In this episode, Dr. Erin Bailey hosts a conversation with bestselling children's authors and educators Susan Verde and Emma Walton Hamilton, exploring how to nurture a lifelong love of reading in children amidst the distractions of the digital age. The discussion highlights the cognitive and emotional benefits of reading, contrasts the effects of screen time versus print, and offers practical strategies for parents and educators to foster curiosity and joy around books. Key takeaways include starting to read with children early and often, modeling reading as a pleasurable activity, connecting books to children's passions and daily life, and allowing autonomy in book choices. The guests also introduce the Enlightened Generation initiative, which pairs books with themed clothing to reinforce learning and curiosity. The episode concludes with a Q&A, emphasizing the importance of preserving the connection between reading and joy, and encouraging flexibility and patience in supporting young readers.About Susan Verde:Susan Verde is a #1 New York Times bestselling and award-winning author and yoga-mindfulness expert. Susan has written over 20 books for children and adults, including all nine books in the New York Times bestselling I Am series illustrated by Peter H. Reynolds. Her picture book The Water Princess was an ALA Notable Children’s Book, Amazon Best Book of the Month, and New York Public Library Best Book. Her nonfiction book for adults, Say One Kind Thing, is an original essay collection about the power of positive self-talk and her reflections on motherhood.  In addition to her writing career, Susan co-founded Enlightened Generation, a groundbreaking children’s clothing brand with an impact-driven mission. She earned a bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education and a Master’s degree in reading remediation and was an elementary school teacher for many years. She is now certified in yoga and mindfulness and teaches workshops for kids of all ages. Susan currently lives in East Hampton, New York with her rescue dogs, 2 cats, and three children.  About Emma Walton Hamilton:EMMA WALTON HAMILTON is a best-selling and award-winning author, editor, producer and writing coach. Together with her mother, Julie Andrews, she has co-authored over thirty-five books for children and adults, nine of which have been on the New York Times best-seller list, including The Very Fairy Princess series (#1 NY Times Bestseller) and Andrews' second memoir, Home Work: A Memoir of My Hollywood Years. A Bridport Prize-winning poet, Emma's poetry collection, Door to Door, was published by Andrews McMeel, and her book for parents and caregivers, Raising Bookworms: Getting Kids Reading for Pleasure and Empowerment, premiered as a #1 best-seller on Amazon.com in the literacy category and won a Parent's Choice Gold Medal. Emma was a two-time Emmy Award nominee for her role as Executive Producer and Writer for Julie's Greenroom, a children's television program about the performing arts created for Netflix, starring Julie Andrews and co-produced by the Jim Henson Company. Emma is also a Grammy Award-winning voice-over artist, having provided voicing for numerous audiobooks, including Julie Andrews’ Collection of Poems, Songs and Lullabies (2010 Grammy Award, Best Spoken Word Album for Children), as well as numerous radio, television, theater and industrial spots. Currently, she and her mother co-host and co-produce Julie's Library, a story-time podcast for family audiences produced by American Public Media. A faculty member for Stony Brook University’s MFA in Creative Writing and Literature, Emma teaches all forms of children’s book writing at the graduate and undergraduate level and serves as Director of their annual Children’s Literature Conference, as well as Executive Director of the Young Artists and Writers Project (YAWP), an interdisciplinary writing program for middle and high school students. A former actress and theatre director, Emma was a co-founder of Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor, where she served as co-Artistic Director and Director of Education and Programming for Young Audiences for 17 years. Emma is also the co-creator of Picture Book Summit, the world-class, annual online conference for picture book writers, and The Complete Picture Book Submissions System. Independently, Emma o`ers home-study courses and other products and resources for writers at her website, EmmaWaltonHamilton.com. An accomplished public speaker, she regularly addresses conferences, schools, universities and other groups about the value of, and synergy between, the arts and literacy.

Is your life a blur of unfinished projects, constant distraction, and internal chaos? That’s your Restless Saboteur—addicted to the dopamine rush of novelty and terrified of boredom. This episode dissects the neuroscience of distraction, explaining how your brain's reward system sabotages your sustained focus. You'll gain the critical tool: PQ Reps, designed to anchor your mind and strengthen your attention centers. Stop chasing the next thing. Tune in to find stillnes...

 Do you leave difficult conversations feeling physically exhausted? You might be falling for the Empathy Fallacy. In this episode, we expose why "feeling what others feel" is a direct path to burnout and high cortisol. We dive into the neuroscience of the "Pain Mirror" versus the "Compassion Circuit," showing you how to support others without absorbing their stress. Learn how to use PQ Reps as an emotional circuit breaker to shift from draining empathy to sustainable Sage Compassion. It’s time to stop drowning with those you're trying to save and start lowering the ladder instead. 

When I first started working in the schools in the early 2000s, there was a push for integrating technology into classrooms and therapy sessionsIt was even a box that got checked on my employee evaluation.Now there’s a defined space referred to as “EdTech”. It took me a while to realize that this was a thing, and I didn’t even realize I was a part of it until someone referred to me as the “EdTech person” during a job interview (they were “FinTech” people, short for “Financial Technology”).In the work I do now creating a caseload management system, I often think about how important it is to define who the intended user of technology is. In product development, we refer to this as the “end user”.Sometimes the end user is an administrator pulling analytics or managing the budget. Sometimes it’s a teacher or clinician collecting data, managing a schedule, tracking referrals, or trying to reduce the administrative burden of their jobs so they can focus on human connection instead of paperwork.Sometimes it’s a professional providing virtual therapy to students to increase access to services. And sometimes, the end user is the student.  When we think about how technology is helping or hurting education, we have to look at each of these verticals separately. A common answer I get when I talked to district leaders about technology is this:“We know technology has caused problems and is often poorly utilized. But what we were doing before wasn’t working either.” We had service deserts where therapy wasn’t accessible. There were clinicians spending hours on paperwork or data collection. We had administrators without the data they needed to evaluate what’s working or manage fiscal resources.That’s why I wanted to have a conversation about how technology is being used, and what is and isn’t working. I invited Maura Connor from BetterSpeech on to this episode to start the conversation. This episode is the first half of our interview. Maura Connor is an accomplished executive leader with deep expertise at the intersection of education and healthcare technology. She currently serves as Chief Operating Officer of Better Speech, where she is leading the launch of Streamline, an AI-powered special education management platform that helps districts reduce administrative complexity for providers and teachers, ensure compliance visibility, and strengthen support for students and families. With a career spanning executive roles in ed tech, health tech, and clinical operations, Maura has built a reputation for scaling organizations, driving innovation, and leading high-performing teams through periods of transformation. Her work focuses on uniting vision, strategy, and execution to deliver measurable outcomes for schools, clinicians, and the communities they serve. Maura is passionate about advancing solutions that enable educators and clinicians to spend more time on direct impact—helping children grow, thrive, and reach their potential—while ensuring that systems of care are more efficient, compliant, and sustainable.You can connect with Maura on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maura-connor-2508929/Learn more about BetterSpeech’s telehealth platform and services here: https://www.betterspeech.com/Learn more about Streamline by BetterSpeech here: https://www.streamline-sped.com/why-streamlineStreamline is an AI solution that automates evaluation, service tracking, and compliance workflows, freeing up time for clinical judgement and engagement. In this episode, I mentioned Language Therapy Advance Foundations, my program that gives speech pathologists a framework for building language skills needed to thrive in school, social situations, and daily life. You can learn more about the program here: https://drkarenspeech.com/languagetherapy