Children Are Meant to Be Heard: A Clinical Psychologist on Really Listening to Young Children
There is an old saying that used to infuriate me when I was younger, and it infuriates me still. Children should be seen and not heard. The saying is older than most people realize. It appears in a collection of homilies written by an English clergyman around 1450, and it was not written about children […]
AI and Young Children: One Question Every Adult Should Be Asking
It is bedtime, and a four-year-old who is not ready to be alone yet has stopped asking the speaker on her nightstand why the moon follows the car. Her voice has changed. She is asking it whether monsters are real, and then nervously asks if it can shoo away the monster who’s hiding under her […]
Why the First Five years Decide Everything: A Clinical Psychologist on Early Learning
Early learning, to me, is everything. It is the foundation upon which a child’s entire life is built, and it begins far earlier than most of us realize. Long before a child picks up a pencil or recognizes a letter, they are already learning. They are learning how to feel. How to trust. How to […]
Emotional Dysregulation is Rampant, Educators Need Support
Stress for children today is unlike what we’ve seen or dealt with in the past as they’re bombarded with social media, tech devices, bullying, and lots of external forces and challenges – and children need the tools and support to help them deal with it all. A survey by the Centers for Disease Control and […]
EI Before AI: The Importance of Connection
We are living in a moment of extraordinary technological acceleration. Axios recently reported that more than 40 million people are turning to ChatGPT every day for health information—and that’s just health care (Axios, 2026). For families and educators, AI can feel like relief: faster answers, easier planning, more efficiency. But childhood isn’t meant to be […]
Emotional Regulation is at the Heart of Academic Achievement and Positive Social Relationships
A Troubling Trend: Preschool Suspensions on the Rise I read a recent article about suspensions in Tulsa – hundreds of children are being expelled or suspended for aggressive, out-of-control behavior, including assault – and they weren’t just limited to high school students. We’re talking about hundreds of preschool students who have been suspended over the […]
Soft Skills, No Longer a Nice to Have, They’re a Need to Have
A recent Harvard Business Review article examined an analysis of 1,000 occupations and hundreds of skills, capturing 70 million job transitions, and identified several core skills necessary for success across all domains. First and foremost were foundational skills, such as collaboration, mathematical thinking, and adaptability. However, a subset of skills were also paramount to success […]
This Spring, Co-Regulate with Nature
We could all use an extra dose of sunshine and fresh air to shake off the last remnants of winter and feel more like ourselves again! Being cooped up inside for too long can certainly take a toll on your mental health, and the teachers and families of young children know this all too well […]
Big Feelings, Big Hearts: The Pros and Cons of Being a Highly Sensitive Parent
I recently shared with Good Housekeeping my thoughts on the pros and cons of being a highly sensitive parent. We so often talk about managing our own emotions before we can model and guide children through theirs that it can be easy to forget that for some highly sensitive adults, it can be more difficult than for […]
Lack of Agency Creates Young Adults Underprepared for Life
A recent New York Times article1 began with emphasizing how important it is to give children the opportunity to take initiative, problem-solve and build resilience by pointing out how underprepared young adults are for succeeding in life given: “Many recent (high school) graduates aren’t able to set targets, take initiative, figure things out and deal with setbacks — because […]
The Power of Children’s Books in Navigating Emotions: Shemmy’s Wild Ride
As an author with more than 35 years of experience as a psychologist in the field of child development and early childhood education, I know firsthand the impact stories can have on young minds. Through storytelling, we can often help children understand and face difficult emotions in a safe and engaging way. My latest […]
Language Tips For Emotional Intelligence
Read more to learn what is Emotional Intelligence, what are the four quadrants of Emotional Intelligence, and some language tips for fostering Emotional Intelligence integrated with a real-life parent scenario. Modeling Language Fosters Emotional Intelligence As an educator and parent, I have learned just how much children listen to our conversations and imitate our interactions and […]
Kindness Calendar: Supporting Emotional Intelligence & Prosocial Skills Daily
It’s hard to believe it is already November – leaves are falling off the trees, there is a chill in the air, and it’s the time of year when we are once again reminded to think about what we are most grateful for. With so much going on in our daily lives and in the […]
A begin to ECSEL School Story – Part IV: Effectively Communicating Our Own Feelings to Children
Welcome back to our “begin to ECSEL School Stories” blog series, where we address common challenges that early childhood educators face on their journey to support children’s emotional, cognitive, and social development. Our last two installments focused on how to support children in learning and practicing important social-emotional skills like empathy and inclusion, and how to […]
This Mental Health Awareness Month, Let’s Focus on Connection
May is Mental Health Awareness Month, a month where we raise awareness about the importance of mental health and ways to support mental well-being. At Housman Institute, emotional well-being and mental health are central to all of our efforts. In my last blog post, we took a look at a New York Times article that explored chronic absenteeism […]
A begin to ECSEL School Story – Part III: Turning Exclusion into Empathy
Welcome to the third installment of “begin to ECSEL School Stories,” the blog series where we address common challenges that early childhood educators face on their journey to support children’s emotional, cognitive, and social development. Last time, we explored the important role that early childhood educators play in modeling, guiding, and teaching foundational social-emotional skills to […]