Nothing has been more disconcerting to me in my forty-five years as an educator than to ask a parent or teacher:  ”What is your child’s (or teen’s) strengths?” and have them answer:  ”He hasn’t got any.”  I’ve actually heard this several times in my career.  It was such responses that motivated me to come up...Read More

The following is a paper on early childhood and play that I presented as part of my keynote at the 19th Encuentro Internacional de Educacion Inicial y Preescolar (International Meeting of Initial & Preschool Education) in Monterrey, Mexico on October 10, 2019.  A Comprehensive Vision of Human Development:        Cognitive and Socio-Affective Processes...Read More

I’m happy to see that educators are paying more attention these days to the impact that past traumas have had on students and the need for an emphasis on social and emotional learning in the classroom.  This comes as welcome relief from the strong emphasis that has been placed in past years on standards and...Read More

Millions of children are practicing mindfulness all over the world, and while it’s a very simple process of training the mind to be always in the present moment, without judgement, there’s a lot more to it than meets the eye.  It can be useful if a parent or teacher has some creative ways to explain...Read More

More and more these days, teachers are engaging students in mindfulness practices, which research suggests helps develop executive functioning, self-regulation skills, and social and emotional learning in students.  But how to get started?  Here are a few tips: Begin your own personal mindfulness practice before you share it with students.  Setting aside even 5 or 10...Read More