As a translator of ideas and facilitator of dialogue, Dr. Laura Jana is on a mission to change the parenting paradigm and the public conversation about the skills needed for success in the 21st Century. She has appeared on The Today Show, CNN, NPR, Good Morning America, ABC News, NBC News and Fox News and has been quoted extensively in outlets such as Time, People, WebMD, Parents magazine, The New York Times and USA Today. Dr. Jana serves as a media spokesperson for the American Academy of Pediatrics and has served on the national Executive Committee for Early Education and Child Care.
To arrange an interview or request Dr. Jana as a speaker
Dr. Laura Jana, March 17, 2017
Handling and chewing on books is one of the very earliest precursors to literacy. After all, we know that in order to become proficient in a skill down the road, young children (and adults, for that matter) first have to be interested, curious and engaged. For an infant, using their mouth and their hands are the WIGGLE tools they have available at that stage for exploring the world – and the books – around them. Read more
Marblespark, March 14, 2017
Jana’s experience with hundreds of families at Primrose, raising her own three children, attending innovation conferences, TED talks, talking with business leaders, authoring other parenting books, consulting, her role as a pediatrician (the list could go on) has given her unique insight into how our rapidly changing world might impact our children. Read more
Brandon McDermott, March 10, 2017
“What do we want our kids to have as skills in the future,” – “how do we get there?” – “How do we adapt what we do as parents in a changing world?” – “Are the skills that we’re seeing what our children need?” It applies not just to parents, but it’s the same thing in the workplace. If you look at the shift of what do employers now hire for, they want to know when you failed and what did you do about it, how did you adapt? It’s nice to have accomplishments, I’m not saying that the cognitive IQ skills – the reading, writing and arithmetic aren’t important but this whole new set of skills is equally important in the workplace for parents and then for children. Read more
Mel Miller, March 1, 2017
Jana provides insight into those skills children will need to adapt to a rapidly changing world, skills like creativity, critical thinking, character, empathy, adaptability, grit, perseverance, drive, and resilience. Read more
Shevonne Hunt, February 28, 2017
“I’m telling parents the talking, cooing, singing, reading books to babies is not just warm and fuzzy, something fun to do each day…” says Laura. “You’re literally connecting neurons in your baby’s brain and what’s striking is that the skills now that are being identified in the business world, and innovation and entrepreneurial worlds, they are preschool skills that take their roots from what happens in those early years.” Read more
Elizabeth Kumru, February 27, 2017
The best way to cultivate QI Skills involves many things parents naturally do — including talking, cooing, singing and reading books to babies. In connecting with business leaders, economists and entrepreneurs, she discovered that the skills most coveted in today’s workforce are the very same as those that are best nurtured in the first five years of life. Read more
Daytona Times, February 23, 2017
“We now know that IQ no longer represents an accurate predictor of school readiness, much less future life success,” said Dr. Laura Jana, a pediatrician and nationally acclaimed parenting and children’s book author.
“It’s not just about learning the ‘3 Rs’ of reading, ’riting and ’rithmetic anymore. It’s the addition of a fourth ‘R’ that represents relationships and the importance of reading other people, which sets children up for success in today’s world.” Read more
Matthew Hansen, February 17, 2017
The assembly line is dead, and with it should die the rote memorization and safety-at-all-costs approach to parenting, she says. Instead, we can help kids with skills — skills like empathy, self-motivation and even how to fail — vital in an era where the only constant is change. Think about this, she says: Research predicts that today’s average third-grader will eventually find employment in a job that has yet to be invented. Read more
Sue Shellenbarger, February 7, 2017
Impersonating a superhero helps children learn to see things from another’s perspective, a form of empathy that is an important foundational skill for success in adulthood, says Laura Jana, a pediatrician and author of “The Toddler Brain.” She adds, “The child is literally starting to train the brain to think like, be like and act like someone else,” says Dr. Jana, director of innovation at the University of Nebraska College of Public Health in Omaha. Read more
Killeen Daily Herald, December 28, 2016
“In today’s social media-focused world, 92 percent of parents agree that nurturing positive character traits in children is more important than it used to be. Yet nearly 50 percent of parents are unaware of just how early they can and should start helping their children develop these traits.” Read more
In a recent survey, parents overwhelming agreed that good character traits were important. Yet, nearly half said preschool is too young for children to start learning critical social-emotional skills, like getting along with others and compassion. Why? Dr. Laura Jana is a board-certified pediatrician and proud mother of three. She’s also an award-winning parenting and children’s books author. She joins us to debunk some misconceptions about what our kids can learn. Listen now
The Daily Doze, October 25, 2016
“Focusing on how everyone in the family is sleeping is important for the simple reason that parental sleep is inevitably tied to how well one’s child sleeps (or, in some cases, doesn’t).” Read more
CNN, October 10, 2016
“Huge belly buttons, acne befitting an adolescent and swollen breasts (on boys, too!) are just a few of the surprises that sometimes await parents. “I can get some really panicked parents,” said Dr. Laura Jana, pediatrician and co-author of “Heading Home with Your Newborn: From Birth to Reality.” “There are many things that look so dramatic but actually are perfectly normal.” Read more
New York Magazine, December 22, 2015
“It is a stressful time to be a parent. Amidst an explosion of oft-conflicting advice on how to help your kids flourish — or at least not screw them up too badly — parents could be excused for getting a bit freaked out. Which advice should you follow? Who is a genuine “expert” when it comes to the sometimes-science, sometimes-art of raising kids?” Read more
Healthline, October 6, 2015
“Everybody likes to talk about a baby’s smile. Is it gas or is it a smile? These are important and fun conversations to have, but there’s much more to a baby’s smile than that,” Dr. Laura Jana, director of innovation at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, told Healthline. Read more
