The Pod

Looking for expert parenting tips for the holidays? Get practical advice on managing routines, traveling with young kids, creating meaningful holiday activities, and navigating family gatherings with ease—all while reducing holiday stress through Montessori-inspired strategies.

How can parents raise kids who listen with empathy, think critically, and engage in respectful dialogue—even when faced with opposing views? In this episode of Grounded and Soaring, host Terry Dubow talks with educators Minnie Wales and Bill Sneed about fostering compassion, teaching respectful disagreement, and balancing family values with independent thinking.

In this Thanksgiving-inspired episode, Sam Shapiro and Naikan expert Greg Kretsch explore how parents can cultivate a family culture of gratitude. Learn practical reflection techniques to counter negativity, strengthen relationships, and foster appreciation in daily life.

Learn about the transformative power of early intervention through occupational and speech therapy. Discover how these therapies can help young children build confidence, close developmental gaps, and thrive.

Learn how to balance important conversations without overwhelming your kids and how to manage your own anxieties in these polarized times. Perfect for parents aiming to foster thoughtful, confident future voters!

Discover actionable strategies to help foster curiosity, adaptability, and resilience in your child.

Discover actionable strategies to help foster curiosity, adaptability, and resilience in your child.

Discover effective strategies to prevent the summer slide and keep your child’s academic skills sharp while enjoying the summer break.

Join Sam Shapiro and Dr. Alex Curtis in a critical exploration of artificial intelligence in education.

Join Sam Shapiro and Dr. Alex Curtis in a critical exploration of artificial intelligence in education.

Join Marin Montessori’s Terry Dubow and Bill Sneed who reflects on a captivating snow science trip that epitomizes Montessori philosophy in action.

Join Sam Shapiro, head of school at Marin Montessori School, and special guest ⁠Anahad O’Connor⁠, a Washington Post health columnist and award-winning author, as they explore the intersection of nutrition, sleep, and overall well-being for our youngest generation.

Explore the dynamic intersection of artificial intelligence and education with Sam Shapiro and Noah Orgish who discuss the evolving role of AI in the classroom, highlighting the importance of critical thinking and creative teaching strategies.

In this eye-opening episode of Grounded and Soaring, Sam Shapiro, Head of Marin Montessori School, speaks with Dr. ⁠Madeline Levine⁠, a psychologist renowned for her insights into the paradoxes of parenting in prosperity.

In this episode of Grounded and Soaring, join Sam Shapiro and his guests – all parents at Marin Montessori and professionals in sports and education – as they delve into cultivating a love for physical activity and sportsmanship in children.

In the latest episode of ‘Grounded and Soaring,’ host Terry Dubow invites Marin Montessori School’s Eluna Antle and Carla Rummo to explore the acceleration of adolescence that we see everywhere in our culture and describe how extending childhood with an additional year in a Montessori Elementary class nurtures resilient, curious, and emotionally intelligent young individuals.

Join Grounded and Soaring’s latest episode for insightful Montessori advice on making the most of school breaks, whether traveling or staying home. In this episode, we delve into expert tips for creating rewarding experiences for families with young children.

Delve into this episode where we unravel how to guide our children through climate anxiety with empathy and understanding

Discover how the Junior High’s new math program steps away from traditional methods to foster a learning environment where understanding and curiosity drive student success.

From the time our children are born, they start the journey of becoming more and more independent of us. They separate from our bodies. Then they learn to eat food. They learn to move. At each of these milestones, they are becoming more physically independent.

In an age where adult rudeness seems to be on the rise, how do we ensure our teens don’t follow the same path?

In this episode of Grounded and Soaring, we dive deep into the challenges of parenting in an age of instant gratification and digital distractions.

Are your mornings a hectic rush? Discover the Montessori approach to mastering back-to-school mornings in this episode of Grounded and Soaring.

Feeling the weight of an uncertain world? It’s common for parents to grapple with anxiety about the future, and this can unintentionally affect their children.
Join us as we delve into this topic with Dr. Denise Pope, the visionary behind Stanford University’s groundbreaking research-based initiative, ⁠Challenge Success⁠. Discover how redefining “success” can lead to well-being, a sense of belonging, and greater engagement for families.

We’d love to hear what you think of this and any of our episodes. Rate us wherever you get your podcasts!

The Grounded and Soaring podcast is back for season two — and just in time for parents prepping for the new school year.
In this episode, authors and experts Sheri Glucoft Wong and Olaf Jorgenson join Sam Shapiro, Head of Marin Montessori School, to share parenting tips based on their book Raising Kids. Their guidance is compassionate, profound, and actionable.

As parents, we know our kids will face challenges and disappointments, but we don’t always know how to prepare them to bounce back. In this episode, Michelle Borba, author of Thrivers, joins Sam Shapiro, Head of Marin Montessori School, to discuss a handful of practical tools parents can use to increase their children’s resilience and confidence.

We all know it: something is not working for the youth in our society right now. Data, scholarship, and lived experience all tell us that social media and unimpeded technology have disrupted childhood profoundly and, often, destructively. In this episode, Sam Shapiro, head of Marin Montessori School, joins to reflect a bit on the series of blog posts he penned over spring break called Real Fear, Real Hope: Social Media, Mental Health, and Our Children.

What could be more essential — and challenging — than feeding your child food they love and that they need? It can be a struggle, but there’s hope! In this episode, Sam Shapiro, Head of Marin Montessori School, speaks with Nimisha Gandhi, who runs Moon Cycle Nutrition, about her approach to inspiring a love of healthy eating in children.

In this episode, Sam Shapiro, Marin Montessori’s Head of School, speaks to ⁠Varun Soni⁠, Dean of Religious Life at the University of Southern California, about the mental health crisis on college campuses and what we might do about it.

Throughout their deeply felt conversation, they try to work backward to identify the strategies parents of young children can use to increase the likelihood that their kids will enter college healthy, confident, and whole.

Children are creative creatures — and not just with paints and clay but also with how they approach challenges. We know it’s crucial to nurture their creative spirits, but sometimes that’s easier said than done.

Enter DrawBridge, a nonprofit organization that provides free expressive arts programs to children in domestic violence and homeless shelters, affordable housing facilities, and in communities across seven San Francisco Bay Area counties. In this episode, Tracy Bays-Boothe, Executive Director of DrawBridge, shares about her organization, the power of nurturing the creative spirit, and why she’s so excited that DrawBridge is this year’s Community Partner for The Gather for Good, which takes place on April 15 this year.

We all need help committing to the long view as we parent; it’s easy to let anxiety and social comparison hijack our highest ideals and goals for our children. Enter Jessica Lahey, author of the New York Times bestselling book, The Gift of Failure: How the Best Parents Learn to Let Go So Their Children Can Succeed. In this podcast episode, Sam Shapiro, Head of Marin Montessori School, speaks with Jessica about her top suggestions for parents for helping their kids develop robust independence, inner motivation to learn, and self-possession.

Key topics in the podcast include:

* A helpful parenting hack in the form of a question that will guide us when we’re deciding whether to step in to take over for our child

* The value of focusing on process over product, especially for anxious kids

* The difference between competence and confidence

* The counterbalance parents can provide to the more harmful messages our children receive about the source of their worth

* The value of strengths-based parenting

We’re living in the middle of the revolution that has reshaped our world. In this episode, Tom Preston-Werner, MMS parent and founder and former CEO of GitHub, joins for a wide-ranging conversation about the role technology plays in modern life, what we should do about exposing our kids to it, and how we should go about preparing them to be agile, creators, not passive consumers. Parents sometimes wonder whether they’re disadvantaging future coders by sending them to a low-tech school. Tom’s answer might surprise you.

In this episode, we dive into a topic that most parents wrestle with because it’s essential and really, really hard. Communication or perhaps more accurately – healthy communication – is critical for a human being at any age to express feelings, preferences, needs and to receive those messages from others. The question is how do we as parents help our kids build strong communication skills? – always a challenge but never more so than in today’s digital world. Siri Panday, Director of Education for Toddler and Primary at Marin Montessori School, joins to share her insights and a few helpful tips for parents.

This fall, David Brooks published an essay in The New York Times called “The Crisis of Boys and Men.” Among his provocative arguments based on some pretty sobering data points: “Many men are like what Dean Acheson said about Britain after World War II. They have lost an empire but not yet found a role.”
When it comes to raising healthy boys today, parents and educators alike are called to wrestle with some troubling and uncomfortable byproducts of seismic shifts in our culture, economy, and society. The news isn’t all bad, though, because parents and schools can do a lot to meet the needs of boys.
To paint a picture of the issue and the way forward, we spoke with Dr. Warren Farrell, author of The Boy Crisis: Why our Sons are Struggling–and What We Can Do About It. It’s a complex and worthy topic. Just a note that this episode addresses some adult topics, so it may be best to listen without the kids in the car.

When your kids are young, high school may seem like a distant worry, but it comes faster than anyone would like. That’s why it’s good to have help, which is what Jamie Moffett provides students in Marin Montessori’s Junior High School. Jamie joins the podcast to discuss the transition to high school and to share her experiences with MMS students who apply to and attend independent and public high schools. She also offers a bit of practical advice for what families can do to support their adolescents.

For those who aren’t accustomed to Montessori classrooms, it might seem a bit curious that children cook, clean, sew, and more. There’s actually a lot behind all the cupcakes the students are baking – from complicated math to complex collaboration.

One thing this world really needs is another podcast…We’re doing it anyway though because we’re looking for ways to connect with parents and educators about the stakes and opportunities we all face as we teach and raise children today.