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Many UU's use guided meditations for relaxation, focusing, changing perspective, or shifting temporal states. There are a handful of guided meditation texts aimed specifically at kids in the Tapestry of Faith collection on the UUA website. You can record yourself speaking them using a smart phone's voice memo program or another audio recording app and play them for your child when the time is right. You might also enjoy writing your own, or helping your child write and record their own. Here's a sweet one imagining one's self as an acorn growing.

Bedtimes take on a special hue and hum this time of year Even as the yawns and stretches begin, fireflies may still be blinking on and off outside; the frogs, crickets, and cicadas may only just be beginning to call; and the colors of sunset may linger in a not-yet-inky sky.  You may already have a bedtime routine, and it may or may not include saying prayers. Some UU's pray, and some don't. Those who don't sometimes feel as if prayer doesn't move them, or that they don't need or want to be moved, or that they don't believe that there is a "beyond the self" to reach though prayer. But others would pray, want to pray, but are held up by feeling silly or unsure or clunky with it. UU minister Erik Wiksrom makes the case for praying like this:  "If you long to connect with the Sacred, if you desire to live a life that is more in touch with the Holy, stop listening for something and start simply listening. If you have given up on an anthropo...

The science is clear on this one: the human brain loves stories. The neurochemical most responsible for this affinity is oxytocin, the love hormone and moral molecule, which is released and processed when we hear and read stories. When our brains synthesize oxytocin, we act with more compassion, generosity, and kindness. But not all stories are equal. Good stories are the ones that affect us so powerfully, compelling stories with good dramatic arcs. Flat stories leave us flat, too, with no discernible change in brain chemistry or altruistic acts. The lesson here for us homeschoolers is: Tell good stories! Storytelling is a terrifically effective medium for engaging the mind and changing behavior for the better. I'm sure that storytelling already features prominently in your homeschool. Likely many of us read bedtime stories. And keep bookshelves for our independent readers. Make regular trips to the library, etc.  One other way that we can expand the reach and impact of our sto...