Audrey Monke

All Posts by Audrey Monke

Raising a Book Lover

When I was four years old, I amazed my Pre-K teacher by flawlessly reading aloud Are You my Mother? by P.D. Eastman. Not only did I read every word correctly, but I had appropriate inflection in my voice. Child prodigy? Um…actually, no. My mom had read that book to me so many times that I…

10 Parenting Tips from Camp Counselors

At one time in their lives, many of the parents I know were camp counselors. Those same people have told me that their time spent as counselors was great training ground for parenting. Among other things, they learned to comfort, encourage, set goals, and resolve disputes — all things we experience daily in our lives…

15 Books that Inspire my Parenting

As a fun, year-end activity (at least for a book nerd like me), I’ve pulled some of my favorite books from the shelf and reflected on how they’ve inspired my parenting – and my life. Enjoy! The Blessing Of A Skinned Knee: Using Jewish Teachings to Raise Self-Reliant Children, Wendy Mogel, Ph.D Like us, our…

The Blessing of a Skinned Knee, Wendy Mogel, Ph.D

Like us, our kids aren’t going to be good at everything, so we can’t expect perfection. It’s important for them to experience mistakes and failures while they’re young. The Blessing Of A Skinned Knee: Using Jewish Teachings to Raise Self-Reliant Children

Book Review: Age of Opportunity

“…nothing will ever feel as good as it did when you were a teenager.” -Laurence Steinberg, Age of Opportunity: Lessons from the New Science of Adolescence What are your most vivid memories? When you hear a song from your high school years, do you still know every word? Did you do something dangerous as a…

Five: Where Will You Be Five Years From Today?, Dan Zadra

In a simple workbook format with many inspirational quotes, Five guides us to focus on our goals, priorities, and mission in life.

Raising Grateful – not Entitled – Kids

grate•ful: feeling or showing appreciation; thankful. en•ti•tiled: believing oneself to be inherently deserving of privileges or special treatment. An interesting juxtaposition occurs in November and December. Immediately following a month where we focus on being thankful, we launch into the biggest consumer month of the year. The shopping carnage now begins on the very same day we…

The Connected Child, Nancy Purvis, Ph.D.

Although this book is written specifically for adoptive parents, there are many helpful insights about why we need to emotionally connect with our kids before we can correct misbehavior.

Free-Range Kids: Giving our Children the Freedom we had without Going Nuts with Worry, Lenore Skenazy

Skenazy encourages us to see how our culture has made us unnecessarily fearful in our parenting and why our worrying is not beneficial for our kids’ growth and development.

Is Your Child’s Sport Their Passion or Yours?

I recently watched a documentary about four athletic kids and their parents. These parents had, according to their own descriptions, given up their careers to dedicate their time and money to their athletically talented child. In each case, the parent was visibly angered when their kid missed the basket or didn’t make the putt. There…

Why my Family is Celebrating World Kindness Day

Like most families, we are constantly on the go between school, sports, and other activities. But as I inventory where we’re spending our time, I find (embarrassingly) that most of our activities benefit only ourselves. Our athletic pursuits are fun and keep us in shape. Our shopping keeps us fed and in current clothing styles.…

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