00:00:00    Alyssa

You're listening to Voices of Your Village and I got to hang out and chat about play. Ya'll, play is wildly important and underrated and we get to dive into why it's so important, what it does and also frankly, how it can make your life so much easier as a parent, as a teacher, as a caregiver. It's your classic win -win. I got to hang out with Dr. Jacqueline Harding. She is an international child development and education expert. She's recognized for her work advising government, practitioners, and parents. Dr. Harding is an honorary visiting research fellow at Middlesex University. Her qualifications include a PhD in child development,...

00:00:00    Alyssa

You're listening to Voices of Your Village, and I got to hang out with Kelley Coleman. She is the author of Everything No One Tells You About Parenting a Disabled Child. Kelley is a feature film development executive turned author and a passionate advocate for parents and caregivers and individuals with disabilities. She is the parent of two amazing boys, one of whom has multiple disabilities, and her book, Everything No One Tells You About Parenting a Disabled Child draws upon over a decade of advocacy with candor, humor, and relatability earned in her prior career of writing and developing talking animal movies. She was recently named best mom...

00:00:00    Alyssa

You're listening to Voices of Your Village, and in this episode, I got to hang out with our very own Rachel Lounder to chat about transitioning from one to two kids. We chatted about our own personal journeys and different things we hear from the outside world about, oh, what second kids are supposed to be like and all that jazz. We talked about triggers, things that worked for us, things that didn't, and we had very different experiences. My second born has similar sensory systems to her first born, and then vice versa for her second born has similar sensory systems to my first born. And so we got to chat about what that looked like and how it showed...

00:00:00    Alyssa

You're listening to Voices of Your Village, and today I get to share one of the funniest humans on the internet with you, Taylor Wolfe. You might know her as The Daily Tay. I had been listening to her book, Birdie and Harlow, on audiobook and was like, oh my gosh, I have to chat with her. So we got to dive into what it looks like to learn how to be a mom while grieving a huge loss. Taylor shares so vulnerably and openly about losing this dog of hers, who she was so connected to and attuned to and attached to, at the same time that she was entering into motherhood. And we got to look at what does it look like to incorporate grief as a part of our life...

00:00:00    Alyssa 

You're listening to Voices of Your Village and today Monica Packer and I got to dive into how to create habits when you're drained and overwhelmed. For me, when it comes to habits, it can feel like, okay, I'm going to do this thing and then I go all in on something and then it feels really overwhelming and it doesn't continue. Or I look at it and I'm like, oh, that sounds great and I'm so spent or beyond my bandwidth that I cannot add another thing in. Even if my current system isn't working, that sometimes even accessing the bandwidth for change feels overwhelming and hard. I love that Monica has broken down specific steps, ways to form habits...

00:00:00    Alyssa

You're listening to Voices of Your Village, and today I get to hang out with Victoria Facelli, the author of Feed the Baby. And I want to let you know that we recorded this episode back when I was still pregnant. And so you'll hear some of that in this of like, what does it look like for me in this season? It's a pretty personal episode. Victoria took me on a ride and we got to chat about how to balance infant feeding with parental mental health. This is such a huge topic. I personally have been through this and just feel like every time friends of mine are having kids, those first few weeks and months are so wrapped up in feeding and...

00:00:00    Alyssa

You're listening to Voices of Your Village, and I get to dive in with occupational therapist Kelly Mahler, all about really the key to, I would say, navigating life from a well -being standpoint. We get to chat about interoception. This is one of the sensory systems that I think is so often overlooked, and I think it's the cornerstone for mental wellness. It definitely is the cornerstone for accessing self -control. So often we want kids to control their words, control their actions, like, ask for things kindly, all that jazz, and the reality is they can't do that if they don't first have interoceptive awareness, if they aren't aware of what's happening...

00:00:00    Alyssa 

You're listening to Voices of Your Village, and today I get to bring you a much requested episode. We get to dive into what this work looks like with teens, and especially talking about teen anxiety. I got to hang out with one of my favorite humans, Casey O'Roarty. She hosts the Joyful Courage podcast, and her work really focuses on positive discipline in those adolescent years, and all the things that come up in that space. And she truly is a human that I'm like, I'm gonna need you on speed dial, my friend. I just find her approach to this so in alignment with ours, with young humans, and that it really does come back to relationship and...

00:00:00    Alyssa

You're listening to Voices of Your Village, and I got to hang out with Claudia Hammond to talk about why kindness matters and how do we teach it. One of the things I've been really into is this difference between being nice and being kind and what is kindness? How does it play out, not just in early childhood, but then down the road? What effects does it have on our mental health and the longevity of our mental health? I was so enriched by her research that it was really exciting to get to chat with her. She has a book out called The Keys to Kindness, and we got to chat about like, what does it look like to be kind to toddlers and to support tiny...

 00:00:00    Alyssa

Y 'all I am so jazzed to share today's special episode with you. It's a sneak peek from our 2024 Seed Teacher Summit coming at you March 12th to the 14th. We are so grateful to have a brand new batch of incredible speakers this year and so many essential topics like Playful Transitions, Why Play Matters for Neurodivergent Learners, and of course How to Manage a Classroom Full of Spitters. This is going to be a compilation episode with little snippets from a handful of the interviews just to give you a taste of what's to come. The summit is free, f -r -e -e FREE to watch so please share it with any educators, administrators or fellow caregivers in...