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Author

Michael Mendizza

Michael is an author, educator, documentary filmmaker and founder of Touch the Future, a nonprofit learning design center. His book, Magical Parent-Magical Child, the Art of Joyful Parenting, co-authored with Joseph Chilton Pearce, applies research on optimum states to parenting and to education. Michael is developing two additional books; Kids are Not The Problem, a series of essays on parenting the next critical generation and Flowering, a collection of dramatic floral images (see: zfolio.com) and quotes by Krishnamurti.Inspiration for this work emerged from personal relationships with Pearce, physicist David Bohm, philosopher J. Krishnamurti, and over one hundred scientists, authors and educators. If being in an optimum state is important to professional athletes, imagine what this could mean to parents, childcare providers, educators, coaches and the children they love. Michael writes and speaks internationally on the Next Frontier in Education, The Intelligence of Play, Transcendent Mentoring of This And Future Generations, Media and the Brain, Corporate Exploitation of Children, The Brave New World of Un-Schooling and Home-Schooling, Seven Principles that Transform Adults and Children, The Childlike Mind, Rational Imagination, Raising Children in a Sport-Crazed Culture, and other topics.Magical Parent – Magical Child With Joseph Chilton Pearce
Magical Parent-Magical Child, the Optimum Learning Relationship is the first book to define parenting, coaching and educating children as developmental, transformative practices for adults. The central theme of the book is the transformation of childhood through the transformation of adults. Our goal is to optimize the adult-child interface by applying the proven strategies that allow top athletes and other specialists to consistently perform at extraordinary levels. If optimum learning, performance and well-being is the goal when relating to tennis balls and hockey pucks, what about you and I? What about our children? Do they, or we, deserve anything less?
We do this by helping adults rediscover the "playful" and "childlike" genius of their own innate intelligence, as they guide, learn from and mentor children, which awakens and develops in adults new capacities and possibilities. Infusing the adult-child relationship with this fresh creative energy and attention transforms the adult which results in a radically different learning environment for children. Changing the adult changes the environment we call childhood. This transforms the child, which cycles back and transforms the adult. We call this playful, reciprocal-dynamic, the Optimum Learning Relationship.
The book develops this theme by exploring and applying the psychology of optimum experience to parenting, childcare, education and coaching. Research shows that the "state" athletes call the Zone, what researchers and professionals call Flow and what children call Play share the basic characteristic of complete self-less absorption and engagement in the moment. This "state" of complete unconflicted behavior is nature's baseline, her expectation, for optimum learning, performance and well-being. Yoga, meditation and athletics, when approached in their true spirit, attune us to this optimum state. Looking deeper we discover that all learning, performance and wellness is "state specific." States of being are primary; they come first, filter and define what we learn, how we perform, and our relative wellness or disease, moment to moment.

Attachment Parenting / Bonding

Playful Wisdom: A Father’s Adventure

Michael Mendizza Jun 4, 2017 0
Playful Wisdom Asks: What About Fathers? The neuroscience is conclusive: child development is model dependent. Ideally then, the focus of early childhood…
Attachment Parenting / Bonding

Home Base: The “Safe Place” We Are To Our Children

Michael Mendizza May 19, 2017 0
The player steps up to home base. While at the plate, he or she is perfectly safe. From this position of safety they swing the bat and hopefully hit the ball.…
Child development

The 45 Million Word Difference

Michael Mendizza Feb 21, 2017 0
"O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright! It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night Like a rich jewel in an Ethiope's ear; Beauty too rich for use, for…
Attachment Parenting / Bonding

At The Crossroads

Michael Mendizza Jan 30, 2017 0
Walking with Carly to the park today, I realized that my anxiety had disappeared. The warm sun was bouncing off the freshly watered leaves after five years of…
Attachment Parenting / Bonding

Changing The World From The Inside Out

Michael Mendizza Nov 23, 2016 1
This must be the way European Jews felt as the roots of the Nazi holocaust began cracking through the pavement we call civil society; this emanate premonition…
Attachment Parenting / Bonding

Quiet Hugs

Michael Mendizza Oct 12, 2016 0
Morning and Muse often arrive together. Today their light cast long shadows across the wood floor. The house was still. Up before the others I sipped fresh…
Attachment Parenting / Bonding

Enlightenment Is…

Michael Mendizza Sep 30, 2016 0
I hope every parent is knocked off their chair by the astonishing capacity their child exhibits every day. Recall – 700 new neural connections every second and…
Attachment Parenting / Bonding

Everyday Abuse

Michael Mendizza Sep 1, 2016 3
Holding my hand Carly Elizabeth stopped in her tracks. Walking down the street, a few yards ahead, were three large overstuffed derrières and a bright, bored…
Attachment Parenting / Bonding

Joseph Chilton Pearce Remembered, January 14, 1926 – August 23, 2016

Michael Mendizza Aug 26, 2016 0
Sometimes it takes a lifetime to embody an insight our teachers share. Joe (Joseph Chilton Pearce) was like an idealized father, ideal in the sense of sharing…
Attachment Parenting / Bonding

Watching With Wonder – Carly At Two

Michael Mendizza Jul 31, 2016 0
At 4:15 PM July 29, 2014 Carly Elizabeth took her first breath. Today, July 29, 2016, twenty-four very short months later I routinely chase her around the bed…
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  • Front Page
  • About
    • Who Are We?
    • Press Room
    • Lisa Reagan, Kindred’s Editor
    • Our Contributors
    • Children’s Wellbeing Manifesto
    • Kindred World Initiatives
    • Kindred’s International Editorial Advisory Board
    • Contact Us
  • Our Evolved Nest
    • Evolved Nest’s Spanish Resources
    • German Resources: Breaking the Cycle and Worldview Chart
  • Kinship Worldview
  • Explore Topics
    • Our Evolved Nest and Conscious Parenting
      • ACES, Adverse Childhood Experiences
      • Attachment Parenting
      • Birth Psychology (Prenatal and Perinatal Experiences)
      • Black Mothers
      • Breastfeeding
      • Evolved Nest
      • Midwifery
      • Parenting for Social Change
      • Pregnancy & Birth
      • Worklife Law
    • Cultural Transformation
      • Adultism
      • American Democracy At The Crossroads
      • Authoritarianism
      • Caring Economy
      • Childism
      • Conscious Activism
      • Dominator System
      • Education
      • Inspiration
      • Literacy
      • Partnerism
      • Racism
      • Religion
      • Social Justice
      • Spirituality
    • Sustainability & Regenerative Wisdom
      • Climate Change
      • Ecocentrism
      • Environmental Justice
      • Food
      • Food Sovereignty
      • Indigenous Wisdom
      • Neurobiology and Wisdom
      • Social Justice
      • Sustainable Wisdom
      • Thinking Global
    • Wellbeing
      • Addiction
      • Chemical Free Living
      • Mindfulness
      • Nature Connection
      • Neurobiology and Wisdom
      • Play
      • Psychology / Self-help
      • Regenerative Health
      • Relationship Literacy
      • Spirituality
      • Sustainable Wisdom
      • Trauma-Informed
      • Wellness-Informed
  • Podcasts
    • Fireside Chats
    • Interviews
  • Resources
    • How To Get Involved With Kindred World
    • New Story Glossary
    • Kindred’s Wisdom Archives
    • Adverse Childhood Events – Trauma Recovery Resources
    • Birth and Pregnancy
    • Black Mothers and Fathers Resources
    • Breastfeeding Resources
    • Circumcision
    • Culture Transformation Resources
    • Education Reform and Alternative Education Resources
    • Environmental, Toxin-Free Living
    • Equity – Diversity – Inclusion
    • Food and Farming
    • German Resources: Breaking the Cycle and Worldview Chart
    • Kindred’s Wisdom Archives
    • Mindfulness (Self-Regulation Practices)
    • National Child Traumatic Stress Network Resources
    • Play Resources
    • Work Life Law – Breastfeeding and Paid Parenting Leave
    • Vaccination Safety and Informed Choices
  • DONATE

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