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Interesting read “Ninety-eight percent of families with children now have smartphones. Young children Nathan's age consume over two hours of media per day on average, tweens take in about six hours, and teens use their devices for nine hours a day, according to the nonprofit Common Sense Media.
Technology overuse ranked as the No. 1 fear of parents of teenagers in a national survey last year.”
At Your Wits' End With A Screen-Obsessed Kid? Read This
www.kqed.org
NPR's Life Kit sent a parenting expert to help a family cope with its kids' device fixation. The family learned that setting media boundaries means more than limiting the time kids spend on screens.
Interesting article research based “Wake up and be grateful! When you wake up in the morning, recall the fact that you woke up! You’re breathing. You’re alive! Chances are you have water to drink, some food to eat and a roof over your head. Maybe you have some children. Maybe they are healthy. Maybe your house is warm. Maybe you have a job. The list can be endless if we search for them. My children and I have our list of ‘thank yous’ that start our day: “Thank you, Earth. Thank you, Sun. Thank you, Rain. Thank you, Water. Thank you, Air. Thank you, Bugs. Thank you, Fire. Thank you, Trees. Thank you, Birds. Thank you, Bees. Thank you, Fish. Thank you, Wind. Thank you, Plants. Thank you, Animals…” My son usually likes to throw things in like snakes, lizards, moles and the like. The baby usually tosses in, “Thank you, milk.”
Study: Gratitude Literally Rewires Your Brain
achnews.org
We are living in interesting times. It feels like time itself is speeding up. Days are flying by in a blur of wake-up/get kids to school/go to work/clean the house (or not)/make supper/go to bed. Thos...Short Read research based “Electronic toys for infants that produce lights, words and songs were associated with decreased quantity and quality of language compared to playing with books or traditional toys such as a wooden puzzle, a shape-sorter and a set of rubber blocks, according to an article published online by JAMA Pediatrics.
The reality for many families of young children is that opportunities for direct parent-child play time is limited because of financial, work, and other familial factors. Optimizing the quality of limited parent-child play time is important.
While playing with electronic toys there were fewer adult words used, fewer conversational turns with verbal back-and-forth, fewer parental responses and less production of content-specific words than when playing with traditional toys or books. Children also vocalized less while playing with electronic toys than with books, according to the results.”
neurosciencenews.com
Modern electronic infant toys that produce lights, songs and words are associated with a decrease in language quality and quantity in babies compared to more traditional toys, a new study reports.Saoirse Ní Mhaolalaidh
Jamie Reilly
No surprise there!
Andres Garcia
Helpful Article “One form of anxiety is social anxiety. From the minute we wake up until we head back to sleep, we're part of the social world. The social world is steeped in hidden rules, unspoken expectations and social hierarchies that can feel daunting. The actions and reactions of others can feel highly unpredictable. Whether we're at recess, in a workplace meeting, walking in a crowd, planning to talk to someone, thinking about the answer to a teacher's question, or responding to another person’s unanticipated request for help, the social world can be a continuous minefield of anxieties. We can generally make sense of our own thoughts and reactions. But it’s harder to predict or understand the situation we're in or others' thoughts and feelings about us. This makes it hard to know how to maneuver through the social world.”
14 Tips to Help Kids Learn to Manage Anxiety
www.socialthinking.com
Teach kids to recognize and manage their anxiety.
Good Read “Porges’s, Polyvagal Theory. This has been a golden age for brain research. We now have amazing brain scans that show which networks in the brain ramp up during different activities. But this emphasis on the brain has subtly fed the illusion that thinking happens only from the neck up. It’s fed the illusion that the advanced parts of our thinking are the “rational” parts up top that try to control the more “primitive” parts down below
So it’s interesting how many scientists are now focusing on the thinking that happens not in your brain but in your gut. You have neurons spread through your innards, and there’s increasing attention on the vagus nerve, which emerges from the brain stem and wanders across the heart, lungs, kidney and gut.
The vagus nerve is one of the pathways through which the body and brain talk to each other in an unconscious conversation. Much of this conversation is about how we are relating to others. Human thinking is not primarily about individual calculation, but about social engagement and co-operation.”
The brain isn’t the only part of your body that thinks
www.irishtimes.com
Scientists are now focusing on the thinking that happens in your gutLouellen Cox
4 minute read “Terrible twos” has been around for generations. “Threenager” started making parenting blog headlines in 2015, an acknowledgment that the challenges of toddlerhood don’t vanish with a poof on a kid’s third birthday.....
Even the most even-keeled toddlers have their moments, which is why these expressions became popular in the first place. “Terrible twos” emerged in the 1950s, when mothers were under a particular cultural pressure to perform their role with elegance and ease: dinner on the table by 5, immaculately well-behaved children, not a stain in sight. How to account, then, for strong-willed toddlers who would not or could not conform to that standard? There had to be a way to deflect the mortification, a universally understood shrug: What can you do? It’s just the terrible twos.
We call them ‘terrible twos’ (and worse), but toddlers are just learning how to be people
www.washingtonpost.com
How does it affect parents — and kids — when we use negative words to describe an age group?
