that helps children to feel safe with us. It is through relationship that their...
Creating a Conscious Invitation into Relationship
There is a lot of discussion about the importance of relationship in education – for good reason! Building relationships with our students is a vital part of creating emotionally safe learning communities. I am so grateful to Dr. Gordon Neufeld for developing an...
How Reframing Can Help Shift the Negative Identity of a Child
A few weeks ago, I wrote a blog about helping to shift the negative identity of a child through everyday experiences. I received many emails asking me more about this topic. It is clear from listening to those that work with children, that many of the children we work...