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For moms, and the nannies who help them show up

One less thing to plan.
One more skill they build.

Playbook Cards are personal development, disguised as play. Simple and easy to run, nothing to prep, nothing to buy, and you'll know the afternoon built something. Your nanny can run the exact same card on the days you're at work.

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One playbook, two caregivers.Built so you and your nanny are running the same plan, even on the days you're not the one home.
The research has spoken. Sources cited below ↓
71%
of household mental load falls on moms1
44%
of parents hand over a device just to get through the afternoon2
"Rx"
Pediatricians are told to prescribe play, literally3
0.27
effect size on behavior & academics from structured social-emotional play4
You already know play matters

You just don't have three spare hours to plan it.

Between work, the house, and everyone's schedule but your own, moms carry most of the invisible workload of raising kids. A 2025 study out of the University of Bath found mothers handle 71% of the household's mental load. That's the constant background thinking, planning, and remembering that nobody else sees.1

It includes the part almost nobody says out loud: having to invent what your kid is going to do, every single day, on top of everything else.

So on the hard afternoons, the easiest thing wins. Nearly half of parents of preschoolers say they hand over a device just to keep things moving.2 You only have so many good ideas left in you by 4pm, and that's just math.

"Did today build anything, or did we just get through it?"

And if a nanny has your kids most days, you're hoping those hours are better than a screen. But you can't plan someone else's whole afternoon from your desk.

50%

of mothers name guilt over not doing enough for their kids as one of their top parenting challenges. Fathers report it far less often.

KPMG, 2025 Working Parents Survey · kpmg.com
2 in 3

parents feel pressure to constantly entertain their kids. Roughly a third feel guilt or anxiety about screen time more than once a day.

C.S. Mott Children's Hospital National Poll, University of Michigan, 2025 · mottpoll.org
42%

of parents say, if they're honest, they know they could be doing better managing how their kids spend their time.

Pew Research Center, "How Parents Manage Screen Time for Kids," Oct. 2025 · pewresearch.org
Here's what's at stake

Play is the work.

Here's what the research on early childhood development says.

01
American Academy of Pediatrics

Official clinical guidance calls play "brain-building." The lead author put it plainly: pediatricians should be writing kids "a prescription for play."

Reaffirmed Jan. 2025 · publications.aap.org
02
Harvard Center on the Developing Child

Playful, back-and-forth interaction with a caring adult is what physically builds a child's brain architecture. That architecture is the foundation for executive function and lifelong resilience.

developingchild.harvard.edu
03
CASEL / SEL Research

Meta-analyses of structured social-emotional learning found measurable gains in kids' behavior and academic outcomes, with the strongest effects when it starts young.

casel.org

Which means the fifteen minutes you or your nanny spends on this today is the quiet work of making your kid steadier, more confident, and more capable, years before anyone's grading them on it.

So I built the thing you don't have time to build

The Nanny Playbook

A growing set of play plans that are already written. Each card is one complete activity you or your nanny can start in about a minute of reading. No saving fifteen tabs at 11pm. No defaulting to a show because it's 4pm and you're out of ideas. Open a card and go.

01

The Why

Two lines on what this one is for, so you know when to reach for it and what you're building by running it.

02

The Play

A simple, screen-free activity you can run at the kitchen table, in the car, or on a walk. Nothing to gather ahead of time.

03

The Conversation

A few questions to ask afterward, written out for you, so the activity turns into a moment together instead of a way to fill twenty minutes.

04

The Notice

A line to jot down what came up, so the next person with your kid can pick the thread back up. You, your nanny, a grandparent, whoever's home.

What your tiny human is working on while they play

Emotional Intelligence

They learn to notice what they're feeling and put words to it, instead of only being swept up in it. Every other skill on this list gets built on that one.

Self-Acceptance

There's no right or wrong way to play. A kid who gets to just be themselves, without needing to perform or get it right, starts to believe that who they already are is enough.

Fewer Meltdowns

A kid who has practiced slow breaths on an ordinary Tuesday has something to reach for on the hard days. The practice comes first, the calm comes later.

Self-Efficacy

The quiet belief of "I can figure this out." Kids who get to lead and solve things in play carry it into the classroom, the friendship, the hard thing at sixteen.

None of this gets built in one big conversation. It gets built at the kitchen table, in small pieces, on ordinary afternoons.

Read one before you sign up for three

Here's a whole Playbook Card

This is the entire card, on the page, no email needed. Every card follows this same shape, free or paid: the Why, the Play, the Conversation, the Notice.

Playbook Card · Free, in full
Look Again
Ages 5+ 5 to 10 min No supplies

1The Why

What you focus on is what you feel. The same moment can feel different depending on which part of it you're looking at. That's something you get to choose.

2The Play

Think of a time something felt frustrating. Talk through what happened, then find a different way to look at that same moment, one that makes it feel funny or calm instead. Then try it the other way: think of a happy memory, and see if you can find a different angle on it too.

3The Conversation

  • How did it feel to look at it a new way?
  • Did the moment feel different once you focused on something else in it?
  • How many times do you think you've been focusing on the hard part instead of another part?

4The Notice

Which moment they picked and what new angle they found. Worth remembering next time something feels frustrating.

Why it works The part of a moment you pay attention to shapes how it feels. Practicing this with easy memories first builds a skill a kid can reach for later, when a moment feels hard.
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Digital PDF · $29

The Mindfulness Playbook: five cards you won't find anywhere else.

Five Playbook Cards for taste, sound, breath, kindness, and naming a big feeling, all of them exclusive to this Playbook. A Clarity Worksheet you fill in once so you and your nanny are aiming at the same thing. Two reflection journals, one for the grown-up, one for the kid. And a practice calendar you fill in yourself. All of it in a single PDF you can print or keep on your phone.

  • 5 Playbook Cards
  • Clarity Worksheet
  • Parent / Nanny Journal
  • Kiddo Journal
  • Practice Calendar
See what's inside → Get It! $29 →

Built for moms and the nanny who help them show up.

The cards are free and they stay free. Think of them as playtime warmups, whole activities on their own, and plenty of people will never need more than these three. One of them, Belly Breathing, is also a sample from The Mindfulness Playbook, the focused practice these warmups lead into whenever you're ready for it.

Free, always
  • Three Playbook Cards: Small Goal Big Win, Belly Breathing, Look Again
  • Whole activities, start to finish. You can run one tonight, with nothing to prep and nothing to buy
  • Yours to keep and to send to your nanny, so you're both running the same thing this week

Ready to go deeper? The Mindfulness Playbook is here!

Who's behind this

I used to be the nanny showing up with no plan.

Hi, I'm Paulette. Before any of this, I was the one in the room, nannying for a family whose girls I loved like my own. I spent years of their most impressionable days with them, and most afternoons I was improvising, hoping whatever we landed on counted for something. What I noticed, eventually, is that the small things stuck the most. A few slow breaths before a hard moment. Noticing a sound outside instead of rushing past it. Tasting something on purpose instead of inhaling it between activities. I never called them lessons, and they picked it up anyway.

As a youth leadership coach across three different continents, I realized that I had the resources to help others bypass the struggles I went through. The Mindfulness Playbook are my notes of coaching and nannying blended together. It's the plan I wanted on the afternoons I was improvising, and it's written so anyone can pick it up where it left off.

A nanny and a family who are genuinely aligned, working from the same playbook, is rarer than it should be. Nannies want to do more than just get through the day. Parents want to know their kids are learning and growing in the hours they're not there. That's what this is for, and I hope you love it as much as I have loved working on it!

Paulette

Questions

Before you go

I already have a nanny. Why do I need this?
This is really built for you both. A great nanny with no plan is still improvising on the spot every afternoon, the way I did for years. A card gives them something to open instead, and it gives you something to read afterward, so the hours don't reset every time the person changes. Send them a card and you're both running the same thing this week.
My kid won't sit still for anything "structured."
Neither did the girls I nannied. Structured here just means somebody already wrote the plan for you. Most cards run 5 to 15 minutes. Giggling counts as doing it right.
Is this another guilt trip about screen time?
No. The problem is being out of ideas at 4pm. This is here so there's something equally easy to reach for that happens to build something. Some days you'll still put the show on. So do I.
What ages is this built for?
Each card lists the minimum age at the top. The maximum age? We consider that to be 110!
What's the difference between the free cards and The Mindfulness Playbook?
Think of the free set (Small Goal Big Win, Belly Breathing, Look Again) as playtime warmups, personal-development-through-play activities you can run anytime. The Mindfulness Playbook is the focused practice: five cards on taste, sound, breath, kindness, and naming a big feeling, the everyday routine that builds calm and self-regulation. One of the free three, Belly Breathing, is also a sample straight from the Playbook, so you get a taste of what's inside before you buy. It comes with a Clarity Worksheet, two journals, and a practice calendar.