The loss of a pet is often a child’s first experience with death. Understanding the unique ways that children view pets and respond to their passing can help parents to ease the grieving process. Joshua Russell, an assistant professor of…
We raise our girls to fight stereotypes and pursue their dreams, but we don’t do the same for our boys. By Claire Cain Miller June 1, 2017 We’re now more likely to tell our daughters they can be anything they…
One early morning this past February, before the frost melted or the sun fully rose, 20 small children gathered in a scabby municipal park in Pankow, the northernmost borough of Berlin. The sky was gray and the ground was gray,…
Inside the Critical Reasons Why Children Need to Be Outside
This song about colors was written by a child in our kindergarten and performed by one of our teachers. IMG_3452
Under the distant gaze of a city skyline, cows and chickens wander through rows of sprouting vegetables; clear glass greenhouses dot the periphery. It sounds like an ordinary urban farm, but on this particular site, the wardens are toddlers. Read…
15 years ago I was deep in a search for a preschool for my son James. I wasn’t sure exactly what I was looking for, but trusted that I’d know when I stumbled across it. . One morning we visited…
As soon as I walked into Celia Rojas’s prekindergarten class in Union City, N.J., I was sucked in by the hum of activity. Art plastered the walls, plants were hanging from the ceiling, and in every nook there was something…
The Huffington Post January 18, 2017 Beware: Tickling isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. I was on the phone with my friend Elizabeth when I heard her 9-month old daughter Poppy screeching in the background. “Ooooh!” I winced. “Is…
The Washington Post November 1, 2016 At school pickup, I stand outside the chain-link fence that separates the kindergarten playground from the parents. Our 5-year-olds walk in orderly lines from the building to the yard. They blink in the afternoon…