There will be a Vook (a video book), book clubs for parents and teachers, videos of the experiments and learning modules for teachers and parents.

Throughout her career, Ellen has been studying how children and adults learn best and using what she has learned to fuel change—at Bank Street College of Education where she helped to create the field of work and family life; as the elected president of the National Association for the Education of Young Children, the largest professional group of early childhood educators; and later as president of the organization she cofounded, Families and Work Institute.

When asked what led to this book Ellen recounted experiences from conversations with parents. “Parents today,” she said, “feel overwhelmed about the amount of information out there—they don’t have time to read everything and they don’t know what to read.” In response, Ellen and colleagues from New Screen Concepts, a film production company, spent eight years filming over 75 leading researchers in action as they conducted actual studies so that Ellen could pull together what we know about children’s development and learning.

“As we interviewed and filmed child development researchers,” she said, “I had an ‘aha’ moment: we have focused on the content that young children need to learn, but we have paid much less attention to promoting the life skills I know are essential from the research I have conducted both on children and on adults in the workforce. My new book, Mind in the Making, explores seven essential life skills.”

All of these skills involve the part of our brain that weaves together our social, emotional and intellectual capacities and that enables us to use what we know in pursuit of our goals. If that sounds intimidating, it isn’t. Ellen says, “These are skills that any child can learn, any adult can teach—no expensive equipment needed—and it is never too late. They just involve doing everyday things with children.”

Ellen gives two examples. One of her skills is Focus and Self Control. “We have only to think of our multi-tasking lives to know how hard this can be and we don’t want to pass our feelings of being overwhelmed or distracted on to our children!” As one way to promote this skill, she suggests playing Simon says do the opposite. “If the leader says, ‘Simon says touch your head,’ your kids should touch their toes. They have to resist the temptation to go on automatic to play that game.”

Another skill is Perspective Taking, which means understanding that someone else can think and feel differently than you do. The skill of perspective taking is essential in school and relationship success as well as conflict prevention. To promote this skill, Ellen suggests asking kids why the characters they read about in books or see on TV might have acted as they did.

Ellen concludes: “This has been an inspiring journey for me—to distill the latest scientific research into the seven understandable, teachable skills that predict success in the 21st century—skills that everyone can work into their daily lives.”