Hi! Welcome to my blog! I am so excited to share this journey with you — exploring the many ways we can be kinder to each other and ourselves.
Why Might You Read This Blog?
While I hope that many people out there will find this blog relatable, enjoyable, and informative, I think that if you can describe yourself in any of the following ways, you’re right at home here:
• a parent, caregiver, or educator interested in helping raise socially and emotionally intelligent children
• a person trying to get beyond self-criticism, looking for inspiration to be kinder to yourself
• a person who is generally interested in joining the cause to foster a more caring environment—at home, in the workplace, or even globally!
What Can You Expect to Read About?
First off, full disclosure: this blog is truly an exploration. As you’ll read below, I do have a fair amount of knowledge about this material, but some of it is new territory for me and I just really want to do more research and gain a better understanding of it. Now, on to why you should believe every single thing I say. (Just kidding!)
Being kinder to ourselves: My therapist challenged me to show myself more compassion—I am REALLY hard on myself. I get where she’s coming from, but that is a very hard thing to do. However, I sincerely think it’s important and I suspect that I am not the only person in the world who needs a little help making that happen.
Developing social and emotional intelligence and empathy in our children: I have a two school-aged children, and I’m constantly readjusting my strategies for teaching them social skills—when I’m not taking deep breaths and reminding myself that they’re only kids and not dictators. I think it’s super important to start teaching kids how to be socially and emotionally smart when they’re young, so they kind of develop a habit of it. When I explore this topic, I often infuse my posts with anecdotes about how it’s all working with my family. I’d love to hear from you about it in the comments, too! I find it all fascinating.
I also worked directly with K–6 students for seven years as an after school program leader/supervisor and a classroom teacher, and then spent the next nine-ish years working on curricula and programming related to social and emotional learning. I now spend a lot of time at my kids’ school, keeping a pulse on how these things work in real life.
Being kinder to others: I believe (and much of the research supports) that we can have a greater impact on children’s learning if we model what we wish them to practice. Therefore, I want to focus some of my time here on how we can model being kinder to others in our lives—friends, family, and even people we don’t know. If our kids see us practicing kindness and compassion in our daily lives, they’re much more likely to follow suit.
So, that’s a little about me. I tend to pepper my writing with personal stories, so if you decide to visit again and read more, I’m sure you’ll learn more about me (that is, if you aren’t already one of my friends or family members who I’ve badgered into reading this). I really hope that you find my posts entertaining, engaging, and maybe even educational. And if you do, I hope you’ll keep coming back. And maybe tell a friend. Or a few friends. 😉