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Balancing Busy: Supporting Your Child’s Schedule

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This Guest Post, by Susan Good, explores parenting strategies to support your child‘s busy schedule. Be sure to check out Ms. Good’s website at retiredteacher.org for more insightful articles about teaching and writing!

 
Image via Pexels

You want your child to grow — to explore interests, build habits, and feel proud of their effort. But between violin practice, math tutoring, and one too many birthday parties, it’s easy to wonder: is this too much? Today’s schedules stretch kids thin, mistaking busy for better. But downtime isn’t a waste of time — it’s part of what makes effort sustainable. Balance isn’t just a parenting ideal; it’s the key to helping kids thrive without burning out.

Prepping the Morning, Not Just Surviving It

Before we ever talk about calendars or extracurriculars, let’s talk mornings — because how your kid starts their day sets the rhythm for everything else. Productivity for children doesn’t begin with packed hours; it begins with predictability and calm. And that starts the night before. Something as small as prepping essential items the night before — laying out clothes, packing lunch, placing shoes by the door — eliminates friction that triggers meltdowns and morning chaos. This isn’t just about “getting out the door on time.” It’s about removing avoidable decisions, so a child can start their day feeling competent and ready.

Giving Screens a Role, Not a Reign

Tech isn’t going away, and banning it entirely won’t teach your child how to manage it. The goal isn’t screen-free, it’s screen-aware. That means helping kids build a sense of control around their own consumption. One practical step is setting downtime settings on devices — not as a punishment, but as a pattern. When digital boundaries are baked into the routine, they stop feeling like a fight and start acting like guardrails. And here’s the thing: kids don’t automatically use their free time well. They need the chance to discover that drawing, jumping, pretending, or doing nothing at all can be a form of rest.

Let Tools Carry the Admin Load

Let’s be honest — part of what burns parents out isn’t just the driving or coaching. It’s the paperwork. Sports forms. Camp waivers. Updated school immunization slips. That stuff multiplies quickly and clogs the flow of a household. One way to stop this pileup is by consolidating everything into a single document using ways to merge multiple PDF files. It sounds simple, but when you hand a teacher or camp coordinator one file instead of six, you gain mental clarity and set a calmer tone. It also makes it easier to find what you need when that last-minute request pops up — because it always does.

Sleep is Sacred — Guard It Fiercely

Parents talk about sleep like it’s optional. Like if the day runs long, rest can be borrowed from the night. But biologically, that debt always comes due. One of the gentlest ways to recalibrate an overloaded schedule is to protect sleep with the same seriousness you would treat a doctor’s appointment. This is especially true when shifting from summer into school mode. Kids don’t just need a hard bedtime the night before class — they need a taper. That means gradually adjusting bedtimes before school returns to help reset circadian rhythm, reduce anxiety, and reinforce boundaries. You’re not just giving your child rest — you’re giving them the cognitive fuel to be alert, flexible, and emotionally regulated throughout the day.

Watch the Tipping Point of “Too Much”

There’s a subtle but dangerous tipping point in family life — when enrichment becomes overextension. It can be hard to see in the moment because everything seems “good”: gymnastics, piano, tutoring, chess club. But what’s missing is space. What’s lost is breath. One approach that helps parents rein in overscheduling is to recognize burnout from packed calendars and work backward from the non-negotiables. Anchor first around school hours, sleep windows, meals, and family time. Then look at the leftover space. That’s your limit, not your starting point. From there, decide what activities still feel worth it — not just to check a box, but to deepen a joy.

Make Room for Slowness — On Purpose

Here’s something that might sound radical: your child doesn’t always need to be doing something. The quiet afternoons, the messy creative days, the hours with no “point” — they matter more than we give them credit for. In fact, slow parenting encourages presence and play in ways that hyper-productivity never can. It teaches your child to be in the world, not just rush through it. It says, “Your worth isn’t measured by your output.” And in a culture obsessed with doing more, that lesson is a gift. You don’t have to quit activities or burn the schedule to the ground. Just make room — a little — for boredom, wandering, wonder.

There’s no perfect schedule. But there is a better one — the kind that makes space for effort, rest, and everything in between. It won’t build itself. You’ll need to cut, protect, and pause on purpose. Still, when your child rests without guilt and plays without pressure, you’ll know you’ve found it. Not perfect. Just right for them. And that’s the goal.

Discover the innovative ESL resources at Kinney Brothers Publishing and transform your classroom with materials that captivate and inspire learners at every level!

Beyond the Bell

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This Guest Post, by Susan Good, explores strategies for expanding your child’s learning world outside the classroom. Be sure to check out Ms. Good’s website at retiredteacher.org for more insightful articles about teaching and writing!

Beyond the Bell by Susan Good
Photo: Pexels

Most of a child’s formal education happens within four walls, marked by bells, homework, and a syllabus. But anyone who has watched their child light up while tinkering with Legos, helping in the kitchen, or diving into a graphic novel knows that learning doesn’t stop at the classroom door. If you’re a parent who wants to nurture curiosity and knowledge without overwhelming your child—or yourself—there are more ways to support their intellectual and emotional growth than the usual flashcards and summer workbooks. 

Let Curiosity Lead the Way

When you shift from “teaching” to “co-exploring,” you create a dynamic where your child feels empowered to ask questions and seek answers. Instead of insisting on structured lessons, try following their interests and building experiences around those passions. If they’re obsessed with bugs, grab a magnifying glass and spend time in the backyard or local park documenting insect life. This type of unstructured inquiry fosters critical thinking and independence, key ingredients in lifelong learning.

Create Your Own Educational Content

One creative way to support your child’s learning journey outside the classroom is by producing customized educational videos tailored to their interests and pace. By using an AI video generator, you can simply enter a descriptive text prompt and the tool will generate a customized video clip that brings the lesson to life; you can explore the possibilities with this AI video generator for education. Whether you’re explaining the water cycle, exploring outer space, or breaking down math problems, a video format can make complex ideas more accessible and engaging. You can even involve your child in the scripting or voiceover process, which reinforces their understanding and builds confidence. 

Celebrate the Art of Boredom

It’s tempting to fill every idle moment with scheduled activities, screens, or tasks. But giving your child space to be bored invites their imagination to step in and fill the void. That downtime is when creativity blooms—when they build forts, invent games, or simply sit with their thoughts. While it might not look productive, unstructured time teaches children how to be resourceful and resilient, skills often overlooked in traditional education settings.

Engage with the Community

Local museums, libraries, community centers, and even small businesses can be goldmines of educational opportunity. Many host free or low-cost events tailored to different age groups, from book readings and STEM workshops to art classes and historical tours. When children learn in a social environment that’s different from school, they expand their social awareness, develop communication skills, and realize that learning is not confined to any one place or method.

Encourage Storytelling, Not Just Reading

We all know that reading to and with children is essential, but helping them create their own narratives adds a new layer to their intellectual toolkit. Encourage them to write stories, keep journals, or even record short videos acting out their own tales. This isn’t about perfect grammar or coherent plots—it’s about giving them a voice and validating their perspective. Storytelling nurtures empathy, organization, and the ability to reflect, all critical cognitive and emotional capacities.

Use Tech as a Tool, Not a Crutch

Technology gets a bad rap when it comes to parenting, and for good reason—it can be all-consuming. But it’s also an incredibly powerful tool when used intentionally. Let your child explore coding with simple apps, learn a new language on a tablet, or watch videos on how to build their own model rocket. What matters is context and balance. Make tech time interactive and purposeful, and pair it with discussions that connect the digital world to real-life applications.

Model Lifelong Learning Yourself

Perhaps the most impactful way to encourage your child’s love of learning is to show them what it looks like in real time. Read books in front of them. Talk about new things you’re learning at work or through hobbies. Ask questions out loud that you don’t know the answers to—and then look them up together. When they see that curiosity doesn’t stop at graduation, they internalize the idea that learning is not a task to complete, but a way of life to embrace.

Supporting your child’s education doesn’t require expensive tutors or rigid schedules. It requires presence, patience, and a little creativity. 

Unlock a world of engaging ESL resources with Kinney Brothers Publishing and inspire your students with innovative teaching tools designed for every level of English language learning!

Homework Without Headaches

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This Guest Post, by Susan Good, explores smart, painless parenting strategies to support your child. Be sure to check out Ms. Good’s website at retiredteacher.org for more insightful articles about teaching and writing!

Homework Without Headaches: Smart, Painless Parenting Stragies to Support Your Child

Image via Pexels

Raising children comes with its fair share of challenges, but helping them tackle their homework doesn’t have to be one of them. Between school demands and after-school commitments, homework time often turns into a battleground for many families. But it doesn’t have to be this way. With the right structure and strategies in place, you can help your child build academic independence, reduce stress, and even find some joy in learning. These parenting techniques are rooted in empathy, consistency, and thoughtful planning—designed to make your evenings smoother and their education stronger.

Create a Homework Haven

The first step in easing homework battles is giving your child a calm, organized place to work. A consistent study spot—ideally quiet, well-lit, and away from the hustle of the house—helps build focus and routine. Stock it with school supplies so they don’t have to constantly leave to grab a pencil or calculator. This simple setup removes the friction of getting started and signals to your child’s brain that it’s time to shift gears into learning mode.

Use Digital Tools to Stay Organized

Helping your child stay organized can go a long way toward reducing homework-related stress—and one of the easiest ways to do that is by setting up a digital system for managing assignments and study materials. This might mean creating folders on a shared Google Drive, setting reminders on a calendar app, or using a homework tracker to map out deadlines and goals. One smart tip? Converting Word documents into PDFs preserves formatting, prevents accidental edits, and ensures seamless access across devices. Check this out: this simple tool can streamline study sessions, making it easier for kids to focus and complete their work efficiently.

Stick to a Predictable Schedule

Children thrive on routine, and homework is no exception. Set a homework time that fits comfortably into your child’s daily rhythm—maybe after a snack and short break from school, but before dinner or screen time. Consistency helps reduce resistance because it removes the need to negotiate every night. Over time, your child’s internal clock adjusts, and starting homework becomes less of a struggle and more of a natural part of their day.

Be a Guide, Not a Helicopter

As tempting as it may be to jump in and solve problems when your child is stuck, try stepping back first. Offer support, clarify instructions, or brainstorm strategies, but let them attempt the work on their own. When kids struggle productively, they build resilience and a deeper understanding of the material. This approach helps foster independence and reduces the pressure they feel to get everything perfect on the first try.

Cut Down on the Noise

One of the biggest homework saboteurs is distraction—especially the digital kind. During homework time, turn off the TV, silence notifications, and store away non-essential electronics. Even well-meaning interruptions, like checking in too often, can break concentration. Creating a focused environment signals that this is a time for effort and progress, not multitasking or procrastination.

Recognize Effort Over Outcome

One of the best ways to motivate your child is to acknowledge their effort, not just the results. Celebrate moments when they stayed focused, asked thoughtful questions, or kept going despite a tough assignment. Praising persistence and hard work reinforces the idea that success is earned through dedication. This builds confidence and helps them internalize a growth mindset that will serve them far beyond the classroom.

Keep Communication Flowing

Staying in touch with your child’s teachers is essential for providing the right kind of support at home. Whether it’s checking the class website, reading the weekly newsletter, or shooting an occasional email, make an effort to stay in the loop. Teachers can offer insight into what’s expected, where your child may need help, and how you can reinforce learning outside of school. When everyone’s on the same page, your child feels supported from all sides.

At the end of the day, your involvement in your child’s homework routine isn’t just about getting assignments turned in—it’s about teaching life skills that last. By creating structure, offering guidance without hovering, and nurturing a healthy attitude toward effort and growth, you’re giving your child tools they’ll use well beyond school. Homework might still be challenging from time to time, but with your support, it becomes less about pressure and more about progress. And when your child feels capable and cared for, those after-school hours can turn into a foundation for confidence, curiosity, and lifelong learning.

Unlock a world of engaging ESL resources with Kinney Brothers Publishing and inspire your students with innovative teaching tools designed for every level!

Cultivating Leadership Skills in Kids

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Cultivating Leadership Kinney Brothers Publishing
Photo by Freepik

This Guest Post, by Susan Good, explores 7 Ways parents can cultivate leadership skills in their kids. Be sure to check out Ms. Good’s website at retiredteacher.org for insightful blog posts about teaching and writing!

Leadership doesn’t start in boardrooms. It starts in kitchens, on playgrounds, in the car rides home from school. Kids don’t just learn to lead from books or camps or speeches about grit. They pick it up from you—what you praise, what you tolerate, what you model. Parents don’t need to train future CEOs, but they can nurture curiosity, confidence, and character. That’s what leadership looks like, especially when it starts early.

Model Leadership Through Your Actions

Kids notice more than you think. They see how you solve problems, how you handle stress, how you treat the barista who got your order wrong. By modeling emotional intelligence in parenting, you give your child a roadmap for how leaders show up in real life. This doesn’t mean being perfect, just intentional. Let them hear you admit mistakes or talk through a tough decision aloud. Those little windows into your thought process teach more than any lecture could.

Encourage Decision-Making and Autonomy

Leadership begins when a kid realizes their choices matter. Whether it’s picking their clothes, managing chores, or solving conflicts with a sibling, age-appropriate decision-making practices build agency. Of course, that also means letting them fail, which isn’t always easy to watch. But independence grows in the gap between guidance and control. Try offering limited choices instead of open-ended ones—it’s not about total freedom, just practice steering the ship. Over time, they’ll come to trust their own judgment, and that’s a big deal.

Support Through Challenges and Failures

Every future leader will fail, and what matters most is what happens next. Instead of jumping in to fix things, sit with your child in the mess. Let them feel the sting, then help them name it and learn from it. That’s how resilience takes root. And yes, even structured outlets like youth sports can help with this—building confidence in youth athletes often begins with pushing through losses, missed goals, or tough practices. Your role is to steady the ground, not pave the road.

Enroll in Camps and Group Activities

You can’t lead a team if you’ve never worked in one. That’s why group activities, from science clubs to theater troupes to summer camps, are fertile training grounds. Kids learn to compromise, step up, sit back, and manage conflict. They find their voices not just when they’re loudest, but when they’re most needed. And those messy, funny, sometimes awkward interactions are where leadership instincts begin to form. It’s social, yes, but also formative in ways school alone can’t replicate.

Prioritize Communication and Emotional Intelligence

If a child can name what they’re feeling, they can name what others might be feeling too. That’s empathy, and empathy is the cornerstone of effective leadership. Fostering emotional intelligence in children starts with small acts: narrating your own emotions, asking them to reflect on theirs, making space for feelings without judgment. When a kid learns how to manage a meltdown—whether it’s theirs or someone else’s—they’re already practicing emotional leadership. And it doesn’t require a workbook or a training session, just a steady back-and-forth. 

Demonstrate Lifelong Learning

Your actions speak louder than your report card ever did. If you go back to school, take an online course, or chase a credential, your kids don’t just see your ambition. They see your curiosity, your hustle, your belief that learning doesn’t end at graduation. For busy, working parents, choosing an online program that fits your career track can be a game-changer—and this could be a good fit if you’re looking at degrees like a bachelor’s in business or a master’s in nursing. It’s not about impressing them with your resume. It’s about showing them how growth never stops.

Encourage Participation in Community Service

Leadership rooted in service leaves a deeper mark. Volunteering develops real leadership skills: initiative, planning, empathy, and collaboration. Whether it’s organizing a coat drive or cleaning up a park, kids start to understand that leadership isn’t just about being in charge—it’s about stepping in. It doesn’t need to be formal or time-consuming. Let them pick the cause, then walk beside them as they serve. Those early acts of civic engagement can shape how they see their role in the wider world.


There’s no formula for raising leaders, but there are habits that help. If you model self-awareness, make space for mistakes, and give kids chances to stretch, they’ll rise. It won’t happen all at once. They might resist. They might surprise you. But eventually, they’ll lead—not because you pushed them, but because you showed them how.

Discover a world of engaging ESL materials at Kinney Brothers Publishing and elevate your classroom experience with resources tailored for every age and skill level!

Activities to Develop Learning and Motor Skills for Preschool Children

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Activities to Develop Learning and Motor Skills Ryan Howard Kinney Brothers Publishing

Many thanks to Ryan Howard of SmartParentAdvice for this month’s guest post! Photo credits: Pixels.com

One of the great joys of parenthood is watching your kids grow up, learn new things, and develop new skills. As a parent, it’s natural to want to help your child out along the way. In this article, I’m covering a whole range of different activities that promote learning and help preschoolers develop their motor skills.

Fun Activities That Promote Learning

Reading tops this list of educational activities. When your kids are really young, this activity mostly consists of parents reading and children passively soaking it all in. But, as your kids hit preschool age, they will be able to take a more active role. This might mean identifying letters on some pages, or even entire words with a little practice.

Games that involve numbers or counting can be a great way to get an early start on those math skills. Now, I’m not necessarily talking about games that you would think of as numbers games here. Let’s say your playing Hungry Hungry Hippos. After the hippos have gobbled up all of the marbles, you might leave it to your preschooler to count up the totals for each player to determine the winner. There are tons of games that involve numbers or score keeping. By letting your child take the lead in scoring the game, you’re introducing learning into something really fun.

A Few Ways To Develop Motor Skills

When it comes to motor skills, there are a couple of different kinds. Fine motor skills involve sophisticated, small movements of hands and fingers. Gross motor skills involve movements of large muscle groups. Walking, running, and jumping all come to mind.

Fine Motor Skills

One of the best ways to develop fine motor skills is with artwork, Whether your little one is coloring with crayons or standing and painting at an easel, they are working on their fine motor skills.

Legos and building blocks are another great way to develop a preschooler’s fine motor skills. After all, manipulating these small objects is no easy task.

Want a little help in the kitchen? Invite your preschooler to do some baking with you. Combining ingredients together, and working with dough will both help in the fine motor skills department.

Gross Motor Skills

Want to work on your child’s gross motor skills? Head over to the nearest playground. Most playgrounds have all sorts of activities that help with gross motor skills. Climbing is a particularly great one since it involves doing things that you child doesn’t necessarily get to do on a daily basis.

Swimming is another great gross motor skill activity. Kicking and splashing in the water is fun and great exercise too.

Want to keep things simple? Just run around together. You might even challenge your preschooler to a race or two. Here’s a pro tip if you go that route though: let them win. Trust me, everyone will have more fun if they win the race.

Final Thoughts

The great thing about preschoolers is that there are all sorts of fun activities that promote development too. By the time your kids reach high school, learning might involve cracking the books which may or may not be their favorite thing in the world. For preschoolers though, learning and playing can be one in the same.

Ryan Howard runs SmartParentAdvice, a site that provides parenting advice for moms and dads. Ryan writes about all of the different ups and downs of parenting, provides solutions to common challenges, and reviews products that parents need to purchase for babies and toddlers.

If you are interested in becoming a guest blogger on the Kinney Brothers Publishing blog site, please contact us at admin@kinneybrothers. We are always looking for educational content our readers will find useful.