How To Make Your Kids Smarter: 10 Steps Backed By Science
ve explored the science behind what makes kids happier, what type of parenting works best and what makes for joyful families. But what makes children -- from babies up through the teen years -- smarter? Here are 10 things science says can help: 1) Music Lessons Plain and simple: research show music lessons make kids smarter: Compared with children in the control groups, children in the music groups exhibited greater increases in full-scale IQ. The effect was relatively small, but…
8 minutes
How To Raise Happy Kids – 10 Steps Backed By Science
hen you ask parents what they want for their kids, what's usually the most common reply? They want their children to be happy. Via Raising Happiness: 10 Simple Steps for More Joyful Kids and Happier Parents: ...the well-being of children is more important to adults than just about anything else--health care,…
8 minutes
How To Be A Better Parent: 3 Counterintuitive Lessons From Science
cerpts from my interview with Po Bronson, New York Times bestselling author of NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children, about how to be a better parent. 1) Peer Pressure Can Be A Good Thing Myth: Peer pressure is always bad, just leading kids to drinking, drugs and vandalism. Fact: The same instinct that makes some kids so vulnerable to peer pressure also makes them better students, friends and, eventually, partners. Po Bronson: The same kids who were very vulnerable to peer pressure…
4 minutes
20 Simple Secrets Of Happy Families – All Backed By Science
bsp; Where You Live Matters Via 100 Simple Secrets of Happy Families: People who are highly satisfied with their neighborhood are 25 percent more likely to be highly satisfied with their family life. -Toth, Brown, and Xu 2002 Open Communication Is A Must Via 100 Simple Secrets of Happy Families: The less open the communication between adults and children, the more pessimistic the children are likely to be and the less likely the children are to feel secure in their family relationship.…
5 minutes
Good Parenting Skills: 7 Research-Backed Ways to Raise Kids Right
ve posted about the research behind happy families and solid marriages, but what does science say about good parenting skills? Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman do an excellent job of rounding up the latest research in their book, NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children. Here are my highlights: 1) Praise Kids For Effort, Not Smarts Praise kids for something they can easily control -- the amount of effort they put in. This teaches them to persist and that improvement is possible.…
7 minutes
How To Have A Happy Family – 7 Tips Backed By Research
Having Dinner Together Matters Kids who have dinner with their families do better across pretty much every conceivable metric. Via The Secrets of Happy Families: Improve Your Mornings, Rethink Family Dinner, Fight Smarter, Go Out and Play, and Much More: A recent wave of research shows that children who eat dinner with their families are less likely to drink, smoke, do drugs, get pregnant, commit suicide, and develop eating disorders. Additional research found that children who enjoy family meals have…
6 minutes
Parent myths: How much of what your parents told you was crap?
opardy whiz Ken Jennings' new book Because I Said So!: The Truth Behind the Myths, Tales, and Warnings Every Generation Passes Down to Its Kids dispels a lot of the parent myths we all heard when we were kids. "No swimming until an hour after eating." Verdict: FALSE Via Because I Said So!: The Truth Behind the Myths, Tales, and Warnings Every Generation Passes Down to Its Kids: As early as 1961, pediatricians were doubting this old wives’ tale, but it’s hung…
9 minutes
Why do we play?
y do we play? We play in order to learn: Via Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul: Play creates new neural connections and tests them. It creates an arena for social interaction and learning. It creates a low-risk format for finding and developing innate skills and talents. How does this work? When something is fun, it commands our full attention and provides an emotional reward, two things that are key to strengthening memory:…
4 minutes
