Happy New Year, GCP’ers!! Hope you had fun welcoming in 2019 and that it will be a healthy and fulfilling year for you all. 2019 will bring a fresh look for www.groundcontrolparenting.com (coming soon, I promise!), a more concerted effort to grow the blog, and a recommitment to staying focused on how to be the best parents we can be for black and brown boys.

So much of what is posted on GCP applies equally to girls, and some (including my mildly indignant daughter) have asked why the focus remains principally on boys. Engaged, focused parenting is vitally important for girls to have as well and I often mention both genders in the posts. But let’s face it, boys and girls are different (no news there), and boys often have different issues developmentally, emotionally and politically. Parenting black and brown boys requires a special lens, which GCP is dedicated to bringing into sharper focus.

As parents of boys, our goal is to do all we can to raise smart, thoughtful, confident, joyful young men. When you throw in the negative stereotypes and biases boys of color frequently have to combat from an early age, and the disheartening stats about how boys of color can fare academically, we need all the help we can get to achieve this goal. So GCP will remain principally committed to focusing on parenting boys. And we will welcome the many instances where the parenting tips apply to raising girls of color as well.

It is also worth noting that girls of color are getting a lot of attention these days. Girl Power, Black Girl Magic and the importance of girls “becoming” are hot topics these days. This attention is richly warranted, and we at GCP are all for it. We just want to talk about how as parents we can help boys feel some power and magic as well.

Speaking of magic, I am thrilled to discover a growing audience for the magic of poetry that we highlight every week on Thoughtful Thursday. Focusing on finding works of black and brown poets and curating their poems around a theme is so much fun, and I love that we can enchant and enrich our children with these works on a weekly basis. Gotta say it is one of my favorite posts to research and write each week, and I am happy that it is gaining an enthusiastic audience. Feel free to comment with suggested themes or poets—I am all ears.

So here is to a productive year of parenting wisely and well. Thanks for reading GCP. Thanks for telling your friends about us and sharing our posts with them. Thanks too if you have participated in any GCP live talks and/or webinars in 2018–more to come this year. And please stay tuned; we resolve to get bigger and better in 2019!