Category Archive:
Children’s basic needs

When Nuthin’ Goes Right for Nobody

when nuthin goes right for nobody

Ever have those frazzled times with the kids? And spouse? Where everyone seems irritable? Where each family member appears to be a nemesis to each other’s happiness? Ever have a day, a week or more when nuthin’ went right for nobody? Sometimes when our family is in a tizzy and a funk, a solution seems […]


Know Your Children By Their Likes and Dislikes

know your children by their likes

What’s your child’s favorite food? Color? Outfit? What does your child dislike? Preferences give important insights into our personalities. For the child who is agreeable in most situations, we have smooth sailing. The child who expresses strong preferences, though, can push us to the limits of our patience. How long can we listen to…I don’t […]


The Happy Song

happy song

”I don’t feeeel good,” was the daily lament from one of my four-year-old students. Whatever ways we tried to distract Zoe and get her mind off her problems and into some fun learning, Zoe chose to sit and complain about vague physical ailments. Verifying with her parents that Zoe didn’t have any pathological reasons for […]


Experiencing the Moment

My friend, Anita, recently wrote me about her adventures of accompanying her five-year-old granddaughter and daughter-in-law to private school enrollment interviews and classroom visits. Eliana came out of one school interview jumping and twirling around and exclaimed, ”That was so much fun!” A week later at another interview session Eliana was the last to leave […]


Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?

five why problem solving tool

”For whatever reasons my eight-year-old, Eric, is critical of everything his younger siblings do. Eric tells his sister that her coloring stinks. He tells his brother that his handwriting is messy. Last night Eric burst into tears because the peas touched his mashed potatoes. Nothing seems to make him happy right now,” Michael told me. […]


Children Seek to Create a Flow of Activity

children seek to create a flow of activity

Up. Down. Up. Down. Eight-month-old Dana stood holding onto the coffee table doing deep knee bends. Day after day, over two hundred at a time, perhaps thousands a day. In amazement, I watched as Dana tirelessly exercised. There was no way I could do a thousand deep knee bends in a day, or at least […]


Teaching the Three R’s

three r's

Reading. Writing. Arithmetic. These are the basic academic skills. There are also three R’s that are important to our leadership abilities–Respect, Responsibility and Resourcefulness. I would like to give credit to the person who initiated this phrase, but when I did a search for these 3 R’s on the educational research data base (ERIC), I […]


The Indefatigable Spirit of a Child

Indefatigable Spirit

”There is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way.” ~Zen Proverb It is a gray drizzly morning in a week of gray drizzly mornings. I am content to wait in the car as my husband peruses the home improvement store. People enter and leave the warehouse building, trudging to their vehicles with packages and […]


Ain’t Misbehavin’

ain't misbehavin'

Children don’t misbehave, says Dr. Thomas Gordon, author of the best-selling book, Parent Effectiveness Training (P.E.T). Wait a second, you say. Whoa! Everywhere you look there are children misbehaving. Dr. Gordon says that children’s actions are judged as misbehaviors when those behaviors come into conflict with the desires of parents and other adults. What we […]


To Be a Help to Life

to be a help to life

”No man is free who is not master of himself.” ~Epictetus A flower begins with a seed sprouting from the earth with the seed leaves coming out of the ground first. The plant grows a stalk and sends out more leaves. On the stalk or branches of the plant, small buds form and are protected […]