The latest from Educational Frameworks
It’s hard to believe that the 2023-2024 school year is up and running. While many of us welcome the return to structure and routine, the beginning of the year is full of anticipation as well as meetings, information sharing and first impressions. Splitting my time between schools and private practice allows me to have a pulse on the school as well as the home environment during this time of transition. If you are an educator, you must give yourself permission to rest and restore particularly over the weekend; remember that productivity depends on you spending time on yourself. If you are a parent, give yourself time to gather new information about systems and resources, re-establish routines and consider prioritizing a weekly, in some cases daily, check in with your child to preview routines, visualize the days ahead and identify their resources.
I am thrilled to be publishing my first Educational Frameworks newsletter that I hope is both informative and inspiring. For the educators in the audience, take a look at the article I recently co-authored in Edutopia. The article provides suggestions for enhancing your students’ understanding of brain development while building an awareness of their strengths. It connects the theory that building awareness lends itself to helping students develop confidence, self-regulation skills and agency, all of which optimize learning. I continue to work with my co-author, Sarah Kesty, on developing our podcast All Brains Considered which is geared towards educators. Here is a “sneak listen” to our intro episode. If you have feedback regarding topics to prioritize for upcoming podcasts please share via email mead@ed-frameworks.org.
To all of the parents in the audience, raising children/adolescents/young adults is the most humbling job. It requires establishing clear rules and responsibilities. It requires understanding their interactions with and in the digital world both socially and academically. It calls you to discover ways to connect with your child that are often different from how our parents connected with us. Look for additional parent resources that I plan to post on my website in the next month or so. What I will leave you with today is the reminder that all individuals benefit from using systems and establishing routines; it is all part of building habits and reducing stressful moments. Talk with your child about the routines you have in place for your family and ask how you can support them with building and implementing their own system.
One final note: Remember to affirm and reflect on the positive interactions we have during these harried days and be mindful of the fact that assuming good intention helps grow positive partnerships.
I encourage you to share any and all of these resources with others. Thank you for all of your support!
Mead