I know this community is all about helping young people prepare for the future, and with applications closing TOMORROW, I really wanted to share this in case it could benefit a family here. I'm partnering with the Baxi Family to help spread the word about their FREE Future Leaders Challenge for young adults ages 18–25. This opportunity goes beyond a scholarship. Participants will develop practical skills that will serve them for years to come, including: 💰 Financial literacy 🗣️ Communication 🌟 Leadership 🚀 Entrepreneurship They'll also have the chance to compete for a $1,000 scholarship, five $100 runner-up scholarships, and a trip to Passion Conference. As someone who started my first business at 18, I know firsthand how valuable these kinds of skills are. They're the things that help young adults navigate a rapidly changing world with confidence. If you know a son, daughter, student, or young adult who could benefit, I'd love for you to share this with them before applications close. 🎓 Apply here: https://mbaxi.com/scholarship-challenge-2699 Thank you, Jude, and thank you to everyone in this community for investing in the next generation. 💙

Help this Mamma out please. Exams start tomorrow and neither have started to study! 🤔 As a Mom who detests exams for so many reasons, (mostly because I think they serve little purpose when we're forcing it on our kids under the disguise of learning, but that's a rant for a different day... ) I am also fully aware of the more important lessons that this season can teach us... Both my kids are neurodiverse - my 16 year old has ADHD and dyslexia and my 13 year old has ADHD, is 'gifted' and has many of the learning difficulties that comes with that specific diagnosis. As you can imagine exams are a mess in our home (we know neurodiversity is hereditary so things like routine, getting started and having all their notes in a file rather than scrunched up in the bottom of their bags) is a very real thing..... So... my question is this: Even though I don't care much about the exams, I do very much care about equipping my kids with the tools and systems that they will need for the rest of their lives to work WITH their neurodiversity to unlock their strengths and super powers while still managing the struggles and challenges that ND adds to the equation. I managed / masked my AuDHD all my life, and then perimenopause hit... and it's only been in the last 18 months or so that I've come to terms with what always feeling different, not good enough, always trying to prove myself and being so hard on myself for all the things I do badly (leaving everything to the very last minute, exploding after 9pm when my sensory bucket is saying it cant cope with another thing, overthinking everything and not finishing things). I want my kids to be aware of their hurdles, know what to work on, know what to outsource, and know that they bring so many of the skills the world needs right now. (problem solving, thinking out the box, empathy, hyperfocus etc) So.... back to the exams.... any suggestions as to how we turn this fortnight into a learning experience? And yes, they will buckle down and study, generally the night before when the adrenaline is pumping with the deadline....

Someone's driving through the Outback in Australia. Farm after farm, all of them fenced - high, tight, everything built to keep the sheep in. And then he passes a farm with no fences at all. Nothing. He thinks, how does this even work? So he knocks on the door and asks the farmer: "Everyone here has fences - how do you keep your sheep?" And the farmer says, "I don't need fences. I just sink more wells." Because the sheep are smart enough to know - out there, you don't wander far from your water. So when we want kids to show up - for music, for reading, for anything - our instinct is to build a fence. Make it compulsory. More rules and control. But you can't fence a child into loving something. The wells are a completely different question, and rather than asking "how do we make them join?", we ask "what would make them want to participate?" The wells are the good stuff. It's belonging, purpose. It's more choice, deeper relationships, being seen, and more autonomy. Give a child that... and you won't need as many fences. You won't be able to keep them away. Maybe it's a game you offer, maybe it's just connecting before correcting. Maybe it's more questions and less lecturing? I don't have the answers, but perhaps we tried less fencing them in, and more sinking of wells. 💛 Let us know if you have any ideas?

- Our kids deserve more than being asked to learn through worksheets, grades and being threatened with failure. - Having worked with a team of futurists for over 17 years I know, without a doubt that the 'future' I was raised for is NOTHING like the future I'm raising my kids for. Yet somehow most people still parent like it's 1983 - Social media, tech, screen time shouldn't be the enemy..... Rather how we decide to use the various tech tools we have available to us, and what we model for our kids, is what we should be focusing on. - Also..... when in doubt find a puppy to snuggle, calm your nervous system, touch grass and remind yourself of this one magical life we get to live.... (And since this is the first post here I'm still trying to figure out how to post my photo of said puppy.) - Anyone else here being more intentional about -'raising tomorrow' - whether at home, at school or even at work.