Have Children Tell Stories to Reduce Anxieties

A toddler falls and scrapes an elbow. A kindergartner loses a beloved pet. A fifth-grader faces a bully at school. When a child experiences painful, disappointing, or scary moments, it can be overwhelming, with big emotions and bodily sensations flooding the right brain. When this happens, we as parents can help bring the left hemisphere into the picture so that the child can begin to understand what’s happening. One of the best ways to promote this type of integration is to help retell the...

 How the Internet Serves as a Plot Device in Modern Story ...

In the tween movie Twilight, heroine Bella discovers that her boyfriend Edward is a vampire by consulting a website with a convenient link to supernatural occurrences in her very own tiny town. The Internet is here collectively written, but perfectly tailored to exactly her individual needs. It is not the wizened woman in the house down the road that holds the truth to Edward's identity, but an anonymous and multiply sourced repository of lore. A silent film would have cut to an intertitle t...