Jessica's Parenting Journal

  Every parent has had that moment of doubt — staring at a child who’s been crying for the third day in a row, or watching a kid who used to love school suddenly refuse to get out of bed. Is this just a phase? Or is something really wrong? The Question I Kept Getting Wrong For years, I thought mental health was binary: either a child was fine, or they had a diagnosable condition. Either you called a therapist, or you chalked it up to “just being a kid.” It wasn’t until I started researching childhood mental wellness for my book Positive Minds that I realized how wrong that framing was. And how much damage it does. Mental health, for children just as for adults, exists on a spectrum. And understanding where your child falls on that spectrum — on any given week, in any given season — is one of the most valuable skills a parent can develop. What the Spectrum Actually Looks Like Picture a long horizontal line. On the far left: thriving. A child who is sleeping well, connecti...

  I have to be honest with you: in 2019, my answer would have been no.   I thought we were a close family. We had dinner together most nights, we talked about our days, and I genuinely knew my kids. But when the pandemic hit and our world collapsed into four walls, I discovered how many invisible supports had been holding us up — and how quickly they disappeared. School routines. Playdates. Sports practice. The neighbor kids. The school counselor my daughter saw twice a month without me fully realizing how much she needed it. Gone, almost overnight. What I didn't have — what most of us didn't have — was a mental health foundation built to survive that kind of disruption. And we are all still feeling the effects. A 2025 systematic review of 21 studies involving 87,486 children across 10 countries confirmed what many parents already sense: the long-term decline in children's psychological wellbeing didn't end when restrictions lifted. For many kids, it is still go...

  I stumbled across a photo that made me question everything about preschool safety. Four-year-olds in Germany cooking lunch over a fire they built themselves. With real knives. In the rain. And instead of lawsuits, these schools have years-long waiting lists. The Photo That Stopped Me Cold I’m scrolling through early childhood education research when I see something that stops me cold: small children huddled around a campfire in a forest, completely absorbed in whittling sticks with actual kitchen knives. My first thought: “Someone’s getting sued.” My second thought: “This is an actual educational approach?” That’s how I discovered Waldkindergarten – German forest kindergartens that would terrify American helicopter parents. The shocking part? Research shows these “dangerous” outdoor preschools produce kids who dramatically outperform traditional preschoolers academically. What Are German Forest Kindergartens? The Radical Concept Taking Europe by Storm Imagine drop...

Picture this: A three-year-old driving a mini Bentley around a preschool campus. Another toddler being greeted by a robot dog each morning. Preschoolers attending school six days a week on a 52-acre estate with its own golf course. And annual tuition bills that could buy you a house in most American cities. This isn’t a scene from a movie about the ultra-rich. This is just Tuesday at the world’s most elite preschools. I was deep in research for my book Step-by-Step Guide to Preschool Readiness , comparing curricula and touring local programs, when I stumbled upon a passing mention: “Princess Charlotte attended Willcocks Nursery School in Kensington.” Wait – where do actual princesses go to preschool? What does that even look like? That one question sent me spiraling into a world I never knew existed. A world where preschool applications are more competitive than Harvard admissions. Where toddlers attend school six days a week, including Saturdays. Where $40,000 annual tuition for...

  The Text Message That Changed Everything I was making dinner when my phone buzzed. A message from another mom: "I thought you should know—some kids have been picking on Paul at recess. My son told me they pushed him today." Paul. My sweet, quiet 9-year-old son. I immediately called him downstairs. "Paul, honey, is someone bothering you at school?" He looked at the floor. "It's not a big deal, Mom." "How long has this been going on?" Long pause. "Since September." It was now January. For four months , my child had been dealing with bullies, and I'd completely missed it. The Devastating Truth About Childhood Bullying Here's what kept me up that night: I wasn't a neglectful parent. I talked to Paul every day about school. I asked how his day went. I stayed involved. But I'd been asking the wrong questions. And Paul, like most bullied children, had been hiding the truth. The statistics are alarmin...