KDN — The Kid Development Network

AirTag Nation — When Does Tracking Become Too Much?Does the System Actually Help Teachers Get Better?The School Is the SystemComing Soon — You Said Yes to the Phone — Now What?Coming Soon — Is Your Kid's School Actually Safe?Coming Soon — SEL in the ClassroomNew Episodes Weekly — Subscribe NowAirTag Nation — When Does Tracking Become Too Much?Does the System Actually Help Teachers Get Better?The School Is the SystemComing Soon — You Said Yes to the Phone — Now What?Coming Soon — Is Your Kid's School Actually Safe?Coming Soon — SEL in the ClassroomNew Episodes Weekly — Subscribe Now

Meet the Hosts

Two perspectives. One question:
what actually helps kids thrive?

Sarah brings the school-systems and child-development lens. Eric brings the parent perspective — the practical, skeptical questions families are already asking. Together, they look at the environments, routines, relationships, and tools that shape how kids grow.

Host · Systems Builder · School System Thinker

Sarah Habib

Founder & CEO, The Calm Caterpillar

Sarah has spent more than a decade building practical mindfulness, movement, and regulation tools for schools and families. Her work has reached thousands of students and has been studied for measurable gains in classroom behavior and social development. She brings the field-tested, practitioner perspective to KDN.

→Learn more about Sarah

Co-Host · Parent Lens · Practical Skeptic

Eric Elias

Co-Host & Resident Questioner

Eric asks the questions parents are already thinking: what works, what's overhyped, and what should families actually do next? He brings the parent perspective, the systems lens, and a bias toward clear answers over vague advice.

→Meet Eric

Tech & Safety

AirTag Nation: When Does Tracking Become Too Much?

At what age do you start tracking your kid’s location — and more importantly, when do you stop? Sarah and Eric dig into the uncomfortable question every parent is quietly asking: is the AirTag in your kid’s backpack about their safety, or your anxiety? They break down the research on surveillance parenting, build a real age-by-age framework, and answer the questions parents are actually Googling at midnight.

Pilot Episode

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Education

Does the System Actually Help Teachers Get Better?

Iranetta Wright — Former Superintendent & CEO, Cincinnati Public Schools

Iranetta has been a classroom teacher, a principal, a chief of schools for 117,000 students, and the superintendent of a major urban district. Sarah and Eric put her through the PTI format — timed, honest, no softening — to answer the question most parents never think to ask: when a teacher is struggling, does the system around them actually help them get better? PIPs, principal accountability, burnout, unions — all of it, on the clock.

Episode 02

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Education

The School Is the System

Jimmy Zuniga — School Leader & Education Systems Designer

Jimmy went to the school he eventually ran as its Executive Director. He’s seen the inside of a high school from every angle — as a student, a teacher, a principal, and a national advisor to school leaders. Sarah and Eric ask the questions parents feel but can’t name: what does a school’s culture actually feel like when it’s working, who builds it, and how do you know when the system around your kid is quietly failing?

Episode 03

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Tech & Safety

You Said Yes to the Phone — Now What?

You caved. Or you made a thoughtful decision. Either way, your kid has a smartphone and now you need a plan. Sarah and Eric break down what actually happens in the first six months — the sleep, the social comparison, the group chats — and build a practical framework for the parents who are already in it and need to know what to do next.

Coming Soon

Education

Is Your Kid’s School Actually Safe?

Andy Roszak — Institute for Childhood Preparedness

95% of American schools now run active shooter drills. A study of 54 million social media posts found anxiety and depression in kids go up 42% in the 90 days after those drills. So are we making kids safer — or just more afraid? Andy Roszak is a paramedic, firefighter, attorney, and the person who literally wrote the book on active shooter preparedness for preschools. This one is going to be hard to hear and impossible to stop listening to.

Coming Soon

Teaching Kids to Feel Things: SEL in the Classroom

Social-emotional learning has become a political lightning rod — half the country thinks it’s essential, the other half thinks it’s overreach. Sarah and Eric cut through the noise and get into what the research actually says about building emotionally resilient kids, what good SEL looks like inside a classroom, and what parents can do when the school isn’t doing enough — or is doing too much.

Coming Soon

The Group Chat Problem: Social Media & Middle School

The group chat runs at 2am. Nobody’s supervising it. And your kid is in it. Sarah and Eric get into what’s actually happening to kids’ social lives and emotional development when their peer relationships move online — the exclusion, the performance, the anxiety — and what parents can realistically do about a problem that didn’t exist ten years ago.

Coming Soon

What We're
Talking About.

Real questions. Honest answers. No parenting influencer energy. Just the conversations that actually matter.

At what age do you stop tracking your kid’s location?

AirTags, Find My, Life360 — where does safety end and surveillance begin?

How are teachers really evaluated — and does it work?

PIPs, observations, merit pay, tenure — the systems meant to improve teaching quality.

The smartphone handover — what parents need to know first

Contracts, parental controls, conversations — practical frameworks that actually stick.

Montessori, Waldorf, Reggio — or just a good teacher?

Separating methodology from marketing in early childhood education.

Is your kid anxious — or just a kid?

The over-diagnosis question, childhood stress, and when to actually be concerned.

What do kids actually need from their parents right now?

Not a parenting theory. Just the research — and real families putting it into practice.

RaisingKidsToday.

Two perspectives. One question:what actually helps kids thrive?

What We'reTalking About.

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Raising
Kids
Today.

Two perspectives. One question:
what actually helps kids thrive?

What We're
Talking About.