How To Help Your Child Or Teen Build Executive Functions Executive Functions are a cluster of high level cognitive skills that involve management and effective use of thinking skills. It’s a network of awareness and attention that includes planning, controlling attention, inhibiting inappropriate or ineffective behaviors, processing information in working memory, and other similar skills […]
brain development
IGNITING COGNITION WITH PLAY
Play is not pointless fun. For all people, but crucially for children, play profoundly supports and promotes social and emotional skills, self regulation, language and thinking. Most parents easily see that playing with others can help children learn to do things like interact, share and generally get on with others. It fairly obviously encourages children […]
What’s Your Child’s Play Style??
Anna and Ellen are sisters, 1 1/2 years apart in age, octogenarians when I talked with them. Anna’s favorite childhood game was “playing house.” She loved it and delightedly remembers spending hours with her sister playing with their dolls in the little room they set up to resemble a home. It was filled with all […]
Mindfulness and Overwhelmed Brains
Our brains can become overwhelmed when we have feelings of anger, worry, fear, sadness and pain. Even less dramatic feelings like the exhaustion of managing daily life can overwhelm the brain. Stressed Brains Stressed brains become very noisy – constantly checking for the next problem. Ruminating. Chattering. Worrying. Fretting about what comes next. Judging what […]
THE GIFT OF BILINGUALISM, part 2 Effects of bilingualism in childhood and beyond
Introduction Understanding two languages, and often two cultures, gives bilinguals a broader perception of people and society: they are inherently more socially open and flexible and have a deep understanding that people do not always think alike. Alongside this practical advantage lies a neuro-cognitive one. Numerous studies have shown that bilinguals surpass monolinguals in cognitive […]
THE GIFT OF BILINGUALISM, part 1 Becoming Bilingual
Introduction (This section provides background information about language learning, skip a few paragraphs to “How children become bilingual,” if you wish) There is a small window of time in which a person can truly become a fluent native speaker of a language, and that is during childhood. Native speaker fluency means acquiring a language […]
A GREAT WAY TO BOOST YOUR CHILD’S BRAIN & DEVELOPMENT
Just about every child will learn to read, do math, reason, use a computer and do all kinds of other intelligent things. But a lot of parents worry about how to boost brain power and stimulate social and intellectual development. It turns out there actually is something that helps. Across the board. I’m going to […]
Book Review: The Yes Brain
Siegel, Daniel & Bryson, Tina Payne, (2018). The Yes Brain: How to cultivate courage, curiosity, and resilience in your child. New York: Bantum. ISBN:978-0-399-59466-3 The word “Yes” in the new book, The Yes Brain, by psychiatrist Daniel Siegel and social worker Tina Bryson, refers to saying “yes” to the world — to being open, […]
Teen Brains: They’re complicated
Many people comment on the impulsiveness and irresponsibility of teens, but the picture is rather more complex. Teens also show considerable maturity in their thinking. This article provides a quick overview of some of the key developments associated with both sides of the picture and how they are related. Basics of brain development in adolescence […]