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
10 Things Most Parents Are Dead Wrong About – Backed By Research
lking back is a good thing. It can make your kid smarter. Never spanking can be worse for children than spanking them. Peer pressure is more often a good thing. You have no idea what's going on in your kid's head most of the time. Reading to your kids? You're probably doing it wrong. Your child is right that more homework is probably a waste of time. There is no need to feel guilty about bribing your kid for eating…
1 min read
How are teenager’s brains similar to those of drug addicts?
alvan noted that the response pattern of teen brains is essentially the same response curve of a seasoned drug addict. Their reward center cannot be stimulated by low doses—they need the big jolt to get pleasure." Via NurtureShock: Is it possible that teens are just neurologically prone to boredom? According to the work of neuroscientist Dr. Adriana Galvan at UCLA, there’s good reason to think so. Inside our brains is a reward center, involving the nucleus accumbens, which lights up…
2 minutes
10 Scientific Insights About Happy Families
bsp; Seeing friends and family regularly is worth an extra $97,265 a year. Being close to your family makes you trust strangers less. We watch TV and read books to simulate relationships. We love our families more as we age. Yes, grandmom's cookies do taste better than anyone else's and comfort food does comfort us. Freud was kinda right about it all being about your relationship with your mother. Being married does not bring you closer to your parents. Having…
2 minutes
Are lastborns creative risk-takers? Are firstborns smarter? What’s the deal with birth order?
stborns are more open to new ideas, more likely to come up with new scientific theories and more likely to be innovators: Via The Consuming Instinct: What Juicy Burgers, Ferraris, Pornography, and Gift Giving Reveal About Human Nature: Generally speaking, lastborns tend to score higher on openness to new experiences and ideas, given the fact that they've had to think outside the box in uniquely positioning themselves within a smaller set of available niches. Sulloway tested his theory by investigating…
2 minutes
Research Says These Complaints Signal The End Of A Relationship
ose that don't contain the word "but." Unqualified complaints were more common in relationships that weren't going well. Via 59 Seconds: Change Your Life in Under a Minute: Perhaps the most important difference came down to just one word—“but.” When talking about their partner’s greatest faults, those in successful relationships tended to qualify any criticism. Her husband was lazy, but that gave the two of them reason to laugh. His wife was a terrible cook, but as a result they…
1 min read
Do skinny women have more daughters? Do dominant women have more sons?
s on both. Via Do Chocolate Lovers Have Sweeter Babies?: The Surprising Science of Pregnancy: Researchers in Italy collected data on nearly ten thousand new mothers and found that those in the lightest twenty-fifth percentile -- women who weighes 119 pounds or less before pregnancy regardless of height -- gave birth to significantly more daughters than did women who weighed more (51 percent versus 47 to 48 percent in the higher quartiles.) And: ...a team in Norway followed nearly forty…
2 minutes
