Image by Pham Trung Kien from Pixabay I discovered Brain Pickings many moons ago while up late rocking my second child to sleep, and have been a huge fan ever since. The site’s author, Maria Popova, is a fantastic curator of culture and has led me to many esoteric and fascinating discoveries I don’t think…
Category: Awe
Exploring the World with Keri Smith
Recently, on a whim, I picked up the book How to Be an Explorer of the World: Portable Life Museum by Keri Smith (author of Wreck This Journal) while in a museum store. I’d intended it as a present for my oldest child, but it turned out to be quite the present for me because I…
How Being Outside Helps Children on the Inside
Image by tung256 on Pixabay As Spring rapidly approaches, I’ve been thinking about ways to spend time with my children outside to take advantage of the warmer weather. Researching this topic I came across a lot of discussion about how kids’ increased use of technology correlates to a decrease in the time they spend outside…and…
Introducing Kids to Art Museums
Image by Pexels on Pixabay Learning about the importance of daydreaming in activating the default mode network of the brain made me start thinking about other ways we could encourage my kids to turn on that critical circuitry. I realized that in addition to being in nature, one of the surefire ways to light up…
Bringing Back Daydreaming
I’ve recently been reading The Self-Driven Child by William Stixrud and Ned Johnson and one topic they bring up is the importance of activating the brain’s “Default Mode Network” (DMN) by allowing time for daydreaming (i.e., being bored). According to the authors, in 2001 neuroscientist Marcus Raichle published a study that demonstrated that engaging the…
Bringing Up Grown-ups 