A Nation of the Sleep-Deprived – & How to Turn Things Around
“It’s time to get up and make pancakes, Grandpa!” It was 5:30 in the morning. Still, I thought it might be good to get up a little earlier than usual for my four year old granddaughter’s and my favorite ritual – though neither of us had got much sleep the night...
Bullying & the Language of the Body
A wonderful anecdote from senior yoga teacher Patricia Walden recently caught my eye in a post at Yoga Journal. She recalled a statement BKS Iyengar made to her when she struggled with depression: "If you open your armpits, you'll never get depressed." She was in her...
Bones! (And 3 Tips to Help Your Kids Develop Healthy Ones)
One concept we explored a lot in our recent Yoga for Seniors courses is how yoga can improve bone health. That’s because exercise strengthens not only muscles but bones. A regular, properly designed program may in fact help prevent the falls and fall-related fractures...
From the Archives: 3 Activities to Start the School Year Right
As a new school year gets underway, we re-post these tips from a couple years back to help you get the year off to a positive start... Parents and teachers know how important establishing routines is for healthy child development, but the shift from summer fun to...
9 Tips for Helping Kids Deal with Events Like the Troutdale School Shooting
Within a day of last week’s shooting at Reynolds High School in Troutdale – just outside of Portland here and where some of Lynea’s colleagues work – several particular posts about it began cropping up on Facebook a lot. One was especially sad and sobering: Though...
Less Screen-Time = Healthier Kids & More Family Fun!
You hear a lot about the problems that come from kids spending too much time fixated on screens – obesity, poor and insufficient sleep, behavioral issues and all the rest. What you don’t hear so much is evidence of the benefits from guiding kids’ interactions with...
Helping Kids with Attention Issues: We Can Do Better – Tips & Resources
Judge by rising rates of ADHD diagnoses and medication prescriptions (quintupling over the past 12 years), it would seem that we’ve really got a national epidemic at hand. Or do we? A recent New York Times article reveals some disturbing news: The rise of A.D.H.D....
4 Tips for Implementing Yoga Calm in Your School
by Lynn Hernandez, school principal and Certified Yoga Calm Youth Instructor After attending Yoga Calm training last February I was so excited about the possibilities at my school for both students and staff. I knew that these mindful movement activities would help...
What Is Your Call of Duty?
What's going on with our boys? These days, I’m asked this question a lot by parents and teachers alike. This school year alone, I have done more staff trainings and have been asked to observe and assist teachers more than ever before with respect to boys’ behavior...
11 Ideas for Cultivating Gratitude in the K-8 Classroom
In our work with teachers and counselors around the United States, we are in a unique position to see what trends and common issues face schools. One particularly strong trend is an emphasis on social and emotional learning (SEL) to help students to succeed in a...
Things That Go Bang!
At our recent Boys & Coyotes Course in Minneapolis, I asked a group of therapists, teachers and other educational professionals, “What do you know about boys?” Some of their answers: They are active. They like to play superheroes. They make exploding noises. They...
The Emerging Field of Contemplative Science & How It Can Help Us Help Kids Thrive
It seems “mindfulness” has hit the big time. A simple news search of the term in Google typically brings up several thousand results. It seems everybody’s talking about it. One reason why is just our search for solutions to the increasing pressure and uncertainty we...