Thoughts on Attention

Pause beside a busy playground on a sunny afternoon and listen.   “Look at me!” children shout as they run and swing, climb, slide, and hang from monkey bars.  For kids, knowing someone is watching is affirming, motivating, and restorative.  Observation is the foundation of Maria Montessori’s educational method, an essential habit of good teachers and parents. 

A Healthy Appetite

Hana’s chubby cheeks were pink and dimpled, her freckled face framed in soft strawberry blond curls.  There were times when she sat on the floor of our classroom with her three-year-old friends, giggling until she fell over backwards. Before her mom arrived to pick her up every day, Hana would turn toward the door, just

There is Always Time

Our neighbor Joe used to visit several times a week. Joe was eight years old, polite and respectful, happy, bright-eyed, a popular kid in our neighborhood.  When he stepped onto our front porch, he was usually looking for someone to play with.  Sometimes, his mother sent him to fetch his sister. Joe knew how to

Screen Time and Childhood

Years ago the American Academy of Pediatrics issued a policy statement addressing children’s screen time that created a media hubbub.  The statement was weak and ineffective. The ruckus was in grand disproportion to the Academy’s ho-hum recommendation that parents “avoid television for children under the age of two years”  (Brown 2011).  It generated no positive