i just had to share that an old friend of mine just published his second book, The Inner Path: Awakening To A More Spiritual Life i can't wait to read it! it is said to be "An essential and insightful guide to finding greater happiness, fulfillment and a more spiritual life..." - can't go wrong there right? his first book A Mindful Approach to Parenting: Insights on Raising Our Children With Wisdom, Awareness, and Acceptance looks amazing.

This insightful collection of over three hundred original quotes on the subject of mindful parenting provides readers with a greater understanding and acceptance of the broad spectrum of experiences that they are likely to encounter as a parent. Combining humorous insights and timeless wisdom, this book shows how to embrace the moments that your child is providing you, instead of resisting them. It tells you how to learn from every situation, and as a result, better know not only your child, but yourself. It explains how to use whatever life offers as a way to grow within yourself and become an ever more effective and compassionate individual and parent. This refreshing and timely collection reveals how to parent with acceptance, courage, and compassion - to be mindful of our own emotions and experiences, as well as those of our children. It teaches us how to acknowledge reality; the reality of life as it reveals itself to us in every moment, so that we can learn from it and grow in awareness, wisdom, and equanimity.

Geoff Bell-Devaney is a graduate of the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction Teacher Training program at the Center for Mindfulness at the UMass Medical School and a former resident of the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health. He has been practicing yoga and meditation for over ten years and holds a Masters degree in Education. He lives in Western Massachusetts with his wife and son, and is the author of “A Mindful Approach to Parenting: Insights on Raising Our Children With Wisdom, Awareness, and Acceptance.”

do schools kill creativity?

Sir Ken Robinson thinks so. He has amazing things to say about how we educate our children. Absolutely inspiring! He is an internationally recognized leader in the development of education, creativity and innovation.

Just do the Math

Learn the entire K-6 math skills in 20 hours? Is that even possible? It's been done by a group of 9-12 year olds at the Sudbury Valley School. They have also demonstrated repeatedly that a child could learn math - all of it grades K through 12 - in eight weeks.

Math is torture for most kids. The worksheets, the non-stop exercises. The thing is, math isn't tough, it's just extremely unpleasant if you're not ready to learn it. They say it's the same with reading too. Our favorite reading game is reading eggs, it's online and extremely funny gauging from the laughter I hear while it's being played.

I'm stoked to know my son's learning is filled with laughter, because that's what I want for my life as well.

http://www.besthomeschooling.org/articles/math_david_albert.html
http://www.skylarksings.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=52

Schools kill creativity

Sir Ken Robinson has amazing things to say about how we educate our children. Absolutely inspiring! He is an internationally recognized leader in the development of education, creativity and innovation.



he says...
"Human flourishing is not a mechanical process, it's an organic process. you need to create the conditions that will allow children to flourish."

Rewriting Xmas Songs

We hear “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” again and again this time of the year. This is such a popular xmas carol, and I really wonder why when listening to the lyrics. It leads my son to ask, “Why doesn’t Santa want me to cry?” That is a very good question!

The last time we heard the song, we decided to rewrite the lyrics. The original version goes “You better watch out, you better not cry, you better not pout - I’m telling you why, Santa Claus is coming to town”. We considered “you better not fly/tie/try” and finally came up with… “You better watch out, you better not LIE, you better not pout”.

Why are we trying to threaten/scare our children into being good. Why oh-why do we not want them to cry? It is so sad. Marlo Thomas’s Free to Be - You and me had a song “It’s alright to cry. Crying takes the hurt out of it. It’s alright to cry. It just might make it feel better”. And really, it does. It does that and more.



Gordon Neufeld is big on allowing your kids the space to cry (especially the boys – he says). Really, what else can you do when there is complete frustration, and an inability to change the outcome? Kids find themselves in that situation quite often. When boys lose their tears, they losing something important (and this goes for girls as well). He believes that “tears show accepted futility”, they are a “symbol of tranformation”, and “where adaptation is born”. When a child is in a place outside of their control, they have 2 choices, adaptation or aggression. Being adaptive is an ability to become transformed or changed by that which we cannot change. Our tears are our biological response that helps us adapt to the things we cannot change. They are an outward manifestation of adaptation, where we move our feelings of frustration into feelings of futility.

In his “Making Sense of Discipline” lecture at the “Leading our Kids with Heart” conference in Cranbrook, Gordon Neufeld stated that traditional cultures knew that there was a connection between a child’s tears, and discipline. He said, “If the tears are stuck, children usually move to aggression”. I’m not sure if Santa prefers aggressive kids over a child that cries, but I sure don’t. That which we cannot change can transform us, and if it takes my child some tears to move towards transformation and adaptation, then I’m okay with that.

the 5 best toys

the five best toys? Wired's top 5 toys by Jonathan Lui, was sure to have the best of the best newest coolest toys right?

i totally thought Lego would be in the list. what else though? Wired's 5 Best was even better than i expected, and if you can believe it... Lego wasn't included.

The top 5? stick, box, string, cardboard tube and good ol' dirt! Check out this article to source these for your favorite munchin's christmas list.

now... i gotta say they missed one - good ol' log!