Archive for September 2025

We all contain multitudes. Children are just beginning to see that they have many parts—brave and scared, loud and quiet, gentle and fierce. Explore how a child might recognize, accept, and live with these paradoxes, and what it means for them to hold many sides at once.

Listening is more than hearing—it’s noticing what is there and what is not. Imagine a child of about seven beginning to discover this kind of deep listening. Explore what they hear in the world around them, and how listening with their whole self shapes what they notice and understand.

The most powerful art doesn’t just show us something beautiful—it lets us feel what someone else felt, see through someone else’s eyes, step into someone’s world for a moment.
Think of a piece of art that changed how you saw the world: a book that made you understand loneliness differently, a painting that showed you new colors in an ordinary sunset, a song that helped you name a feeling you’d never had words for. Remember that moment when art became a bridge between your heart and someone else’s.
Write for fifteen minutes about a character who encounters a piece of art—a drawing, a story, a song, a dance—that shifts something inside them. Maybe they see their own sadness reflected in a character’s face or discover courage they didn’t know they had through someone else’s adventure. Let your character experience that magical moment when art stops being something “out there” and becomes something that lives inside them.

The safest place in the world is also the loneliest—where nothing is risked, nothing is gained, and nothing is truly lived.

For five minutes, think about a time when you or a child you know chose safety over possibility. What was lost in that choice? Then consider a moment when someone took a risk and made a glorious mistake—what did they discover about themselves in that stumble?

Write for fifteen minutes about a character who has been playing it safe until something, or someone shows them that mistakes aren’t the enemy of success—they’re the birthplace of discovery.

Every child knows there’s something wild living inside them—something that wants to roar, to run, to break free from being “good.” But they also know that there are times when it’s okay to let it out and times when it isn’t.
Think about the wild thing that lives inside you or a child you know. What does it look like? When does it want to come out? What happens when it’s been caged up too long, and what happens when it’s finally allowed to play? How do you manage it? How does it escape, and what happens when it does?
Write for fifteen minutes about a character who discovers their own wild thing. Let your character explore what it means to have wildness living alongside other qualities. Explore the moments when their wild thing is exactly what is needed—and ones when it needs to curl up and wait for the right time to emerge.