Raising Awe-Seekers

Writing "Raising Awe-Seekers" officially took three years, but the full story goes way back.

It’s hard to describe the wonder of the Boston Marathon — but I try.

In honor of National Library Week, Deborah Farmer Kris shares 14 tiny tales about how libraries have shaped her life. 

Because we both know something about the silly, joyful, sacred act of reading to kids. 

Our sensory system and our emotions are deeply intertwined. In this episode, Deborah Farmer Kris draws on her interview with neuroscientist Ethan Kross to talk about how our five senses can strengthen our emotional health.

The human world may be calamitous, but the frogs and the birds still sing. And sometimes, their chorus comes at *exactly* the right time. 

In this episode of "Raising Awe Seekers," host Deborah Farmer Kris discusses how stress and anxiety are often misunderstood and how they can serve as allies in personal growth.

In this episode of Raising Awe-Seekers, Deborah Farmer Kris talks about two fathers -- Ansel Adams' and her own -- highlighting the impact of unconventional education and parenting on fostering curiosity and wonder in children. 

In this episode of Raising Awe Seekers, Deborah Farmer Kris explores the importance of unstructured time in discovering awe and creativity. Through conversations with awe researcher Dr. Keltner and business professor Michael Roberto, she learns the value of wandering and spontaneity in sparking wonder and novel ideas.

Awe gives us goosebumps, brings tears to our eyes, or -- most often -- makes us sit up and say, "Wow." So where do we find awe? Deborah Farmer Kris shares key seven sources of this emotion, and a few wonder-ful stories, too. 

In this episode, Deborah Farmer Kris looks at how storytelling can build hope & resilience -- taking cues from the wisdom of author Katherine Paterson.

In this episode of Raising Awe-Seekers, host Deborah Farmer Kris traces the origins of the 139-year history of the phrase "audacity of hope." And drawing on research by Dr. Jamil Zaki, author of "Hope for Cynics," Deborah explores how a hopeful mindset can empower children to face life's uncertainties with greater confidence.

Join Deborah Farmer Kris, the author of "Raising Awe-Seekers," as she shares 14 small but powerful sources of joy from 2024 -- from taking up boxing and reconnecting with theater to bedtime stories and a warm cup of afternoon tea. Noticing ordinary wonders makes life a little better.  

TRANSCRIPT: Welcome to the Parenthood365: The Minipodcast. My name is Deborah Farmer Kris, and I’m here to share practical parenting wisdom — for no more than 10 minutes at a time! When Toni Morrison passed away in 2019, I stayed up most of the night writing about one sentence she had said — a sentence that changed me as a teacher and parent. I posted it on a school blog with about five followers –  and within a month it had been read a quarter of a million times. Here it is: Many years ago, I heard an Oprah interview with the novelist Toni Morrison. Morrison described how, when her children came into the room, she thought she was showing care by fussing over their appearance, “to see if they had buckled their trousers or if their hair was combed or if their socks were up.” But that was not what they were looking for, she said. Instead, she offered a different measure for care, “Does your face light up when your kid walks in a room?” Does your expression say, I’m so glad you are here? Her words gave me an anchor point during the physically-intensive years of raising small kids. My children are a bit older now, but parenting remains beautifully messy work. We bump up against each other and fiddle with each other’s most vulnerable buttons. The emotions they hold in at school come roaring out at home. And sometimes the emotions I hold in at work do, too. Morrison’s words offer grace. Something simple and sacred that I can do every day. When my kids come down blurry-eyed and cranky in the morning, I can offer them a smile. When they come home from school, my face can be a safe landing place. And when they go to bed at night, I can muster up a final “I love you,” even if the evening went awry. Last year, when I was searching for the Toni Morrison video clip to share with a friend, I discovered that I had gotten her quote wrong – by one word. She does not say when “your” kid walks in a room. Rather she says, "When a kid walks in a room--your child or anybody else’s child--does your face light up? That’s what they’re looking for . . . let your face speak what’s in your heart. It’s just as small as that." A kid. Anybody else’s child. She wasn’t just talking about parenting. She was talking about our holy obligation to see the dignity in every person -- a dignity that Mr. Rogers offered children every day when he signed off his show with, “You've made this day a special day, by just your being you. There's no person in the whole world like you, and I like you just the way you are.” Children and teens are great anthropologists. As school counselor Phyllis Fagell told me, “Your kids have a Ph.D. in you. They are watching everything you do.” My kids are watching my face in the grocery line. They are watching how I greet the woman in a hijab in front of us and the man in a wheelchair behind us. They are watching how I greet their friends on the playground and how I interact with a stranger who stops to ask for directions in halting English. They watch my comfort -- or discomfort -- in interacting with children with different temperaments and abilities. They are looking for clues. Does my face light up, still? I think about Morrison’s words in my work as a middle and high school teacher. In the first 60 seconds of class, what does my face communicate? When a student slips in after the bell, does it say, “You’re late again,” or does it say, “I’m so glad you are here”? Harvard psychologist Dr. Susan David introduced me to the word “sawubona,” a Zulu greeting from her native South Africa. It means, “I see you.” As she shared, “Every single one of us wants to be seen. For me, ‘I see you’ means creating a space in your heart and in your home or classroom where [a child] is seen. When children and adolescents are very upset, literally just the presence of a loving person helps to de-escalate and creates the space where calm is invited in.” Most days my daughter takes the bus home, but sometimes my work schedule allows me to pick her up at school. Pick-up is in a cavernous cafetorium, with sign-out sheets and deafening noise and hundreds of kids hunting for their parents. When she enters the room, I watch her scan for me, her eyes darting about, her lips tight. And when she sees me, her face explodes with a relieved smile and she starts to run. She’s found her person. I may not get this reaction when she hits adolescence, and that’s okay. For now, I soak up that face that says, “We see each other. We belong to each other.” It reflects everything I want children to feel about themselves in my presence: that they shine, and that when my face brightens when I see them, it is simply a mirror of their inner light. Best, Deborah Farmer Kris P.S. That same year, I wrote the text of this book — which came out in March — as another way to tell kids that we love them all the time. Get full access to Raising Awe-Seekers at parenthood365.substack.com/subscribe