Calm & Connected Podcast, Families
Janine Halloran
The Importance of Independent Play with Lenore ...

How do you encourage your kids to be more independent? When do you as a parent step back to give them the space to step up?

Lenore Skenazy joins Janine today to discuss some of these questions. They discuss: 


Calm & Connected Podcast, Families
Janine Halloran
Building Friendships and Social Skills with ...

Friendships are such a wonderful and special part of life. From memory making to going through the highs and lows with your peers makes life so much richer. As a child, learning social skills and how friendships fit is a huge learning curve as they go through their childhood and find their ‘people’. As a parent, how do you connect and how do you teach your kids basic social skills and about what a great friendship can be? 

Today Janine is joined by Caroline Maguire and in this episode they discuss:


Calm & Connected Podcast, Families
Janine Halloran
Practicing SEL through Play: An Interview with ...

How do we teach our children social and emotional awareness in a fun and play filled way? Eventually our children will become adults so when they walk out into the world, we want them to step into their lives as aware and in control of their emotions as possible. 

In this episode we discuss:


Calm & Connected Podcast, Families
Janine Halloran
Helping Kids with Friendships and Social ...

Have you noticed social skills missing in your kids? Caroline Maguire, author of Why Will No One Play With Me?, joins me to discuss how to support your child and build them up through play.

Here’s some of the areas we cover:


Calm & Connected Podcast, Families
Janine Halloran
A Conversation about School Readiness with ...

The transition to preschool to elementary school can be such an anxious time for both parents and for the children. There’s a lot of unknowns to get them ready for and sometimes we think there’s lots we have to do to prepare them for starting. Today we discuss what you can do to help reduce anxiety for your little one with nursery practitioner, Caroline Allen. 

In this episode they discuss:


Why Lunch Groups Matter

Why Lunch Groups Matter

The bell rings for lunch time. Five 9 year olds bound into my office, smiles on their faces and giving me cheerful greetings as they come through the door. They pick a seat, place their lunches on the table, then immediately ask about the question box. They can’t wait to see what the questions are this week. One little girl reaches over, picks a question out of the box and reads it to the group. “If you could have any superhero power, what would it be and why?” The rest of them jump right in and start answering immediately.

Is it Good Teasing or Hurtful Teasing?

Is it Good Teasing or Hurtful Teasing?

“You lost your phone again?!! Seriously?” He smiles and chortles while dialing on his own cell phone so I can find mine. Fingers crossed it’s not on silent or do not disturb.

I misplace my cell phone at least twice a day. It’s out of control. I know I should create some sort of system, a place where it always goes, but I haven’t done that yet. Instead I lose it, then spend a few minutes searching, and inevitably, my husband sees me or I ask him to help me. He teases me about it all the time. But it’s kind of our thing we do. I lose my phone and ask for help, he teases me and helps me find it. Rinse and repeat daily :-)

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Tips for Setting Up Playdates

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Tips for Setting Up Playdates

You’re on the phone with the school counselor, talking about the concerns you have about your son’s social skills. You hear the words you’ve been dreading - “Mrs. Jackson, one of the best ways to work on these skills is on a play date with one other child. Maybe it makes sense to try to set up a few playdates for him”. But how do you do that? Where do you even begin?

Setting up and prepping for a playdate doesn’t need to be super complicated or take a lot of time. Check out these tips to help you set up and host a successful playdate for your child!

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Encouraging Kindness in Children

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Encouraging Kindness in Children

Kindness is key in making good human beings. When I think about how I want my children to be as adults, the one value that I always come back to is that I want them to be kind. I want them to be kind to each other, and to other people. I want them to have compassion for others. I want them to treat others as they would want to be treated. I want them to do this not because they expect something in return or want praise but rather because it’s the right thing to do.

Play Matters

Play Matters

Play is the best way for children to learn. Play helps children figure out how to interact with one another. Play helps children figure out how to problem solve, make decisions, collaborate and work together as a team. Play is crucial for children to develop socially and cognitively. Play is a part of nature - even animals learn through play.  Play should be a part of everyday life. Adults and children should take some time to play every day. It's the best way to learn plus it's fun.

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Book Review - Project Dad: Make Every Day an Adventure With Dad

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Book Review - Project Dad: Make Every Day an Adventure With Dad

My husband loves to do things with the kids, but arts and crafts really aren’t his thing. He likes to play video games with them, take them on outings, or play outside. When he saw the book, he thought it would be cool to do a couple of the projects inside. We’ve done a few of the projects inside already and we can’t wait to try more. Here’s what we’ve done so far:

Tips for Transitioning Back to School

Tips for Transitioning Back to School

It can be hard to switch from summer living back to the everyday busyness of a school year schedule. For kids who have a hard time with transitions, this can be especially difficult and hard to manage. To make that transition less startling, here are a few tips and resources that you can use.

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Connect with Your Child through Imperfect Play

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Connect with Your Child through Imperfect Play

Today, I’m so excited to be guest posting over at Imperfect Families. Are you looking for some ideas of how to play with your kids but you don’t want to play Candyland? Check out some of my ideas for how you AND your child can enjoy playing together!

Guidelines for Imperfect Parenting

Guidelines for Imperfect Parenting

I’m so happy to have Nicole Schwartz from Imperfect Families guest posting today. Parenting is an exhausting, tiring job. Sometimes we get trapped into thinking that we need to be perfect parents all the time. The truth is, we all have good moments and bad moments. Nicole has some great guidelines for us to help reset when things don’t go as imagined and be awesome, imperfect parents!

Random Acts of Kindness for Families

Random Acts of Kindness for Families

I love Random Acts of Kindness. I think it first started when I heard about what a local girl scout troop had done, completing Random Acts of Kindness. I loved the idea, and integrated it into some groups I was working with at the time. Recently, I’ve been doing acts of kindness with my family. Sometimes it can be overwhelming to try and think of a random act of kindness to complete. Here are several simple ideas to get you started. There are also websites where you can look for tons of other ideas for acts of kindness.

Taking Someone Else's Perspective - A Lesson with LEGO® Bricks

Taking Someone Else's Perspective - A Lesson with LEGO® Bricks

Do you all remember THE dress from earlier this year that blew up on the internet? I actually thought it was quite an interesting social commentary. It was fascinating to me that some people couldn’t understand that someone else could really see the dress as a different color. And were adamant in insisting they were right, while the other people were wrong.

(By the way - I saw white and gold, what did you see?)

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