RISE Resources

In this pioneering, practical book, Daniel J. Siegel, neuropsychiatrist and author of the bestselling Mindsight, and parenting expert Tina Payne Bryson offer a revolutionary approach to child rearing with twelve key strategies that foster healthy brain development, leading to calmer, happier children. The authors explain—and make accessible—the new science of how a child’s brain is wired and how it matures. The “upstairs brain,” which makes decisions and balances emotions, is under construction until the mid-twenties. And especially in young children, the right brain and its emotions tend to rule over the logic of the left brain. No wonder kids throw tantrums, fight, or sulk in silence. By applying these discoveries to everyday parenting, you can turn any outburst, argument, or fear into a chance to integrate your child’s brain and foster vital growth.        

Complete with age-appropriate strategies for dealing with day-to-day struggles and illustrations that will help you explain these concepts to your child, The Whole-Brain Child shows you how to cultivate healthy emotional and intellectual development so that your children can lead balanced, meaningful, and connected lives.

Here, Dr. Ross W. Greene presents an enlightened, clear-cut, and practical alternative. Relying on research from the neurosciences, Dr. Greene offers a new conceptual framework for understanding the difficulties of kids with behavioral challenges and explains why traditional discipline isn't effective at addressing these difficulties. Emphasizing the revolutionarily simple and positive notion that kids do well if they can, he persuasively argues that kids with behavioral challenges are not attention-seeking, manipulative, limit-testing, coercive, or unmotivated, but that they lack the skills to behave adaptively. And when adults recognize the true factors underlying difficult behavior and teach kids the skills in increments they can handle, the results are astounding: The kids overcome their obstacles; the frustration of teachers, parents, and classmates diminishes; and the well-being and learning of all students are enhanced.

In Lost at School, Dr. Greene describes how his road-tested, evidence-based approach -- called Collaborative Problem Solving -- can help challenging kids at school.

In The Anxious Generation, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt lays out the facts about the epidemic of teen mental illness that hit many countries at the same time. He then investigates the nature of childhood, including why children need play and independent exploration to mature into competent, thriving adults. Haidt shows how the “play-based childhood” began to decline in the 1980s, and how it was finally wiped out by the arrival of the “phone-based childhood” in the early 2010s. He presents more than a dozen mechanisms by which this “great rewiring of childhood” has interfered with children’s social and neurological development, covering everything from sleep deprivation to attention fragmentation, addiction, loneliness, social contagion, social comparison, and perfectionism. He explains why social media damages girls more than boys and why boys have been withdrawing from the real world into the virtual world, with disastrous consequences for themselves, their families, and their societies.

Most important, Haidt issues a clear call to action. He diagnoses the “collective action problems” that trap us, and then proposes four simple rules that might set us free. He describes steps that parents, teachers, schools, tech companies, and governments can take to end the epidemic of mental illness and restore a more humane childhood.

Haidt has spent his career speaking truth backed by data in the most difficult landscapes—communities polarized by politics and religion, campuses battling culture wars, and now the public health emergency faced by Gen Z. We cannot afford to ignore his findings about protecting our children—and ourselves—from the psychological damage of a phone-based life.

Over the past several years, Dr. Becky Kennedy—known to her followers as “Dr. Becky”—has been sparking a parenting revolution. Millions of parents, tired of following advice that either doesn’t work or simply doesn’t feel good, have embraced Dr. Becky’s empowering and effective approach, a model that prioritizes connecting with our kids over correcting them.

Parents have long been sold a model of childrearing that simply doesn’t work. From reward charts to time outs, many popular parenting approaches are based on shaping behavior, not raising humans. These techniques don’t build the skills kids need for life, or account for their complex emotional needs. Add to that parents’ complicated relationships with their own upbringings, and it’s easy to see why so many caretakers feel lost, burned out, and worried they’re failing their kids. In Good Inside, Dr. Becky shares her parenting philosophy, complete with actionable strategies, that will help parents move from uncertainty and self-blame to confidence and sturdy leadership.

Offering perspective-shifting parenting principles and troubleshooting for specific scenarios—including sibling rivalry, separation anxiety, tantrums, and more—Good Inside is a comprehensive resource for a generation of parents looking for a new way to raise their kids while still setting them up for a lifetime of self-regulation, confidence, and resilience.

This book is about pleasure. It’s also about pain. Most important, it’s about how to find the delicate balance between the two, and why now more than ever finding balance is essential. We’re living in a time of unprecedented access to high-reward, high-dopamine stimuli: drugs, food, news, gambling, shopping, gaming, texting, sexting, Facebooking, Instagramming, YouTubing, tweeting . . . The increased numbers, variety, and potency is staggering. The smartphone is the modern-day hypodermic needle, delivering digital dopamine 24/7 for a wired generation. As such we’ve all become vulnerable to compulsive overconsumption.

In Dopamine Nation, Dr. Anna Lembke, psychiatrist and author, explores the exciting new scientific discoveries that explain why the relentless pursuit of pleasure leads to pain . . . and what to do about it. Condensing complex neuroscience into easy-to-understand metaphors, Lembke illustrates how finding contentment and connectedness means keeping dopamine in check. The lived experiences of her patients are the gripping fabric of her narrative. Their riveting stories of suffering and redemption give us all hope for managing our consumption and transforming our lives. In essence, Dopamine Nation shows that the secret to finding balance is combining the science of desire with the wisdom of recovery.

Autism therapy typically focuses on ridding individuals of “autistic” symptoms such as difficulties interacting socially, communication problems, sensory challenges, and repetitive behavior patterns. Now, this updated and expanded edition of Dr. Barry M. Prizant’s Uniquely Human tackles new language such as shifting from “person-first language” to “identity-first language,” diversity of identity in the autism sphere, and the future of autistic advocacy by amplifying the voices of autistic and neurodivergent individuals.

Do you know a child who struggles to get started with things or who resists trying something new? Maybe they argue or have trouble joining other kids in conversation and play. Do you hear yourself prompting your child again and again? Do you feel frustrated or stuck, and long for a better way - a more positive way - to engage your child while guiding them toward independence? This book was written for parents, caregivers, professionals and more - to guide you on how to move away from prompting and prodding kids - and toward authentic connections and competent roles. You'll learn how to create a positive learning environment for everyone, and feel empowered as you thoughtfully expand roles and responsibilities.

Executive Dysfunction is associated with many neurodivergent conditions, such as ADHD, autism, tourette's syndrome, dyslexia, and dyspraxia.An estimated 15-20% of the world population is considered neurodiverse.

If your child has problems with executive function, the impact on learning, relationships, and their future can be worrying.

Thankfully, these issues are something your child can overcome, and whether you're their parent or their teacher, you can help them do just that.

In this guide, you'll find strategies and tools toimprove their executive functioning skills to help them live their lives with less stress and increased independence.

In Executive Functioning Superpowers, you will discover:

• The vital skills children and teenagers need to succeed in their daily lives and how to recognize any skills deficit

• How to give instructions that they can easily follow – and will want to follow

• The best way to support children to develop their skills in emotional regulation, increased focus, and organization

• Methods to help children achieve their goals

• The association between executive dysfunction and many neurodivergent conditions

• Practical accommodations that will significantly help neurodiverse learners at home and in the classroom

• How to prepare and support children for the transition stage of moving school

• Fun games, activities, apps, and resources that combine learning and the development of executive functioning skills to engage even the most reluctant learner.

Does your child exhibit...

Over-responsivity--or under-responsivity--to touch or movement? A child with SPD may be a "sensory avoider," withdrawing from touch, refusing to wear certain clothing, avoiding active games--or he may be a "sensory disregarder," needing a jump start to get moving.

Over-responsivity--or under-responsivity--to sounds, sights taste, or smell? She may cover her ears or eyes, be a picky eater, or seem oblivious to sensory cues.

Cravings for sensation? The "sensory craver" never gets enough of certain sensations, e.g., messy play, spicy food, noisy action, and perpetual movement.

Poor sensory discrimination? She may not sense the difference between objects or experiences--unaware of what she's holding unless she looks, and unable to sense when she's falling or how to catch herself.

Unusually high or low activity level? The child may be constantly on the go--wearing out everyone around him--or move slowly and tire easily, showing little interest in the world.

Problems with posture or motor coordination? He may slouch, move awkwardly, seem careless or accident-prone.

These are often the first clues to Sensory Processing Difference--a common but frequently misdiagnosed problem in which the central nervous system misinterprets messages from the senses. The Out-of-Sync Child offers comprehensive, clear information for parents and professionals--and a drug-free treatment approach for children.

This revised edition includes expanded information about SPD “look-alikes,” including Learning Disabilities, ADHD, and autism; about diagnosis and treatments; and about other topics.

In Beyond Behaviors, internationally known pediatric psychologist, Dr. Mona Delahooke describes behaviors as the tip of the iceberg, important signals that we should address by seeking to understand a child’s individual differences in the context of relational safety.

Featuring impactful worksheets and charts, this accessible book offers professionals, educators and parents tools and techniques to reduce behavioral challenges and promote psychological resilience and satisfying, secure relationships.

"Low-demand parenting requires radical acceptance. It says to the kid right in front of you, I see you, just as you are. - You are ok here. I love you right here."

Parent to neurodivergent children and autistic adult, Amanda Diekman, outlines a parenting approach that finally lowers the bar for the whole family, enabling the equilibrium of the home to be restored.

Low-demand parenting allows you to drop the demands and expectations that are making family life impossible and embrace the joyful freedom of living life with low demands. It can be a particularly effective approach for children with high anxiety levels including neurodivergent children. Amanda talks from experience and teaches you how to identify what the big, tiny and invisible demands are for your own child and gives you the step-by-step instructions on how to drop them.

Full of practical resources and scripts that are easy to implement in busy everyday life, this book is your flashlight and your map to parenting your uniquely wired child. It will not tell you where to go, but it will help you find your way so you and your family thrive.

Brain Brilliance offers 60 delicious and nutritious recipes as well as a wealth of diet and supplement tips and hacks for children living with Dyslexia, Dyspraxia, ADHD and Autism as well as other unique and special brains. If you are a parent, teacher or carer, you can learn how to help them thrive and live their best neurodivergent life… with a little bit of nutritional know-how.

Brain Brilliance will help you and your children make the important connection between what they eat and their mood, behaviour, and learning – even if they are a highly selective eater and resistant to change. This book provides the most accessible and up-to-date evidence-based nutritional advice to improve a child’s brain function for all ages from toddler to school age to teens, and beyond. Understand the importance of the microbiome and the gut-brain link, as well as the negative role that ultra-processed foods play on the neurodivergent brain. Lucinda also highlights how to rebalance your child’s blood glucose levels to prevent 'hanger' and meltdowns. And learn how inflammation and the immune system can also dysregulate the neurodivergent brain and what to do about it.

Woven throughout this book are gentle and respectful ways at managing mood swings, tics, anxiety, chronic pain, speech delay and learning difficulties through better nutrition. Find easy to prepare Breakfasts, Lunches, Suppers, Drinks and those all-important Savoury and Sweet Snacks – which include switches for all the key food allergens. All the recipes contain brain foods which encourage optimal development, mood and behaviour, whilst being kind to the sensory palate – and they are fun to make and easy to cook.

Unlock your child’s full potential with the ultimate executive functioning workbook, now featuring 40+ custom-made illustrations!

Are you tired of seeing your child struggle with time management and concentration?

Do you want to equip them with essential executive functioning skills for success in school and life?

Have you been looking for a fun yet effective workbook to teach your child the skills they need in life?

This transformative workbook is designed to empower your child with essential executive functioning skills in an engaging, relatable, and fun way. Inside these pages, your child will go on a journey of self-discovery, learn practical strategies to master time management, enhance focus, set achievable goals, conquer clutter, tackle challenges confidently, and excel in social situations.

Each section presents relatable scenarios and interactive exercises, beautifully illustrated to keep your child motivated and excited to learn more.

In this workbook, your child will:

• Discover simple and effective techniques to manage their time and tasks effortlessly.

• Develop laser-like focus and attention span, which will improve their academic performance.

• Set and achieve goals with newfound confidence and determination.

• Organize their surroundings for a stress- and clutter-free environment.

• Approach challenges with resilience and creativity and master problem-solving skills.

• Thrive in social interactions and build meaningful relationships with friends and peers.

• Enjoy 40+ custom-made illustrations that make learning engaging and visually stimulating.

Don’t miss out on this opportunity to equip your child with essential life skills to shape their future success. Invest in this book today and watch as your child unlocks their full potential and becomes a confident and organized young individual.

Help kids grow their executive functioning skills with activities for ages 6 to 9

Executive functioning is the name for the skills we use to pay attention, complete tasks, and remember important things. But that's a lot for a brain to do every day—especially for kids. TheExecutive Functioning Workbook for Kids helps them train their brain to improve their memory, flexible thinking, and self-control. Kids will explore 40 hands-on activities to help them conquer executive functioning skills at home, at school, and out in the world.

Just for kids—This book is made especially for kids to work on independently so they can see their skills develop and feel accomplished.

Insightful activities—Kids will discover exercises that inspire them to work hard and appreciate the strengths and talents they already have.

Tools for parents—Grown-ups can get involved, too, with a section of tips and activities that explain how kids learn and how adults can help them succeed.

Empower kids to tackle any challenge with the skills they'll learn in the Executive Functioning Workbook for Kids.

Renowned child psychologist and New York Times bestselling author of Lost at School and The Explosive Child explains how to cultivate a better parent-child relationship while also nurturing empathy, honesty, resilience, and independence.

Parents have an important task: figure out who their child is—his or her skills, preferences, beliefs, values, personality traits, goals, and direction—get comfortable with it, and then help them pursue and live a life according to it. Yet parents also want their kids to be independent, but not if they are going to make bad choices. They want to avoid being too overbearing, but not if an apathetic kid is what they have to show for it. They want to have a good relationship with their kids, but not if that means being a pushover. They don’t want to scream, but they do want to be heard. Good parenting is about striking the balance between a child’s characteristics and a parent’s desire to have influence.

Dr. Ross Greene “makes a powerful case for rethinking typical approaches to parenting and disciplining children” (The Atlantic). Through his well-known model of solving problems collaboratively, parents can forgo timeout and sticker charts; stop badgering, berating, threatening, and punishing; allow their kids to feel heard and validated; and have influence.

From homework to hygiene, curfews, to screen time, Dr. Greene “arms parents with guidelines that are clear, doable, and sure to empower both parents and their children” (Adele Faber, coauthor of How to Talk So Kids Will Listen). Raising Human Beings is “inspirational…a game-changer for parents, teachers, and other caregivers. Its advice is reasonable and empathetic, and readers will feel ready to start creating a better relationship with the children in their lives” (Publishers Weekly, starred review).

Now in a revised and updated 6th edition, the groundbreaking, research-based approach to understanding and parenting children who frequently exhibit severe fits of temper and other challenging behaviors, from a distinguished clinician and pioneer in the field.

What’s an explosive child? A child who responds to routine problems with extreme frustration—crying, screaming, swearing, kicking, hitting, biting, spitting, destroying property, and worse. A child whose frequent, severe outbursts leave his or her parents feeling frustrated, scared, worried, and desperate for help. Most of these parents have tried everything-reasoning, explaining, punishing, sticker charts, therapy, medication—but to no avail. They can’t figure out why their child acts the way he or she does; they wonder why the strategies that work for other kids don’t work for theirs; and they don’t know what to do instead.

Dr. Ross Greene, a distinguished clinician and pioneer in the treatment of kids with social, emotional, and behavioral challenges, has worked with thousands of explosive children, and he has good news: these kids aren’t attention-seeking, manipulative, or unmotivated, and their parents aren’t passive, permissive pushovers. Rather, explosive kids are lacking some crucial skills in the domains of flexibility/adaptability, frustration tolerance, and problem solving, and they require a different approach to parenting.

Throughout this compassionate, insightful, and practical book, Dr. Greene provides a new conceptual framework for understanding their difficulties, based on research in the neurosciences. He explains why traditional parenting and treatment often don’t work with these children, and he describes what to do instead. Instead of relying on rewarding and punishing, Dr. Greene’s Collaborative Problem Solving model promotes working with explosive children to solve the problems that precipitate explosive episodes, and teaching these kids the skills they lack.

You’ve never read a book like The Reason I Jump. Written by Naoki Higashida, a very smart, very self-aware, and very charming thirteen-year-old boy with autism, it is a one-of-a-kind memoir that demonstrates how an autistic mind thinks, feels, perceives, and responds in ways few of us can imagine. Parents and family members who never thought they could get inside the head of their autistic loved one at last have a way to break through to the curious, subtle, and complex life within.

Using an alphabet grid to painstakingly construct words, sentences, and thoughts that he is unable to speak out loud, Naoki answers even the most delicate questions that people want to know. Questions such as: “Why do people with autism talk so loudly and weirdly?” “Why do you line up your toy cars and blocks?” “Why don’t you make eye contact when you’re talking?” and “What’s the reason you jump?” (Naoki’s answer: “When I’m jumping, it’s as if my feelings are going upward to the sky.”) With disarming honesty and a generous heart, Naoki shares his unique point of view on not only autism but life itself. His insights—into the mystery of words, the wonders of laughter, and the elusiveness of memory—are so startling, so strange, and so powerful that you will never look at the world the same way again.

In his introduction, bestselling novelist David Mitchell writes that Naoki’s words allowed him to feel, for the first time, as if his own autistic child was explaining what was happening in his mind. “It is no exaggeration to say that The Reason I Jump allowed me to round a corner in our relationship.” This translation was a labor of love by David and his wife, KA Yoshida, so they’d be able to share that feeling with friends, the wider autism community, and beyond. Naoki’s book, in its beauty, truthfulness, and simplicity, is a gift to be shared.

Do you know a child that gets upset when their routine changes? They might also struggle to see the big picture, to make friends, to problem solve in real time, and to read nonverbal communication. Meltdowns, tantrums and other challenging behaviors might be common.

This book was written to teach you how making small shifts in your language and speaking style will produce important results. You will stop telling kids what to do and instead thoughtfully give them information to help them make important discoveries in the moment. These moments build resilience, flexibility, and positive relationships over time.

You might be a therapist or a teacher, or you might be a parent, grandparent, or babysitter. Your child might have a diagnosis such as autism, Asperger’s Syndrome, ADHD, PDA or Non-Verbal Learning Disability. But they might not. No matter your child’s learning style, this book was written to help you feel equipped to make a difference, simply by being mindful of your own communication and speaking style.

The developing brains of our children need to "feel" safe.

Children who carry chronic behavioral challenges are often met with reactive and punitive practices that can potentially reactivate the developing stress response systems.

This book deeply addresses the need for co-regulatory and relational touch point practices, shifting student-focused behavior management protocols to adult regulated brain and body states which are brain aligned, preventive, and relational discipline protocols.

This new lens for discipline benefits all students by reaching for sustainable behavioral changes through brain state awareness rather than compliance and obedience.

From an expert in childhood development, a book that emphasizes the importance of imaginative play, and how it sets children up for success in the classroom.

While parents may worry that their children will be at a disadvantage if they are not engaged in constant, explicit learning or using the latest "educational" games, David Elkind's The Power of Play reassures us that unscheduled imaginative play is essential. Through expert research and situational examples, Elkind shows that creative spontaneous activity best sets the stage for academic learning.

An important contribution to the literature about how children learn, The Power of Play suggests ways to restore play's respected place in children's lives. It encourages parents to trust their instincts and resist the promise of the dubious array of educational products on the market geared to youngsters.