Reaching Your Child

* Tips for Reconnecting
When a child is prickly and most difficult is when you need to try something else. Here are some options to make it work.

The Science of Attachment

• Loss & Attachement
How the days of restricted hospital visitation practices informed to the study of early childhood attachment and emotional trauma.

Mobile Social Media

• Intimacy & Empathy in the New Age of Media
The communication revolution is degrading the quality of human relationships—with family and friends, as well as colleagues and romantic partners.

Children At Risk For Addiction

• Personality Traits
Research identifies four risky traits: sensation-seeking, impulsiveness, anxiety sensitivity and hopelessness.

Screen Time

• Your Child's Brain on Screen
Too much screen time too soon impedes the development of the ability to focus, to concentrate, to lend attention, to sense other people’s attitudes and communicate with them, to build a large vocabulary—all those abilities are harmed.

Transitional Objects

• Hold On To That Blankey
Mr. Rogers understood the usefulness of a cherished blanket or stuffed toy. It helps children facing stress (good and bad), and to make the gradual shift from being completely dependent to being comfortably independent.

Hold Your Horses

• Individualized Equine Therapy
HYH is a non-profit organization dedicated to improving quality of life and wellness for people with disabilities. The multidisciplinary team includes board certified physical, occupational, speech and psychotherapy professionals, as well as a team of therapy aides and equine professionals...AND horses.

 

Why Routine Helps Children

• Mr. Rogers Tells Us
"Children feel far more comfortable and secure when things happen predictably – with routines, rituals, and traditions. Those traditions, big or small, create anchors of stability, especially in rough seas."

Supporting Parent-Child Relationships

• Autism and Stress
A wide range of troubling behaviors in young children are both cause and result of stressed relationships. Addressing it early supports healthy development of the rapidly growing brain.

Face-to-Face Exchanges

• Why Screens Get in the Way Developmentally
It's the small moments — the face-to-face exchanges sometimes called “serve and return” interactions — that encourage attachment, warmth and trust between parent and child.

The Intricate Emotional Diaper Dance

• Why Diaper Changing is Important
Scientist Suzanne Zeedyk discusses how diaper changing (and the adult reaction to it) affects infant brain development.

Understanding Behaviors

• When Children Pantomime
Children’s behavior is a form of communication. Behavior management therapies and medication primarily serve to silence that communication.

The Perils of Sticker Charts

• Creating Transactional Family Relationships
Priming children to expect rewards for good behavior can harm their social skills in the long term.

Fear Conditioning in Young Girls

• What We Teach Girls
What a firefighter has to say about teaching fear to young girls and why it is not cute.

Creativity and Genius

• Raising a Creative Child
Child prodigies rarely become adult geniuses–– what holds them back is a lack of creativity.

ACEs Movie

Resilience
Filmmaker James Redford's newest documentary makes it to Sundance. Although the review downplays it, Resilience makes the lingering effects of adverse childhood experiences accessible to the movie-going public.

Child Neglect

• Love is Not Enough
Child neglect is not about love. It's about brain growth, anchored in minute-to-minute and day-to-day interactions with caregivers. The science behind child welfare is discussed in a paper from Yale University's Institute for Child Success.