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You’ve been looking forward to a special treat all morning. As an adult, your off-site break might include a latte and scone. However, if it turns out the coffee shop is closed, you might feel deflated but able to move on with your day. To contrast with a different stage of development, imagine you are a five-year-old in Room 7 who is anticipating being first in line, a heady accomplishment promoting powerful feelings of self-efficacy. When the time comes to line up, you make

Babies learning to walk don’t compare themselves to others or say, “I’m taking way more steps than anyone else my age.” Their first steps, tentatively letting go of solid surfaces, take great courage. But with a little practice, they waddle along like small boats on a rocky sea with single-minded focus: the determination to move forward. Soon their walking turns into running. Anyone who has ever seen the pure exhilaration of a toddler running away from a parent can’t help but

“Someone pushed me, and I didn’t push back, I found a teacher,” a four-and-a-half-year-old boy proudly announces to his father at the end of the day. His excitement indicates his sense that this was a huge step forward in his development. Stopping and getting help mid-dispute demonstrates what we call self-regulation, the ability to manage feelings and respond rather than react. In a few years, he and his classmate will have learned to resolve a heated argument themselves wi

“I let my kids choose one activity this fall. My kindergartener has a weekly swim class he loves, and my third grader is crazy about Jumping Jack Rabbits, her three-week track class. I tell them I don’t want our lives to feel hectic.” As the fall season with its shorter days sets in, we often reexamine priorities and schedules and how busy we want to be. In our area, it’s popular for children to be involved in an abundance of extracurricular activities, and parents sometimes

“Can you be patient and make space for your friends?” This is a question elementary art teacher Ms. Lara Cannon asks children to help teach them the new etiquette she has created for her first-through-fifth-grade students in her classroom. She shows them how simply standing back and making space allows each person room to remove their apron without crowding. Ms. Lara is convinced that children can learn new manners at any age but does not want her new art etiquette to be simp

Children enjoying the excitement of summer travel can sometimes yearn for their school friends. Twin sisters visiting China desperately wanted to celebrate their birthdays with Room 3 classmates. The teachers were happy to hold a party for the girls at Circle Time and sent them a rousing video. After staying a month in France, a boy missed his classmate so much, his mom sent a video of her son talking about all the things he wanted to do with his friend when he returned. The

How do you talk to yourself when you’re going through major life adjustments? A mom told me recently about changing jobs after twenty years at the same firm. The routines are unfamiliar, there are lots of steep learning curves, and she tells herself it’s natural to be tired in the evenings and want to go to bed early. She realizes there will be a period of transition, and that awareness helps her to not criticize herself when she’s not getting everything outside of work done.

It’s a new year, which means new Mystery Readers for TK! On days where there is a Mystery Reader in TK, students sit down to lunch to ponder a set of three clues up on the board. These clues are along the lines of, “I have traveled to the Amazon Rainforest,” “Our family is expecting a baby,” or “My favorite food is lasagna.” Based on the statements provided, students guess whose family member might be standing outside the classroom door, ready to read stories to the class. A