The Reedy List

You have probably heard the phrase growth mindset. It shows up on classroom posters, in school newsletters, in parenting articles, and in the titles of children's books. It has become one of those educational buzzwords that everyone uses and not everyone fully understands. But underneath the buzzword is a genuinely important idea — one that research suggests has a measurable impact on how children approach challenges, handle failure, and develop resilience over the course of their lives. This is your plain-language guide to what growth mindset actually means, why it matters particularly for children between the ages of four and ten, and what you can do at home — starting today — to help your child develop one. What Is a Growth Mindset? The concept of growth mindset was developed by psychologist Carol Dweck through decades of research at Stanford University. Her central finding was this — children and adults hold fundamentally different beliefs about the nature of intelligence and a...

Most parents expect perfectionism to show up in teenagers. The high school student who stays up until midnight rewriting an essay that was already good. The athlete who cannot enjoy a win because they are already cataloguing everything that went wrong. The child who gets a 94 on a test and cries. But here is what the research — and the classroom experience of thousands of teachers and school counselors — consistently shows. Perfectionism starts much earlier than that. And by the time it looks like a teenager problem, it has usually been a child problem for years. When Does Perfectionism Actually Begin? The seeds of perfectionism are typically planted between the ages of four and eight — right in the window when children are beginning to understand comparison, performance, and the evaluative gaze of the adults and peers around them. This is the age when children first notice that their drawing looks different from their classmate's. When they erase and restart rather than build on w...

Deep inside the Hollow-Cap Mushroom, there lives a wizard who just wants to be flawless. His potions pop. His brooms throw glitter parties. And no matter how carefully he follows the instructions, something always goes gloriously, chaotically wrong. His name is Spell-Spore. And he is about to learn the most important lesson in the Mycelium Undergrowth. True magic is never perfect. Introducing Amara and the Grumble Grimoire The fifth book in The Grumble Toad Adventures series has arrived — and it brings with it a brand new character, a brand new corner of the Mycelium Undergrowth, and a theme that feels more urgent than ever for the children in our lives. Amara and the Grumble Grimoire is a story about perfectionism. About the paralysing pressure to get everything exactly right. About what happens when the desperate need to be flawless causes more damage than any honest mistake ever could. And about the moment — that beautiful, relieving, world-changing moment — when a child discovers t...

  School counselors see things that most parents never get to see. They see children in the unguarded moments — the hallway conversations, the lunchroom tears, the quiet child sitting alone who nobody has noticed yet. They hear the things children say when they feel safe enough to say them. They hold space for the feelings that children don't know how to bring home. And after years of that work — years of sitting with children in their hardest moments and helping them find their way through — most school counselors have a handful of things they wish every parent understood. Not because parents are getting it wrong. But because the partnership between home and school is the most powerful tool any child has — and the more aligned those two worlds are, the better equipped every child becomes. This post draws on the collective wisdom of school counselors and child development professionals. It is not a criticism. It is an invitation. 1. Emotional Skills Are Learned — Not Inherited One ...