Category Archive:
Children’s basic needs

Please, Don’t Eat the Marshmallow

please don't eat the marshmallow

In the 1960’s, Walter Mischel conducted the now-famous “marshmallow study” at the Bing Nursery School at Stanford University. A researcher would let a four-year-old choose a treat from a tray and tell the child that he or she could eat the treat right away or wait until the researcher returned and have two. About one-third of […]


Curiosity: The Roots of Intelligence

curiosity the roots of intelligence

Reading an article in the July 2009 issue of Smithsonian called ”Birth of a Robot,” got me thinking about human intelligence versus artificial intelligence. Nicholas Butko, one of the researchers quoted in the article, said that they wanted to program their robots with curiosity, not knowledge. Giulio Sandini, an Italian bioengineer says, ”If you want […]


Raise a Child Who Loves the Earth

raise a child who loves the earth

Close your eyes, and think back to a happy time and place in your childhood. What do you see? What do you hear? What do you smell? What do you feel? What are you touching? What can you taste? For most of us, these memories involve nature and our families. My love of the outdoors […]


Slaying the Scary Green Monster

slaying the green scary monster

Green. Everything today is green. Cars are green. Food is green. Sports equipment is green. Kermit the Frog should be happy because he crooned that “it’s not easy being green.” Kermit was right, though. It isn’t easy being green, or even hearing about it, especially for our children. They are bombarded with images and advertising […]


John 15:13

john 15:13

The idea of selfless service was the theme of a story from my kindergarten days. The Sunday School lesson told of a firefighter who died saving families from a burning building. The Bible verse to memorize for the week was John 15:13, which reads, “God hath no greater love than this, that a man should […]


What Teachers Wish Parents Knew

what teachers wish parents knew

At a teachers’ conference a couple of years ago we broke into groups to answer the following question: What are the most important ideas you’d like to communicate to parents of the children you teach? Here are the thoughts from over one hundred teachers and school administrators. Respect the work of your child. Children are […]


Beginning a Conversation

beginning a conversation

We were looking forward to spending the weekend with old friends and their eight- and ten-year-old sons, whom we had never met. As soon as quick introductions were made, the boys picked up their electronic game machines and headed toward the den. At dinner the boys made plates of food and sat at the coffee […]


Four Keys to Raising a Self-Disciplined Child

four keys to raising a self disciplined child

Do you dream of having a child who is self-composed, articulate and respectful of others, young or old? In our children’s pre-verbal days it seems like those attributes may be impossible, but there are some teaching tools you can use to help your child have the self-discipline to live a peaceful life as a toddler […]


Ten Little Words

ten little words

As soon as my southern drawl is detected, I am usually greeted with something like, ”Aren’t you from the South?  Southerners are so polite.”  Folks from all over the world marvel at our use of “yes, ma’am” and “no, sir”. My imagination is not large enough to consider growing up and not saying “yes, ma’am”.  […]


Breaking Bad Food Habits

breaking bad food habits

Waiting for my car at the dealership, the early morning talk show hostess interviewed a former 700-pound woman who confessed that before her decision to lose weight, she had never sat down and eaten a meal. Her habit, formed in childhood, had been to snack her way through the day, never stopping to sit and […]