Teaching Kids to Buy Stocks: Interview with Author J.J. Wenrich by Melissa Couch Salim

Why were you passionate about writing a book on this topic?  So many reasons!!

First off, I was fortunate to have teachers growing up that taught us about the basics of the stock market, and a little personal finance as well. I am very grateful for the exposure to these topics, as they ended up inspiring my career.

Second, these are lessons worth teaching. Helping someone learn how to save and invest their money for a rainy day is LIFE CHANGING BEHAVIOR. These aren’t math lessons either, they are BEHAVIOR LESSONS. As important as they are, these lessons aren’t taught consistently in many homes and schools.

Over the course of my career, I discovered that “Finance Types” often do a terrible job of explaining the markets to “Non Finance Types”… …I’m not pointing the finger, I’m guilty of this too! We make it more complicated that it needs to be. It was only after watching enough people’s eyes glaze over while I was speaking (as well as some constructive feedback) that I realized what I was doing.

My goal with the book is to take the lessons I’ve learned from working with professional financial advisors and their retail clients, as … Continue reading..

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Parenting a Teen with Special Needs: A Q&A with Adam J. Holstein, Psychoanalyst/Behavior Therapist: Interview by Melissa Couch Salim

In your work, you support children diagnosed with developmental disabilities and offer parent training.  Can you share what the most common challenges have been, and what has been the most prevalent concern from parents? The most common challenge for parents who contact me is how to parent their child who has special needs.  As the saying goes, “There is no manual that comes with your child.”  Most often parents draw on their experience being raised by their parent, to raise their child.  Many parents claim they do the opposite or better.  While this might be true, the parenting they had impacts how they parent.  Raising a child with special needs requires the parent adapt their style to the special needs of their child.  This is not easy.  Parents start out anxious wanting to be a good mother or father, and the stress and anxiety increases when they learn their child has special needs.

The families that bring their child to me need help addressing behavioral challenges ranging from, non-compliance, to verbal and/or physical aggression at home or school.  I then look at the parenting history mentioned above and develop a behavior program using applied behavior analysis.

You work with children … Continue reading..

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Meet Melissa Bernstein of Melissa & Doug and Author, LifeLines

Q&A With Melissa Bernstein

From the outside, your life looks perfect: you started a business from scratch, used your creativity to design toys, and made hundreds of millions of dollars doing it. You’ve been married for 28 years, have 6 kids, 2 dogs, a cat, a beautiful house. Did the fear of shattering the image others have of you make it harder for you to seek help?

Anytime you open yourself up and let people see a truer you, it’s scary. But I think in many ways, the ability I have to shatter the image of outward “success” is actually a gift. On paper, I had everything you could ever want, but I was still miserable because I hadn’t accepted myself. At some point, the suffering becomes so great that you have to surrender. You have to say, I can no longer deny this despair, I have to dive in. I decided to reach out to one of my favorite podcasts, The Good Life Project, and share my story. I was terrified, but I also felt crazily, strangely empowered. After the episode aired, I received hundreds of letters saying things like ‘You spoke to me, this is exactly how I … Continue reading..

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Meet Chris Parsons, author, A Little Spark: Interview by Melissa Couch Salim

What a beautiful, pure and ideal story. Don’t we all want to live in Lake Zuron..that is before “LIFE” takes over?! What inspired the story? I have always liked stories where the underdog or the unlikely hero steps up and saves the day. We all cheer for the unlikely hero because we somehow see ourselves in that character. I have created quite a few stories and characters over the years that have a similar construct.

I traveled a lot with my job in the world of high-tech, and I would use the “plane” time to work on my stories and characters.  I would take out my computer, and rather than deal with all those emails and PowerPoints, I would sit there with a smile on my face and work on my stories.

It was on one of those plane rides from London to Washington that I had a flash of inspiration about a little mouse named Spark. It was a story about the tiniest of creatures – a lowly mouse – who, through his own self-confidence, steps up to the plate and saves the day. I expanded the story based on that one plot point, and as the words flowed, … Continue reading..

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Moms Always Share…:) by Ali Skylar

CHARACTERS:

Mom, Son

SETTING:

A mom and son at college are texting each other.

Mom:  Hey, start thinking about what you want to get with the couple of million dollars I’m going to give you when I win the $700 million powerball drawing tonight!

Son:  You bought a ticket?

Mom: Yep

Son: Since when do you buy lottery tickets?

Mom: Since yesterday.

Son: Mom, you know you’re not going to win.

Mom: This from a kid who I’ve been buying lottery tickets for since you were 8?

Son: That’s different.

Mom: Why?

Son:  I’ve got better luck than you!  I always win a dollar here or there.

Mom: Well, technically, since I bought you the tickets, I was winning the dollar here or there.

Son: Oh yeah, I didn’t think about that.  So what are WE going to do with $700 million dollars?

Mom: We?

Son: Yeah, we!

Mom: So now I’m sharing my winnings with you?  I don’t remember you sharing your dollars with me.

Son: You’re a mom, mom.  You always share.

Mom: That’s true. And $700 million dollars is a crap load of money. I’d definitely share it with you – and your sister and dad – … Continue reading..

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When the Student is Ready… The Appearance of Teacher Jade in my Life by Pamela Francis

She’s brown. Just like me

She’s beautiful. Just like me

She’s well-traveled. Just like me

She’s an educator. Just like me

She’s an entrepreneur mom. Just like me

She appears to keep it real — as in her hair. Just like me.

She lives in Atlanta. I did that.

She purportedly makes $10,000 a month in online teaching revenue.

And there is where the similarities end. For now…

Teacher Jade came across my screen the way so many other discoveries do: a GOOGLE headline. She was being touted as the $10,000-a-month-maker teacher on Outschool, an online teaching platform where educators can apply to teach courses that they create at whatever price the market will bear. As I have only recently gotten out of the brick-and-mortar education game (a.k.a. jail 2.0), I was immediately enthralled. I was on the prowl for a venue to bring my teaching skills and passion to… online… and no, I had no idea that one could come away with a 5-figure monthly salary showing kids how to write a 5-sentence essay. I do that every day. You see, I homeschool my own 2 sons, and have been for almost all their academic careers. My oldest is … Continue reading..

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Filmmaker Shows Kids Don’t Have to Be Collateral Damage of Divorce: Interview with Ginger Gentile by Later Mom Melissa Couch Salim

The documentary film is so well done. Parental Alienation is a topic now being shared and discussed as a result of your work over the years. Your first film, Erasing Dad, started the conversations in Argentina and now Erasing Family has a large U.S. and even wider global reach. Congratulations!!! How did you find the families featured in the film, and how were you able to get them comfortable sharing their difficult and intimate stories? All of families were found on social media. Lauren, only 12, reached out to me and said she was an erased sister. I then talked with her mom and we decided to film. With all of the families it was a long process, sometimes a year, to build trust. Talking about the heartbreak of a messy divorce isn’t easy but the families found it healing.

The family court and custody laws are so different in every state and vastly different in each country. Do you feel this movement could create a standard in how we manage divorce and custody throughout the world? I hope that we can create a standard where we abolish family court and instead families get help and treatment so they can … Continue reading..

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I am Mama by Later Mom Marina Topsis

I worked in the airline industry for 38 1/2 years and took early retirement at 60 for many reasons. I wish I could say it was solely for my then 4 and 6 year old sons. It turned out to be a great decision. A few months later, 3/16/20, we went to full virtual school due to COVID19. Thankfully, I was home.

While I worked, I missed many milestones that were shared with photos and videos when I got home. One time, I had to be away over the holidays. When I got home I asked my then 5 year old if he missed mama?  He was visibly upset and said, “You should have been home with your children.”  My then 3 year old didn’t even call me mama at that point, as he spent more time with the Au pair.

Yes, I miss the office and friends that were, but that environment has changed and my recollection of good times are of a time and place that no longer exists. This last year and a half as a stay at home mom has given me precious moments with my boys. I love just “being” with them. The busy times, … Continue reading..

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