The Child’s Spontaneous Concentration

spontaneous concentration

In the young child there are observable characteristics of behavior that help us know that a child is following normal development.  These characteristics follow: love of order, love of work, deep spontaneous concentration, attachment to reality, love of silence and working alone, sublimation of the possessive instinct, power to act from real choice not just […]


The Child’s Love Of Work

Love of Work

The young child’s love of work, or being involved in meaningful activity, is an inborn trait.  With proper nourishment this love survives a lifetime.  Even in utero the child is involved what can only be classified as work—growing and moving in a confined environment. Movement defines a child’s activity from the first kick in the […]


Understanding A Child’s Love Of Order

Understanding love of order

As parents and teachers we are concerned about doing the right things with our children. When our children go through difficult periods, we can spend nights tossing and turning about what can be the matter. As our tools can be friend or foe, depending on how we use them, it can be helpful if we […]


Learning the Gift of Gab

Learning the gift of gab

Language occurs in two basic ways. Receptive language is what we understand. Expressive language is what we can say. For most of us our receptive language is larger than our expressive language. A twelve-month-old can follow simple directions but can’t talk. At the doctor’s office, we can understand the doctor’s explanation of our diagnosis and […]


Profanity: A Sign of Limited Ability

profanity a sign of limited ability

A visit to an elementary school opened my eyes to something that would never have happened a few years ago at a “good” school. Profanity from the children. This R-rated classroom wouldn’t have been allowed even a PG-13 rating. I’m amazed as a classroom observer how the children act as if I’m invisible. The children […]


FREE SERIES: Empowering Kids Now

free series empowering kids now

It’s not easy being a kid in today’s world. There’s a lot of pressure, social and academic. Some kids get bullied, or are bullies. Some kids have anxiety or depression. What if you could make a difference by learning cutting edge solutions to empower the kids in your family or community to feel happy, healthy, […]


Where Do the Night Owls Play?

where do the night owls play

After reading John Medina’s book, Brain Rules, I started thinking about the implications of Medina’s brain rule and other information about sleep. Medina tells us that people fall into three kinds of sleepers: Larks, Hummingbirds and Night Owls. Larks often get up before 6 am and report feeling more alert and productive before lunch. Breakfast […]


What Social Style Is Your Child?

what social style is your child

In ancient Greece Hippocrates defined four personality types: sanguine, melancholic, choleric, phlegmatic. These were based on body fluids, or humors. Today we simply use questionnaires such as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator®, MBTI, to define sixteen basic personality types. In Nurture by Nature, Paul Tieger and Barbara Barron-Tieger explain the sixteen basic Myers-Briggs types and how […]


Less Is More

Less is More

Wandering around the airport bookstore looking for reading material because, alas, I had gulped through all my books on an eight hour flight, I lit on a bright green book by Marc Lesser, with an intriguing premise, Less: Accomplishing More by Doing Less. Lesser, an entrepreneur and Zen teacher, asks us to examine five self-defeating […]


The Missing Element

The missing Element

In his book, The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything, Ken Robinson, Ph.D. tells us that we each need to find that place where the things we love to do intersect with the things we know how to do well. Robinson calls this place of intersecting talent and passion “the Element.” Each person needs […]