Connected Kids Thrive Positive Parenting Community and Programs™
Creating a peaceful, deeply connected home starts with fostering a positive parent/child relationship. Connected Kids Thrive™ is dedicated to providing parents and caregivers with tools to help them elevate connection, joy, trust, presence, accountability, and meaningfulness.
Our positive parenting programs™ contain a wide range of resources and support to help parental guides find new, meaningful ways to play, learn, effectively hold boundaries, and grow WITH their children.
We understand that free-play is the work of children, and by connecting through the different parts of play, we can build lasting connections that positively support behavior and development.
From family dinner ideas to bringing back the art engagement of family dinners mealtimes to coaching in positive behavioral learning, we provide the tools to help them parental guides deepen their understanding of behavior and elevate their approaches - so that everyone feels seen and heard so they can listen to each other.
We understand that free-play is the work of children, and by connecting through the different parts of play, we can build lasting connections that support positive behavior and development. We help parents embrace the power of playfulness as part of their parenting practice!
At Connected Kids Thrive™, we have created a positive parenting program to help parents and caregivers connect with children on a deeper level, → so children feel seen and heard, and are supported in improving their skill sets across all domains of development including communication, speech, and language.
We encourage no drama discipline and hypocrisy-free teaching, and most importantly, we teach parents how to equip the children in their environments so they can have a genuine, loving, and trusting connection with all their guides: teachers, parents, and caregivers.
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Connected Kids Thrive™ encourages the purposeful invitation of strategic communication balanced with giving children autonomy to further enhance connection, motivation, and meaningful contributions. Sometimes parents have the urge to interrupt children in our efforts to help them directly. We teach you how to empower them and their capabilities instead!
Positive Connection & Reinforcement Ideas and Guides
Learn About the Joys and Effectiveness of Forest & Nature-based Schools
Connected Kids Thrive™ began as a small Facebook group of parents and grew into a thriving community of like-minded guides: parents, caregivers, educators, forest school and nature-based program founders. They want to continually elevate their knowledge and practice around consciously and respectfully guiding and educating children through connection and positive reinforcement.
Come join the community to gain insights on positive behavior, forest schools, nature and play-based schools, and easy and effective connection and dinner ideas for the whole family!
We support cooking with kids, dinner ideas for parents, finding ways to bridge the gap between school and home to empower children’s education, and more.
Stay Updated with Our Positive Behaviors Guide - Programs and Membership for Nature-based Schools
If you’re interested in getting more positive behavior tools for you and/or your team, join our supportive program for Forest and Nature-based schools and programs.
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For parents who are interested in positive behavior and/or are looking to become founders and start their own nature-based school or program, our support and programming are for you too!
We provide the materials and guidance you’ll need to understand nature-based school ethos, curriculum and emergent curriculum, positive behavioral reinforcement, and how to get parents on board in embracing the value of risk, mess, free play and child-led learning -so you can start guiding kids through the natural wonders of the natural world with ease peace of mind.
Book or Call a free alignment to make sure your program, staff, and children are equipped and supported!”
Nature-based Schools and Positive Parenting FAQs
What is a forest school and nature-based school?
How can parents connect with their child at home?
Nature-based schools, forest schools, and other alternative educational settings are a growing educational movement that focuses on teaching and guiding children in a more natural environment deliberately suited to honoring their early childhood journey and supporting their natural learning development tendencies. Being confined to a desk and an over-dependence on technology are rarely conducive to a positive learning environment for some many children.
We lean into the philosophy of “Doing more education WITH children and less TO them.”
According to The Forest School Association, Nature and Play-based schools focus on outdoor child-centered curriculum that invites the adult guide to be reverent and curious about what the children are interested in and learn along with the children.
Guides do this through the purposeful invitation of curiosity questions and providing invitations for art, music, unstructured play, storytelling, reading aloud and journaling, hiking, forging, fort and fire building, and more. These forms of teaching are typically child-led and play based. Children have unlimited curiosity and forest schools tap into that sense of wonder to fuel their learning.
I fondly remember how my own nature-based school preschoolers (3 and 4 yr olds) were curious about a ladybug they observed on a branch. Through our time spent in connection, in that moment together their curiosities and questions led to them asking if outer space had a smell. And through our research together, astronauts report that it does! This is the beauty of emergent curriculum, intrinsic motivation, true free play, and slowing down the daily rhythm to give time and space for child-led learning! Adult guides just have to have the courage to let it unfold!
Whether you’re launching a new nature-based program or already running a seasoned one, we help you and your team re-look at the foundations of behavior, find the **WHY** under challenging or disoriented behavior so the child’s true needs can be met.
Equally important is helping educators look at their own behavior to discover the **Whys** of their triggers and how they might be accidentally reinforcing challenging behaviors. We also have resources to support your learners' parents in gaining positive behavior tools so that everyone can truly be on the same page- -> so everyone: children, educators, and parents alike can thrive.
There seems to be an increase of stress and overwhelm in families across our communities. There are a lot of contributing factors to this and as such, there are a lot of ways we can combat it.
For our purposes here, we are going to focus on the family and the relationship to connection, communication, cooperation, trust, belonging and significance, confidence, and contribution. And to state it as plainly as possible, we as parents, leaders of our families, must get back to basics and fortify our foundations. Luckily there are many ways we can do this. And in our opinion, at Connected Kids Thrive, getting back to embracing family meal times together is a quintessential practice to rebuilding and fortifying the family unit.
We will teach you how to do that.
One of the easiest ways to connect with children while also cultivating their motivation, contribution, and learning is through connecting in the kitchen, cooking together, and having meaningful mealtimes.
“Cooking with our kiddos is the biggest bang for our positive parenting buck.” ~Meagan Duncan
Cooking with kids should be fun and easy. Please don’t worry or become overwhelmed! We provide all the materials and behavioral tools and support to ensure these kitchen connections are relationship enhancing and carryover of learning into different settings is successful, simple, and fun for everyone! Making cookies together or the sprinkling of cheese on tacos can positively change the world for a home and school! Learn how here. .
We provide a selection of menus, family cooperation dinner ideas, including a Bridging the Gap resource to bring back meaningfulness, contribution, and appreciation from school to home. Every moment we are creating memories with our children. What will they remember of their childhood? What is truly the most important stuff!?!
Circling back to School to home; Another big barrier and potential opportunity for building strength and cohesion is revamping the positive connection between home and school. For children and adults to truly thrive there has to be a positive, secure bridge that connects school and home.
We directly address the disconnect between school and home- both in vibration and simple expectations. We provide easy, fun, sensible methods that connect and bridge all 3 beings to both settings: children, parents, and educators to home and school.
Lastly, Remember, children spell love T-I-M-E. We believe that connecting in the kitchen is one of the most important and meaningful settings to build positive, meaningful memories and positive skills- behavioral and otherwise. What do you remember of your family dinners? What do you want to keep as tradition? What do you want to redo? Now is your chance! We can help!