31 JUL 2011 by ideonexus
The FIRST Principle for Effective Punishment
Effective punishment FIRST
“F” stands for firm. The punishment must mean something. It has to be firm and aversive to be effective.
“I” stands for immediate. The closer the punishment is delivered at the point of infraction, the more effective it is.
“R” stands for reliable. The punishment must be consistently applied whenever the noxious behavior is displayed. Inconsistently applied rules are confusing and lead to uneven moral development.
“S” stands for safe. Th...
1 Firm Immediate Reliable Safe Tolerant punishment is best for children, when there is not opportunity to praise good behavior.
31 JUL 2011 by ideonexus
Guide Your Child to a $50k a Year Career
Guide your child toward a $50,000 career
People who earn six- and seven-figure incomes, studies show, are not substantially happier than those who earn five. The cutoff is about $50,000, in 2010 dollars.
1 
notes
notesThis is the median income of happy people, higher incomes than this do not come with significant increases in happiness.
31 JUL 2011 by ideonexus
Verbalize Empathy
In front of your children, verbally speculate about other people’s perspectives in everyday situations. You can wonder why the person behind you in line at a grocery is so impatient or what the joke is when a stranger talking on a cell phone laughs. It’s a natural way to practice seeing other people’s points of view—the basis of empathy. 1 notes
notesSpeculate aloud on the the motivations and perspectives of other people in front of your children to give them empathy.
31 JUL 2011 by ideonexus
A Strategy for Allowing Children Access to Digital Media
Knowing full well the need for our kids to be digitally conversant, yet fully aware of the dangers, we came up with a few rules as our boys became preschoolers. First, my wife and I divided digital experiences into categories. Two of the categories involved things necessary for school work or for learning about computers: word processing and graphics programs, web-based research projects, programming, and so on. The boys were allowed to do these as homework required.
Recreational experiences... 1 notes
notesCategorize media into constructive and fun and allow the children to earn "fun digital" time money they can spend on games or other activities.
31 JUL 2011 by ideonexus
Join a Community as Parents
For evolutionary reasons, human babies were never meant to be born and raised in isolation from a group. Psychotherapist Ruth Josselson believes it is especially important for young mothers to create and maintain an active social tribe after giving birth. There are two big problems with this suggestion: 1) Most of us don’t live in tribes, and 2) we move around so much that most of us don’t even live near our own families, our natural first tribal experience. The result is that many new pa... 1 notes
notesIncludes a great idea for cooking 50 meals for parents of a new baby.
31 JUL 2011 by ideonexus
Parenting is Receiving as Well as Giving
As a new parent, you may feel sometimes that all children do is take from you, but it is just a form of giving in disguise. Kids present you with an ear infection, but what they are really giving you is patience. They present you with a tantrum, but they are really giving you the honor of witnessing a developing personality. Before you know it, you’ve raised up another human being. You realize what a great privilege it is to be a steward of another life.
I said that parenting is all about ... 1 notes
notesWe give and give and give to our children, but in return we get to experience the wonder of watching a life develop.
31 JUL 2011 by ideonexus
Don't Spank Your Children
Over the years, many studies have been devoted to assessing the usefulness of this method, often coming to confusing—even opposing—conclusions. One of the latest lightning rods is a five-year review of the research literature by a committee of child development specialists sponsored by the American Psychological Association. The committee came out against corporeal punishment, finding evidence that spanking caused more behavioral problems than other types of punishment, producing more agg... 1 notes
notesEnough studies confirm the detrimental effects of this practice that it shouldn't even controversial, but it is.
31 JUL 2011 by ideonexus
Exercise with your Children
This rise in pediatric obesity is painful to hear in the brain science community, especially because we know so much about the relationship between physical activity and mental acuity. Exercise—especially aerobic exercise—is fanastic for the brain, increasing executive function scores anywhere from 50 percent to 100 percent. This is true across the life span, from young children to members of the golden-parachute crowd. Strengthening exercises do not give you these numbers (though ther... 1 notes
notesExercise is so important for improved cognitive function.
31 JUL 2011 by ideonexus
Recommendations for Exposing Children to Television
1. Keep the TV off before the child turns 2. I know this is tough to hear for parents who need a break. If you can’t turn it off—if you haven’t created those social networks that can allow you a rest—at least limit your child’s exposure to TV. We live in the real world, after all, and an irritated, overextended parent can be just as harmful to a child’s development as an annoying purple dinosaur.
2. After age 2, help your children choose the shows (and other screen-based expos... 1 notes
notesNo television before age two, and when television is introduced, limit consumption and use watching television as a chance for interaction to have the child think critically about what they are seeing.
31 JUL 2011 by ideonexus
An Hour of TV a Day Equals a 10 Percent Increase in Atten...
Another example comes from a study that looked at bullying. For each hour of TV watched daily by children under age 4, the risk increased 9 percent that they would engage in bullying behavior by the time they started school. This is poor emotional regulation at work. Even taking into account chicken-or-egg uncertainties, the American Association of Pediatrics estimates that 10 percent to 20 percent of real-life violence can be attributed to exposure to media violence.
TV also poisons at... 1 notes
notesEven second-hand television, just having it on the the room, causes problems; therefore, the APA recommends no Television for children for two years.
