Parenting
Respectful Parenting
- RIE Parenting Basics (9 Ways to Put Respect into Action), by Janet Lansbury
- Parenting with Radical Acceptance, by Sara
- Please Don’t Handle The Children, by Janet Lansbury
- On Seeing Children as “Cute”, by John Holt
- A 21st Century Manifesto For Parenting, by John Breeding, Ph.D.
- The Power of Silence, by Scott Noelle
Parenting in Traditional Societies
- Who’s in Control? The Unhappy Consequences of Being Child-Centered, by Jean Liedloff
- What the Pygmies Can Teach Us About Child Rearing: Why do we push our young ones while asking little of our older kids?, by Erika Christakis
Natural Development
- The Development of Movement – Stages, by Dr Emmi Pikler
- The Competence of an Infant, by Dr Emmi Pikler
- Pikler’s Trust in the Wise Infant, by Jane Swain
- My Thoughts on Deliberately Teaching Motor Milestones, by Eliza Parker
- Back-to-School Minimal Shoe Shopping Tips, by Katy Bowman
- Results of the Self-Selection of Diets by Young Children, Claire M. Davis, US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health
Emotions
- Emotions are Not Bad Behavior, by Robin Grille
- No Angry Kids – Fostering Emotional Literacy In Our Children, by Janet Lansbury
- Let Your Kids Be Mad At You, by Janet Lansbury
- How a Parent’s Limitations Impact Children, by Brad Reedy
- 4 Best Ways To Raise Children With Social Intelligence, by Janet Lansbury
- Listening to Children: Tantrums and Indignation, by Patty Wipfler
Independent Play
- How to Ruin Children’s Play: Supervise, Praise, Intervene, by Peter Gray Ph.D.
- Share… Wait Your Turn… Don’t Touch… Playdate Rules That Limit Learning (And What To Try Instead), by Janet Lansbury
- Independent Play: Five Hints to Get the Ball Rolling, by Janet Lansbury
- Why We Force Kids to Share, by Heather Shumaker
- Blue Sky Thinking, by Janet Lansbury
- Your Baby Is Smarter Than You Think, by Alison Gopnik
- Why depriving your kids of toys is a great idea, by Madeleine Somerville
- Why Adults Should (Frequently!) Refrain from Directing Children’s Play, by Elizabeth Wilkins
- The Baby Social Scene – 5 Hints For Creating Safe And Joyful Playgroups, by Janet Lansbury
- Helping vs. Co-creation, by Scott Noelle
- Less-structured time in children’s daily lives predicts self-directed executive functioning, by many authors
- The Double-edged Sword of Pedagogy: Instruction limits spontaneous exploration and discovery, by many authors
Discipline (Rewards, Punishments & Praise)
- Rewards and Praise: The Poisoned Carrot, by Robin Grille
- Praising our Children: Manipulation or Celebration?, by Jan Hunt
- 22 Alternatives to Punishment, by Jan Hunt
- How to Help your Child to Behave Out of Consideration Rather than Compliance, by Larissa Dann
- Five Reasons to Stop Saying “Good Job!”, by Alfie Kohn
- When a Parent’s ‘I Love You’ Means ‘Do as I Say’, by Alfie Kohn
- Discipline Is The Problem — Not The Solution, by Alfie Kohn
- Toddlers Want to Help and We Should Let Them, by Peter Gray
- 7 Parenting Secrets That Change Lives, by Janet Lansbury
- Raising Successful Children, by Madeline Levine
- How to Raise a Child, by Judith Warner
- Behavior Charts = Poor Adult Behavior, by Heather Shumaker
Sleep
- Why babies should never sleep alone: A review of the co-sleeping controversy in relation to SIDS, bedsharing and breast feeding,by James J. McKenna and Thomas McDade
- Co-sleeping and Bed-sharing, by KellyMom
Values
- How Children Really Learn Empathy, by Janet Lansbury
- The Children We Mean to Raise: The Real Messages Adults Are Sending About Values, The Havard Making Caring Common Project
Holidays
- Say Goodbye to the Santa Claus Lie, by David Kyle Johnson
- How (+ Why) I Opt Out of Christmas, by Lindsay Miles
- Santa Claus and Montessori, by Carine Robin
- Why I Don’t Lie to My Children About Santa Claus, by Olga Mecking
- Have a Merry Honest Christmas, by Kate from KateSurfs.com
- Happy Conscious Holidays! Upgrading Santa, by Kelly Brogan
- The ultimate holiday gift giving guide, by Jen Lumanlan
- Armed for the War on Christmas, by Scott F. Aiken
- Holiday Overstimulation: Let Baby Turn Away, by Eliza Parker
- Why You Shouldn’t Go Home for Thanksgiving, by Brad Reedy
Community
- Finding Your Tribe, by Teresa Pitman
Handling Parenting Differences
- Parenting differently from family or friends Part I, by Genevieve Simperingham
- Parenting differently from family or friends Part II, by Genevieve Simperingham
- How to Speak up When Your Kids Aren’t Being Respected, by Sara
Education
Rethinking Schools and Schooling
- School is Bad for Children, by John Holt
- Why Schools Don’t Educate, by John Taylor Gatto
- Stop Stealing Dreams (What is School For?), by Seth Godin
- Dear Public School: It’s Not Me, It’s You., by Kelly Meier
- School is still ruining your chances to learn, by Seth Godin
- Why Our Coercive System of Schooling Should Topple, by Peter Gray
- The Seven-Lesson Schoolteacher, by John Taylor Gatto
- The Right to Control One’s Learning, by John Holt
- Respectful Learning: The Education Our Children Deserve, by Sara
- Re-Building the K-12 Operating System, by Grant Lichtman
- Progressive Education: Why It’s Hard to Beat, But Also Hard to Find, by Alfie Kohn
- A venture capitalist searches for the purpose of school. Here’s what he found, by Ted Dintersmith
- Beyond Meaningless Curriculum: An Email from a Student, by Marc Prensky
- I Can’t Answer These Texas Standardized Test Questions About My Own Poems, by Sara Holbrook
- Confusing Goals and Processes – A Summer Reflection on Lawns and Education, by Susan Blum
- My Struggle With “Education”, by Scott Noelle
- Academic predictors of adult maturity and competence, by Douglas H. Heath
- A Brief History of Education, by Peter Gray
- Summer Slide? There’s No Such Thing, by Kerry McDonald
- Inverse Relationship Between GPA and Innovative Orientation, by Peter Gray
- Teaching Strategies That Work! (Just Don’t Ask “Work to Do What?”), by Alfie Kohn
About Teaching
- A Dozen Essential Guidelines for Educators, by Alfie Kohn
- To High School English Teachers (and All Teachers), by P.L. Thomas
- What’s the Real Purpose of Classroom Management?, by Alfie Kohn
- Challenging Students…And How to Have More of Them, by Alfie Kohn
- The Baby Is Not “Getting Ready”, by John Holt
- Another Example of Less Teaching Leading to More Learning, by Peter Gray
- The Joy and Sorrow of Rereading Holt’s “How Children Learn”, by Peter Gray
- Skills, Big Ideas, and Getting Grades Out of the Way, by Patrick Henry Winston
Teaching Reading
- The Reading Wars: Why Natural Learning Fails in Classrooms, by Peter Gray
- How to Create Nonreaders: Reflections on Motivation, Learning, and Sharing Power, by Alfie Kohn
- At a Loss for Words: How a Flawed Idea is Teaching Millions of Kids to be Poor Readers, by Emily Hanford
- Children Teach Themselves to Read, by Peter Gray
- Teaching Literacy, Not Literacy Skills, by P.L. Thomas
- The Things Schools Ruin: Poetry Edition, by P.L. Thomas
Teaching Math
- Why Do Americans Stink at Math?, by Elizabeth Green
- And ‘Rithmetic, by Daniel Greenberg
- Kids Learn Math Easily When They Control Their Own Learning, by Peter Gray
- Math Instruction versus Natural Math: Benezet’s Example, by Laura Grace Weldon
- What Works Better than Traditional Math Instruction: Why the Basics Just Don’t Add Up, by Alfie Kohn
- The Benefits of Natural Math, by Laura Grace Weldon
- Should we stop making kids memorize times tables?, by Jill Barshay
- Fluency Without Fear: Research Evidence on the Best Ways to Learn Math Facts, by Jo Boaler
- Learn math without fear, Stanford expert says, by Clifton B. Parker
- A Mathematician’s Lament, by Paul Lockhart
- Changing the Way we Teach Math – an Interview with Paul Lockhart of “A Mathematician’s Lament”, by Tracy Stevens
- When Less Is More: The Case for Teaching Less Math in School, by Peter Gray
- “How old is the shepherd?” — The problem that shook school mathematics, by Junaid Mubeen
- Math in the Real World: Things That Don’t Look Like Math But Really Are, by Rebecca McClure
- Most Math Problems Do Not Have a Unique Right Answer, by Keith Devlin
- Natural Math: 100+ Activities & Resources, by Laura Grace Weldon
- 5-Year-Olds Can Learn Calculus, by Luba Vangelova
Early Education
- How Early Academic Training Retards Intellectual Development, by Peter Gray
- Early Academic Training Produces Long-Term Harm, by Peter Gray
- Much Too Early, by David Elkind
- Head Start’s Value Lies in Care, Not Academic Training, by Peter Gray
Alternatives to Traditional Schools
- How do Unschoolers Turn Out?, by Luba Vangelova
- Harnessing Children’s Natural Ways of Learning, by Luba Vangelova
- The Six Optimizing Conditions: Self-Directed Education works best when the following conditions are present…, by The Alliance for Self-Directed Learning
- Everyone’s A Student, Everyone’s A Teacher, by Rachel Munzig
- School Is War, Prison, Factory, Machine, Business, Game, Life….And Other Metaphors: recommending Permaculture, by Susan Blum
- The Natural Environment for Children’s Self-Education, by Peter Gray
Rethinking the “Word Gap”
- Is the 30 Million Word Gap a stat we should be using?, by Lisa Nowlain
- Selling the Language Gap, by Susan D. Blum and Kathleen C. Riley
- ‘The Language Gap’ — Liberal Guilt Creates Another Not-So-Magic Bullet, by Susan D. Blum
- Invited Forum: Bridging the “Language Gap”, many authors through the Journal of Linguistic Anthropology
- Back-and-forth exchanges boost children’s brain response to language, by Anne Trafton
- Quality of Words, Not Quantity, Is Crucial to Language Skills, Study Finds, by Douglas Quenqua, The New York Times
- Stop blaming poor parents for their children’s vocabulary, by Paul Thomas
- Making Millions off of the 30-Million-Word Gap, by Educational Linguist
- Ten Best Ways To Encourage Toddlers To Talk, by Janet Lansbury
- Debunking the “language gap”, by Eric J. Johnson
- The “Word Gap”: A Reader, by P.L. Thomas
- This Is Not My Opinion, by P.L. Thomas
Social Class & Race Issues
- What These Children Are Like, by Ralph Ellison
- Don’t Send Your Kid to the Ivy League: The nation’s top colleges are turning our kids into zombies, by William Deresiewicz
- The Ivy League, Mental Illness, and the Meaning of Life: William Deresiewicz explains how an elite education can lead to a cycle of grandiosity and depression, by Lauren Cassani Davis
- The Problem With Rich Kids, by Suniya S. Luthar Ph.D
- Sometimes ‘poor little rich kids’ really are poor little rich kids, by Suniya S. and Luthar Barry
Technology in Schools
- Beyond Ed-Tech: Making and Buying “Dedicated Educational Technology is a Needless Waste of Our Resources, Marc Prensky
Narcissism in Education
- When Narcissus Teaches: Teaching, Mentoring and the Danger of Narcissism, by Carol Lakey Hess
- Narcissistic Teaching (and how to change it), by Ian Byrd
- Observations of Narcissist Educators, by Dr. Gary Ackerman
Trauma, Abuse & Recovery
Child Abuse
- Spanking is counterproductive and dangerous, by Alice Miller
- Every Smack is a Humiliation – A Manifesto, by Alice Mille
- “It is Never Right to Hit a Child”: Interview by Noreen Taylor
- Alice Miller Interview: The Roots of Violence, by Alice Mille
- Adolf Hitler: How Could a Monster Succeed in Blinding a Nation?, by Alice Miller
- Preface to From Rage to Courage, by Alice Miller
- How Adults Can Survive A Childhood of Violence and Untruth, by Michael Pastore
- The Wellsprings of Horror in the Cradle, by Alice Miller
- Mary and Joseph – Parents to Emulate, by Alice Miller
- Brief Thoughts on Reading the Works of Alice Miller, by Lucien X. Lombardo
- How to Intervene:The Safety of Kids is Everybody’s Business, by Irene van der Zande
- There is no debate about hitting children – it’s just wrong, by P.L. Thomas
- Spare the Rod, Respect the Child: Abuse Is Not Discipline, by P. L. Thomas
Childhood Trauma
- Developmental Trauma Disorder: A new, rational diagnosis for children with complex trauma histories, by Bessel A. van der Kolk, MD
- Developmental trauma disorder: the effects of child abuse and neglect
by Maureen V. Kilrain, MS, PA-C
Diagnosing Children
- DSM-5 Diagnoses in Kids Should Always Be Written in Pencil, by Allan J. Frances
Autism & Abuse
- Autism and Behaviorism: New Research Adds to an Already Compelling Case Against ABA, by Alfie Kohn
- Autism as an Infantile Post-trauma Stress Disorder: A Hypothesis, by Yi C and Zhou T
- Autism and Behaviorism: New Research Adds to an Already Compelling Case Against ABA, by Alfie Kohn
- If Not ABA, Then What?, by Maxfield Sparrow
- Why I Left ABA, by Steph from Socially Anxious Advocate
- I Abused Children for a Living, by birdmadgrrl
- When Disabled Students Are Abused, by Amy Sequenzia
- My Thoughts on ABA, by Amy Sequenzia