How to choose the three to seven that actually describe your family, and what to do once you have them. Ask most families to name their values and you’ll get a list of nice words. Honesty, kindness, respect, love. Everyone nods, someone writes it on a chalkboard sign for the kitchen, and by Friday nobody
Plus 12 real examples: short, long, funny, and serious. We’ll admit it: “mission statement” is not a phrase that makes anyone’s heart race. It sounds like something a bank writes and hangs in its lobby, and honestly, if you search the term right now, a lot of what comes up really is banks. We understand
Most parents we’ve interviewed build family culture in one of two ways. They sit down once, agree on what they value, and never really revisit it. Honesty gets said out loud one time, over dinner or a long weekend, and then life happens and nobody mentions it again until something goes wrong. They leave it
What Is the Fundamentals System? The Weekly Method Behind Our Family Culture Read More »
Between the two of us, we spent close to seventy years in schools. Nancy worked closely with middle schoolers and their parents for three decades as a school counselor while Steven spent his time in classrooms, engaging students in experiential learning. If there’s one thing we noticed over and over again in that time,
By now, most of us have heard the statistics about youth mental health. The numbers are hard to ignore. According to the CDC’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey in 2023, [40% of teenagers experienced persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness in the past year]. Nearly a third reported poor mental health in the past month. Stanford
What We Get Wrong About Raising Emotionally Healthy Kids Read More »
Here’s something I’ve observed after 34 years in education: the kids who thrive, not just academically, but socially, emotionally, and in life after school, almost always share one thing in common. They believe in themselves. Not perfectly. Not without doubt. But fundamentally, at their core, they trust that they are capable and worthy. That belief
How to Increase Confidence in Children: A Parent’s Practical Guide Read More »
“It’s easier to build strong children than to repair broken adults.” — Frederick Douglass Because you only get one chance to raise amazing kids. You know the feeling. You walk into someone’s home and within minutes, sometimes within seconds, you just sense something. The way kids and parents talk to each other. The ease of
