Social Emotional Learning

Empathy: Stepping into Someone Else’s Truth

Empathy is often defined as the ability to appropriately perceive and relate to the…

The Six Pillars — Developmental Assets

The developmental work of each teen is to cultivate an authentic identity that is socially…

I Can’t Fix Your Emotions

I’m a paraprofessional working with high-school-age students inside our Juvenile Detention Center. I’ve never been…

Understand that You Don’t Have to Understand

In Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time, Meg Murray feels very much alone. She…

Your Past Does Not Dictate Your Future

Robert (not his real name) was 17-years-old and was always angry. VERY ANGRY!

8 Things to Remember about Child Development

Excellent article from Harvard’s Center on the Developing Child. Remembering these…

Resilience: Strategies to Strengthen Young Children

How it all began: A brief history of Circle Dynamics Group

There are No Negative Emotions

Sometime before the COVID pandemic, we were leading a training session and a psychologist that was in the…

How it all began: A brief history of Circle Dynamics Group — It was a warm fall day in 2012 when a friend called me and said we were going to go to a high school that day to talk with the students. As it turned out, this was a “last chance” high school and my friend’s idea was to get us, a teacher, and 12 boys to sit in a circle and talk about what…