Blog
Check out our blog feed for the latest news in Self-Reg, or read articles by a specific author.
Authors
Stuart Shanker
Susan Hopkins
Aviva Dunsiger
John Hoffman
Self-Reg Community
Articles
A Self-Reg View on Picky Eating
When I was a kid, I spent a lot of time sitting at the table after dinner, after everyone else had been excused, staring at a glass of milk I didn’t want to drink. That’s probably when my interest in picky eating started. I now realize that I wasn’t that picky as a...
Distance Hugs: My Self-Reg Stumbling Block
School’s over. And with distance learning for the past three months, and “school” operating through a computer or tablet screen since the end of March, these words seem to take on a very different meaning. My teaching partner, Paula, and I only entered the school...
Coronavirus Conversations: Unpacking Step 4
This seems to be happening to me quite a lot these days. Susan asked me a question during a filming session that seemed innocuous enough, but in fact, pushed me to think hard about a core Self-Reg concept. The short version of her question was: “What is the difference...
Coronavirus Conversations: Buridan’s Ass Redux
In Reframed, I write about “Buridan’s Ass,” the famous allegory attributed to the 14th century French philosopher Jean Buridan. (It was he who the King of France reportedly had thrown in a sack into the Seine because of an affair with the Queen). A donkey is...
Coronavirus Conversations: “The Revolution is Coming”
It was one of my more enjoyable interviews. The interviewer had clearly done her homework. Each question that she asked – and more important, her follow-ups – revealed how deeply she had read in Self-Reg. But it was her last question that really stands out in my mind:...
Coronavirus Conversations: From “This” to “We” to “Me” and Back Again
Susan mentioned to me the other day that many people find it interesting to learn about the influences on my thinking about Self-Reg. Not just the biographical details, but the theoretical underpinnings of Self-Reg. The more I thought about this remark, the more I...
My List Of 10 Self-Reg Things That I’ve Learned
At the beginning of April, I read a wonderful blog post by Doug Peterson, where he shared ten things that he learned as a result of COVID-19. Doug’s post inspired me to write one of my own. As our Coronavirus reality continues to exist, and as I seem to spend even...
Coronavirus Conversations: Now is Not the Time to be Going Red Brain
I’ve recently been engaged in a very interesting exercise. I decided to read together, so that I could compare and contrast, Michael Tomasello’s A Natural History of Human Morality (2016) and Jonathan Sacks’ Morality: Restoring the Common Good in...
My Year of Math
By: Vicki Parnell “You’re doing WHAT? WHY?” “I feel anxious just thinking about that.” With reactions like this, you’d think I was I talking about going skydiving, wrestling with sharks, or conducting some kind of dangerous medical experiments on my body. Nothing that...
Feeling Tired (Again)? A Distance Learning Update On Some Possible Whys
Back in 2016, I wrote one of my most well responded to blog posts on The MEHRIT Centre Blog. The postaddresses that tired feeling that seems to deplete us even on the best of days, and how exploring this feeling through a Five Domains of Self-Reg lens might help us...
Coronavirus Conversations: Meade’s Maxim
I am always asking Why. Even when the answer seems obvious, I’m driven to see whether it’s possible to delve deeper. Which is how I feel about those who are so eager to relax social distancing. Granted, their political machinations are as clear as could be, as is the...
“Change can only happen when you are at your most uncomfortable”
When I was 17 years old, I made one of those incredibly stupid and life-altering decisions that seventeen-year-olds are so prone to make. I was on track for playing basketball at an American university, torn between a small college where I’d get to be a starter and a...
Coronavirus Conversations: It’s All a Matter of Trust
Early on in my university studies, I decided to dedicate myself fully to a life of toiling away in the service of the Blue Brain, little appreciating at the time that that was what I was doing. But that is what philosophy is: the apotheosis of Blue Brain zeal – and,...
Coronavirus Conversations: A Message that All Teens Need to Hear
My goal in these “Coronavirus Conversations” is to relate Self-Reg ideas to various things that my family and I are going through: partly to share, partly to further my own learning. And the perfect example occurred the other day in a conversation I had with our...
Coronavirus Conversations: Corona Partiers
I wanted to share today the series of emotions that I went through when I read and thought about the corona partiers. First I felt anger. To paraphrase Jean Twenge’s point about the iGen (the “internet generation”), it is tempting to see corona partying as the...
What’s Missing In The Learning Plans? A Self-Reg Look At A Coronavirus Reality
Today we should be going back to school. We should be hearing the exciting stories about March Break vacations, playdates, and adventures. Everyone in kindergarten always has something to share. Many kids will be eager to see their friends again, continue...
Self-Reg Diaries with Susan & Siena Hopkins
The MEHRIT Centre’s Executive Director, Susan Hopkins talks with her daughter Siena about our current situation with COVID-19. They chat about how talking with kids helps, and how we can help them (and they can help us) Self-Regulate. Watch the series below or on our...
Who Are Your Hidden Self-Reg Champions?
Thursday morning. The kids were just entering, unpacking, and getting ready to head out with us to the back field. That’s when a teacher arrived at the classroom door. “Can I speak to you for a minute, Miss Dunsiger?” Oh no! The minute that she told me...