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Strollerderby
It’s a classic scene: a pre-schooler stands next to a crayon-covered wall, crayon in hand, shouting at his frazzled parent, “But I didn’t do it!” If this has happened to you, don’t worry. The little white lies kids tell are actually an important part of cognitive development. New research by Dr. Kang Lee of the University of Toronto suggests that, “a quick-thinking 2-year-old who masters the art of fibbing actually has a fast-developing brain and will probably be successful in adulthood.”
Lee tested 1,200 kids between the ages of 2 and 16 and found that lying increases with age, peaking at age 12 when nearly 100 percent of children are apt to lie, and then decreasing to 70 percent by age 16, when they should know better. Continue reading »
Oh, The Temptation from Steve V on Vimeo.
The folks who brought us NurtureShock have news that will warm the hearts of 4-year-olds everywhere: the marshmallow test is a lot of fluff.
If you’ve got a smart kid, one who is capable of learning far beyond the norm for his or her age, what sort of education would you want for them? Would you want them to be taught as much and as quickly as they could handle? Or would you prefer they be given the same work as their peers, so as not to stand out? I know someone who is strongly opposed to the gifted program, primarily because of the unhappy experience he had as part of the program. In his case, the gifted designation served to ostracize him from his peers.
Surely, we’ve all come across people who we’ve thought maybe shouldn’t have been parents at all — I’m quite certain most people feel that way about me. And we’ve all done really stupid things on occasion. But are there people who shouldn’t be parents simple because they aren’t smart enough? Social workers in Fife, Scotland seem to think so. Which is why Kerry Robertson is on the run despite being 29 weeks pregnant.
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Recently a commenter asserted that raising a child is identical to raising a dog. “Both can be encouraged to good behavior through rewards and discouraged from bad behavior through punishment.” “Both demand enthusiastic praise and consistant (sic) (non-angry) discipline.” “Just like a dog, you must put a plastic cone on a child’s head to keep them from chewing on their butt.” Okay, I made that last one up. Or did I?
Many took umbrage with the commenter’s remarks, but I (always the scientist) decided to put them to the test. Over a weekend I pitted my three-year-old against our 1 ½ year old border collie to once and for all resolve the question: who is smarter, a toddler or a dog? Here are the competitors.
You know how you’re taught that you don’t discuss politics, religion or money in polite company? If you hang with parents of young children, I’d add spanking, breastfeeding and maybe cosleeping to that list. No matter how you feel about them, they tend to be topics that either side clings to passionately and will not be moved.
Anti-spanking people crowed last month when three studies appeared to show that spanking actually lowers IQ. But according to this Wall Street Journal blog, there are serious questions about the methodology of two of the studies. Continue reading »
Scientists in fields like psychology, neuroscience, robotics and education are beginning to explore the idea of forming a new discipline that blends all those related bodies of knowledge into a focused study of how children learn.
New research based on that model, that looks at issues like dyslexia, can now predict that babies are prone to the condition and start early interventions that can lessen or prevent it in the majority of kids who would get it.
Central principles that are coming to light Continue reading »
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