Milwaukee KidsOutAndAbout Newsletter
March 5, 2026

Local in-person events this weekend

FREE events this weekend

Local in-person events next weekend

2026 Summer Camp Preview

It's CSA Sign Up Season!

Local Preschools

Big List of Indoor Play Centers

Post your organization and events to our site (It's all FREE!)

Save the Date
 

Mon, Mar 9: Junior Equine Explorers at Humane Animal Welfare Society of Waukesha (HAWS)
Tue, Mar 10: Racine Zoo School's Out Camp 
Fri, Mar 13: Community Science Fair at Science Strikes Back
Sat, Mar 14: 58th Shamrock Club of Wisconsin St. Patrick’s Day Parade! at Downtown Milwaukee
Thu, Mar 19: Homeschool Hangout Mini Unit Studies at Studio B. & Co.
Sat, Mar 21: Shen Yun 2026
Sat, Mar 21: Spring Fling Egg Hunt at Discovery World
Sun, Mar 22: The Music of The Lion King - Live in Concert at The Pabst Theater Group
Wed, Mar 25: Mini Makers at the MOWA
Sat, Mar 28: Youth Production Lab: Zombie Makeup at Milwaukee Repertory Theater
Sat, Mar 28: Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood Spring Break Pop-Up at Story Hill FireHouse
Sun, Mar 29: Hop & Hunt Easter Party! at Little Rainbows Play Place 

Dear KidsOutAndAbout readers:

When I was a teenager, I had a teacher who became a mentor without ever knowing he was one. He was aware I’d been going through some difficult times, and was glad to hear I was almost on the other side. “Some people aren't lucky enough to have dealt with hard things when they're young,” he told me. Then he added the phrase that has echoed in my head for decades: “Remember the rocks.”

Life, he explained, was always going to toss boulders into my path. The trick was to recognize, early, that even if it was painful or scary, I was capable of getting around, or over, or through them. Remembering how I’d managed would help me trust myself more when the next, bigger ones appeared.

As a parent, I think about that often, about how the only way to become someone who does hard things is… to do hard things.

It’s tempting to rush in and smooth every unpleasant obstacle our kids encounter. When we email the teacher, mend the friendship, rescue the forgotten homework, eliminate every discomfort, we may feel helpful in the moment, but in fact we’re quietly removing the practice stones they need. Resilience doesn’t come from being told “You’re strong”; it comes from evidence that only they can gather, from working through manageable challenges and thinking, That was hard. And I handled it. We don’t need to manufacture their challenges—being a kid is difficult enough. And we don’t abandon them to do it all on their own, either. We just learn to pause, to weigh advice against intervention, and to let them see what they can manage.

The goal is that later in life, when something truly difficult lands in our children's path, they won’t just hope they can manage it, they’ll know. Now, many years later, when I encounter something daunting, I think back to my mentor and remember the rocks. "I do hard things," I tell myself. And it works.

—Debra Ross, publisher of KidsOutAndAbout.com, co-author of The Eclipse Effect: How to Seize Extraordinary Moments to Build Strong Communities

KidsOutAndAbout.com: Discover more. Do more. Connect more.

If you like my publisher's column, you can easily scroll through past columns in the "Notes from Deb" section of our site.