Like a Sponge

Grateful kids are happier, more engaged in school, and more satisfied with their lives. Here’s why gratitude is such a game changer in our material-and-status-obsessed world. We talk to researchers, kids and a Somalian refugee about how gratitude goes beyond niceties and changes lives.

Today’s kids see celebrities, business moguls and politicians lie with impunity. Here’s how to teach kids the value of honesty and how they should apply it.

Research shows that a sense of purpose makes people happier, healthier, and more successful. Yet just 40% of adults say they feel a strong sense of purpose in their lives. We talked to researchers, parents and kids about how you can help your child begin a path toward a meaningful life.

Decades of research show that the ability to forgive is a life skill that helps us survive life’s misfortunes. In this episode, we tackle some of the biggest misconceptions about forgiveness head on, and explain how teaching kids to recover from everyday hurts now will make them resilient to life's bigger blows later.

What can we learn from a former white supremacist about unconditional love? A lot, it turns out. The secret ingredient for thriving in our fractured society may not be civic lessons, but a feeling. We talked with researchers, kids, and a former nazi skinhead about how parents can make sure their kids get the message.

How do you raise an honest child in a post-truth society? What are the mindsets that help protect kids from mental health problems and substance abuse? How do you help a child rebound from hurt and injustice? This season, Like a Sponge takes on how to raise caring, courageous, resilient kids—in short, kids who have what it takes to thrive in this mad world of ours.

What’s it like to tour 12 elementary schools in search of the best one for your child? Join us as we explore one of the most complicated milestones in modern American parenting.

Nine out of ten parents expect their kids to go to college. Four in ten kids get there. Tune in to find out how parents from all backgrounds are moving heaven and earth to keep their kids college-bound.

Tune in as Like a Sponge explores how parents can embrace early adolescence, one of the most radical stages of brain development in the human lifespan.

In this episode of Like a Sponge, we take a hard look at what screens are doing to our kids’ brains—and what kind of role models we are.