Children

Christy and her daughter on a hiking trip

November 29, 2018 In Character, Children, Parenting, Youth Frontiers

How I talk about respect with my daughter

The following content is taken from an interview with Christy Lund, Youth Frontiers Donor Relations Manager — Minnesota.

What do you think respect is?

I think respect has to do with demonstrating to somebody that they deserve to be treated with dignity, with honor, with care. It’s also a way that a person chooses to interact with something. We show respect to the environment or we don’t. We show respect to materials around us or we don’t.

So we can act in such a way that demonstrates those characteristics. And therefore we do something with respect or regard, or we do something without respect — and obviously degrees in between.

May 24, 2018 In Children, Parenting

The teenage brain: how dopamine spurs risk taking

I can still remember the kitchen conversation as my brothers excitedly hatched the plan with their friends. “Yes! Let’s do it!” was the consensus as five teenage boys raced out the front door with their skateboards. Ten minutes later a neighbor was on the phone asking if my parents knew that there were teenagers, including their two sons, skate boarding down twenty fourth street tethered by rope to a car.

Later, as my parents grilled my brothers with, “What were you thinking?!” my brothers looked fairly disinterested in the lecture. Reminding them of the potential for broken bones or worse brought the familiar rolling of the eyes.READ MORE

A shelf grid of many Russian nesting dolls

February 22, 2018 In Advice for Educators, Character, Children

Show Students Who They Could Become by Accepting Their Full Selves

By Justin Minkel

My mom is a play therapist and a miracle worker. Her secret power sounds simple: She absolutely accepts children as they are. Not as their teachers, classmates or parents wish they would be. As they actually are — in all their turbulent, disruptive, exasperating glory.

The children she works with throw rocks, scream in class and bite the other kids. When they throw rocks at her, she says, “You are really strong to be able to throw those rocks so far!” When they scream as loud as they can, she says, “That’s amazing that you can get out all your anger like that. I wish I could do that!”

Erica shares her North Stars of parenting

February 15, 2018 In Character, Children, Parenting, Youth Frontiers

My North Stars of Parenting

In my not quite three-year-old parenting arsenal, I have little experience but a lot of passed down wisdom and principles that have deeply resonated with or challenged me. Let’s call them my North Stars — what I aim for no matter how often I fall short. I take comfort in knowing they will be as fixed, forgiving and guiding tomorrow when I try again.

Peggy Bell with family smiling to camera on cliffside on vacation

December 7, 2017 In Children, Parenting

Help: The Art of Just Showing Up

By Peggy Bell, Youth Frontiers School Relations Assistant

About a month ago I traveled to Tucson, Ariz., to gather with family and friends for my father’s funeral service. The pastor said something that has stayed with me, and I want to share it with you. As the pastor welcomed the guests and thanked them for coming, he said, “Ninety percent of life is just showing up.” I think he wanted the guests to know that by just being there, they had already done much for my family. Sometimes, it is the simplest things that make the biggest difference when people are going through difficult times. And often the people who benefit from these simple gestures don’t know how to ask for help or maybe don’t even realize what they need.READ MORE

quote saying: if we're going to find our way back to each other, we have to understand and know empathy. brene brown

October 5, 2017 In Character, Children, Parenting

Empathy: how to raise kids who care

By Erin Walsh, Mind Retreat Facilitator; Mind Positive Parenting

“I’d like you to close your eyes,” I often say at workshops that I facilitate across the country. “Now visualize the kind of adults you hope your children become.”

I add that I am not interested in them conjuring up logistical visions, for example, where they hope their children go to school or the kind of job they hope they get. Instead, I ask them to think about the character traits they hope their children have as adults.

children sitting on a couch with a dog showing just their legs

September 28, 2017 In Children, Parenting

Family meetings help promote values

By Sarah Aadland, Doing Good Together™

Even when you’re doing your best to keep things simple, family life can be full at best. Too often it’s downright frazzled and unruly. Most weeks, it feels as though my family is racing in too many directions. And we’re not alone.

I catch the knowing, what-have-we-signed-up-for smiles from other parents during pick-up and drop-off times. Someone I know shares one of those meme’s touting all of the reasons dance or soccer or whatever is worth the time and sacrifice. The truth is, we all have different thresholds of feeling busy and overwhelmed.

My own family met ours this fall. And we made a few tweaks that lightened the load. The most useful tool we adopted was the weekly family meeting.

May 25, 2017 In Advice for Educators, Character, Children, Leadership

Questions to Ask Yourself as the School Year Winds Down

By Justin Minkel

Think of a school year as a human life. It has a birth, messy and hopeful and new. It has a death, too. That last day will soon come when the individual personalities who make up our class will never be together as a class again. In between, a lot happens: new abilities acquired in fits and starts, a midlife crisis or two when it all feels hard and hopeless, and some peace near the end with all that was accomplished and all that wasn’t.READ MORE

May 18, 2017 In Children, Leadership, Youth Frontiers

Connection unleashes learning

Connection unleashes learning – this was the main message of our Pilot Mind Conference on May 4, 2017.

That Thursday evening, we gathered with educators from districts across the Twin Cities to talk teaching strategies informed by experience and by the latest brain research. Erin Walsh of Mind Positive Parenting and Youth Frontiers facilitated the experience. Erin shared with us her vision for the conference and her impression of its pilot.READ MORE

May 4, 2017 In Character, Children, Leaders, Leadership, Youth Frontiers

Student leaders commit to improving their schools

This year, we facilitated a record-breaking eight Youth Frontiers Leadership Conferences (YFLC)! During the course of these conferences, hundreds of students from diverse backgrounds, geographic regions and academic settings gathered to acknowledge their ability to lead their schools and improve their communities. We held two YFLCs in the Twin Cities, Minn., two in Omaha, Neb., two in Milwaukee, Wis., one in Manitowoc, Wisc. and one in Green Bay, Wisc. We were inspired by the students’ commitments to making their schools better places, and we wanted to share some of them with you.READ MORE