What’s most important for children to learn? How and where does learning happen? How can parents put their best foot forward to support their children’s learning and growth?
I explore these questions and more in my articles. Thus far, you ‘ll find pieces on diverse topics such as reading and literacy, play, brain development, choosing schools, and parenting philosophy. Here are a few pieces I recommend you start with:
What it Means to Raise Ready Kids
Help Your Child Discover These 3 Joys of Reading
Think Less About How You Parent and More About Who You Are
I add new articles most weeks and send out my best articles in my email newsletter, which comes out one to four times per month, depending on the age of your child. I invite you to sign up here.
Emotions and Behavior
- Make Empathy a Reflex
- Name That Emotion!
- Thinking About Temperament Makes You a Better Parent
- To Help Your Child Manage Emotions, Show Him How to Do the Limbic
- The Single Most Important Skill You Can Teach Your Child
- What Preemies Teach Us About Managing Stress
- If You Fight in Front of Your Kids, Make Up in Front of Your Kids
- What If I Don’t Want My Child to Be Just Like Me?
- Connection Before Correction
- To Help Your Child Develop Responsibility, Ask Questions
- Will My Child Remember the Time I Lost My Cool?
- “Wow, How Did You Do That?!”
- Natural Discipline Is the Best Discipline
- How to Help Your Child Avoid Depression
- The Childhood Roots of Adult Social Personality
- What Happens When Children Grow Up in Concentration Camps
- How to Use Humor to Connect With a Distressed Child
- Role Play Your Way to a Better Place
- A Gentle Way to Help Children Learn Right From Wrong
- You Can’t Control Your Child, But You Can Decide What You Will Do
- Why You Need to Be an Emotion Detective
Play
- Why Pretend Play Is Your Preschooler’s Best Teacher
- To Jump-Start Pretend Play, Teach Kids About the Adult World
- Children’s Play Areas Are For … Children!
- Teach Your Children How to Pretend Play
- Build a “Chocolate Factory” in Your Home
- Child’s Play Is Serious — Don’t Interrupt
- In Praise of (Brutal) Board Games!
- How Mark Zuckerberg Played His Way to Success
- How Rich Environments Promote Learning
- How to Get Your Kids Playing Outside With Other Kids
- Playful Exploration Often Precedes Serious Accomplishment
Reading and Literacy
- What’s More Important to Teach Your Child: Letters or Sounds?
- Help Your Child Discover These 3 Joys of Reading
- The Single Most Important Thing to Do When Reading Aloud to Your Child
- Having a Reading Self-Concept Is Even Better Than Enjoying Reading
- How Your Child’s Questions Sow the Seeds of Reading Success
- The Magic of Book Talk
- Why Difficult Questions Are the Best Questions
- Ignore Your Child. Read a Good Book Instead.
- Why Most Children Don’t Grow up to Be Readers — and How You Can Change the Odds
- Why Stories Matter So Much
- Reading Should Be Like Chocolate Cake, Not Spinach
- To Identify Good Books, Try The 3 Question Test
- Keep Reading Aloud to Your Child Even After They Can Read Themselves
Mathematics
- Calculating matters less than setting up math problems
- Help Your Child Develop Number Sense — Playfully
- When (Slightly) Wrong Answers are Better than Precisely Correct Answers
- Three Small Bowls, Ten Beans, and a Little Curiosity
Learning Science and Brain Development
- Nature Versus Nurture No More. Now It’s the Nature-Nurture Loop
- How to Help Your Child Develop Her Memory
- What’s in the Crayon Box? Paper Clips, of Course!
- If I Say “Day,” You Say “Night”
- To Help Children Learn, Build on What They Already Know
- Teach Your Child to Love Growing Understanding
- Asking, “Which Teaching Method Is Best?” Is Like Asking, “Which Tool Is Best?”
- Efficient Learning Often Involves Struggle Before Aha!
- Scaffold Your Child to Learning Success
Parenting Philosophy
- What It Means to Raise Ready Kids
- Think Less About How You Parent and More About Who You Are
- Childhood Matters Just as Much as Adulthood
- The Magic of First Principles Parenting
- How Do You Know if You’re Doing a Good Job as a Parent?
- With Parenting, the Best Defense Is a Good Offense
- How to Raise an Interesting Child
- What This MIT Job Ad Means for Your Child’s Education
- Perfect Parents Are Bad for Children
- Practice the Parenting 2-Step
- Focus Less on Your Child’s Happiness and More on Their Well-Being
- What I Hope My Kids are Learning in the Age of the Coronavirus
- What Can Your Friends Teach Your Children?
- What My Mom’s Friend Taught Me About Competition and Excellence
- Another Reason to Chill Out: “It’s Hard to Know”
- The Sacred Space of Conversation
- Teach Your Child the American Political Spirit
- Discuss Racial Differences Naturally and Positively
Choosing Schools
- What’s Most Important When Evaluating School Quality?
- When Evaluating a School, Try to Identify Its Core Values
- How a Diverse School Can Make Your Child Smarter
- Let Benjamin Bloom Help You Evaluate Schools
- When Choosing a School, Try the Rooney Rule
- Do High-Performing Kids Suffer When They’re in Low-Performing Schools?
- What Matters Most About Schools: What Young Adults Say
- What Does “Student Centered” Actually Mean?
- How Much Does Class Size Matter?
- What to Look for in a High School Sports Program
- You Have More School Options than You Might Think
- The 5 Ways Parents Choose Schools
- A Quick Introduction to the World of Public Schools
- A Quick Introduction to the World of Private Schools
- A Quick Introduction to the World of Charter Schools
- Trust: The Underappreciated Feature of Great Schools
