We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Cara Nemchek a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Cara , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

At CARA: Confidence Around Reading Anxiety, we’re on a mission to change the emotional experience of learning –
one moment, one child, one family at a time.

We believe that learning is meant to feel good. That’s why we, as educators, prioritize a child’s emotional experience. Because we understand that how a child feels – moment to moment – determines whether or not they’re available to learn. My methodology, the CARA method, was born out of the fact that the brain can’t learn when it’s in a state of stress.

Performance anxiety, fear of failure, worry, low self-esteem all create a stress response in the brain: Fight or flight goes on, and the ability to learn something new shuts off.

How do we turn the ability to learn back on? Through safety, joy, and play. My CARA method integrates reading, play, and self-esteem for the most effective learning experience.

So, how did this come to be? Well, I spent over a decade running intensive reading clinics, designing individualized plans for children that learn differently. As Executive Director, I loved my job, but I watched child after child shut down because they didn’t feel good enough.

I knew there was something missing from education. And I empathized with these sensitive kids.

As an actively recovering perfectionist, I knew all too well how emotions can get in the way of learning. I also knew the value of a growth mindset in attacking life’s challenges and felt compelled to integrate this emotional learning with my reading expertise.

Now I’ve pioneered a method that fosters self-esteem and engages a child’s natural curiosity. I believe that play and emotional validation are the keys to making learning feel good. And that it is possible for a child to learn to read and learn to believe in themselves at the same time!

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Hi, I’m Cara! I’m a reading specialist and parent coach, and I love helping anxious kids fall in love with reading.
Because what is life if not learning? Consistently. I loved the decade I spent running intensive reading clinics, but I watched child after child shut down because they didn’t feel good enough. And the truth is, I knew that feeling all too well. As an actively recovering perfectionist, I knew what it felt like to want to get something so right and be so hard on yourself at the same time. That internal pressure had stopped me in my tracks more times that I’d like to admit. I wanted to relieve kids of this performance anxiety and meet them with the compassionate cheerleading my parents never had the tools to do. So I started a private practice with the big goal of teaching reading and self-esteem at the same time. Now, CARA services students around the globe with playful, remote instruction, supports parents with compassion, and is known for my methodology – the CARA method – which embraces the face that learning doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It’s not just academic. It’s emotional.

Any advice for managing a team?

In the last five years, I’ve grown from a solo-preneur to having an amazing team of six reading specialists. Some of my best advice is to hire people who are aligned with your company values and who could do their jobs without you, but don’t want to. Let them work in their zone of genius. Treat them like humans. Operate with gratitude and respect.

All of my reading specialists have the expertise and mastery to do this work independently, but they don’t want to exist in a vacuum, nor do they want to be business owners themselves. They have unmatched passion, professionalism, and independence, but they love being part of the team because they are held with a high level of support around tricky students, client communication, and other hurdles when they need it.

In addition, each of my specialists has a type of student they love to support, and I love letting them. They develop incredible expertise and a robust toolset of reading games and emotional strategies when they’re allowed to continuously play in their zone of genius. They know their strengths are honored and that truly allows them to shine.

And then most importantly of all, as a leader, do your internal emotional work so that you don’t take your triggers out on your team. I personally prefer 1:1 interactions most of the time so that I can have honest human interactions with them as individuals. I love my team, I respect their expertise, and I am so incredibly grateful. I tell them and show them that as often as I can.

If you have multiple revenue streams in your business, would you mind opening up about what those streams are and how they fit together?

I built my business on our 1:1 services, but I know not every family is in the position to invest at that level, nor do they need to. And, I’m an artist at heart with lots of color and play bursting through me, so I’m always looking to create!

On that note, I love to create resources that support parents in working with their own kids at home. The parent-child relationship is sacred, but can also be loaded emotionally. I have a paid mini course that helps parents take the role of compassionate cheerleader and infuse play into reading. It’s a low price point, designed to be a no brainer for parents in need of quick solutions to take the struggle out of reading with their own child, and is a nice supplementary stream of revenue.

And on the side, I love to paint! I’ve just started sharing and selling my art, and am having a lot of fun letting this part of me be seen. My art is often how my inner child expresses or processes big feelings, so it feels tied to the work I do with kids, and has the added bonus of creating a little trickle of extra revenue that I’m grateful for.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.caranemchek.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/caralauren_art/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/cara-nemchek-llc