Parenting

The Female Brain with Greer by Mandy Wintink

Greer (another neuroscientist) and I began talking after I posted something on facebook about how I wanted to honour the female brain. She replied to my post with something like “YES!” and so we planned a conversation without any idea of where it would actually go. We went around and around and covered much ground including: 1) what does a woman leader looks like?, 2) valuing women in the workplace, 3) the female stress response of “tend and defend”and the maternal brain, 4) the difference between rearing boys' and girls’ brains and emotional brain development, 6) women’s intuition, and 7) the validation of #MeToo and #TimesUp. We wrap up with asking what are the characteristics of a female brain? We probably should have started with that, but we didn’t. We even tie in cryptocurrency. It ends a bit abruptly mostly because I deleted about 12 more minutes where we come up with a women's circle plan, which was interesting but a bit TOO much of a tangent. ;) 

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Giftedness with Kandace by Mandy Wintink

I recently started reading about giftedness in children. I came upon it somewhat by accident, more out of a curiosity prompted by many people commenting on Ashar’s unusual alertness since he was a baby, his incredible comprehension even before he was verbal, and always seems to be thinking. A few of these people suggested he might be gifted. So one day I googled it and became almost immediately captivated by what I was reading, mostly about the special needs of gifted children. 

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Thinking about new models of child education with Jenn by Mandy Wintink

This is an older recording from when our babes were under a year old and you can hear them in the background. What feels like a long time ago, Jenn and I were very active in alternative education systems, but at the time it was focussed on Post-Secondary Education. In this conversation, we talk about early childhood education. We play around with some ideas for how can we create a new education system distinct from the public school system and distinct from the homeschool system. We also just hash out education in general, as we typically do. 

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Expanding Identities In Motherhood with Lindsey by Mandy Wintink

We started off with Lindsey reflecting on her maternity leave (which is about to end) and the anxiety she felt during her time off from work. It fed into a discussion about body image, which Lindsey and I have covered to a great extent through our co-founded organized, Body Monologues. The theme of this conversation was our “Expanding Identity”.

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