Your encouraging words for kids can help them thrive in school and life! How do your words matter? Positive words from parents, teachers, and mentors are a rich source of internal motivation and guidance to children and teens. Often, kids recall your words of encouragement for years to come. At […]
Compass-Inspired
What is emotional intelligence? How do parents and teachers nurture it at home and in the classroom? What methods are working? Emotional intelligence (EI for short) has become a popular term since Daniel Goleman authored his book with the same title in 1995. Several decades of research not only confirms the […]
Sociability
If you’re a people-pleaser and a parent, beware. Research shows that your behavior can have a negative impact on your child’s development. We all want what’s best for our children. Whether they’re toddlers or teenagers, a parent’s natural tendency is to want their children to be content and happy. To […]
Resourcefulness
Childhood trauma often occurs from distressing events or relationships that exceed a young person’s ability to understand or process a traumatic experience. Most of us link trauma with tragedies like mass shootings, rape, accidents, war, or natural disasters. But childhood trauma is also associated with “adverse childhood experiences” (ACES) including […]
Resilience
Parents who would like to help their children learn how to stop procrastinating and start achieving their greatest goals are invited to share this article with them, and chat about it, too. It’s written to help children and teens understand and manage their avoidance behaviors. Hopefully it will generate positive changes […]
Resourcefulness
If you had to choose between teaching your child empathy or helping her study for tomorrow’s math test, which would you choose? If you had to choose between raising a kind child or making sure he was fully prepared for next week’s basketball tournament, which would you choose? Of course, […]
Empathy
At its core, creativity is about brewing new ideas. If you carefully observe children before the age of six, you’ll notice they are idea-generating enthusiasts! Why? Because humans are uniquely creative beings, born with a gift to create new ideas and innovative outcomes that evolve from their ideas. What happens […]
Creativity
When our daughter Sarah was in 7th grade, her Latin Class held student chariot races—reenacting a sport that began in ancient Greece. Sarah’s goal was to build the best chariot so she and her team could win the competition. It was a fun school project, and one that had the […]
Resourcefulness
“Name twenty things you love about me,” my younger daughter requested just as I was shutting the door to her bedroom. Because I immediately thought about the dirty dishes in the sink, the work I had yet to do before I could go to bed, and the ache in my […]
Compass-Inspired
We live in an age where integrity often takes a back seat to power and material success — where “the end justifies the means” is a mantra for too many adults who influence children. Nowhere has this mantra played out more publicly than in U.S. politics, where deceit, dishonesty, and […]
Integrity
Every parent wants their son or daughter to feel passionate about what they do, to pursue interests that fuel happiness and provide a sense of accomplishment. But what if your child’s passions aren’t obvious? What if they seem to drift from one thing to another, but nothing really takes hold? […]
Self-Awareness
Most of us want to protect our children from struggle. After all, if we shoulder their burdens, they’ll be happier, right? Not usually. Children are happiest when parents scaffold their children’s ability to tackle life’s challenging experiences. This kind of scaffolding is necessary from a very young age. As children […]
Resilience
