By Sarah Maraniss Vander Schaaff Editor’s Note: This was originally written in 2016 and revised by Mindprint editors in 2019. Consider also reading “What if it’s a can’t not a won’t“ A few days ago, while listening to NPR in the car, I heard an interview with Dr. Brené Brown, a research professor at the University of Houston and, unbeknownst to me, a “top ten” TED talk superstar. She has a new book out, Rising Strong, The Reckoning, The Rumble, The Revolution, that answers this central question: “What do…people with strong and loving relationships, leaders nurturing creativity, artists pushing innovation, and clergy walking with people through faith and mystery have in common? They recognize the power of emotion and they’re not afraid… Read More

By Sarah Maraniss Vander Schaaff Yesterday, my six-year-old announced that she and her good friend had swapped lunches for the week, pretending to be one another. “I had a salami sandwich and no pickles. And she had a bagel, cream cheese, yogurt and two pickles.” The pickles were a key part to this story. It’s evidence that each girl had embraced their alter ego’s preferences with full commitment. My daughter has had her regular order of a bagel with cream cheese, yogurt and two pickles for most of the last 100 plus days of school. Had I suggested she mix it up a bit, I’d have been met with a firm “no.” She really likes pickles. But when she pretended… Read More

By Sarah Maraniss Vander Schaaff Spring Break. A lot of our readers are just beginning their week off from school, starting with this holiday weekend. Then, there are those, like my family, who had spring break in late March, and now have Friday off for Passover and Easter Weekend. The kids had a total of four days back in school. Of course, others have Friday and Monday off. And still others, such as our college babysitter, have neither Friday nor Monday off. It’s all very illogical, in an Andy Rooney-type way, with the most egregious spring break scheduling occurring in our local district last year when the unexpected snow resulted in the chipping away at vacation days until students had neither… Read More

By Sarah Vander Schaaff This past Thanksgiving morning, when I sat on a yoga mat in a surprisingly packed room of yogis looking to find some calm before the storm, my yoga teacher mentioned something we should all be grateful for: our setbacks. We can learn a great deal from them if we listen to what they have to tell us. Giving thanks for failure and disappointment is not a philosophy embraced by many parents, myself included, who often rush to kiss a wound, physical or emotional, before a larger lesson can be seen or felt. Perhaps the most aggressive among us act to erase the setback all together, picking up the phone or pen or walking into the principal’s… Read More

By Sarah Vander Schaaff “How was your day?” I am going to go out on a limb and guess that if you asked your children this question after their first or even fiftieth day of school, you got this answer: “Good.” End of story. I confess that I spring the question on my two girls the moment I see them after school. Perhaps what I am really yearning for is a fulfillment of my own wishes. I hope you had a day of intellectual discovery, meaningful exchanges with friends, and ate something more than cream cheese for lunch! That’s a lot of unspoken pressure, and it’s no wonder they keep the lid on the discussion with the impenetrable and irreproachable… Read More

By Sarah Vander Schaaff (note this post was modified with additional resources May 2019) I have never liked the end of school year. It makes me feel, as I do before a thunderstorm…that things are out of my control. The Dread There are too many changes at once: big tests, end of school year ceremonies, performances, and good-byes. As a student I dreaded the relinquishing of the books that defined so much of the school day. As a parent, it’s the end of routine that is so hard. Of course I complain about how much time I spend in the car. That my daughter’s math homework was too challenging for me, the grown up. Since spring break, I counted down the days to summer… Read More

By Sarah Vander Schaaff The Educated Mom blog launched a year ago this month. And because we have some new readers and because I love year-end lists, I thought it would be interesting to take a look back on some of the themes we’ve covered. Perhaps the blog topics reveal a bit about what’s it like to be a parent and student at this particular moment in education. As much as fundamentals stay the same, I am fairly certain no one used the word MOOC when I was in elementary school. It was report card time when I started the blog, much like it is as I write this now. In the post, The Grade, I took a look at… Read More

By Sarah Vander Schaaff Last year, I interviewed a teacher just before the start of middle school. She gave us some great advice and framed her discussion with this point: This is a time where kids are tested, especially socially, and they begin to solidify who they are as people. So with back to school already in full swing for some of you–and on the horizon for others–I though we’d take another look at this interview. It may be of great value for kids (and parents) of all ages. WHAT TO SAY BEFORE THE FIRST DAY OF MIDDLE SCHOOL: • Know the values of your family and your school and don’t be afraid to stick to them: kindness, empathy, hard work,… Read More

By Sarah Vander Schaaff I wonder how many readers remember their first day of high school. I don’t think about that day often, but when I cleared away a few summer distractions, my memory of it came back. Yes, I know exactly what I wore. My priorities as a fourteen-year-old were a bit out of order, but probably not atypical. In reading about the transition from middle school into high school, I found many articles that cite social pressure and a teenager’s desire to associate with a group as being strong rivals to the expectations of home or school. And the way a student handles the transition into high school has serious stakes: More students fail 9th grade than any… Read More

By Sarah Vander Schaaff Several weeks ago, well before Sandy and the holidays took over our thoughts and conversations here in New Jersey, I attended an evening lecture given by Sam Wang, an associate professor of molecular biology and neuroscience at Princeton University and co-author of the 2011 book, Welcome to Your Child’s Brain: How the Mind Grows from Conception to College. The room was full of parents, whose children, one imagined, spanned the time frame mentioned in the title of his book. Wang told us, as both a professor and father of a five-year-old, “For nearly everything, don’t worry.” Young kids not sleeping through the night, not talking properly, these issues usually resolve, he said. The brain is a… Read More