Cooking isn’t just about whipping up tasty treats (although that’s definitely a big part of the fun). Empowering and nurturing children’s culinary skills extends far beyond the kitchen. It’s a fantastic adventure where kids explore, create, and learn skills that will stick with them for life. Think of it as a mix of delicious experiments and add a sprinkle of essential life lessons on top. From crafting scrumptious snacks to understanding the fuel that keeps us going, kids learn the importance of nutrition, gain confidence, and feel accomplished. In today’s fast-paced world, introducing kids to the wonders of cooking is an invaluable gift, offering them a foundation for a lifetime of healthy eating habits and a deeper appreciation for the culinary arts.
Posts filed under Children
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?
The Current State of Sexual Health Education in Michigan
It wasn’t until later that I learned that my experience with sexual health education was not uncommon. I assumed, as a kid whose whole world was based around school, that everything in the curriculum was what was required to be successful in life. At the time, I didn’t realize how career-driven it was: Math, Science, English, and History were the four main subjects. Nothing about growing your own food, repairing clothes, doing your taxes, paying a mortgage, how to have fulfilling relationships, how to maintain good mental health practice, and more.
Quietly Noticing
I stood about twenty feet away from my two-year-old waiting to push her on a swing or do a count down while she hyped herself up to glide down a slide. I had just gotten done with a three-mile run with her in a stroller at the loop at Hudson Mills. The only way we get through these runs is a lot of snacks and the promise of playground time, and I was ready for the playground time. To me, playground time is a time that I don’t have to keep my brain on high alert. Rinoa would play and I would catch my breath and not have to figure out how to run, push, grab, and unwrap a snack all at once as I had been doing for thirty minutes prior.
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.
Elements Preschool
I discovered Elements Preschool a few months ago during my extended early childhood education studies. To my delight, it is not only a place of discovery for children, but also for adults. Soon after being introduced to Elements Preschool, I started working with Kirsten Voiles, the founder and director, with whom I share a passion for education and the arts.
Handcrafting: LIttle Bug Faeries -- A Waldorf -style Pcket Doll
Spring brings showers, flowers, and faeries back into our gardens! These cute Little Bug Faeries are great for entertaining little ones during story time, while riding in a car, or waiting to see the doctor. They are so easy to make, you’ll find yourself making one in every color of the rainbow!
Conscious Parenting: Ele's Place Ann Arbor--A Home for Healing Arts
Ele’s Place Ann Arbor is a healing center that provides peer grief support for children, teens, and their families in Ann Arbor as well as the surrounding southeast Michigan area, free of charge, for as long as a family needs. Ele's Place Ann Arbor is the only nonprofit in our community dedicated solely to helping children and teens work with, and through, grief in a peer-based setting.
Black Men Read: Expanding Possibilities Through Storytelling
“This has to change, on my watch,” Yodit Mesfin Johhson realized. The need for change became urgent when her own son was in second grade. Her life’s work in racial justice organizing took a big pivot toward the education sector with one call. It was Black History month and there were no Black men on the Mitchell Elementary School’s faculty. Her son’s teacher called to ask if she knew any Black men that would read to his classes. Of course, Mesfin Johnson arranged a roster of volunteers that rotated through the school's reading hours all throughout February. The realization that her son had no Black male role models at school collided with her own awakening to spur a deep dive of research into the educational system. “It turns out that less than 2% of U.S. teachers are Black men.”
Student Mosaics at the Steiner School — A Culmination of an Inspired Education
It is a custom at many high schools for each graduating class to give a gift to the school. Seniors typically raise money to buy a bench, a tree, or perhaps to create a scholarship fund. The class gift tradition at the Rudolf Steiner School of Ann Arbor High School is different—it is built right into the curriculum. Almost every year since the school graduated its first class in 2000, the seniors, under the direction of the school’s art teachers, Elena Efimova, Riccardo Capraro, and Nataliya Pryzant, create a large mosaic that is then permanently mounted at the school’s Pontiac Trail campus building. The resulting mosaics are remarkable in a number of ways and fulfill several functions. First, there’s their size. Last year’s piece, for example, is eight feet by eight feet, which in square footage doesn’t even qualify it into the top three of the fourteen mosaics that students have created over the years.
Handcrafting: Puckly Penguin—A Midwinter Playmate
Need a fun project to beat the midwinter blues? Make this cute penguin in a few hours sitting by the hearth. You can add a hanging loop to make an ornament, have fun embroidering his body, use him to brighten your winter table, or just place him in an unexpected spot to give visitors a quick smile.
Unschooling — Child-Led-Learning
Unschooling is a term coined in the 1970s by John Holt whose books Learning All the Time and Teach Your Own (among others), have empowered parents for decades to homeschool their children in a liberating way. Rethinking the definition of education, schooling “outside the box,” is as unique as every parent and child. It is apparent to those who observe young children that learning does indeed happen in every moment, thus children are naturally their own best teachers. Unschoolers see the community as their school.
Random Acts of Kindness: The Things Women Still Can’t Talk About And Why We Sometimes Have to Invite Ourselves In
I am fortunate to live on a street that’s close to downtown, where I can sit on my front porch and, for three seasons of the year, anyway, I can hail all my neighbors as they pass by. I can get to know their names and their dogs’ names, too. I see the same pairs of women walking or running together and talking.
Conscious Parenting: Why Teaching Kids About Presence Can Help Them Become More Resilient
The more present we become, the more we increase our capacity for joy. Learning to be present is challenging, irrespective of age. However, integrating mindfulness practices provides youth the tools to better process their feelings.
Conscious Parenting: Meditation For Breakfast
I’m really good at anger; I always have been. The fight response in my threat system is ready to launch. If I wanted to slip back into my old baseline of anger in that moment, I had plenty of reasons to: I was in a rush, I was hungry, I was feeling unappreciated for the things I didn’t forget to do for my sons, I was feeling vulnerable at my son’s implication that my best wasn’t enough, and I was feeling blamed for “ruining” my son’s morning routine.
Crazy Wisdom Kids in the Community--Country Fall Festivals
I’m excited to explore kids’ events with you that are waiting just outside of Ann Arbor. Perfect for this new phase of expansion of the Journal are the fall festivals around Washtenaw County. You can get outside with your kids, eat a caramel apple, and relax in nature for a day of family fun.
Unsiiciyapi, Wawoohola, Cantognake: Humility, Respect, Love-- Healing through Service
What do you get when you merge a life called to support adolescents, spiritual awakening that all are one, and an ongoing relationship with the Lakota people? Omega Commons and a staff that lives to serve in higher truth and humility.
Go Outside! A How-To Guide for the Urban Family
As we shiver out of another Michigan winter and into warmer weather, I am building my usual short list of activities to keep myself sane. This list has become shorter than usual due to pandemic safety precautions. Ordinarily it would include more frequent visits with extended family and more friend get-togethers. My sticky note sanity plan has become heavier on more practical reminders like “Sleep more regular hours!” “Take Vitamin D!” and “GO OUTSIDE” which is written in all caps.
Conscious Parenting: Five Lessons From My Two-Year-Old
Katy Gladwin
This year I have had the pleasure of spending every single waking and sleeping moment with my two-year-old. While I love her very much, I also had a very hard time, until recently, finding a daycare we connected with that had availability. Spending this absurd amount of time with a toddler has made me a little less sane but has also taught me some very valuable lessons. These are lessons I hope to include in my daily life and will do my best to not force her to outgrow.
Party Every Day
Why not?! We had a lovely bonfire gathering with friends this summer, and it was so fun for her that she asked for a party every day after that. I tried to figure out ways we could “party” every day, because having that fun connection with friends and family was so great. Sometimes that looked like a playground trip or a walk in the woods with her little buddies, while other times it was a smaller family dance party, or a singing party in the car. I think it’s important to point out the moments when we’re having a party—also known as finding the joy in the mundane.
I try to remember this when I’m doing chores or just putzing along doing the everyday work of motherhood/adulthood. Take a moment, find something to make a boring task more fun. Put on a song, laugh with friends, find something to feel energetically joyful about.
Slow Down
While this might seem like the opposite of a party every day, it is really important for toddlers to feel like they can watch and learn without being rushed. So, this might mean I need to let her take ten minutes to figure out how to put her socks on or sit with her on the sidewalk while she watches a bug go by. I notice myself feeling like I need to speed things up, all the time, and she reminds me to sit, and watch, and listen. To be still for a few minutes, even if it’s just for noticing my breath—in and out.
Stop Eating When You’re Full
My daughter is so good at this! I know it’s super common to tell kids to “just eat three more bites,” and sometimes it’s necessary—especially if you have a busy, wandering kind of kiddo. But if you’re able to tap into what’s going on in their bodies, and trust that they know, then you can often allow them to guide. When she’s satiated, she stops eating! Even if the food is her favorite—cookies, sweet potato fries, mac and cheese. As a professional health coach, I meet so many women who don't know how to tell if their bodies are full. For whatever reason, many of us have disconnected from the signals our bodies tell us around food and satiety. We often don’t need to finish all the food on our plate—our eyes are bigger than our stomach kind of thing. Little humans know when to stop eating, and as long as we continue to listen, and trust them, they should be able to keep hearing their bodies little voices throughout childhood and into adulthood.
Take a Hug
She says, “I take a hug?” And “take” is exactly what she means! “This hug is for me.” I love when she takes a hug. We need physical touch from our people—our physiology changes when we receive hugs and loving touch from others. Our oxytocin (the love and bonding hormone) levels rise and our nervous system can relax into safety. It also allows me to know what she needs, she asks and receives, and I can easily provide her with that feeling of certain safety. We’re terrible at asking for our needs to be met, and physical touch is a biological need. Take a hug! Your nervous system and your relationships will thank you.
First, Say “no”—Then Change Your Mind If You Want
We all know a two-year-old’s favorite word is no. This used to annoy me, but now I love how she just has boundaries! She says no, but then always has the option to change her mind. This is so hard to learn, especially if you have caregiver syndrome. We have all heard the saying “No is a complete sentence” and I think we should all be taking this more to heart. Similar to the idea of ‘under promise and over perform,’ standing in our integrity and confident in our boundaries is a lesson we should all take to heart. Sometimes our boundaries are hard to find in the moment or under pressure—so saying no first can allow time to find where our true needs and desires meet expectations.
Katy Gladwin CHC, WHC, as a Holistic Doula and health guide has been supporting women in body autonomy and sovereignty through the childbearing years for over a decade. Through private and group programs, she teaches, guides, listens, and carries sacred healing in whatever form each women finds they need most. Gladwin is trained as a coach though an Integrative Medicine Lens and has studied naturopathic medicine and modalities including homeopathy, herbal wisdom, craniosacral therapy, HeartMath(R), breath work, and holistic nutrition.
To contact her, email katy@katygladwin.com or visit her online
at katygladwin.com.
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Kids in the Community: The Seelie Court of Ann Arbor’s Faery Artists and Events
What have our fairy friends and their artists been up to during the pandemic? To brighten everyone’s spirits, I wanted to track down some fairy fun this spring for the young ones. Might we see more fairy doors pop up around Ann Arbor? Maybe you’ve seen glimmers of whimsical fun around Ann Arbor in the chalk drawings of the ephemeral and adorable characters dreamed up by Ann Arbor’s David Zinn. It’s almost time for the return of Shakespeare in the Arb, and we’re celebrating with a production of the fairy-packed fun of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Ann Arbor is one of the best places around to find events and artists who work on a fairy theme, but like the fae they can be hiding in plain sight. I went searching under every rock and leaf, even a few book jackets, to find you the best fairy-themed events, artists, and authors in Ann Arbor to find while we’re still in need of a little fun.
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?