Last week I began a blog series in “Coffee with Karine” on the profile of a #LearnForward family.  I’m writing as a Mother with a Teacher’s Heart and an Educational Leader who cares about Children.  I’m writing about ideas that anyone can do, anywhere.  I’m hoping to explore with you some universal truths about what supports children to be successful both in climbing the peaks of selfhood and being entwined with humanity, as our manifesto describes.

Often parents are curious about how to help prepare and support their child’s education.  As part of the #LearnForward movement, there are some key ways every parent can support their child’s growth as a learner, strengthen families, and overcome everyday and major challenges in life, called resilience.

Over the next series of blogs, I’d like to share three critical perspectives that I have as an educational leader, teacher, and mother that you can easily apply in your homes today!  These three perspectives are brought about by years of educating and mothering children, years of educational research synthesized, and my story!  I believe they support any child to become a lifelong learner!  I’d love to hear what resonates with you and what you do in your homes!

I know that life is crazy!  I live one of those crazy lives!  Trying to stay committed to core values is a struggle, but truly worth the effort.  One of our core values is that we honour the space between us and fill it with opinions, musings, debate, and laughter.  Here’s how we do it in our home:

1. We treasure family meals – Breakfasts and dinners are what works for us!  Sometimes the 17-year old is there for breakfast, sometimes not.  It is technology free zone.  We always connect over dinner.  We wait until everyone is home.  The table is our place to be real.  Sometimes we’re grumpy, stressed, or excited.  Yesterday, we chatted about the 16-year old’s career spotlight with a female doctor, an area of personal interest.  The day before the 2-year old shared about her final swimming lesson of the season.  Today we will discuss our shopping trip in light of financial management for young adults.  It’s a time when any topic is fair game.
2. Discuss a broad range of topics – It is not unusual for us to discuss topics of world politics or economics.  Not everyone at our table adores those topics.  But, we persist.  When there is famine in Somalia we looked at the pictures and discussed what our family could “do” to participate in alleviating human suffering.  With recent events in Crimea, Ukraine, and Russia, my son gave a wonderful synthesis of the difference between Lenin and Stalin’s perspectives (something I know very little about) and his opinion on how that influences Putin today.  We also discuss the children’s interests ranging from high school volleyball to NFL football to who ate the St. Patrick’s Day cookies we shared at the park.
3. Everyone is included – One of our favourite ways to include everyone is to ask a conversation question that everyone has to answer during the course of the meal.  If these type of discussion questions don’t come easily to you, there are tons of great resources.  A couple that I turn to are those at the Search Institute and sister Parent Further which are research-based and have brilliant resources.  It is never too early to start and it is never too late to begin.  If you need some additional encouragement, I’d encourage you to check out the upcoming webinar called “Routines Don’t Have to Be Ruts.”  Also, we literally have to take turns and give everyone attention.  This is an important skill in conversation that we are teaching each other.
4. Call family meetings – This started when the big kids and I were on our own.  Each time they would arrive at my house in their routine, we would sit down for a family meeting.  They were still pretty little.  I found it was a wonderful way to help them transition!  We had a huge Looney Tunes wall calendar and we would sketch out the events for the week, so that they could get a sense of what was happening in the context of our home.  These meetings have included many topics over the years, including things like vacations, driving, school, and technology.  It is a way for us to address issues together!  
5. The emotions are normal – Clearly, I love to talk and it comes fairly easily for me.  But when my husband, the Builder, entered our lives it was completely foreign to him.  That’s okay.  Persist.  If it feels awkward, just laugh and say, “That’s awkward.”  My 16-year old taught me that one!  However, we are learning not to persist on difficult issues too long.  We mindfully acknowledge them without judgment, but we don’t over-identify with them or stay with them too long. This one does not come as naturally to me!  The Builder is great for calling time-outs on emotional topics.  That way, we can preserve the relationship and time together!  
6. Make it intergenerational – Sometimes we are too tired or feel a little less social or we just need a break.  That’s when we invite the grandparents to join us!  They have lots to share and it is easy for them to take the burden off of us.  At times this is biological grandparents, but sometimes it has been other seniors who are more than willing to join us at our table.  It is a marvelous way to connect and usually they’ll even bring a salad!
7. Make it a game – The way this all started was when the ‘big kids’ were little.  We began with what we called “Hi-Lo.”  We made it a game!  Everyone had to share a highlight from their day and a low.  It worked.  We kept going!  There were many variations over the years, including things like “What was the best question you asked today?” or “Describe the most interesting conversation you had today.”  But, Hi-Lo is the fail-safe.
8. Ask great questions – That reminds me, one of the things I’m always trying to reinforce in my own mind and in the minds of the children is that is much more important to ask great questions, than have all the answers.  

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I know that for every family, there are different challenges.  While, I hope the stories of my home encourage you, it is not nirvana at my house, nor in any home.  I know we are all doing the best we can.  Hopefully something in these ideas is helpful to you.

So, I have some questions for our #LearnForward community…

• How do you encourage language, connection, and conversation in your home?
• I’d love to hear about the last time that worked for you!
• Are there ways you model this for the children?
• Are there great resources you can share?

I understand that some of you had difficulty sharing with the community through comments.  Please keep trying!  We are working on the technical issues.

And in the meantime…#LearnForward!

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