Laura Pike Seeley

Nowadays, whenever I feel scared in the face of a decision and yearn for the safety of an optimizing formula, I try to remind myself that there’s another way of feeling safe. It’s not about perfection, about invulnerability, about control. It’s about leaning into the fact that we are imperfect and vulnerable creatures and that even when we’re... See more

Parents have long been sold a model of childrearing that simply doesn’t work. From reward charts to time outs, many popular parenting approaches are based on shaping behavior, not raising humans. These techniques don’t build the skills kids need for life, or account for their complex emotional needs. Add to that parents’ complicated relationships... See more

Harris says we need to dispel the myth that emotional intelligence is a soft skill, she says EQ is a strength because it takes strength to master oneself, and to humble yourself enough to see another person’s perspective.

How many of these things we produce is not productivity. How you spend your life is.

“Worry can become like a bad habit of the mind. The rule of neuroplasticity—that our brain keeps changing based on our repeated activity—says that whatever we do a lot we will get better at. So if we worry a lot, we will get really good at worrying.” In other words, once you start worrying about something, it can be hard to stop.

More than a penchant for suffering, and more than a need to challenge ourselves, humans are a species that can adapt. In times of flux and epochal change, there’s often a peculiar strain of natural law among nervous, conservative minds — the “natural” way of man is right, so don’t meddle with it. This strain was there when we developed... See more

Contemporary research has shown that children do pretty well when offered autonomy. 

Many 80s parents practiced what University of Pennsylvania sociologist Annette Lareau, PhD, has come to call “accomplishment of natural growth.” That’s the idea that parents are there to provide kids with food, safety and love, in order to facilitate a self-directed... See more