Play Development

As a counselor, therapist, parent, or caregiver, you play a crucial role in the development and well-being of children. Yet amidst the flood of information, finding effective, research-backed techniques tailored to diverse needs and ensuring therapeutic goals balance with fun can feel overwhelming. Imagine transforming your child’s playtime into powerful moments of growth and resilience-building using culturally diverse activities that address their unique needs.

Post “yes dear”, post radical feminism, post #metoo, is a blank canvas for those ready to live and love in a new paradigm of womanhood. But what does that look like? In this highly astute narrative is a new mode of relating to ourselves and our world as women.

Every kid needs horseplay! Roughhousing is an essential part of childhood development—but it is increasingly overshadowed by screens and structured activities. In Unplug and Play, a doctor and a child psychologist, both dads, introduce parents to the benefits of physical play for young children. Drawing from gymnastics, martial arts, ballet, team sports, and even animal behavior, the authors present fun full-contact activities for parents and children to enjoy together.

Every year, over 10,000 letters addressed to Juliet Capulet arrive in Verona, Italy, the famous hometown of Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet. These handwritten letters come from people all over the world, seeking guidance and support from Juliet herself. Capturing the pain, joy, humor, and confusion of love, the 60 letters in this book offers encouragement, comfort, hope - and a nod to the human condition. Including responses from Juliet herself, this romantic and relatable, and perfect as a Valentine's Day gift, Dear Juliet proves that love is the universal language.

Coaches search for it. Parents dream of it. Fans love it. Athletes want it. The Playmaker on any sports team possesses it: an elusive, intangible quality combining anticipation, perception, and decision-making skills. This quality raises their game above the competition and allows them to pass when no one else can, anticipate the movement of opponents, and avoid costly mental mistakes, thus holding the team together. Using today's technology and tools, it is now possible to understand, assess, and train this sixth sense rather than just hope it magically appears.

Facing summer with her two boys, ages 10 and seven, Pam Lobley was sifting through signups for swim team, rec camp, night camp, scout camp, and enrichment classes. Overwhelmed at the choices, she asked her sons what they wanted to do during summer: "Soccer? Zoo School? Little Prodigy's Art Club?" "Why can't we just play?" they asked. A summer with no scheduled activities at all. The thought was tempting, but was it possible? It would be like something out of the 1950s.

The buzz word in education today is accountability. But the federal mandate of "no child left behind" has come to mean curriculums driven by preparation for standardized tests and quantifiable learning results. Even for very young children, unstructured creative time in the classroom is waning as teachers and administrators are under growing pressures to measure school readiness through rote learning and increased homework.

As a tech expert and parent, Anahid understands the challenges of parenting in the digital age. Her play-based, compassionate strategies offer a timeless, practical framework that grows with your family—even as technology evolves.

No matter what, situations will arise where people will cross your boundaries, break their commitments, or exhibit plain rudeness towards you. In these moments it is crucial that you step up, speak up, address the behavior, and navigate those difficult conversations with honesty, confidence, and understanding. This approach helps prevent the accumulation of anger, resentment, and bitterness in your relationships. Using this comprehensive guide, you can now navigate difficult conversations with transparency, confidence, and empathy while fostering a respectful relationship with others.

Would you enjoy a life where suffering truly becomes optional? And one where pain morphs into one of your greatest allies? Would you like to know exactly why the statement, "You'll see it when you believe it" is absolutely true? Want to completely manifest your most pleasing life possible by living according to the accurate rules that govern how our universe works? Are you, like so many of us, finally ready to release yourself from the shackles of old, outdated paradigms created from an incomplete understanding of how our material reality is created?

Life can seem to be a serious business. We could also look at it as a game—or a series of games. They include survival, love, power, pleasure, courage, creativity, and the Master Game! In this insightful book, Richard Smoley gives a lively but profound account of these games. He talks about how we play them, the mistakes we make, and how we can play them best. The culmination is the Master Game. Richard explores practices from the great spiritual traditions to show how to reach this mastery. If you play this game, you will reach new heights of wisdom, courage, kindness, and performance.

Stop negative thoughts, assuage anxiety, and live in the moment with these fun, easy games from improv expert Clay Drinko. Dr. Clay Drinko offers 120 low-key, accessible activities that draw on the popular principles of improv comedy to help you tackle your everyday stress and reconnect with the people around you.

When We Walk By takes an urgent look at homelessness in America, showing us what we lose—in ourselves and as a society—when we choose to walk past and ignore our neighbors in shelters, insecure housing, or on the streets. And it brilliantly shows what we stand to gain when we embrace our humanity and move toward evidence-based people-first, community-driven solutions, offering social analysis, economic and political histories, and the real stories of unhoused people.

"The Complete Wealth Mastery Collection" is your ultimate guide to mastering the art of wealth creation. This powerful collection of six timeless classics, along with an exclusive bonus book, offers unparalleled insights and strategies to help you achieve financial independence. Whether you're just starting your financial journey or looking to enhance your wealth-building skills, this collection is your key to unlocking your true potential.

There’s so much more to retirement than endless days in an armchair… Discover how to unlock all the joy and fulfillment in yours! You’re finally free of work… but now what? You’ve spent years looking forward to retirement, but now that it’s here, you might be feeling a little overwhelmed. After years of planning every day and packing it full of work pressures and family commitments, you’re faced with a vast expanse of time, and you’re not sure how you’re going to fill it.

Play is the language of children. It is how they communicate. By rediscovering the joy of play as an adult, you can access a whole new way to understand and respond to your child’s needs. Created with busy parents in mind, psychotherapist and parenting expert Joanna Fortune has devised a simple but effective method to build quality playful time together at home, structured around 15-minute games that can be easily incorporated into your existing daily routine.

The law of attraction is based on the idea that everything in the universe has a polarity, meaning that everything - from the food you eat to the people you talk to, to the things you say to the things you think - contains either a positive or a negative kind of energy. Notice that being with people who complain or rant a lot tends to make you feel bad, even though you're not exactly experiencing what they're going through - that's the law of attraction working its magic. When you focus on negative stuff, then more negative stuff will happen.

In this powerfully written book, Livingston argues that Black people can pursue three paths. They can play the game, or find ways to make white people feel “unthreatened” without sacrificing their own dignity, identity, or authenticity. Think of Kenneth Chenault, for example, a “tempered radical” who rose through the ranks to become the first Black CEO of American Express. They can change the game, or challenge the system head on—like Colin Kaepernick, whose idealism cost him his football career but made him an icon. And finally they can leave the game, or turn away altogether from traditionally white environments to carve out spaces where Black people can flourish

You have to be able to identify gaslighting really quickly. And you shouldn't know anything less than what you can get from this book. Knowing less exposes you to the great dangers of gaslighting. There are tons of things you could be missing in life, while others hold you down. You could be somewhere you want to be by now. Free yourself or free somebody today.

We’re all born playful. But when we grow up, we learn to suppress this critical, hardwired instinct and our lives become ruled by “getting things done.” As world-famous designer Cas Holman explains, this disconnection from our playful selves is hazardous to everything from our emotional wellbeing to our ability to problem solve and innovate. The emerging science of play shows that it sparks joy, wonder, creativity, and insight at any age. It is through play that we shape our identities and continue to evolve at every stage of our lives.