Posts filed under Families

Conscious Parenting: Harnessing the Power of Talking Out Loud — The Teddy Bear and the Talker

Imagine your child is trying to figure something out, like what to do for the summer. As your child talks to you, what kinds of questions do you feel drawn to ask? Do the questions have more to do with supporting your child in exploring the parts of the conversation your child wants to explore, or more to do with your own concerns? What could enable your child to get the benefit of having plenty of room to talk out loud and to take the conversation wherever your child wants to go with it?

Posted on January 1, 2024 and filed under Children, Families, Health, Issue #85, Parenting.

The Power of Ancestry and Personal Discovery

My sister Lisa and I often joke about our rabbit hole research inquiries. The thrill of the potential finds keeps us searching. What started as separate hobbies eventually merged to combine into writing local history as well as GENMEMS (genealogical memoirs and house histories) for clients. Lisa summed up her genealogy enthusiasm by saying, “It’s like a puzzle, or mystery, to see how everything connects or impacts each other.” That connectivity is what we all need to take a closer look at to understand our inherited (yet transformable) tendencies, how we can gather strength from our ancestors’ stories, and finally, how to keep descendants and future communities in our conscious decision-making.

Screen Time Solutions

As an elementary school teacher for almost three decades, I’ve witnessed a dramatic shift in recent years in the behavior and habits of children. Further, I’ve seen an alarming rise in obesity and violent tendencies during that time. I attribute these changes, in part, to excessive screen time as well as a lack of parental involvement.