I’m not that old! Really, I’m not! And I’ve been doing this stuff for a while, but sometimes just buying a pair of socks can turn into a nightmare! Whoever heard of creating a password for an online sock account? And then there’s organizations like Kiva, where you’re really just trying to do some good […]

Everyone is dealing with an upended new reality what with the pandemic and all. I’ve lost gigs and income but on the whole, I count myself fortunate. And in the grand scheme of things I’ve decided to give back, do what I can to make life a bit more bearable. What can I give back? […]

A few days ago I went to one of my daughter’s houses for dinner and the grandkids ran up to me and asked me, of course, to read them stories. It’s always been what we do. So we went up to their rooms, and they each chose a book. The oldest chose Rosie Revere Engineer, […]

There is helping and there is hindering. Hindering is where you’re actually handicapping the person you think you’re helping so that they’ll never learn the skills necessary to be able to stand on their own. Helping is when you see someone being overwhelmed, and you step in, strategically! It’s very important. You never know when […]

There’s an OISE article about how anthropomorphic animal stories are not as effective at conveying lessons as stories with real children in them. https://www.oise.utoronto.ca/oise/About_OISE/OISE_study_shows_kids_learn_more_effectively_from_stories_with_humans_than_with_human-like_animals.html I am not surprised by these findings. The study was done on pre-schoolers. That age is not conducive to ambiguity. You need to spell it out. And yet so many parents […]