Hey Tiger! Sometimes you gotta be up to be down. Sometimes you gotta flip the narrative. How can you do more by doing less? Less scrolling negative social feeds, more nourishing the mind. Less procrastination, more creative inspiration. Take a quick prowl through our curated jungle of positive news bites to reconnect with optimism before next week kicks off.
With so much blasting our newsfeeds, I’m thinking more and more about the generational wellbeing of small humans. Exactly what it is that the past few years will have taught our kids? Likely though, the better question is what can we learn from them?
kid /kɪd/
noun
a child or young person.
verb
fool (someone) into believing something.
behave in a silly way.
Read: Sesame Street turns 50 and is still making kids around the world smile. A newly released Sesame Street documentary reveals that when it comes to children’s learning, the creative team behind Sesame Street were anything but muppets. Born of the civil rights era, the creators worked closely with children's psychologists and educators to reach a generation of toddlers parked in front of the ‘boob tube’; babysat by advertising, the ultimate remote control. Today the show continues across some 140 countries around the world.
Read: What are we teaching our kids with screen time today? On social feeds that create an insatiable hunger to be liked, what are brands teaching our teens? Why are white girls pretending to be black on Instagram? Why are Koreans replacing selfies with body profiles? And is the gap between ‘lil-ol-me’ and internet stardom really closing? Reporter Symeon Brown says more and more young people are enticed by the glittering promises of a career as an influencer – getting someone else rich.
Read: Will the Covid Generation have lasting resilience boosters? Parents are freaking about kids missing school due to covid, missing social occasions and missing rites of passage. What will the anxiety, unrest, and isolation mean for my kids? How do I help them cope? Will they be okay? Yes, says clinical psychologist Erica H. Lee, PhD. They have just had a masterclass in dealing with change. We can’t prevent our kids from experiencing deep sadness, stress, or setbacks. We can however, nurture their ability to cope and grow their resilience.
Watch: Children are not suffering from ADHD. They are suffering from childhood, and school doesn’t help. Sir Ken Robinson outlines three principles crucial for the human mind to flourish, and how current education culture works against them. In a typically witty talk he tells us how to get out of the educational "death valley" we now face, and how to nurture our youngest generations with a climate of possibility. I was lucky to interview Ken a few years ago and cannot recommend his brilliant mind enough.
Read: What do we tell the kids about Ukraine? As the adults of the world watch Russia invade Ukraine, unleashing what many fear will be the biggest war in Europe since 1945 our kids may be absorbing not just our words, but also our tension. Hypnotherapist and psychotherapist Tania Taylor says that whether or not we feel kids are old enough to understand what’s happening in Ukraine, when they come to us with questions we need to pay attention to our answers.
Listen: Being heard matters. Described as a ‘human megaphone for Gen Z’, Yasmin Poole grew up in regional Australia and is embracing her own experiences to speak about merit, education, equality and impact for the next generation. Yasmin speaks about how schools can foster advocacy, how the workforce can harness young people, and why this moment in history is seeing youth demanding to be heard
Quiz: 50 questions to ask kids instead of ‘How was your day?’ If you ask better questions, kids will give you better answers!
Take it Easy Tiger, and thank you to everyone who’s joined our now 18,000+ strong community of Easy Tiger and Love Mondays readers. We appreciate your readership. If you’d like to help us spread the word, we would love you to share Easy Tiger with a friend.