My Blog
On Parenting
Raising Creative Problem-Solvers
Do you constantly referee children's disagreements? Do you tend to side with one child, frustrating the other? Or do you offer solutions, only to be ignored? If you're nodding in response to any of these questions, then read on!
The scenario:
My 4.5-year-old daughter and 8-year-old son share a room. It's the only place in the house where they're allowed to play LEGOs, so the plastic pieces don't take over our living room/homeschool area. Both kids love LEGOs, but my older son likes to li…
Why We Hike

My husband, unable to stomach my son's complaints, put our younger daughter in the carrier and charged up the hill. I took a deep breath and silently asked myself, "Why do we make them hike?"
Walking beside my son at his maddeningl…
Why You NEED to Take a Day Off (Hint: It's not about self-care)
Why don't many men …
What Matters In The End
This seems to be my seven-year-old son's motto these days, which is kind of annoying because we're spending the summer in a city with a wealth of world-class museums that I want him to experience. I know he'll enjoy them once we're there, but transitions have never been his strong suit.
After some trial and error (and many arguments) trying to motivate him to leave the house, I've found a two-part formula that seems to work. It both gets him excited …
The Entitlement Myth
We gave him the benefit of a doubt: Surely he was just imitating his older classmates' rude behaviors. Or maybe this was a misguided attempt at being more independent. All my friends' children were acting the same way, so it was probably a developmental phase. Re…
Rediscovering Motherhood
As I sat staring at her words on my screen, the last seven years of my life - my entire parenthood journey - flashed before my eyes. I remembered how both times I had a bab…
The Good Struggle
Raise your hand if you want your child to show compassion and empathy for others. OK, that's pretty much everyone in the audience. Put your hands down.
Now, raise your hand if you want your child to suffer. Anyone? Anyone? *crickets*
Most of us agree that it's painful to watch our child get hurt (physically or emotionally). So painful, in fact, that it triggers the …
BOTW: Good-Night Yoga

We've been reading and yoga-ing with this book a couple of evenings a week for the past month, and it's become on of our favorite…
The Puzzle-Child
Over the years of working in Montessori classrooms I've met many children who are eager to attend lessons, engage in follow-up work, and share their new knowledge. And then there are the occasional "puzzles" (as my son's Primary guide once referred to him). How do you know if you live or work with a puzzle-child? Puzzle-children are those for whom learning comes easily but who see most teaching as a hindrance to their own learning agenda. On a good day, they grumpily humor your agenda for a s…
What Montessori is Not
Montessori is not dogma - not a script to follow blindly. It's a conversation about priorities. It's a toolbox for navigating parenthood with grace. It's a dance with the imperfect realities of life.
Montessori is not just for the wealthy - not a ticket to career success. It's for the …
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