Parent question: I am looking for a good technique to stop my 5 yr old from hitting me when he doesn’t get his way. I usually use the 1-2-3 counting and then time out in his room, but find for hitting it doesn’t work well, because I am not going to let him hit me… Read More →
If you haven’t seen the Caine’s Arcade video, you should watch it immediately. In fact, here it is: The magic of this video is that transports us into the vibrant world of childhood imagination. Caine’s imagination manifests in an elaborate handmade arcade (his tools: cardboard, tape, scissors, and markers). Watching Caine at work reminds me… Read More →
School districts strapped for cash and facing pressure to increase test scores often try to preserve classroom instruction by making cuts to physical education and recess. Districts are making very difficult decisions and I don’t envy them! Unfortunately, based on the latest brain science, cutting exercise can be counterproductive. Brains and Bodies Are Connected Think… Read More →
Many parents share your love/hate relationship with technology. This ambivalence makes a lot of sense! If you synthesize the mountain of research on technology’s impact on kids it boils down to this: there is a lot of incredible opportunity and a lot of stuff our kids could do without. So how do we respond? The… Read More →
A number of years ago a parent, Eleanor, contacted me after a talk to ask me a question about digital distractions. Eleanor had recently attended her son Jeremy’s school conferences and was surprised to learn that he was having a very difficult time focusing in class. “Dr. Walsh,” she exclaimed, “It doesn’t make any sense!… Read More →
What’s going on with children and attention in the digital age? Video games, texts, whirling toys, and non-stop entertainment have made it hard to strengthen children’s focused attention systems. Here are some suggestions: Give babies only a couple toys at a time, so they learn to focus on one. Limit television, video games, and movies… Read More →
Are you worried about your child’s video game habits? Take a look at this video game addiction symptoms checklist I created to see if you have cause for alarm. While this is not a diagnostic tool, it can help you assess whether or not games are an unhealthy part of your child’s life and if… Read More →
As parents we want to protect our kids from harm and pain. Yet we also need to prepare them for life! So what does it look like to nurture resilience in children? We’ve written a lot about stress and the brain. Too much stress is harmful while too little stress robs children of practice problem… Read More →
Dr. Dave just wrote a post about mirror neurons, exploring our built-in capacity to grasp the minds and experiences of others by simulating them in our brains. While he focused on the relationship between media violence and mirror neurons in that post, he also shared that mirror neurons are the basis for empathy – the… Read More →
Each child is walking around with a miracle perched on top of their shoulders. For a long time, the brain was a very difficult thing to study. Now powerful machines allow us to peer into the inner workings of the brain. We have a better sense of how the brain works and how it grows… Read More →
