With everything going on in the world right now, why not brighten our spirits and homes with some window hearts?
"My kids are still too young to understand what’s happening in the world right now, but I figured they aren’t too young to feel the power of colour. The power of art-making. The importance of joy... I told the kids we were going to broadcast good vibes from the front porch (and they were thrilled)."

http://www.cbc.ca/parents/play/view/rorschach-window-hearts-art-project

Need a bedtime calm-down strategy? We've been doing this 14-minute guided meditation with our 3 year-old at bedtime. It's a lovely way to end our bedtime routine. Thanks to my good friend Zoey Graf for introducing me to this!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vlv6Y1tq1sQ

These beautiful short films are a great way to help kids learn about tolerance and diversity!

http://www.cbc.ca/parents/learning/view/5-films-to-teach-kids-about-diversity

Parenting is the ultimate exercise in vulnerability and imperfection. Yet, in our culture of comparison and social media sharing, we create impossible standards for ourselves and strive for picture-perfect parenting moments. It is hard to admit our struggles.
To anyone who falls into the perfectionism parenting trap, I highly recommend checking out Brene Brown's work. With a background in social work and many years of research on shame and perfectionism, Brown encourages parents to see the value of vulnerability, honesty, and emotional openness. I can't say enough positive things about Brown's research, her books, and the grace and humility with which she addresses her own parenting experiences.
"Somewhere buried deep inside our hopes and fears for our children is the terrifying truth that there is no such thing as perfect parenting and there are no guarantees. From debates about attachment parenting and how much better they parent in Europe to disparagement of 'tiger moms' and helicopter parents, the heated discussions that occupy much of the national parenting conversation conveniently distract us from this important and difficult truth: Who we are and how we engage with the world are much stronger predictors of how our children will do than what we know about parenting."

Developmental research has shown that there are significant differences between how people talk to boys and how they talk to girls. We know this is especially true when it comes to addressing emotions. Old-school thinking suggested that boys should be taught to be tough and suppress emotions in order to succeed in the world, but recent findings contradict this approach, with the research clearly showing that emotional health promotes resiliency. So how can we change the way we talk to boys?

"We can start... by letting boys experience their emotions, all of them, without judgment — or by offering them solutions. This means helping them learn the crucial lessons that 'Emotions aren’t good or bad' and that 'their emotions aren’t bigger than they are. They aren’t something to fear.'"
Check out the full NY Times article on this topic!

https://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2017/06/28/how-the-way-we-talk-to-boys-may-be-stunting-them/