Parenting from the Heart

Increasingly, our students are becoming global travelers. Instead of telling us they went to Tahoe or Disneyland, they mention that their...

Room 1 teacher Chris Cameron called me aside last week to tell me about a touching situation with one of the four-year-olds in his class....

Our school librarian, Mari Ponghamsing, asked children to create bookmarks that illustrate important rules about caring for books. She...

Rosangela Snavely is on the big playground teaching children to jump rope. This game is unfamiliar to most children today, and she...

The setting: Fourth graders visiting first graders are doing a “getting to know you” art project together. Each fourth- and first-grade...

During set-up week, while our teachers attend meetings and get their classrooms ready to welcome students for the new school year, our...

Arriving at school one day, a girl pointed to another child and told her mother, “She’s a baby. She doesn’t know how to talk.” The mom,...

Our wonderful elementary and chorus teacher Laura White has just published a sequel to her inspiring children’s book Our Class Needs You...

Our classrooms are buzzing with the energy of students anticipating end-of-the-year parties as well as the move to a new class or school....

We have to set aside a day every year to thank mothers because they so rarely stop to thank themselves. Whether they become mothers by...

Magda Gerber, human development pioneer and author of Your Confident Baby , first witnessed an adult’s profound respect for a child when...

The fifth grade play this year, based on another original script by Judith Nielsen, depicts a dramatic period in Bay Area history, the...

I was so grateful that a father took time recently to email me about his hope that his daughter wouldn’t be labeled as shy the way he was...

One day I whispered "Do you need help?” to a little girl sitting at a table where people were concentrating, as she seemed frustrated...

Every year teachers and parents stop at this time and ask, “What’s happening? Have our children become problems overnight?” Then we...

Our elementary school librarian, Mari Pongkhamsing, has the fun of observing children’s budding interests as they expand and develop with...

Perceptions about time change over generations. Before electricity, people spent at least half their days in the dark or candlelight....

When my dad yelled “Calm down!” he didn't mean “Find a quiet place within yourself” or “Breathe deeply.” “Calm down!” was his code for...

Does your family enjoy talking about memories? Psychologists note that children construct their sense of self, or autobiography, in part...

A boy asked me repeatedly to make a paper airplane. I kept protesting because of my lack of skill. I finally relented, however, after...