I’ve always been drawn to babies and toddlers and fascinated by the development that happens in the early years of life. This fascination led me to become a teacher, parent, and emotional development expert with a master's degree in early childhood education. Eventually, my passion for this field led me to co-create the Collaborative Emotion Processing method and research it nationwide. The research results were compelling, and so began my mission to share it with the world.
I love this book because it changed my entire outlook on behavior. It helped me understand the relationship between nervous system regulation and emotional regulation.
It helped me identify the underlying needs that drive the challenging behaviors we see in childhood. It changed the game for me as a parent and teacher.
There's no such thing as a bad kid. That's what a lifetime of experience has taught Dr. Stuart Shanker. No matter how difficult, out of control, distracted, or exhausted a child might seem, there's a way forward: self-regulation. Overturning decades of conventional wisdom, this radical new technique allows children and the adults who care for them to regain their composure and peace of mind.
Self-Reg is a groundbreaking book that presents an entirely new understanding of your child's emotions and behavior and a practical guide for parents to help their kids engage calmly and successfully in learning and life. Grounded…
“Everyone’s got something,” my mom used to say about my cerebral palsy. I knew kids who wore glasses or had mouthfuls of metal, but those somethings seemed normal compared to my leg brace, my limp, and my inability to run. When Judy Blume’s Deenie came out on my eleventh birthday, it was the very gift I needed: the story of a girl, a diagnosis, a brace. Reading it, I felt seen and understood, which led me to believe I might have a story to tell. Now, I’m thrilled to share these books by disabled authors about disabled kids leading authentic, relatable lives. I had Deenie. Today’s lucky young readers have these.
Being a poet, I love verse novels, and this one grows richer every time I read it. Seventh-grader Selah works hard to follow rigid, self-imposed rules so she’ll be seen as a “normal” girl in school, someone who doesn’t get overwhelmed by crowds or noise or jump from unexpected touch as though she’s been shocked.
What’s amazing about Selah is that, when keeping to those rules proves impossible and she gets in trouble, she trusts herself. With a few clues, she comes to understand she’s on the autism spectrum and finds simple tools that make a big difference.
She also starts expressing herself by writing poems. It moves me so much that poetry is represented here as a source of strength and that being unique is recognized as an asset.
A debut novel-in-verse about understanding and celebrating your own difference. Selah knows her rules for being normal.
This means keeping her feelings locked tightly inside, despite the way they build up inside her as each school day goes on, so that she has to run to the bathroom and hide in the stall until she can calm down. Selah feels like a dragon stuck in a world of humans, but she knows how to hide it.
Until the day she explodes and hits a fellow student.
As her comfortable, familiar world crumbles around her, Selah starts to figure out more…
My super-power is making brain science accessible and entertaining for children and adults alike. I am living this out as an author, mental health counselor, and the founder of BraveBrains. In addition to training parents and professionals, I have the joy of sharing my passion and expertise through podcast appearances, blogs, and articles. The lightbulb moments are my favorite, and I'm committed to helping people bring what they learn home in practical ways. I write picture books because the magic of reading and re-reading stories light up the brain in a powerful way. But don’t worry…I always include some goodies for the adults in the back of the book.
This book lays a great foundation to help children understand their feelings (and the feelings of others). The author draws on her experience as a school counselor to expertly walk the reader through some essential social-emotional learning. The bright colors and clever illustrations keep kids engaged, and the activities throughout make this a fabulous title to use at home, school, or in the counseling office.
When a big feeling comes along…you can handle it! Teach kids ages 7 to 10 how to manage their feelings.
Sometimes, emotions like anger or jealousy or excitement can seem too big to keep inside. Me and My Feelings is here to teach kids that it’s okay to have big feelings! They will learn how to calm down those strong emotions so they don’t feel overwhelmed and can continue to take on the world.
This book gives kids the skills to stay in control―by breathing deeply, saying positive things to themselves, talking about their feelings instead of keeping them inside,…
“Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.” - Goethe. As Singletasking notes, we’ve become relentlessly disrespectful of the people and experiences right in front of us. Reversing this is a mission of mine. Nothing seems more important than redirecting our lifelong attention to what matters most. As an international author and speaker about both Singletasking and personality styles, I’m convinced paying attention to and honoring each other is the key to a meaningful life and deep relationships.
The subtitle of Focusis The Hidden Driver of Excellence, yet this driver is arguably hidden no more upon the book’s release. As a journalist, psychologist, and top-notch researcher, Goleman is uniquely qualified to delve into the ‘science of attention.’ Plus, he has accumulated plenty of street cred from the various iterations of hisEmotional Intelligencecanon.
Goleman compares attention to a muscle; requiring regular use to build it up. I couldn’t agree more. This premise is supported by myriad examples, accompanied by useful techniques for application in all aspects of life.
For more than two decades, psychologist and journalist Daniel Goleman has been scouting the leading edge of the human sciences for what's new, surprising, and important. In Focus, he delves into the science of attention in all its varieties, presenting a long overdue discussion of this little-noticed and under-rated mental asset that matters enormously for how we navigate life.
Goleman boils down attention research into a three parts: inner, other, and outer focus. Goleman shows why high-achievers need all three kinds of focus, as demonstrated by rich case studies from fields as diverse as competitive sports, education, the arts, and…
I’m a historian of the early Middle Ages. There are all sorts of unexpected differences and similarities between modern and medieval life, and things get especially interesting when it comes to thinkingabout thinking. Our understanding of how our minds work has obviously changed—and so have the ways that we actually use them. Medieval thinkers in Europe and the Mediterranean world struggled with concentration and memory and information overload, just like we do. But they were savvier in dealing with those problems, and these books invite you into the wonderful world of their cognitive practices. You’ll probably find yourself experimenting with many of these techniques along the way!
Early Christian monks in the eastern Mediterranean chalked up many of their mental struggles to demonic interference—and yet their approaches to the problem of attention share some striking similarities to modern psychology.
Graiver makes the case that monks’ talk of demons was not a superstitious diagnosis but a pragmatic one: it helped monks try to strike a balance between monitoring their thoughts and thinking too hard about them, deal with unwanted thoughts before they became all-consuming, and figure how to keep it together when their thoughts were all over the place.
I love that this book takes early monks and modern psychologists equally seriously. And even if you don’t start blaming your problems on demons after reading it, you will still have learned a lot about the promises and perils of attention management.
Asceticism is founded on the possibility that human beings can profoundly transform themselves through training and discipline. In particular, asceticism in the Eastern monastic tradition is based on the assumption that individuals are not slaves to the habitual and automatic but can be improved by ascetic practice and, with the cooperation of divine grace, transform their entire character and cultivate special powers and skills. Asceticism of the Mind explores the strategies that enabled Christian ascetics in the Egyptian, Gazan, and Sinaitic monastic traditions of late antiquity to cultivate a new form of existence. At the book's center is a particular…
When I’m not out rescuing lost dogs or walking our dog, Beau, in the hills of Sonoma County, I’m reading, writing, blogging, or offering writers' support. Our family started when we took in a baby for foster care, then a year later, after great effort, prayer, and help, we completed her adoption. As for canines, we’ve adopted four dogs, all from dogs returned to their breeders or an animal shelter. Three of our dogs happened to be only one year old when we took them in. I continue to research and edit my Dog Leader Mysteries blog. Twelve years blogging about saving dogs.
Loved the foreword by Jean Donaldson. “What a dog lover should be most concerned about is fear in our puppies and dogs.” Why? Fear behaviors start with growling and snarling, then leads to snapping and biting. Too many big dogs lose their lives from biting accidents. We want our puppies to feel confident and free to sometimes say no.
Repeat. Be kind. Be patient.
There happen to be many styles and methods of training dogs. Unfortunately, Animal Shelters and the Humane Society report homeless canines as 3.1 million in the U.S.A. Plus, each year in the U.S., 3.9 million dogs are abandoned or given to shelters. Shocking facts. We dog lovers need to do a much better job socializing and training our best friends.
EEvery year millions of puppies enter homes, carrying their new family's expectation of a wonderful relationship. Sadly, many are re-homed or lose their lives as the result of behaviours which their owners find difficult to live with. Helping a puppy to grow into a resilient dog, capable of coping with the challenges of daily living, whilst retaining a good quality of life and exhibiting behaviours acceptable within society, is not an easy task. This book aims to simplify puppy education by presenting the skills that are required to achieve these goals within the context of everyday life. By enabling owners…
I love playing with my kids. When my eldest was eight and we were sitting on the porch together he said, “On my last day of being playful, I want to play with you the whole day. I sure hope it’s on a Saturday.” My kids know that I turn most things into a game, that I’ll screech and stop for a tarantula on the road because it’s educational, that I'll get them to sing their quiz answers, and that I’ll sculpt a cake into almost anything for a school project. I believe learning should be fun, so we would drink lemonade out of measuring cups, guess how many hops from the bed to the closet, and have Whipped Cream Spray Wars every summer (outside, thank you). I also think families would spend more time together if they had a great collection of cool—and easy—stuff to do together. As a writer I’m creative, and never run out of fun ideas. Why not share them with the world?
Even tiny kids get glued to their game screens, without being connected to the internet yet. And older kids are even more addicted. We've all heard how dependent kids are on "likes" and how depressed they get if their life doesn't compare with what they see online. This means we have an entire generation of kids who spend waaay too much time on the computer. They haven't developed as many social skills as they're going to need. And this book addresses it. Children will feel more confident at school and in any social setting. I'd love to see manners and etiquette lessons come back-- here's a start!
Help your children develop essential social skills-including groups, one-on-one interactions, and virtual communication-with these 150 easy, fun activities to teach your kids how to socially succeed.
From taking turns to making eye contact to staying engaged during conversations, developing appropriate social skills is an important factor for kids to be able to succeed in school and life in general. But how can you tell if your child is really making progress while you read the same stories, have the same conversations, and chaperone the same playdates? The answer is to add some variety to your child's daily activities with these…
Ever since I can remember, I have been fascinated with people’s stories. I think this came from my grandfather, who, whether we liked it or not, would gather his grandkids in his study and wax poetically about his life. He was a writer and a teacher, so he knew how to spin a tale and keep even the most inattentive grandchildren captivated. I have for many years referred to myself as a “memoir junkie,” consuming life after life like a starving drifter. Memoirs are a great way to continue to remind ourselves that life is guaranteed to provide us with struggle, but we are equipped to overcome it. We must endure, explore, and prevail.
If you want a FIRE lit under your ass, read this book!
I love this book so much and have reread this one a couple of times because of the sheer injection of motivation I get straight into my veins when I read it. What I love about this first memoir from David is his brutal honesty about his childhood and his subsequent journey to become “the baddest motherfucker on the planet.”
This guy is the quintessential story of polishing a terd long enough, you will get a diamond. Whenever I am feeling sorry for myself, my mind goes back to this book. I think, “If David can do it, I can too. This is nothing compared to the odds he faced, and look at him now!”
For David Goggins, childhood was a nightmare -- poverty, prejudice, and physical abuse colored his days and haunted his nights. But through self-discipline, mental toughness, and hard work, Goggins transformed himself from a depressed, overweight young man with no future into a U.S. Armed Forces icon and one of the world's top endurance athletes. The only man in history to complete elite training as a Navy SEAL, Army Ranger, and Air Force Tactical Air Controller, he went on to set records in numerous endurance events, inspiring Outside magazine to name…
My interest in this topic began after my father died when I was a young teenager and I was left looking for answers, explanations, and meanings. My dad was an architect and had written a book on Jeremy Bentham’s panoptican and prison architecture published before the French philosopher Michel Foucault’s famous Discipline and Punish. A small collection of Foucault’s books stood prominently on my father’s bookshelves and I really wanted to understand them. At university I studied all of Foucault’s works and many authors inspired by him. These are the best books that explain how we have developed philosophical and psychological theories to understand ourselves in the contemporary world.
Nikolas Rose’s exceptional book Governing the Soul expanded Foucault’s arguments, focusing on how government networks were created in collaboration with psychological specialists in the 20th century to create unique webs of expertise that helped individuals to manage and govern themselves. The result is an excellent exposition of the theory of governmentality. Rose begins with a discussion of how the Second World War encouraged new forms of ‘psychological warfare,’ where strength of mind could be assessed and selected to create the most successful fighting subjects. This created a group of professionals who also advised on the organisation of labour forces and who could teach the population to be productive and contented workers.
This expertise was extended to training children as young citizens who had to adapt to government needs via schools and social services. Rose’s point is that this created a system of power and government that was not top-down…
This work is now widely recognised as one of the founding texts in a new approach to analyzing the links between political power, expertise and the self. This "governmentality" perspective has had important implications for a range of academic disciplines including criminology, political theory, sociology and psychology and has generated much theoretical innovation and empirical investigation. This second edition adds a new introduction setting out the methodological and conceptual bases of this approach and a new final chapter that considers some of the implications of recent developments in the government of subjectivity.
I love travel and I'm also passionate about making the world more sustainable. When I was 13, on vacation in Mexico, I saw raw sewage running down the beach. My father said to me, "you can choose to be part of the solution or part of the problem." I think that set me on a track that we need to help animals, the environment, and those who do not have a strong voice. Even if I can only do one thing better – that's still better than not doing anything at all! I'm passionate about traveling more responsibly with my family because we ultimately make life better for our children and also for ourselves.
When I first held my daughter, I was filled with dread. I had no idea what to do and felt like everyone gave me conflicting advice. I had traveled a lot and wanted to travel with my daughter but was unsure if I could still travel the same way. After reading Barbara Coloroso’s book, it gave me the confidence that it was my choice how I raised my daughter but it was also my responsibility. I needed to give her choices but I also needed to give her guidelines and rules and set expectations. So many of the lessons about child raising I also applied to traveling with children. Now my daughter has been on hundreds of trips with me and to 13 countries. She has turned into a resilient, capable kid (so far!).
The parenting classic, now revised with new chapters, checklists, and information about today's most pressing issues regarding our children
This bestselling guide rejects "quick-fix" solutions and focuses on helping kids develop their own self-discipline by owning up to their mistakes, thinking through solutions, and correcting their misdeeds while leaving their dignity intact. Barbara Coloroso shows these principles in action through dozens of examples -- from sibling rivalry to teenage rebellion; from common misbehaviors to substance abuse and antisocial behavior. She also explains how to parent strong-willed children, effective alternatives to time-outs, bribes, and threats, and how to help kids resolve…
