Today’s children have more opportunities to change the world than ever before. Teenagers are organizing global activism movements, LEGO lovers are mastering robotics and young entrepreneurs are launching successful businesses before they’re old enough to drive.

But for Mom and Dad, this fast-paced, technology-driven childhood looks drastically different from their own. To help kids thrive, parents must learn to mindfully embrace today’s modern advances without losing sight of timeless virtues and skills such as kindness, creativity and critical thinking.

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When Denaye Barahona, of New York City, became a parent, she felt compelled to buy everything for her son. “We are inundated as a culture with so many products for our kids that it’s hard to differentiate what we need; it really wears us down,” she says.

While working on her Ph.D. in child development, Barahona discovered—both in research and personal experience—that kids actually thrive with less stuff. And so she began her journey toward minimalism by purging toys and clothes, eventually founding SimpleFamilies.com.

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For youngsters at Tiny Trees Preschool, in Seattle, nature is their classroom—rain or shine; tuition even includes a rain suit and insulated rubber boots. At Schlitz Audubon Nature Preschool, in Milwaukee, children use downed wood to build forts and fires; students of Vermont's Educating Children Outdoors (ECO) program use spray bottles of colored water to spell words in snow; and after Tiny Tree preschoolers bake mud pies they figure out how many cuts are needed for everyone to get a slice (learning about triangles in the process).

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For many, the strong mother-daughter bond seems to suddenly unravel when adolescence appears. “Parenting is exasperating and wears you out,” sighs Heather Thomas, of Houston, Texas, a mother of three, including 16-year-old Mary Meghan.

Mothers can gain some comfort in the biological reasons for the onset of emotionally charged arguments and repeated curfew violations. It begins with changes in the brain caused by an increase in the hormones that stimulate girls’ ovaries, and by age 10 or 11, the hormones become elevated to levels comparable to those of postmenopausal women.

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Clinical Psychologist and author Wendy Mogel, Ph.D., is known for the practical parenting advice featured in her books, The Blessing of a Skinned Knee and The Blessing of a B Minus. She is a leading expert appearing in Race to Nowhere, a documentary film examining the achievement obsessed culture permeating America’s schools, and serves on the advisory board of Challenge Success, an organization that supports schools and families in reversing and preventing the unhealthy tolls assessed by our current educational system.

Speaking from the perspective of her “compassionate detachment” philosophy, Mogel explores the educational challenges that students face today and offers some solutions.

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