Global Education Advisors

“Cultural education is more than just playing the flute or doing a play, it’s about stimulating the imagination of children, giving them space to see who they are,” she said. “It’s important that children are agents of their own education, but they need teachers to show them. We help children to make their world bigger.”

Why Dutch Kids Rank No. 1 in the World for Mental Health Unicef recently released its latest report on child well-being, and the Netherlands took the No.1 spot for mental health.

Some important research to follow…

A new AI-driven study led by Phillip Sherlock, Ph.D., shows that perinatal depression risk isn’t determined by any single factor but shifts with each mother’s circumstance. Analyzing data from nearly 9,000 mothers, researchers found that the same variables did not consistently present as risk factors across groups.

“We asked: in what contexts does a particular set of characteristics associate with higher or lower depression risk?” Sherlock explains. “The answer: it depends.”

Find out more about the study’s findings in the link below.

This looks amazing and offers free sessions with some of our colleagues Dido Atangana BallaMindUP UK MindUP Laura Waldorf WeissPatti Powell Gigi Trujillo Diaz Kath Murdoch Consulting

Dare to Parent Teens Differently - FREE Access! Free Parent Conference

Learning from each other…

The smartest kids don’t speak first. They read the room, and know exactly when to step in. In Korea, this skill has a name: nunchi. Emotional radar in action. By age 3, children are taught to pause, observe, and sense the energy before speaking. The result? Kids who grow into magnetic connectors with higher empathy, sharper friendships, and stronger leadership skills. And the science is clear: 1️⃣ Practicing nunchi strengthens the brain’s “theory of mind” network, the system that predicts what others think and feel. 2️⃣ Kids who use it are more accepted by peers, better at resolving conflicts, and trusted as natural leaders. 3️⃣ Adults with strong nunchi excel in job interviews, relationships, and teamwork, because they notice what others overlook. Parents everywhere can teach it. Try asking before entering a new space:“Who looks happy?” “Who seems tired?” “What’s the mood here?” Everyday life becomes empathy training in disguise. Loud voices grab attention. But nunchi keeps it. Follow @readysetparent for more research made simpler and parenting made lighter. Sources “Nunchi Across Cultures: Cultural Interpretation and Psychometric Validation in South Korea and the United States” “Korean Nunchi and Well-Being” by Seth Robertson (2019) “Nunchi: The Korean art of awareness & why you need to try it” (Rituals Magazine, Oct 2024) What is ‘nunchi’, the Korean secret to happiness?- The Guardian

Yasss my brother from another mother..

@harvard College Class Day 2026 featured speaker Ronny Chieng talks about using A.I to skip the work. Video: Harvard University

Yep…

From a mentor and friend across the oceans….thanks Kath Murdoch Consulting

The cloth and the loom and what the child has to say On reform, remembering, and what schools cannot scope-and-sequence

Rediscovering how to play could be the key to creating deep adult friendships, Rhaina Cohen wrote in 2023. https://theatln.tc/OTQKUPAl

🎨: Ben Hickey

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1D4ENf2nDf/?mibextid=wwXIfr

When We Taught Children How to Rest — And Then Forgot Why It Mattered

In the 1950s, there was a moment in every kindergarten day so predictable you could set your watch by it.

After the singing.
After the crayons worn down to stubs.
After circle time and sticky fingers from graham crackers and small cardboard milk boxes—

The lights would dim.

A record would settle onto a turntable.
The needle would crackle, then find its groove.
Something soft would fill the room. Something slow. Something kind.

And twenty little bodies would stretch out on striped mats or faded rugs. Shoes tucked under cots. Blankets—frayed, thumb-worn, familiar—pulled up to chins. A room full of children learning, together, how to exhale.

Naptime.

For millions of children growing up in the 1950s, ’60s, and early ’70s, this ritual was as essential to kindergarten as finger paint and the alphabet. It wasn’t filler. It wasn’t babysitting.

It was the lesson.

Stillness Was Once Part of the Curriculum

Educators believed something we’ve slowly forgotten:
young children need quiet.

Not just sleep—but stillness.
A pause where feelings could settle.
A space where overstimulated minds could wander safely.
A reset before the afternoon rush of blocks, numbers, and playground dust.

The science agreed. Children’s brains and nervous systems were still under construction. Rest wasn’t a reward. It wasn’t optional.

It was developmental maintenance.

Teachers became guardians of calm. Soft voices. Slow footsteps between rows of breathing bodies. A whispered story read to no one and everyone. A hand smoothing a blanket. A steady presence in low light.

A lighthouse.

The Quiet That Shaped Us

Some children slept—deep, open-mouthed sleep—exhausted by morning play and the overwhelming newness of school.

Others didn’t.

They stared at the ceiling.
Counted tiles.
Watched dust motes dance in a thin blade of sunlight slipping through the curtains.

They drifted into that rare kind of daydreaming that only happens when you’re five—when time is wide and nobody is rushing you to become something yet.

Even the kids who hated naptime learned something important.

That sometimes you have to be still, even when you don’t want to be.
That rest is not the opposite of learning.
It’s part of the work.

For many children, it was the only stillness in an otherwise loud, busy day. A quiet bridge between lunchboxes and hopscotch. Between learning letters and learning how to share.

Then We Decided to Hurry

By the 1970s and ’80s, something shifted.

Kindergarten stopped being about socialization and curiosity and started being about readiness.
Pre-reading. Early math. Staying on track. Getting ahead.

Schedules tightened. Testing crept younger. Parents worried about falling behind before childhood had even properly begun.

Naptime began to feel inefficient.
Unproductive.
A luxury we could no longer afford.

So the mats were rolled up.
The record players disappeared.
Overhead projectors replaced them. Then computers. Then tablets.

By the 1990s, naptime was mostly gone from public kindergarten classrooms—surviving only in preschools and full-day programs for very young children.

A Day With No Pause

Today’s kindergarteners move from reading groups to math centers to screens to lunch to more instruction. Recess—if they get it—is brief. Quiet is rare.

There is no dimming of lights.
No permission to close your eyes.
No collective exhale.

And we act surprised when childhood anxiety soars.

What We Remember — And What We Lost

Those who lived it still remember:

The rows of striped mats.
The scratch of a needle finding vinyl.
The smell of that one blanket that probably only got washed twice a year.
The relief of being told it was okay—expected, even—to stop trying so hard.

Naptime wasn’t just about sleep.

It taught us that rest has value.
That quiet has purpose.
That you don’t need to be productive every minute to be worthy.

It was a lesson we didn’t realize we were learning—until we grew up in a world that never stops and makes us feel guilty for needing to pause.

Maybe That’s the Lesson Worth Remembering

To parents: your kids likely don’t have this anymore—and they’re expected to perform at full speed all day long.

To teachers fighting to protect play and rest: you’re not being soft. You’re honoring what science has always known.

To anyone who feels ashamed for needing rest: we used to teach five-year-olds that stopping was part of learning.

And to those who say childhood is “too easy” now—today’s kindergarteners have more structured academic time than third-graders did in the 1950s.

We didn’t make childhood harder because it was necessary.

We made it harder because we forgot how to slow down.

We once dimmed the lights, put on a record, and gave twenty small people permission to just… be.

Maybe it’s time we remembered how.