Mind in the Making: Essential Life Skills for Children and Adults

This self-paced series is suitable for both professionals and families with children birth through eight years old. All content is accessible 24/7, so you can log on and learn anytime on a schedule that works for you.

Minnesota residents: Develop is the online registry for early childhood professional development. Develop is connected to Parent Aware, Minnesota’s Quality Rating and Improvement System (QRIS). This content is Develop-approved (Develop event: 429113).

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Essential Life Skills for Children and Adults
Cost: $130
16 clock hours awarded by CEED
Convenient online format

Check payments

If your organization wishes to pay by check, please email ceedregister@umn.edu.

Seven essential skills

Children—and adults—need more than just academic knowledge to succeed and thrive in school and in life. They also need essential life skills based on executive function. Yet such skills don’t just happen—we learn them with support and practice.

In partnership with the Families and Work Institute, CEED is offering a new 8-module online training series: Mind in the Making: Essential Life Skills for Children and Adults. The modules will prepare you to support children’s executive function using the lens of seven essential skills.

The seven essential skills are:

  • Focus and Self-Control
  • Perspective Taking
  • Communicating
  • Making Connections
  • Critical Thinking
  • Taking on Challenges
  • Self-Directed, Engaged Learning

Executive function refers to the set of attention-regulation skills that enable us to use our working memories, to think flexibly, and to use self-control to solve problems rather than acting on impulse.

Transformational learning

  • All content is pre-recorded, so you can learn at your own pace and on a schedule that works for you
  • $130 for 8 research-backed modules
  • 16 clock hours awarded by CEED
  • Learn from leading child development researchers and neuroscientists and take virtual field trips to their labs
  • Ellen Galinsky, author of Mind in the Making: The Seven Essential Life Skills Every Child Needs; motivational speaker Erin Ramsey; and nonprofit leader Jacquelyn Santiago Nazario are your guides
  • Turn research into action in your work and in your life
  • Deal with challenges and conflict with children in new ways

Embark on a journey of self-reflection and discovery that participants have called “life-changing”

A colorful graphic lists the seven essential skills which are also bulleted below

Learn more

The Mind in the Making: Essential Life Skills for Children and Adults modules curate the science of child development and translate it into accessible tools and strategies that you can apply immediately at work and at home. They include interactive exercises and activities as well as editable PDFs and downloadable workbooks for each module. You’ll learn how to help children improve their executive function, but you’ll also develop an understanding and appreciation of the role of these skills in your own life. That’s important, because when we adults see the value of executive function, we do a better job of promoting it in children. It all starts with us.

The modules include virtual field trips into leading research labs and feature the following experts so you can see classic and cutting-edge studies in action:

Lauren B. Adamson, PhD
Georgia State University

Patricia J. Bauer, PhD
Emory University

T. Berry Brazelton, MD Founder, Brazelton Touchpoints Center

Joseph J. Campos, PhD University of California, Berkeley

Stephanie Carlson, PhD
University of Minnesota

Judy S. DeLoache, PhD
University of Virginia

Adele Diamond, PhD
University of British Columbia

Carol S. Dweck, PhD
Stanford University

Anne Fernald, PhD
Stanford University

Roberta M. Golinkoff, PhD
Professor of Psychology

Alison Gopnik, DPhil
University of California, Berkeley

Wendy Grolnick, PhD
Clark University

Megan R. Gunnar, PhD
University of Minnesota

J. Kiley Hamlin, PhD
University of British Columbia

Kathryn A. Hirsh-Pasek, PhD
Temple University

Patricia K. Kuhl, PhD
University of Washington

Megan McClelland, PhD
Oregon State University

Walter Mischel, PhD
Columbia University

Charles A. Nelson III, PhD
Harvard Medical School

Gabriele Oettingen, PhD
New York University

Geetha B. Ramani, PhD
University of Maryland

Laura Schulz, PhD Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Robert S. Siegler, PhD
Carnegie Mellon University

Catherine Elizabeth Snow, PhD
Harvard University

Sharon A. Ritchie, PhD University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Bethany Rittle-Johnson, PhD
Vanderbilt University

Jenny R. Saffran, PhD Professor of Psychology University of Wisconsin, Madison

Rebecca Saxe, PhD Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Edward Z. Tronick, PhD University of Massachusetts, Boston

Samuel S.-H Wang, PhD
Princeton University

Karen Wynn, PhD
Yale University

Philip David Zelazo, PhD
University of Minnesota

The Mind in the Making team also interviewed and filmed these additional researchers whose studies have inspired and informed our work:

J. Lawrence Aber, PhD
New York University

Nameera Akhtar, PhD University of California, Santa Cruz

Heidelise Als, PhD
Harvard Medical School

Daniel R. Anderson, PhD
University of Massachusetts

Clancy Blair, PhD
New York University

Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, PhD Columbia University Institute

Laurie Brotman, PhD
New York University

Maureen A. Callanan, PhD University of California, Santa Cruz

Geoffrey Canada
Harlem Children’s Zone

Mary (Maya) Carlson, PhD
Harvard Medical School

Stanislas Dehaene, PhD
College of France

Felton J. Earls, MD
Harvard Medical School

Maurice J. Elias, PhD
Rutgers University

Kurt Fischer, PhD
Harvard University

Kelly Fisher, PhD
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Nathan A. Fox, PhD
University of Maryland

Martin F. Gardiner, PhD
Brown University

Michael S. Gazzaniga, PhD University of California, Santa Barbara

Rochel Gelman, PhD
Rutgers University

Lisa Gennetian, PhD
Duke University

Herbert P. Ginsburg, PhD
Columbia University

Susan Goldin-Meadow, PhD
University of Chicago

John Gottman, PhD University of Washington

Elena Hoicka, PhD
University of California, Santa Cruz

Carollee Howes, PhD University of California, Los Angeles

Janellen Huttenlocher, PhD
University of Chicago

Jerome Kagan, PhD
Harvard University

Frank C. Keil, PhD
Yale University

David Klahr, PhD
Carnegie Mellon University

J. Ronald Lally, EdD
Center for Child & Family Studies WestEd

Susan Levine, PhD
University of Chicago

Alicia F. Lieberman, PhD University of California, San Francisco

Kristi Lockhart, PhD
Yale University

Karen L. Mapp, Ed.D. Harvard Graduate School of Education

Andrew N. Meltzoff, PhD
University of Washington

Rochelle Newman, PhD
University of Maryland

Robert C. Pianta, PhD
University of Virginia

Michael Posner, PhD
University of Oregon

Craig T. Ramey, PhD
Carillon School of Medicine and Research

Mitchel Resnick, PhD Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Georgene L. Troseth, PhD
Vanderbilt University

Sharon A. Ritchie, PhD University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Bethany Rittle-Johnson, PhD
Vanderbilt University

Jenny R. Saffran, PhDUniversity of Wisconsin, Madison

Rebecca Saxe, PhD Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Lawrence J. Schweinhart, PhD HighScope Educational Research Foundation

Jack P. Shonkoff, MD
Harvard University

Daniel J. Siegel, MD University of California, Los Angeles

Elizabeth S. Spelke, PhD
Harvard University

Daniel N. Stern, MD University of Geneva Cornell University

Dorothy Strickland, PhD
Rutgers University

Ross A. Thompson, PhD
University of California, Davis

Whitney Weikum, PhD
University of British Columbia

Janet F. Werker, PhD
University of British Columbia

Amanda L. Woodward, PhD
University of Maryland