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Are You a Conscious Educator?

I have been in the classrooms of our public and private schools. I have been on the administrative side. I have seen amazing people work magic with "difficult" kids, I have seen teachers who love their job and joyfully show up each day to be…
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Promises

Promises I hear it in the way you speak, the words you use, the tone you choose. The anger, disgust, contempt are like spikes in my soft skin. I have made you mad, again. It seems I am built defective, wired wrong a mixture of thoughts,…
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Society Will Change---One Peaceful Parent at A Time

"What if war was not inevitable? What if tyranny, human rights abuses and ecological destruction were not inescapable? And what if the means to prevent them were in the hands of ordinary mums and dads, and all those involved in the care and…
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Is There A Kindness Deficit In Your Home?

"There can be no keener revelation of a society's soul than the way in which it treats its children."  --Nelson Mandela Kindness is something we all respond to. When we come into contact with kind people, our radar goes up, we take notice,…
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Guilt is a Messenger? Yes.

''Guilt, the sense of anguish that we have fallen short of our own standards, is the guardian of our goodness.'' In a 1983 article written by Jane E. Brody for the New York Times entitled, Guilt: Or Why it's Good to Feel Bad she reviews the…
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If You Want Children to Love Learning, Let Them Lead

It’s 11 a.m., the first day of the new year, and my 14 year old has just come out of his room. Hair disheveled, loving grin on his face as his tall body bends over to give me a hug. This is how every morning begins if I’m home when he wakes.…
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Teens Need you to Read This

"It has become a cultural cliché that raising adolescents is the most difficult part of parenting. It’s common to joke that when kids are in their teens they are sullen, uncommunicative, more interested in their phones than in their parents…
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A New Kind of Mother's Day

As a child I made and bought my fair share of cards for my mom to celebrate her on Mother's Day. When I had any money I would buy her something, no matter how small, as a token of my appreciation for the work she did for me. I embraced these…
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Class Dismissed- Movie Review

I was able to see Class Dismissed in my hometown back in December. A local homeschooling mom took to social media to spread the word about the movie and to gather supporters.  The response was swift from the homeschooling community. I imagine…
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Stop the Insanity- Spanking is Abuse. Period.

This situation with Adrian Peterson is shedding a HUGE light on a problem that has been raging in our families for entirely too long. We all know this isn't anything new. Many of us have been the recipient of some type of physical punishment…
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What if kids could test out of school?

According to the author of "Teen 2.0: Saving our Children and Families from the Torment of Adolescence" that's exactly what we should be doing. Teens are in limbo. They aren't given enough rights to be independent, but they are fully capable…