Hi, this is Janet Landsbury. Welcome to Unwuffled. Today I'm joined by Ray Pika, a true standard

bearer for early childhood education. I'd never met Ray, but I certainly knew of her

and her work. She's been focused on this for over 40 years, so I'm thrilled she agreed

to come on the podcast. Ray is dedicated to developing and educating the whole child,

and she's written 20 books on this subject. She's a brilliant keynote speaker, and as a consultant,

she's offered her expertise and experience to an incredibly diverse list of organizations,

both public and private, including the CDC, Sesame Street, Mattel, Jim Buried, Nike, Nickelodeon's

Blues Clues, and many health departments in schools. Ray and I will be discussing how

children actually learn how to encourage their intrinsic developmental processes and some

of the parenting myths that are so common these days and can stifle a child's natural instinct

to explore, discover, learn, and flourish. Hi, Ray. Welcome to Unwuffled, and thank you so much

for being willing to share with my listeners today. Oh, I'm happy to. Thank you so much.

I love the title Unwuffled. That's just great. Well, it's something to strive for. I think,

when we do understand child development and our place in it, all of that perspective

can really help us. We don't have to pretend we're unwuffled, but the way that we see children

and trust them as capable, it can help us to actually be unwuffled. Yeah. Understanding

child development is so important. And I know that's been your life's work and that you

have been such a wonderful communicator of your knowledge to the public. And so anyway,

I'm thrilled to have you here. There's so many things we could talk about, but I was thinking

the other day that what I would like you to share is I think something that will be very practical

for parents and helpful. I always try to focus on what could I offer that might help.

And one goal that we all have as parents is that our children thrive. That they flourish physically,

...