Gooshi

10/20/2026

Now on the Gooshi app - and free pdf for printing https://empowerkidsforlife.com/tierrafirme. A beautiful collaboration of educators, creators and parents to help each other get through the hard stuff. To those who are still in the thick of it recovering from unthinkable disasters, we hope these stories will provide some comfort to you and your children. Cristina Barvo | Education & Leadership at Home .martin.san Rita Ho-Bezzola

10/14/2026

We rush to the how almost without noticing. What do I say, what do I do, which approach do I follow. And there’s no shortage of answers out there — which turns out to be the actual problem, not the solution.

Cristina Barvo starts one step earlier. She spent ten years in marketing before becoming an early childhood educator, and what she’s built since is less a method than a compass: the principles that help you choose, in a world where everything is available and nothing is obvious.

She came to three. Trust. Competence. Motivation.

She explains each one in the conversation, along with something that reframed the whole hour for me — why a story reaches a child in moments when nothing we say can.

Which of the three would be hardest to hold onto in your house?

🎧 Once Upon a Feeling, Season 2 — gooshi.world

10/11/2026

There's a moment most of us know well. You say no to the phone, the meltdown starts, and some part of you does the math and decides this isn't the hill. So the phone stays. And honestly? That makes sense. It buys you the evening.

Jillian Harris, a clinical social worker at a New York City school, isn't interested in judging that decision. What she wanted me to see is that the power to set the limit never actually went anywhere. A phone-free dinner. A phone break. There are even apps that block the apps.

And then she asked why our kids need Instagram and TikTok in the first place.

I'm making a podcast about exactly this.

It was one moment in an hour that kept turning — into friction, into shame, into the village we stopped relying on, and eventually into something she admitted about her own phone that made me laugh out loud.

What would you have said to her? I'd really like to know.

10/11/2026

I asked her the question I was almost embarrassed to ask. 📱

If we're the ones addicted to the dopamine — if I can't put my own phone down — how am I supposed to teach my kids to?

I expected a strategy. A framework. Something with steps.

She said: "We hide it. We go in the closet."

And then she laughed, and I laughed, and something loosened. Because every conversation about screens starts from the pretense that the adults have this handled, and almost none of us do.

What came after that was the most useful hour I've had on this subject in a long time. Her school takes the phones at the door. She won't shame a single parent who already said yes to the smartphone — that's what we all knew at the time, she says. And the questions she left me with aren't about rules at all.

They're in the carousel. Swipe. 👉

Season 2 is about connection. The full conversation is in the bio. 🎧

Which one lands hardest? 👇

09/29/2026

Everyone is speaking the same language, and things still get lost in translation.

Jillian Harris works at a school in New York City where every student has a language-based learning disability — dyslexia, dysgraphia, often alongside ADHD and anxiety. A big part of her job is resolving conflict between kids.

And what causes most of it isn't malice. It's a missed word. A tone that didn't land the way it was meant. Information that went in clearly and came back out sideways.

And sometimes they simply disagree, because they're normal kids, and normal kids have conflict.

Rita's reaction was the same as mine: that isn't a description of a classroom. That's a description of the world right now.

If you're parenting or teaching a kid who processes language differently, I'd love to hear what's helped.

🎧 Once Upon a Feeling, Season 2 — gooshi.world

09/22/2026

"If you don't tell them the truth, someone else will." 🤍

That line from grief therapist stopped me. Most of us were raised on "we don't talk about it" — and then we wonder why our kids are anxious about the things we never named.

This week opens Season 2 of Once Upon a Feeling, and it's about connection: how love and loss are the same thread, how kids grieve differently than we do (and better), and the one question that helps a heart — at 6 or at 46.

Save this for the day you need it. Share it with the friend who's in it now.

Which of the five is hardest for you? 👇

🎧 Full episode — Once Upon a Feeling · link in bio · gooshi.world

09/18/2026

09/16/2026

We're always planning the future. Especially with our kids. 🧱

And then one day that future isn't there, and the grief hits like a pile of bricks.

There's a name for what we do before that: anticipatory grief. And says the denial that comes with it isn't the enemy — denial is a coping tool. Our brains are built to protect us from what feels unsafe.

So her question isn't "are you in denial?" It's this: is it getting in the way of you living life the way you want to?

Season 2 of Once Upon a Feeling is out now, and it's about connection. This is where it starts. 🎧 Link in bio.

Save this for the day you need it 🤍

What's one thing you've been putting off thinking about? 👇

09/15/2026

It’s been such an amazing summer, traveling, connecting with nature, with family and friends, and with ourselves.

After a summer full of inspiration, we’ve decided to explore the concept and feeling of connection in season two of the Once Upon a Feeling podcast. And the first episode drops today!

Have a listen. I hope you enjoy it, and I can’t wait to share more with you. I’ll see you back here very soon.