0:00:00    Alyssa

You're listening to Voices of Your Village, and today I get to hang out with Dr. Anna Housley Juster. Anna brings over 25 years of experience supporting children and families as a mental health clinician, education consultant, award -winning author, and parent. Her career began as a Head Start teacher, which is pretty rad, and she later served as director of content for Sesame Street. Ever heard of it? Where she shaped educational content for the series, interactive technology, toys, and books. She's now in private practice and Anna specializes in early childhood trauma, anxiety, and behavioral challenges, blending her expertise in child development and mental health...

00:00:00    Alyssa

You're listening to Voices of Your Village, and today we get to dive in with Dr. Shelby Kretz to chat about empowering kids with social justice education. Dr. Shelby Kretz is the creator of Little Justice Leaders, an organization that provides social justice education resources for educators and families. Little Justice Leaders offers a monthly subscription for parents and teachers that provides resources each month to learn about social justice. Little Justice Leaders has sent over 17,000 learning kits to parents and teachers around the world, and Shelby earned her Ph.D. in education from UCLA, and her dissertation explored social justice education at the elementar...

It's natural to want our kids to be socially successful. We want them to have friends and to feel a sense of belonging. We might feel pressure for them to act a certain way in public and find ourselves stepping in whenever we sense conflict. The problem is that when we swoop in and take over, this can actually stop kids from building their own social skills. We get to be there to scaffold these skills, but it requires us to give our kids space to reflect, think, and problem solve on their own.

Picture this scenario: Leo is approaching the table where Nina is already playing. Nina yells “No Leo! I’m using ALL the playdough and ALL the tools. These are MINE.”

Now what? 

Sometimes kids have ...

 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 your life who would b...

The statistics are staggering. On average, preschool teachers are paid half of what kindergarten teachers are paid. The wage gap is more extreme for educators of color, who make up 40% of the ECE workforce. 20% of the early childhood workforce turns over every year.

As one of the wealthiest nations in the world, how did we get to a place where early childhood educators are so undersupported that they’re leaving the field entirely?

 
Our childcare system began in space where it was primarily stay at home parents. During WWII, more women began to enter the workforce and the childcare landscape began to shift. People came together to help each other, and a lot of family care programs popped up...

00:00:04    Alyssa

Welcome to Voices of Your Village, a place where parents, caregivers, teachers and experts come to support one another on this wild ride of raising tiny humans. We combined decades of experience with the latest research to create the modern parenting village. Let's dive into honest conversation about real parenting challenges, so it doesn't have to be this hard. I'm your host, Alyssa Blask Campbell.  

00:00:35    Alyssa

Hey, everyone, welcome here to Voices of Your Village today I get to hang out with Sarah Maclaughlin. She lives in Maine, and we got to meet in real life, which is how this relationship started. I gave a workshop at Birth Roots in Maine last Jun...