Talking About Kids

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The Holiday Season is a great time to take the kids to a children’s museum, but museums can be intimidating, especially if you have not been before. To help you make the most of your next visit, I sought guidance from Kate Wells. Kate is the co-founder and CEO of the Children’s Museum of Phoenix, a top destination in Arizona and one of the highest ranked children’s museums in the U.S. Kate is passionate about her work, and her insights might even help you create your own interactive learning space.  More information about Kate and the Children's Museum of Phoenix can be found at www.TalkingAboutKids.com.

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I recently was in a workgroup in which some colleagues were complaining about how difficult it can be to engage teens in out-of-school time activities. That made me think about Youth Taking Charge (YTC), which is the youth component of Tanner Development Corporation’s HEAAL (Help Enrich African American Lives) program. Over the years, I have worked with YTC on some anti-bullying initiatives and found the teen participants to be completely engaged, so I reached out to the team at the Tanner Community Development Corporation to see if they would be willing to provide some tips. They agreed, but, instead of speaking with me themselves, they sent 14-year-old Ziana James, 14-year-old Arielle Kelley, 13-year-old Melina King, three members of YTC’s youth leadership team. In addition to sharing amazing insights on how to create a vibrant youth program, these impressive young leaders provide an example of what a growth mindset looks like in practice.  More information about YTC and the Tanner Community Development Corporation can be found www.TalkingAboutKids.com.

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In this mini Thanksgiving episode, I discuss the science of gratitude, its benefits, and one technique for fostering it in ourselves and the children in our lives. Links to the research I cite can be found www.TalkingAboutKids.com. Full-length Talking About Kids episodes will return next week (December 5, 2022).

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Growth mindset has come up before in this podcast because some advocates believe that it helps kids succeed. Everyone seems to be talking about growth mindset, but there is a poor understanding of how to define it, how to foster it, or how to determine if it works. This is why I was so excited to speak with Elizabeth Tipton. Beth is an Associate Professor of Statistics at Northwestern University, where she co-directs the Statistics for Evidence-Based Policy and Practice Center and is a Faculty Fellow in the Institute for Policy Research. Just this month, Beth and her colleagues published a commentary on two different meta-analyses of growth mindset.  In our conversation, Beth explains what that means and what she found. She also provides a framework for how to think about growth mindset and any program or initiative we are thinking about for the kids in our lives. More information about Beth can be at TalkingAboutKids.com.

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In this mini Veterans Day episode, I discuss two things research indicates you can do right now to support the children of soldiers. Links to the research I cite can be found at www.TalkingAboutKids.com. Full-length Talking About Kids episodes will return next week (November 21, 2022).

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Over the course of my career, several private sector and public sector companies have asked me to consult or conduct research to help them develop animation on topics ranging from banking to relationship skills. Each time, the justification these companies gave for wanting animation was, “kids like cartoons.” I also have conducted research with parents and found that many of them would prefer that their children not watch animation because they felt that, as a medium, it was somehow less healthy than live action. As a result of these divergent experiences, I crafted this episode to explore what animation is and who and what it is good for.  My guest is Mark Collington.  Mark is a Senior Lecturer in Animation Production at the Arts University Bournemouth and the author of Animation in Context: A Practical Guide to Theory and Making, which is, in my opinion, the definitive book on this topic. More information about Mark can be found www.TalkingAboutKids.com.

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Career days at schools tend to be generic. Students hear from doctors and lawyers, but they rarely hear from professionals who work for governments or nonprofits. This is despite the tremendous impact these sectors have. That is the impetus behind this episode, and Terry Babcock-Lumish is the perfect guest for it. Terry has worked at every level of government; she has trained young would-be public servants for some of the world’s more egalitarian and most exclusive universities; and she currently is the Executive Secretary of the Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation, the premier graduate fellowship in the United States for public service leadership that awards live-changing scholarships to 50 plus students each year. Terry is dedicated, smart, funny, and busy.  I am grateful that she found the time to share her insights. More information about Terry and the Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation can be found at www.TalkingAboutKids.com.

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The topic of this episode was suggested to me by the Arizona Center for Afterschool Excellence, which is that state’s professional association for out-of-school time programs (OST). Its member organizations were reporting some troubling incidents that involved, what they perceived to be, increasingly dysregulated students, staff, and parents. Their observations are anecdotal, but, as you will hear from my guest, Angel Jannasch-Pennell, they are indicative of some very real trends. Angel has a lifetime of experience working on educational issues as a teacher, a researcher, an administrator, and, for the last decade, as the co-founder and CEO of KOI Education, a firm that has trained thousands of educators and direct service providers on subjects like Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) and behavior management. This interview was recorded in front of a live audience on October 22nd, 2022, at the Arizona Center of Afterschool Excellence’s annual conference. More information about Angel and KOI Education can be found www.TalkingAboutKids.com.

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This is part three in Talking About Kids' three-part series on traumatic brain injury (TBI).  In part one, Keith Owen Yeates explained what TBI is and why we care.  In part two, Juliet Haarbauer-Krupa shared strategies for preventing TBI.  In this final installment, Stacy Suskauer presents the latest research on responding to concussions, TBIs, and other head injuries to ensure the best possible outcomes children and adolescents. Stacy is the Vice President of Pediatric Rehabilitation at Kennedy Krieger Institute and the Director of the Division of Pediatric Rehabilitation at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. More information about Stacy and links to some TBI resources hand-picked by her can be found at www.TalkingAboutKids.com.

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This is part two in Talking About Kids’ three-part series on traumatic brain injury (TBI). In part one, Keith Owen Yeates explained what TBI is and why, as people who care about kids, we need to be so very concerned about it. This episode is about prevention, and there is no better person to speak to this topic than my guest, Juliet Haarbauer-Krupa, Senior Health Scientist on the Traumatic Brain Injury Team in the Division of Injury Prevention at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Juliet brings to the position over 30 years of experience and over 100 publications and presentations on TBI. More information about Juliet and links to her hand-picked TBI resources can be found at www.TalkingAboutKids.com.