Search Results for: Want to Raise Smart, Kind Kids? Science Says Do This Every Day

Want to Raise Smart, Kind Kids? Science Says Do This Every Day

Inside: When it comes to raising smart kids who are kind, you need this powerful but simple habit. It’s completely free, it takes just 10 or 15 minutes a day, and anyone can do it.

As parents, we have big dreams for our kids.

We want them to be smart so they can go after what they want in life and have a reasonable chance of getting it. We want them to grow up to be kind, caring members of the community. And it would be nice if they also turned out to be the type of people who remember to signal before turns.

That’s a tall order. Especially when I consider the day a success if I remember to brush all my kids’ teeth twice a day.

And yet, now is the time to set our kids up for success in life. Short of morphing into a drill sergeant who fills every spare moment with flashcards and forced kindness, how can we raise smart and kind kids?

The secret to raising smart kids

Here’s the Good News About Raising Smart Kids

As it turns out, we have one magic “keystone habit” as parents that will help us raise smart, kind kids.

If you haven’t heard of keystone habits before, they’re an elite category of habits that kick off a chain reaction, influencing several areas of your life at once. In other words, you can focus on just one keystone habit, and you’ll experience several positive impacts. For example:

“Keystone habits explain how Michael Phelps became an Olympic champion and why some college students outperform their peers. They describe why some people, after years of trying, suddenly lose forty pounds while becoming more productive at work and still getting home in time for dinner with their kids.”
– The Power of Habit

The best thing about this particular “keystone habit” for raising smart, kind kids is that it’s completely free, it takes just 10-15 minutes a day, and anyone can do it.

To get smart, kind kids, you don’t have to sign your kid up for expensive tutoring or have twice-daily screenings of the movie Wonder.

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Bored Kid? The Best 50 Activities That Will Keep Kids Busy + Happy

Inside: These are the best activities for kids at home because they’re independent and open-ended, which means they’ll keep your child busy and happily engaged.

One hour into a full day at home with your kids, and they’re bouncing around the house like Tigger, scattering toys across the floor of every room in the house, and interrupting you every 7.2 minutes to ask for a snack.

If you work from home, need to catch up on household chores, or just need a break from being “on” for your kids all the time, 12 hours a day can feel like a lot of hours to figure out how to keep kids busy and entertained.

And so understandably, you find yourself always on the lookout for activities for kids at home. Fun activities that might even be a little educational to boot. And maybe, just maybe, one day you’ll find the perfect list of activities that will keep your child from wasting the day away on video games – or on watching videos of other kids playing video games.

Bonus: As a bonus for joining my weekly newsletter, download a free printable of the best 50 activities for kids at home that will actually keep your child happily engaged.

3 Essential Ingredients You Need to Keep Your Child Busy + Engaged

This list of activities for kids is different than some others you might find. Because this isn’t about having 20 gabazillion activities listed in one place. This isn’t about buying a bunch of special supplies or materials your child will use once and never touch again. And this isn’t about the activities that make the prettiest pictures so they earn likes on Instagram.

This list of activities for kids at home is about what works.

In other words, the activities listed later in this post will actually keep kids engaged so that your child doesn’t lose interest after a few minutes and announce, “I’m borrrrrred.”

First, here’s a quick run-down of three essential ingredients when it comes to activities that keep your child busy and engaged. The activities in this post take care of the first two factors for you, and you’ll find a bonus section at the end of this post to help you with the last factor.

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How to Work From Home With Kids—Without Losing It

Inside: Here are the best science-backed strategies for working from home with kids so that you can keep your kids busy + happy while you get your work done.

In theory, working from home should be less stressful than commuting to the office every day.

Because you can wear your pajamas, co-workers won’t drop into your office for a “quick chat” right at the moment when you’re finally in the flow of getting things done, and nobody needs to know if you happen to polish off your whole Girl Scout cookie stash from the freezer.

But when you add kids into your working from home equation, it’s easy to feel like you’re not getting any real work done.

Kids will interrupt you for the most trivial of reasons (Mommy! My yogurt is too lumpy!), they might get into mischief if left to their own devices for too long (lock up your Sharpies!), and sticking them in front of a screen all day just backfires. Because then you have to deal with the “screen time zombie effect” later on when they’re finally off screens – which depending on the kid means they’ll be quick to anger, highly irritable, or moody and unmotivated.

Bonus: As a bonus for joining my weekly newsletter, download a free cheat sheet of the best advice for how to work from home with kids, backed by research.

What You Need to Know About Working From Home With Kids

I’ve been working from home with kids in tow for more than 12 years now.

My kids range in age from 12 to 2, and I’ve learned the hard way what works – and what doesn’t. Throughout that time, I’ve studied the best science-backed strategies for being productive while working remotely. And I teach a class to hundreds of remote workers every year about how to actually get stuff done when you’re working from home.

But even after all that and even though my kids’ behavior has always been developmentally appropriate for a child in that situation, at times I’ve still gotten so frustrated at the kid-related interruptions and disruptions to my productivity that I’ve had to lock myself in my closet and scream into a pillow.

So if you’ve come to this post because you’re wondering, “Can you work from home and look after a child at the same time?” the honest answer is: Not exactly. But hang tight because all hope is not lost!

Let Me Explain

The human brain is not designed to do two things at once, as much as we’d like to pretend otherwise. And looking after a child and doing your job are definitely two different tasks.

Both your child and your work will demand your full attention:

So what in the world are you supposed to do if you need to work from home with children in tow?

While you can’t do two things at once, you can use a handful of simple science-backed strategies that will help you get your work done without resorting to 8 hours of zombie-making screen time for your kids.

What to do when working from home with kids doesn't go how you'd hoped

Working From Home With Kids? The Best Advice That Actually Works

Below, I’ve compiled all the best strategies for how to work from home with kids in tow. These are the exact same strategies I teach my students in my time management course for remote workers, many of whom are work-from-home parents, so that they can squeeze maximum results out of limited work time.

This is your one-stop shop for everything you need to know about working from home without childcare while still maintaining your sanity. And after the list, you can download a free cheat sheet of all the strategies covered in this post.

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