A social enterprise providing education and information to protect and enhance the mental health of young people
Too busy for a ‘Thumbs Up?’ My 5-year-old son attends swimming lessons each and every Sunday. It’s a busy pool with multiple classes going on at once. During lessons parents sit around the pool and watch their offspring splash around, offering words of encouragement, the occasional ‘thumbs up’ and many smiles of pride. [...]
A new University of Virginia psychology study has found that a sample of mostly white American children – as young as 7, and particularly by age 10 – report that black children feel less pain than white children. The study, which builds on previous research on bias among adults involving pain perception, is published in the Feb. 28 issue [...]
Being exposed to arguments between parents is associated with the way babies' brains process emotional tone of voice, according to a new study to be published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The study, conducted by graduate student Alice Graham with her advisors Phil Fisher and Jennifer Pfeifer of the University [...]
Can kids learn empathy on an iPad? This is the somewhat unfair but inevitable question surrounding this week's release of a new tablet game called IF. Designed for 6 to 12 year olds, IF aims to help children manage their emotions, cope with stress and conflict, even deal with bullies. It comes with big expectations [...]
Everyday chemicals are damaging the brains of unborn and young children, leading to conditions like autism, ADHD, dyslexia and lost IQ points, according to two prominent doctors. In an article published Friday in the journal Lancet Neurology, the two argue that chemicals should be better tested before being allowed on the market, and called for [...]
Sugar may be sweet, but excess consumption leaves a bitter aftertaste. Millions of people worldwide are affected by type II diabetes or obesity, costing the global healthcare system billions of dollars every year. - Cushia Sherlock via Is Sugar Turning the Economy Sour? - Global Trends - Credit Suisse.
I’ve never received such a response to a Generation Next article like the one I received to last week’s column, 3 Common Myths About Positive Psychology. I was overwhelmed by the amount of emails I got, the majority of which were saying, “I’ve heard of positive psychology, but where can I find out more?” So [...]
We’ve all felt sad, anxious or down at one time or another, but where does the normal experience of emotion end and the clinical picture of a mood or anxiety disorder begin? Psychiatry has two widely used classificatory systems that provide definitions of “clinical” states of such emotions as differentiated from “normal” states – the World [...]
Late adolescence is a period when many youth become involved in high-risk behaviors with adverse consequences. Researchers at the Mailman School of Public Health with colleagues at Johns Hopkins University studied the degree to which two such behaviors, adolescent sexual behaviors and gambling, affected African American youth in nine primary schools in Baltimore, MD. In [...]
In my work with schools, I’m finding more and more interest arising in the area of Positive Psychology and its offshoot Positive Education. And as the interest around these grow, so do some of the more common misconceptions. I’ve found some teachers to be a little cynical, and why wouldn’t we be? After [...]
