The Family Culture Blog
Practical ideas for building your family’s values, rituals, and rhythms. Written by two lifelong educators.
Featured
40 Family Values Activities
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
What We Get Wrong About Raising Emotionally Healthy Kids
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 found that three-quarters of high school students and half of middle schoolers reported feeling stressed by their schoolwork “often or always.” And yet, most parents worry more about their child’s math grade than their emotional health. Here is what I know from my combined experience
How to Increase Confidence in Children: A Parent’s Practical Guide
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 doesn’t arrive on its own. And it doesn’t come from telling your child they’re amazing. Counterintuitively, that can actually lead to insecurity. Rather, that quiet self-confidence is built in the litany of small daily moments that happen at home. That’s what this guide is about.
What Is Family Culture: And Why It Might Be the Most Important Thing You Build as a Parent
“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 the conversation, or the tension underneath it. The warmth, or the absence of it. The things that are treated as important, and the things that aren’t. You’re not reading their family handbook. You’re feeling their family culture. We have spent a combined 68 years in
You only get one chance
to raise amazing kids
