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Google Photos Home for all your photos and videos, automatically organized and easy to share.

Here's a quick visual all about the social stages of play!

We LOVE LOTERIA!

Yo todas las reuniones familiares 😭😆

What is the Reggio Emilia Approach? | An Everyday Story The Reggio Emilia Approach is an innovative and inspiring approach to early childhood education. Here are the main principles as I understand them.

Good Reads!

How to Kill Your Child's Creativity - Playful Learning Kids are born creative geniuses. But unfortunately, by the time they reach the third or fourth grade, their creativity has sunk. With intelligence, there is a phenomenon called the Flynn effect: each generation, scores go up about 10 points because enriched environments make kids smarter. With creat…

Parents are often startled to realize that relational aggression -- using the threat of removing friendship, ostracism, and other forms of social exclusion -- can appear in children as young as three years old. Moreover, as parents and educators observe these more subtle forms of bullying, it’s becoming clear that they require as much attention as physical aggression. In an excellent piece in the Wall Street Journal, Laura Barbour, a counselor at an Oregon elementary school, observes, “Kids forget about scuffles on the playground but they don't forget about unkind words or being left out.”

Relational aggression appears to be more common in girls than boys, perhaps, researchers say, because the average girl is more socially developed and more verbal than a boy of the same age. These “mean girl” tactics are often considered a middle-school problem, but both parents and teachers report them in elementary school and even preschool classes. Laurel Klaasen, a counselor at an elementary school in Iowa, says, “They're already thinking at that age about being popular, being the queen of the classroom, or the queen of the playground and vying for that position.”

While relational aggression tends to increase with age, parents and educators can do a lot to counteract it. Simple lessons in empathy -- “Imagine how it would feel if someone did that to you?” -- go a long way to preventing relational aggression. Trudy Ludwig, author of multiple anti-bullying books, also says that “kids don't understand that manipulating friendships and relationships is bullying and that's what I'm trying to educate the kids and the staff about.” When she does classroom presentations, one way she makes her point is to ask kids whether they would rather suffer a physical attack or relational aggression; over 90% of kids say relational aggression is more hurtful. In other words, she says, “They'd rather be punched in the stomach.”

Most importantly, parents and teachers have to understand that relational aggression isn’t something kids, especially younger-grade kids, can work through on their own. Samantha Walravens’ kindergarten daughter Genevieve ended up caught in a best-friends triangle that left her crying with a stomachache, not wanting to go to school; with some cooperation from the teacher, they both encouraged the other girls to understand how Genevieve felt, and encouraged Genevieve to develop other friendships to support her. Walravens says, “I always tell her you can go to me or the teacher and we will help you work it out. A lot of the stuff they can't work out on their own.”

For an excellent new book for parents of girls from 3 to 13 that explores this issue in depth, we highly recommend "No More Mean Girls" at https://www.amightygirl.com/no-more-mean-girls

For two books for young children that address relational aggression, we highly recommend "My Secret Bully" for ages 5 to 8 (https://www.amightygirl.com/my-secret-bully) and "Trouble Talk" for ages 6 to 9 (https://www.amightygirl.com/trouble-talk)

A helpful resource for older children (7 to 12) that addresses bullying of all types and help kids learn how to stand up for themselves and others in a positive, productive manner is "Stand Up for Yourself and Your Friends" at https://www.amightygirl.com/stand-up-for-yourself-and-your-friends

For a variety of books for kids and parents that address bullying of all types, we've prepared a three-part blog series on bullying prevention.

In the first part of the series, we showcase books for preschool and early elementary-aged children on teaching empathy and responding to bullying: "The End of Bullying Begins With Me": Bullying Prevention Books for Young Children," at https://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=10255

In the second post, we feature recommendations for tweens and tweens: "Taking a Stand Against Bullying: Bullying Prevention Books for Tweens and Teens" at https://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=10257

And, in our final post, we share resources for parents and educators to help them better understand childhood bullying and learn how best to respond to it: "Leading the Way: Bullying Prevention Books for Parents and Educators," at https://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=10259