"A wise and realistic program for instilling genuine self-esteem in children." —Kirkus Reviews, starred review Help your child cultivate real, lasting confidence! In Kid Confidence, a licensed clinical psychologist and parenting expert offers practical, evidence-based parenting strategies to help kids foster satisfying relationships, develop competence, and make choices that fit who they are and want to become. As parents, it’s heartbreaking to hear children say negative things about themselves. But as children grow older and begin thinking about the world in more complex ways, they also become more self-critical. Alarmingly, studies show that self-esteem, for many children, takes a sharp drop starting around age eight, and this decline continues into the early teen years. So, how can you turn the tide on this upsetting trend and help your child build genuine self-esteem? With this guide, you’ll learn that self-esteem isn’t about telling kids they're “special.” It’s about helping them embrace the freedom that comes with a quiet ego—a way of being in the world that isn't preoccupied with self-judgment, and instead embraces a compassionate view of oneself and others that allows for both present awareness and personal growth. When kids are less focused on evaluating and comparing themselves with others, they are freer to empathize with others, embrace learning, and connect with the values that are bigger than themselves. You’ll also discover how your child’s fundamental needs for connection, competence, and choice are essential for real self-esteem. Connection involves building meaningful and satisfying relationships that create a sense of belonging. Competence means building tangible skills. And choice is about being able to make decisions, figure out what matters, and choose to act in ways that are consistent with personal values. When children are able to fulfill these three basic needs, the question of “Am I good enough?” is less likely to come up. If your child is suffering from low self-esteem, you need a nuanced parenting approach. Let this book guide you as you help your child create unshakeable confidence and lasting well-being.

Now a Hallmark Hall of Fame Movie Event available on streaming platforms. Front of the Class is now in e-book format for the first time and includes a new epilogue. As a child with Tourette syndrome, Brad Cohen was ridiculed, beaten, mocked, and shunned. Children, teachers, and even family members found it difficult to be around him. As a teen, he was viewed by many as purposefully misbehaving, even though he had little power over the twitches and noises he produced, especially under stress. Even today, Brad is sometimes ejected from movie theaters and restaurants. But Brad Cohen's story is not one of self-pity. His unwavering determination and fiercely positive attitude conquered the difficulties he faced in school, in college, and while job hunting. Brad never stopped striving, and after twenty-four interviews, he landed his dream job: teaching grade school and nurturing all of his students as a positive, encouraging role model. Front of the Class tells his inspirational story.

Be yourself like Molly Lou Melon no matter what a bully may do. Molly Lou Melon is short and clumsy, has buck teeth, and has a voice that sounds like a bullfrog being squeezed by a boa constrictor. She doesn't mind. Her grandmother has always told her to walk proud, smile big, and sing loud, and she takes that advice to heart. But then Molly Lou has to start in a new school. A horrible bully picks on her on the very first day, but Molly Lou Melon knows just what to do about that.

The Confident Teacher offers a practical, step-by-step guide to developing the habits, characteristics and pedagogy that will enable you to do the best job possible. It unveils the tacit knowledge of great teachers and combines it with respected research and popular psychology. Covering topics such as organisation, using your body language effectively, combatting stress, managing student behaviour, questioning and feedback, and developing confident students, it shows how you can build the confidence and skill to flourish in the classroom. This book will be an essential resource for all qualified and trainee teachers wanting to reach their full potential in this challenging but rewarding profession.

The Character Conundrum is a practical guide for developing confidence, independence and resilience in primary and secondary classrooms. Tackling the hotly-contested question of what role schools can play in developing ‘character', the book untangles the big debates in this area and outlines how teachers can support their pupils to develop the skills and mindsets that will help them to thrive academically. Based on a combination of ground-level investigations and academic research, the book offers a simple, evidence-based approach that can be implemented at every level of school life. The key to this approach is being deliberate and consistent: knowing which mindsets, skills and habits you’re trying to develop, and planning the details of your classroom culture, relationships, routines and instruction so that they align and combine to address your aims. When you do this, the author contends, seemingly minor changes to your practice can have a major effect on pupils. The book contains a step-by-step guide to bringing this approach to life in your classroom, including a framework of pupil outcomes, a flowchart of teacher actions, classroom case studies and a wealth of tried-and-tested strategies from primary and secondary schools across the UK. A lack of confidence, independence and resilience is a major barrier to learning for many pupils and dilutes other efforts that schools make to support them. The Character Conundrum argues that teachers can help pupils develop these characteristics in any school context and illustrates how they can do so within and through their day to day teaching. Written with passion and clarity, it will be essential reading for primary and secondary teachers, as well as policy makers with an interest in ‘character’, grit and resilience, and any education professionals committed to giving students greater ownership of their learning and setting them up to succeed.

This book will help you... Become a better parent by teaching you the tools I use every day with great success to help children.. In the next 30 days, you are going to see your child's confidence soar with my easy to implement techniques. You are going to feel so much joy watching your child grow and develop that you will be upset that you had not done this sooner. Don't be! These techniques have been reserved for my clients only so you did not know that you did know this stuff. This book will fix that. Your child is going to enjoy all the benefits of having confidence and see all kinds of doors open to them. When your child has a good level of confidence, they will: Be very likeable and have plenty of friends Be able and willing to face new challenges Be willing to take on roles of leadership Be happier in their daily life Take pride in their accomplishments Work harder to earn the things they want And so much more....!!!! Sound like a dream come true? Well, let's get started and in just 30 short days you will see what I have seen hundreds of times with the children I work with in my program.

Passion cannot be faked. Students can tell when we're just going through the motions. But how can you summon the energy to teach with passion when there are so many distractions pulling you from what really matters? And if you barely have time for taking care of yourself, how can you have anything left to give your students? Don't wait for teaching to become fun again: plan for it! Your enthusiasm will become unshakeable as you learn how to: -Create curriculum "bright spots" that you can't wait to teach -Gain energy from kids instead of letting them drain you -Uncover real meaning and purpose for every single lesson -Incorporate playfulness and make strong connections with kids -Stop letting test scores and evaluations define your success -Construct a self-running classroom that frees you to teach -Say "no" without guilt and make your "yes" really count -Establish healthy, balanced habits for bringing work home -Determine what matters most and let go of the rest -Innovate and adapt to make teaching an adventure Unshakeable is a collection of inspiring mindset shifts and practical, teacher-tested ideas for getting more satisfaction from your job. It's an approach that guides you to find your inner drive and intrinsic motivation which no one can take away. Unshakeable will help you incorporate a love of life into your teaching, and a love of teaching into your life. Learn how to tap into what makes your work inherently rewarding and enjoy teaching every day...no matter what.

"This book is a godsend a moving portrait for anyone wanting to go beyond the simplified labels and metrics and really understand an urban high school, and its highly individual, resilient, eager and brilliant students and educators." -- Dave Eggers, co-founder, 826 National and ScholarMatch Darrell is a reflective, brilliant young man, who never thought of himself as a good student. He always struggled with his reading and writing skills. Darrell's father, a single parent, couldn't afford private tutors. By the end of middle school, Darrell's grades and his confidence were at an all time low. Then everything changed. When education journalist Kristina Rizga first met Darrell at Mission High School, he was taking AP calculus class, writing a ten-page research paper, and had received several college acceptance letters. And Darrell was not an exception. More than 80 percent of Mission High seniors go to college every year, even though the school teaches large numbers of English learners and students from poor families. So, why has the federal government been threatening to close Mission High -- and schools like it across the country? The United States has been on a century long road toward increased standardization in our public schools, which resulted in a system that reduces the quality of education to primarily one metric: standardized test scores. According to this number, Mission High is a "low-performing" school even though its college enrollment, graduation, attendance rates and student surveys are some of the best in the country. The qualities that matter the most in learning -- skills like critical thinking, intellectual engagement, resilience, empathy, self-management, and cultural flexibility -- can't be measured by multiple-choice questions designed by distant testing companies, Rizga argues, but they can be detected by skilled teachers in effective, personalized and humane classrooms that work for all students, not just the most motivated ones. Based on four years of reporting with unprecedented access, the unforgettable, intimate stories in these pages throw open the doors to America's most talked about -- and arguably least understood -- public school classrooms where the largely invisible voices of our smart, resilient students and their committed educators can offer a clear and hopeful blueprint for what it takes to help all students succeed.

You can't do it all ... and you don't have to try.

Grace loves stories, whether they're from books, movies, or the kind her grandmother tells. So when she gets a chance to play a part in Peter Pan, she knows exactly who she wants to be. Remarkable watercolor illustrations give full expression to Grace's high-flying imagination.