A Brave Writer's Life in Brief

Dr. William Stixrud is back—and ready to help us motivate our kids!

• “I just want you to live up to your potential.”
• “You need this for college.”
• “I know what’s best for you.”
• “Because I said so.” 
• “If you don’t, then—”

Are you insisting, lecturing, scolding, threatening, or ordering your kids around more than you ever imagined?

Do you have conflict with your children when you want connection? 

We just want our teens and kids to do well and be well, but so often, they don’t listen to us! Then we have a power struggle on our hands. 

Learn how to have the effective conversations most likely to motivate your kids and teens! 

Our most popular speaker ever returns to Brave Learner Home in November: Dr. William Stixrud!

Dr. William Stixrud, co-author of the national best-seller The Self-Driven Child, returns to discuss his new book, What Do You Say? How to Talk with Kids to Build Stress Tolerance, Motivation, and a Happy Home.

Dr. Stixrud explores the impact of communication and consequences as he shares from his book—a practical guide for talking to kids about:

• sleep,
• screen time,
• motivation,
• and living up to their potential. 

Dr. Stixrud is a clinical psychologist and faculty member at Children’s National Medical Center and George Washington University School of Medicine. He lectures widely on the adolescent brain, meditation, and the effects of stress, sleep deprivation, and technology overload on the brain. He co-wrote the national best seller The Self-Driven Child and the recently-released What Do You Say: How to Build Motivation, Stress Tolerance, and a Happy Home with Ned Johnson. He’s been quoted in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and more. 

His previous Master Class webinar in Brave Learner Home is our #1 most watched guest webinar.

He’s also a rock and roll musician, and he’s back for an encore presentation in Brave Learner Home! 

“How we feel about our kids isn’t as important as how they experience those feelings and how they regard the way we treat them.” ―Alfie Kohn

How do we get our kids to do what we want them to do? What we need them to do? 

To homeschool well, don’t we need a certain number of problems in math, at least a minimal amount of reading each day, and a bit of writing, so we’ll have papers that show their progress? Let’s throw in piano practice, too!

Why is it so hard to get them to do it?

Getting our kids to meet our expectations feels so important in homeschooling! Yet what we often get from them is their reluctance and resistance—mixed in with our own resentment. This is not how we thought homeschooling would look or feel! 

So let’s flip the script and ask instead: What lies beneath our kids’ behavior? 

The secret to answering that question? Considering your child’s perspective! And that’s a powerful way to transform the daily life of your homeschool. 

Your Child’s Perspective!

In this Brave Learner Home Master Class, we read parts of Alfie Kohn’s Unconditional Parenting: Moving from Rewards and Punishments to Love and Reason. This will give us a jumping off point to explore ideas for working with our children rather than doing things to them.

Exploring your child’s perspective will help you understand them better, so they can learn more!

Check out the ways to sign up for a FREE Lifetime Membership to the Brave Learner Home. Join me for our webinar October 20 to learn more about the power of considering your child’s perspective! 

Ah the big bugaboo: Video Games!

• Should we regulate them? Allow them? Play them with our kids?
• Do they have any educational bang for their buck at all?
• How can I know if the research I read about them is reliable?

In other words: HELP!

We get these questions every single day—video games rank as the most frequently asked question in education circles. To that end, we’re going to help you gain confidence and skill in handling this delicate topic with your kids!

Video Games and Education

Teachers and parents often look for innovative ways to keep students and kids motivated and engaged.

Amazingly, video gaming is automatically good at both.

Gamers know firsthand how elements of video games can keep them riveted and motivated for hours. 

• But are all games created equal?
• What makes a “good” game for learning?
• Are there any negative effects?
• How do we take the motivating elements of gaming and add them to education environments?

Join us in Brave Learner Home as Ash Brandin, a public school teacher who uses video games as a learning tool, investigates some simple yet effective ways to take tips from video gameplay and turn it into best teaching practices, without gimmicks.

Ash Brandin, EdS, is a middle school teacher in Boulder Valley School District in Boulder, Colorado. Since 2016, Ash has spoken across the country about how academic spaces can mimic game structures to make learning compelling, motivating, and engaging. They believe games, specifically entertainment-based games, can help us create better teaching, more engaged learning, increased empathy, more inclusive classrooms, and motivated lifelong learners.

A lifelong Coloradan, Ash got their start in education as an orchestra director in grades 5-12. After several years in the orchestra classroom, Ash wanted a way for their students to feel more comfortable to make mistakes and increase their musical skills.

After brunch and brainstorming, Ash successfully implemented gaming principles into orchestra, social studies, and math classrooms, both in-person and virtually.

Their expertise has been a vital source of encouragement to thousands of families, including our Brave Writer community!