From Becoming brilliant

How to level four, communication through writing decreases the readers need to guess the message.

People who are good communicators take the perspective of the listener.

 Sara sees a box of M&M's on the kitchen. Excited, she opens the box only to discover that the box has just paper clips. Her mom Chuckles and ask Sarah what her brother will think when he sees the Box. Sarah says paper clips. She's having a hard time reconciling that she can think one thing but Larry can think something else. When kids no longer say paper clips but say m&ms we have a theory of mind. - just what they need to take the bus spective of the listener

Level 3 requires that we take the mindset of a listener into account.

On YouTube we found a wonderful level three conversation. The topic under discussion is a rendezvous at the park. The two children were on an independent phone call. Please stay on topic they also discuss whether they should walk or take the car. They slip out of level 3 when they point for each other to park out of the window. Because they are in different places pointing out the window won't work. Where they feel, pointing out the window offers us a chance to look at how good Converse work

Ever hear of the flipped classroom? It is based on the discovery that Active Learning is much more effective in high school and college than sitting in class and listening to lectures. Flipped classroom, students listen to lectures at home and do homework problems together in class. Everyone gets to talk in class and operate on the material. Student participation is the norm and not the exception. She asked parents to watch a video at home kidz about maps that introduce the vocabulary they needed words like north-south and map key. The next day they made a map of the neighborhood right around their school. The class had a blast using all of the new vocabulary words.

https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/12/what-americans-keep-ignoring-about-finlands-school-success/250564/


For Sahlberg what matters is that in Finland all teachers and administrators are given prestige, decent pay, and a lot of responsibility. A master's degree is required to enter the profession, and teacher training programs are among the most selective professional schools in the country. If a teacher is bad, it is the principal's responsibility to notice and deal with it.

From https://hbr.org/2015/11/3-timeless-rules-for-making-tough-decisions

I perused the restaurant menu for several minutes, struggling with indecision, each item tempting me in a different way.

We spend an inordinate amount of time, and a tremendous amount of energy, making choices between equally attractive options in everyday situations. The problem is, that while they may be equally attractive, they are also differently attractive, with tradeoffs that require compromise. Even when deciding between kale salad (healthy and light), salmon (a heavier protein), and ravioli (tasty, but high carbs).

The first method is to use habits as a way to reduce routine decision fatigue. The idea is that if you build a habit —for example: always eat salad for lunch — then you avoid the decision entirely and you can save your decision-making energy for other things.

That works for predictable and routine decisions. But what about unpredictable ones?

The second method is to use if/then thinking to routinize unpredictable choices. For example, let’s say someone constantly interrupts me and I’m not sure how to respond. My if/then rule might be: if the person interrupts me two times in a conversation, then I will say something.

These two techniques — habits and if/then — can help streamline many typical, routine choices we face in our lives.

What we haven’t solved for are the larger more strategic decisions that aren’t habitual and can’t be predicted.

Most importantly, they are decisions for which there is no clear, right answer.

Leadership teams tend to perseverate over this sort of decision for a long time, collecting more data, excessively weighing pros and cons, soliciting additional opinions, delaying while they wait — hope — for a clear answer to emerge.

But what if we could use the fact that there is no clear answer to make a faster decision?

“It’s 3:15pm,” He said. “We need to make a decision in the next 15 minutes.”

“Hold on,” the CFO responded, “this is a complex decision. Maybe we should continue the conversation at dinner, or at the next offsite.”

“No,” The CEO was resolute, “We will make a decision within the next 15 minutes.”

And you know what? We did.

Which is how I came to my third decision-making method: use a timer.

If the issues on the table have been reasonably vetted, the choices are equally attractive, and there is still no clear answer, then admit that there is no clearly identifiable right way to go and just decide.

It helps if you can make the decision smaller, with minimal investment, to test it. But if you can’t, then just make the decision. The time you save by not deliberating pointlessly will pay massive dividends in productivity.


Hold on, you may protest. If I do spend more time on it, an answer will emerge. Sure, maybe. But, 1) you’ve wasted precious time waiting for that clarity and, 2) the clarity of that one decision seduces you to linger, counter-productively and in fruitless hope for clarity, on too many other decisions.

Just make a decision and move forward.
If you are overwhelmed with too many decisions, take a piece of paper and write a list of the decisions. Give yourself a set amount of time and then, one by one, make the best decision you can make in the moment. Making the decision — any decision — will reduce your anxiety and let you move forward. The best antidote to feeling overwhelmed is forward momentum.

As for my lunch, I ordered the kale salad. Was it the best choice? I don’t know. But at least I’m not still sitting around trying to order.

My favorite bits from : "You, Your child and school" by Ken Robinson

"Will my children discover their true potential and be guided to a career that they love and are passionate about?"

Children are beautifully designed by nature to direct their own education. Children love questioning, and participating. These educative instincts still work beautifully for children who are provided with conditions that allow them to flourish.

Children are very curious. The first priority in education is to keep their Curiosity alive. When children want to learn, they enjoy education. The more Curious children are as they grow, the more they will learn and the more subtle their abilities and sensibilities will become.  How do parents and teachers keep children curious? By intriguing them questions that interest them and by engaging them in projects that inspire them. Kindling your children's curiosity in the most formative years is a gift that will sustain them in a lifetime of learning.

Communication
Fluency in Reading and Writing are accepted imperatives in education, it's just as important to cultivate clear and confident speech. Communication is not only about words and numbers. The ability to communicate thoughts and feelings in all these ways is fundamental to personal well-being and to social confidence and connection.

 Martin Seligman is one of the founding figures of the positive psychology movement. Happiness can be analyzed into three different elements: Positive emotions, engagement and meaning. Engagement is about flow - the loss of self-consciousness during an absorbing activity. Meaning is belonging to and serving something that you believe is bigger than the self.  If you feel what you're doing matters to you or to people around you, you're more likely to enjoy doing it.
Career well-being, social well-being, financial well-being, physical well-being, community well being - your sense of Engagement with the area where you live.

If your career deteriorates, it's easy to see how it can cause deterioration in other areas over time

Well-being is more than a fleeting sense of pleasure. It comes from helping people find their talents, interest and purpose: their Element.
Well-being comes from helping children look outward as well as inward: Mindfulness and service to others more than self-absorption.

Well being is as much about effort as circumstances.

Language arts
Language education should include developing a love of literature in all its forms. It should involve developing the skills of what is sometimes called Oracy - being able to speak clearly and confidently and to listen with patience and attention to others.

Math is the ability to understand and work with numbers. Its foundations in education are  in arithmetic- addition subtraction multiplication and division.

In his book : High performers: The secrets of successful schools, he says" students with the best teachers in the best schools learn at at least three times more each year than students with the worst teachers in the worst schools"

The role of teachers is to create the best conditions for learning to happen.
Great teachers keep the students involved, curious, and excited about learning. They Inspire the students to achieve at the highest levels. They instill a Joy for learning, for seeing class time work that comes with it as something to be anticipated rather than endured. They set off Sparks of curiosity in the classroom , and you never know what these sparks will ignite.  Key to deep engagement in High School classrooms is intellectual playfulness. Teachers who offer assignments that are open-ended and projects with intellectual risk are more likely to have students who were consistently engaged.

Exuberant discovery.

Great teachers cultivate task confidence by  developing students abilities in their own areas of expertise. Acquire Knowledge and Skills they need to become independent learners : To experiment, ask questions, and develop the skills in creative and critical thinking.

Great teachers have high expectations for their students.

Great teachers are constantly Reinventing their classrooms and evaluating their own progress with the students. They are relentless

Homework for young students should be short, lead to success without much struggle, can usually involve parents and when possible, use out of school activities that kids enjoy.

Page 184  read in grade 6 and 7

No homework policy in some schools.
Students daily home assignment

1. Read just-right books every night. And have your parents read to you too.

2. Get outside and play- this does not mean more screen time.

3. Get a good night sleep.


One year on, students have not fallen behind and now have time to be creative thinkers at home and follow their passions. No homework for Kinder through 5th grade doesn't erase learning, but help students tolerate an often long day better and encourages them to pursue their unique interests after school.

Tie homework to real life activities. Get creative particularly with young children.

The first priority in education is to keep children's curiosity alive. The more Curious children are as they grow the more they will learn. how do parents and teachers keep children Curious? by intriguing them with questions. By giving them tasks that challenge them. By engaging them and projects that Inspire them. Kindling your children's curiousity in their most formative years is a gift that will sustain them in a lifetime of learning.

Learning to communicate ideas clearly and coherently is essential to our relationships. It's important to cultivate clear and confident speech.

Martin Seligman is one of the founding figures of the positive psychology movement. Happiness can be analyzed into three different women's: Emotions, engagement, meaning.
Positive emotions are what we feel.
Engagement is about flow: " being one with the music, time stopping, loss of self-conscious during an absorbing activity".
Meaning:" belonging to and serving something that you believe is bigger than the self"

we Spend most of our waking hours during the week doing something that we consider a career, occupation, vocation or job. If your career well-being is low, easy to see how it can cause deterioration over other areas over time. If you have a career that is. Meaningful, you are likely thriving in career well-being.

Expose your children to measured risk. Let them fail.

From https://www.bakadesuyo.com/2016/10/how-to-deal-with-psychopaths/

Here’s how to deal with a psychopath:

• Don’t. 1) Run. 2) Are you sure you can’t run?
• Accept that some people are just bad news: A tiger is not a good house pet. And you will not change that fact.
• Pay attention to actions, not words: No excuses. No BS. Use the “Rule of Threes.”
• Build your reputation and relationships: You need a good defense and good advice.
• Win-win agreements: Make it easier to go through you than to destroy you.

When in the middle of a deathmatch with a ruthless monster of a human being, being cynical is like having ESP. A jaded perspective can keep you one step ahead of them. But in the long term it can be toxic.

Don’t give up on all people just because you dealt with a really bad one.

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/psychologist-says-parents-should-18-things-raise-more-confident-child-a7453631.html

3. Let them figure out problems by themselves"Parental help can prevent confidence derived from self-help and figuring out on the child's own," Pickhardt explains.
In other words, better that your child gets a few B's and C's rather than straight A's, so long as they are actually learning how to solve the problems and do the work.

4. Let them act their ageDon't expect your child to act like an adult. "When a child feels that only performing as well as parents is good enough, that unrealistic standard may discourage effort," he says. "Striving to meet advanced age expectations can reduce confidence."

5. Encourage curiositySometimes a child's endless stream of questions can be tiresome, but it should be encouraged.
Asking questions is a helpful exercise for a child's development because it means they realize that "there are things they don't know ... that there are invisible worlds of knowledge they have never visited."

When children start school, those from households that encouraged curious questions have an edge over the rest of their classmates because they've had practice taking in information from their parents, The Guardian reported, and that translates to taking in information from their teacher. In other words, they know how to learn better and faster.

8. Never criticize their performanceNothing will discourage your child more than criticizing his or her efforts. Giving useful feedback and making suggestions is fine — but never tell them they're doing a bad job.

If your kid is scared to fail because they worry you'll be angry or disappointed, they'll never try new things.

"More often than not, parental criticism reduces the child's self-valuing and motivation," says Pickhardt.

9. Treat mistakes as building blocks for learning"Learning from mistakes builds confidence," he says. But this only happens when you, as a parent, treat mistakes as an opportunity to learn and grow.
Don't be over-protective of your child. Allow them to mess up every now and then, and help them understand how they can better approach the task next time.

Pickhardt says parents should see "uh-oh" moments as an opportunity to teach their kids not to fear failure.

10. Open the door to new experiencesPickhardt says you, as a parent, have a responsibility to "increase life exposures and experiences so the child can develop confidence in coping with a larger world."
Exposing children to new things teaches them that no matter how scary and different something seems, they can conquer it.

11. Teach them what you know how to do
You are your child's hero — at least until they're a teenager.
Use that power to teach them what you know about how to think, act, and speak. Set a good example, and be a role model.
Pickhardt says watching you succeed will help your child be more confident that they can do the same.

12. Don't tell them when you're worried about themParental worry can often be interpreted by the child as a vote of no confidence, he says. "Expressing parental confidence engenders the child's confidence."

13. Praise them when they deal with adversity
Life is not fair. It's hard, and every child will have to learn that at some point.
When they do encounter hardships, Pickhardt says parents should point out how enduring these challenges will increase their resilience.
It's important to remind your child that every road to success is filled with setbacks, he adds.

14. Offer your help and support, but not too much of itGiving too much assistance too soon can reduce the child's ability for self-help, says Pickhardt.
"Making parental help contingent on the child's self-help first can build confidence."

15. Applaud their courage to try something newWhether it's trying out for the travel basketball team or going on their first roller coaster, Pickhardt says parents should praise their kids for trying new things. He suggests saying something as simple as, "You are brave to try this!"

"Comfort comes from sticking to the familiar; courage is required to dare the new and different," he says.

16. Celebrate the excitement of learningWhen you're growing up, the journey is more important than the destination.
So whether your child makes the winning goal for his team or accidentally kicks it out of bounds, applaud their effort, Pickhardt says. They should never feel embarrassed for trying.
"Over the long haul, consistently trying hard builds more confidence than intermittently doing well," he explains.

17. Don't allow them to escape reality by spending all their time on the internetDon't allow your kid to hide behind a computer screen. Instead, encourage them to engage with real people in the real world.


18. Be authoritative, but not too forceful or strictWhen parents are too strict or demanding, the child's confidence to self-direct can be reduced.
"Dependence on being told can keep the child from acting bold," he says.

From Raising Happiness:
https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_to_get_kids_to_do_boring_but_necessary_tasks

I've never found insulting my children to be particularly effective.
Instead to begin mindfully I could first notice my feelings of anxiety and exhaustion. Notice that no matter how speedy we had been, I still would not have been able to get to work on time. Accepting the situation non-judgmentally, rather than futilely trying to force it to be something other than what it was would have left me open to more productive positive alternatives.

The keys to mindful parenting are as follows:
First, notice what is happening and what you're feeling and thinking and
Second accept what is going on without judgement


Bring your attention to your breath, focusing completely on the physical sensation of breathing. If your mind wanders or you noticed that you aren't paying attention to your breath anymore, simply return your attention to your breath. No need to worry about your wandering mind.; simply note what you were thinking about and move your attention back to your breath.
Use this focus on breathing in your daily life and encourage your children to do the same.
Whenever I'm feeling anxious, overwhelmed, or angry I take 5 deep breaths, paying as much attention to them as possible.

Motivating kids:
ERN : Empathy, rationale or Reason, and noncontrolling language. 
E : I know you don't really want to but you need to go brush your teeth right now. Why don't you want to go brush your teeth?
R :  Why you asking your kids to do that seemingly unimportant tasks? Please go brush your teeth so they feel clean and healthy today.
N : imply that they have a choice rather than using controlling language. " what I Propose is.." or " if you choose to...." or " it would be extremely helpful if you..". They were already rejecting the tasks repeatedly. Most kids know they will end up doing list of what we asked them to, but when we avoid controlling language they have a lot less to resist and this offer a lot less resistance.

Empathize, label and validate 
You're acting very angry and frustrated are you feeling small right now?
Is there anything else that you are feeling?
I'm so so so mad at you.
You're mad at me, tell me about that. are you disappointed because I won't let you have a playdate right now?
Yes I want to have that play date right now.
You seem sad.
Interestingly now she is calm, clearly needing a snack and a cuddle.

Kids frequently displace negative emotions on to their loving siblings, parents or caregivers, meaning that while Molly might be mad at herself, a classmate, or her teacher it would be normal for her to displace that emotion on to me when she gets home.

Conflict Resolution and Steps to peace:
1. Breathe.
2. Point out that there is a problem to be solved, and engage them in the problem-solving.
3. Help them calm down.
4. Have everyone State what they want.  uncoached kids fail to State what they want. Rule number one in getting what you want? Ask for it!
5 have everyone Express their feelings. I statement. I feel X when you do y. I feel so Furious when you mess up my fort.
6 it is now a problem they will solve together. Win win.


Start meditating. Have quiet time for reflection or meditation. Talking about things you feel grateful for is a simple way to bring more joy into your life. Regular exercise will make y who was there okay if you want to go back later you promise to do it I guess what I'm saying is out of this she not all thisou smarter as well as happier. Spend time in nature.

When in hot/aroused state, just defer important decisions. I will get back to you later.

Ego depletion: When we are continually exerting self-control, our ability to resist temptation weakens . This suggests, that when one has tasks requiring self-control, better to do them in the morning rather than late in the day

Intra-empathy Mismatch

Empathy between cognitive and emotional states in the same person is missing. We don't understand in our cold state how we will behave in an aroused state.

When in hot/aroused state, just defer important decisions. I will get back to you later.

Week 5 : Self-control

Main theme is : Now vs Later

Present focus bias: The tendency to give more weight to our current environment or state.

Current focus is very strong

What's good now versus what's good in the future

Eating healthy, exercising sounds great in the future but problem is we never get to that future

Reward substitution: using an alternate reward that is immediate, and therefore more motivating.

Why climate change maximizes human apathy:
far in the future, affects others first, we do not see its progression, we don't see a particular person suffering, individual efforts to mitigate are a drop in the bucket

Reward substitution to solve the problem ?   cool factor, rewards point, convenience, tax/punish
Prius: external signal to show how wonderful we are, social rewards like an ego boost.

Reward substitution can get us to act like we care about the world when we really care about our image.

Emotions can overtake cognition.

Hungry, afraid, tired, aroused : effect of arousal : change in sexual preferences, willingness to take risks, willingness to act immorally

Predictions about behavior in "hot" states are largely off mark. changes human beings.

we look differently at risk, immorality,

Make better decisions when in cold states. to prevent screw ups in hot states.

This is how to increase your attention span:

• Stop multitasking: You wouldn't try to lift 5000 pounds. Your body can't do that. Don't try to do your best work while checking email, texting, and posting to Instagram. Your brain can't do that.
• Exercise: You know it's good for your body. Guess what? Your brain's part of your body. (Shocking, I know.)
• Meditate: Simply put, meditation is attention training.
• Call your mother nature: Looking at a picture of a tree is like a deep tissue massage for your brain.
• Reduce interference: Remove anything from your environment that might distract you. Batch email and social media. Extend the time between breaks to build your attention muscles.

Having your phone out doesn't just distract you from work -- it also reduces empathy and harms your relationships.

Via
https://www.edutopia.org/article/why-students-forget-and-what-you-can-do-about-it

Which explains why the following learning strategies, all tied to research conducted within the past five years, are so effective:

1. Peer-to-peer explanations: When students explain what they’ve learned to peers, fading memories are reactivated, strengthened, and consolidated. This strategy not only increases retention but also encourages active learning.
2. The spacing effect: Instead of covering a topic and then moving on, revisit key ideas throughout the school year. Research shows that students perform better academically when given multiple opportunities to review learned material. For example, teachers can quickly incorporate a brief review of what was covered several weeks earlier into ongoing lessons, or use homework to re-expose students to previous concepts.
3. Frequent practice tests: Akin to regularly reviewing material, giving frequent practice tests can boost long-term retention and, as a bonus, help protect against stress, which often impairs memory performance. Practice tests can be low stakes and ungraded, such as a quick pop quiz at the start of a lesson or a trivia quiz on Kahoot, a popular online game-based learning platform. Breaking down one large high-stakes test into smaller tests over several months is an effective approach.
4. Interleave concepts: Instead of grouping similar problems together, mix them up. Solving problems involves identifying the correct strategy to use and then executing the strategy. When similar problems are grouped together, students don’t have to think about what strategies to use—they automatically apply the same solution over and over. Interleaving forces students to think on their feet, and encodes learning more deeply.
5. Combine text with images: It’s often easier to remember information that’s been presented in different ways, especially if visual aids can help organize information. For example, pairing a list of countries occupied by German forces during World War II with a map of German military expansion can reinforce that lesson. It’s easier to remember what’s been read and seen, instead of either one alone.

Via Eric Barker's blog

This is how to be your best self:

• "Treat yourself as if you were someone you were responsible for helping."
• To Make Better Decisions, Think Of Your Best Friend: Take the "outside perspective" and follow the advice you would offer a buddy in the same situation.
• For Health, Think About Fido: Look after your health the way people do for their pets, and you'll probably live to be 150.
• For Happiness, Think About Grandmom: Turn the critical voice in your head into a nurturing grandmother and be more self-compassionate.

Via https://www.bakadesuyo.com/2018/02/work-smarter-not-harder-2/
This is how to work smarter not harder:

• Do Less, Then Obsess: As Mark Twain quipped, “Put all your eggs in one basket — and watch that basket!”
• Use The Learning Loop: Push yourself now and your job gets easier later.
• Feel Passion & Purpose: You don’t have to play in the NFL or be the next Beyoncé to feel passionate about your job. And purpose can even involve elephant poop.

From https://www.bakadesuyo.com/2016/07/how-to-be-productive/

Here’s how to be productive:

• Prioritize: Use “fixed schedule productivity.” You won’t get everything done. You will get the right things done.
• Context: Distractions make you stupid. Find a place to hide or work from home in the morning.
• Habits: Use the “20 second rule” to make bad habits hard to engage in. Follow a plan.
• Stakes: For dull tasks, reward yourself. For complex tasks, ask why they are important to find purpose.
• Mood: Manage your mood, especially in the morning. Oh, and puppies, puppies, puppies.

from https://www.bakadesuyo.com/2015/10/out-of-control-kids/

Here’s what parenting specialists and FBI hostage negotiators say can help you deal with out of control kids:

• Listen With Full Attention: Everyone needs to feel understood. The big mistake is thinking kids are any different.
• Acknowledge Their Feelings: Paraphrase what they said. Don’t say you understand, show them you do.
• Give Their Feelings A Name: “Sounds like you feel this is unfair.” It calms the brain.
• Ask Questions: You want to resolve their underlying emotional needs, not get into a logical debate.

Best way to study

From : https://www.bakadesuyo.com/2011/10/whats-the-best-way-to-study/

https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/PJ-BD427_WORKFA_G_20111025215707.jpg

Test yourself:

Chiefly, testing yourself repeatedly before an exam teaches the brain to retrieve and apply knowledge from memory. The method is more effective than re-reading a textbook. If you are facing a test on the digestive system, practice explaining how it works from start to finish, rather than studying a list of its parts.

Sleep is vital:

Sleep also plays a role in test performance, but in two unexpected ways. Review the toughest material right before going to bed the night before the test. That approach makes it easier to recall the material later. And don’t wake up earlier than usual to study; this could interfere with the rapid-eye-movement sleep that aids memory.

What to eat:

Everybody knows you should eat breakfast the day of a big test. High-carb, high-fiber, slow-digesting foods like oatmeal are best, research shows. But what you eat a week in advance matters, too. When 16 college students were tested on attention and thinking speed, then fed a five-day high-fat, low-carb diet heavy on meat, eggs, cheese and cream and tested again, their performance declined.

You can’t multitask:

While many teens insist they study better while listening to music or texting their friends, research shows the opposite: Information reviewed amid distractions is less likely to be recalled later.

Calm yourself:

If you are still feeling anxious, set aside 10 minutes beforehand to write down your worries. She and a fellow researcher tested 106 ninth-graders for anxiety before their first high-pressure exam, then asked half of them to spend 10 minutes writing down their thoughts right before the test. The anxious kids who did the writing exercise performed as well on the test as the students who had been calm all along. But anxious students who didn’t do the writing performed more poorly. Expressing one’s worries in writing, unburdens the brain

How To Make Your Kids Smarter: via Eric Barker's blog

How To Make Your Kids Smarter: 10 Steps Backed By Science

1) Music Lessons
Plain and simple: research show music lessons make kids smarter:

Compared with children in the control groups, children in the music groups exhibited greater increases in full-scale IQ. The effect was relatively small, but it generalized across IQ subtests, index scores, and a standardized measure of academic achievement.

2) The Dumb Jock Is A Myth
Dumb jocks are dumb because they spend more time on the field than in the library. But what if you make sure your child devotes time to both?

Being in good shape increases your ability to learn. After exercise people pick up new vocabulary words 20% faster.

Via Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain:

Indeed, in a 2007 study of humans, German researchers found that people learn vocabulary words 20 percent faster following exercise than they did before exercise, and that the rate of learning correlated directly with levels of BDNF.

A 3 month exercise regimen increased bloodflow to the part of the brain focused on memory and learning by 30%.In his study, Small put a group of volunteers on a three-month exercise regimen and then took pictures of their brains… What he saw was that the capillary volume in the memory area of the hippocampus increased by 30 percent, a truly remarkable change.

3) Don’t Read To Your Kids, Read With Them

Got a little one who is learning to read? Don’t let them just stare at the pictures in a book while you do all the reading. Call attention to the words. Read with them, not to them. Research shows it helps build their reading skills:

…when shared book reading is enriched with explicit attention to the development of children’s reading skills and strategies, then shared book reading is an effective vehicle for promoting the early literacy ability even of disadvantaged children.

4) Sleep Deprivation Makes Kids Stupid
Missing an hour of sleep turns a sixth grader’s brain into that of a fourth grader.
Via NurtureShock:

“A loss of one hour of sleep is equivalent to [the loss of] two years of cognitive maturation and development,” Sadeh explained.

5) IQ Isn’t Worth Much Without Self-Discipline

Self-discipline beats IQ at predicting who will be successful in life.

From Charles Duhigg’s excellent book The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business:

Dozens of studies show that willpower is the single most important keystone habit for individual success… Students who exerted high levels of willpower were more likely to earn higher grades in their classes and gain admission into more selective schools. They had fewer absences and spent less time watching television and more hours on homework. “Highly self-disciplined adolescents outperformed their more impulsive peers on every academic-performance variable,” the researchers wrote. “Self-discipline predicted academic performance more robustly than did IQ. Self-discipline also predicted which students would improve their grades over the course of the school year, whereas IQ did not.… Self-discipline has a bigger effect on academic performance than does intellectual talent.”

Grades have more to do with conscientiousness than raw smarts.

Via How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character:


…conscientiousness was the trait that best predicted workplace success. People high in conscientiousness get better grades in school and college; they commit fewer crimes; and they stay married longer. They live longer – and not just because they smoke and drink less. They have fewer strokes, lower blood pressure, and a lower incidence of Alzheimer’s disease.

More on how to improve self-discipline here.

6) Learning Is An Active Process
Baby Einstein and braintraining games don’t work.
In fact, there’s reason to believe they make kids dumber.

Via Brain Rules for Baby: How to Raise a Smart and Happy Child from Zero to Five:


The products didn’t work at all. They had no positive effect on the vocabularies of the target audience, infants 17-24 months. Some did actual harm. For every hour per day the children spent watching certain baby DVD’s and videos, the infants understood an average of six to eight fewer words than infants who did not watch them.

Real learning isn’t passive, it’s active.

What does Dan Coyle, author of The Talent Code recommend? Stop merely reading and test yourself:


Our brains evolved to learn by doing things, not by hearing about them. This is one of the reasons that, for a lot of skills, it’s much better to spend about two thirds of your time testing yourself on it rather than absorbing it. There’s a rule of two thirds. If you want to, say, memorize a passage, it’s better to spend 30 percent of your time reading it, and the other 70 percent of your time testing yourself on that knowledge.
(More on how to teach your child to be a hard worker in school here.)

7) Treats Can Be A Good Thing — At The Right Time

Overall, it would be better if kids ate healthy all the time. Research shows eating makes a difference in children’s grades:

Everybody knows you should eat breakfast the day of a big test. High-carb, high-fiber, slow-digesting foods like oatmeal are best, research shows. But what you eat a week in advance matters, too. When 16 college students were tested on attention and thinking speed, then fed a five-day high-fat, low-carb diet heavy on meat, eggs, cheese and cream and tested again, their performance declined.

There are always exceptions. No kid eats healthy all the time. But the irony is that kids often get “bad” foods at the wrong time.
Research shows caffeine and sugar can be brain boosters:


Caffeine and glucose can have beneficial effects on cognitive performance… Since these areas have been related to the sustained attention and working memory processes, results would suggest that combined caffeine and glucose could increase the efficiency of the attentional system.

So if kids are going to occasionally eat candy and soda maybe it’s better to give it to them while they study then when they’re relaxing.

8) Happy Kids = Successful Kids
Happier kids are more likely to turn into successful, accomplished adults.

Via Raising Happiness: 10 Simple Steps for More Joyful Kids and Happier Parents:
And what’s the first step in creating happier kids? Being a happy parent.


9) Peer Group Matters
Your genetics and the genetics of your partner have a huge effect on your kids. But the way you raise your kids? Not nearly as much.

So what does have an enormous affect on your children’s behavior? Their peer group.

We usually only talk about peer pressure when it’s a negative but more often than not, it’s a positive.

Living in a nice neighborhood, going to solid schools and making sure your children hang out with good kids can make a huge difference.

What’s the easiest way for a college student to improve their GPA? Pick a smart roommate.

Via The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work:


One study of Dartmouth College students by economist Bruce Sacerdote illustrates how powerful this influence is. He found that when students with low grade-point averages simply began rooming with higher-scoring students, their grade-point averages increased. These students, according to the researchers, “appeared to infect each other with good and bad study habits—such that a roommate with a high grade-point average would drag upward the G.P.A. of his lower-scoring roommate.”

(More on the how others affect your behavior without you realizing it here.)

10) Believe In Them

Believing your kid is smarter than average makes a difference.
When teachers were told certain kids were sharper, those kids did better — even though the kids were selected at random.

Via The Heart of Social Psychology: A Backstage View of a Passionate Science:

Start where you are, use what you have, do what you can. -Arthur Ashe

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence is not an act, but a habit.”-Aristotle

Eleanor Roosevelt ;

Friendship with ones self is all important, because without it one can not be friends with anyone else in the world."

14. "It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan."

19. "The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience."

23. "You have to accept whatever comes, and the only important thing is that you meet it with the best you have to give."

26. "Do the things that interest you and do them with all your heart. Don't be concerned about whether people are watching you or criticizing you."

“It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

Have convictions. Be friendly. Stick to your beliefs as they stick to theirs. Work as hard as they do.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

Since you get more joy out of giving joy to others, you should put a great deal of thought into giving,” –

“Work is always an antidote to depression.”

“I am who I am today because of the choices I made yesterday.”

“Do not stop thinking of life as an adventure. You have no security unless you can live bravely, excitingly, imaginatively; unless you can choose a challenge instead of competence.”

“I never waste time looking back.”

Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman do an excellent job of rounding up the latest research in their book, NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children.

Here are my highlights:


1) Praise Kids For Effort, Not Smarts

Praise kids for something they can easily control — the amount of effort they put in.
This teaches them to persist and that improvement is possible.

“Emphasizing effort gives a child a variable that they can control,” she explains. “They come to see themselves as in control of their success. Emphasizing natural intelligence takes it out of the child’s control, and it provides no good recipe for responding to a failure.” In follow-up interviews, Dweck discovered that those who think that innate intelligence is the key to success begin to discount the importance of effort.

“The key is intermittent reinforcement,” says Cloninger. The brain has to learn that frustrating spells can be worked through. “A person who grows up getting too frequent rewards will not have persistence, because they’ll quit when the rewards disappear.”


2) Make Sure They Get Their Sleep

Losing an hour of sleep reduces your sixth-grader’s intelligence to that of a fourth-grader.

A few scientists theorize that sleep problems during formative years can cause permanent changes in a child’s brain structure—damage that one can’t sleep off like a hangover. It’s even possible that many of the hallmark characteristics of being a tweener and teen—moodiness, depression, and even binge eating—are actually just symptoms of chronic sleep deprivation.

And staying up late on the weekends is problematic too. Weekend shift causes a drop of 7 IQ points — the equivalent of lead exposure.

Teens who received A’s averaged about fifteen more minutes sleep than the B students, who in turn averaged fifteen more minutes than the C’s, and so on. Wahlstrom’s data was an almost perfect replication of results from an earlier study of over 3,000 Rhode Island high schoolers by Brown’s Carskadon.


3) How To Raise Honest Kids

No, you don’t know when your kid is lying. That’s your parental ego.
Kids want to please you. Tell them that the truth makes you happy — not just the right answer — and you’re more likely to get the truth.

What really works is to tell the child, “I will not be upset with you if you peeked, and if you tell the truth, I will be really happy.” This is an offer of both immunity and a clear route back to good standing. Talwar explained this latest finding: “Young kids are lying to make you happy—trying to please you.” So telling kids that the truth will make a parent happy challenges the kid’s original thought that hearing good news—not the truth—is what will please the parent.

What’s a quick trick for getting your kid to be honest?

Say: “I’m about to ask you a question. But before I do that, will you promise to tell the truth?”

In Talwar’s peeking game, sometimes the researcher pauses the game with, “I’m about to ask you a question. But before I do that, will you promise to tell the truth?” (Yes, the child answers.) “Okay, did you peek at the toy when I was out of the room?” This promise cuts down lying by 25%.


4) Kids Need Rules

It’s a myth that being too strict causes rebellion and being permissive equals better behavior.

Pushing a teen into rebellion by having too many rules was a sort of statistical myth. “That actually doesn’t happen,” remarked Darling… “Kids who go wild and get in trouble mostly have parents who don’t set rules or standards. Their parents are loving and accepting no matter what the kids do. But the kids take the lack of rules as a sign their parents don’t actually care—that their parent doesn’t really want this job of being the parent.”

Parents who set ground rules and consistently enforce them were also the parents who were the warmest.

And their children lied less than most kids.

“Ironically, the type of parents who are actually most consistent in enforcing rules are the same parents who are most warm and have the most conversations with their kids,” Darling observed. They’ve set a few rules over certain key spheres of influence, and they’ve explained why the rules are there. They expect the child to obey them. Over life’s other spheres, they supported the child’s autonomy, allowing her freedom to make her own decisions. The kids of these parents lied the least. Rather than hiding twelve areas from their parents, they might be hiding as few as five.

That doesn’t mean you should be a Tiger Mom.

Parents that are too controlling = kids that are bored. And bored kids are the ones who drink and do drugs

Even the really busy kids could be bored, for two reasons. First, they were doing a lot of activities only because their parent signed them up—there was no intrinsic motivation. Second, they were so accustomed to their parents filling their free time that they didn’t know how to fill it on their own. “The more controlling the parent,” Caldwell explained, “the more likely a child is to experience boredom.” …The Mod Squad study did confirm Linda Caldwell’s hypothesis that teens turn to drinking and drugs because they’re bored in their free time.


5) Arguing With Teens Is Normal — And Healthy

Moderate conflict with teens produces better adjustment than none.

More than 3/4 of daughters felt arguments with their mother strengthened the relationship.

But only 23% of the daughters felt that their arguments were destructive. Far more believed that fighting strengthened their relationship with their mother. “Their perception of the fighting was really sophisticated, far more than we anticipated for teenagers,” noted Holmes. “They saw fighting as a way to see their parents in a new way, as a result of hearing their mother’s point of view be articulated.”


6) Fighting In Front Of The Kids Can Be Good

Fighting with your spouse in front of the kids can be a good thing — if the children see the argument resolved in front of them.

Fighting and sending the kids away before it’s resolved — that’s what causes problems.

What was this magical thing? Letting the child witness not just the argument, but the resolution of the argument. When the videotape was stopped mid-argument, it had a very negative effect. But if the child was allowed to see the contention get worked out, it calmed him. “We varied the intensity of the arguments, and that didn’t matter,” recalled Cummings. “The arguments can become pretty intense, and yet if it’s resolved, kids are okay with it.” Most kids were just as happy at the conclusion of the session as they were when witnessing a friendly interaction between parents…

…being exposed to constructive marital conflict can actually be good for children—if it doesn’t escalate, insults are avoided, and the dispute is resolved with affection. This improves their sense of security, over time, and increases their prosocial behavior at school as rated by teachers. Cummings noted, “Resolution has to be sincere, not manipulated for their benefit—or they’ll see through it.” Kids learn a lesson in conflict resolution: the argument gives them an example of how to compromise and reconcile—a lesson lost for the child spared witnessing an argument.


7) A Gratitude Journal Works Magic

I’ve posted before about the incredible benefits of keeping a gratitude journal. It works for kids too.

Students who kept a gratitude journal were happier, more optimistic, and healthier.

In one celebrated example, Dr. Robert Emmons, of the University of California at Davis, asked college students to keep a gratitude journal—over ten weeks, the undergrads listed five things that had happened in the last week which they were thankful for. The results were surprisingly powerful—the students who kept the gratitude journal were 25% happier, were more optimistic about the future, and got sick less often during the controlled trial. They even got more exercise.

From https://www.bakadesuyo.com/2014/02/happy-kids/

Happier kids are more likely to turn into successful, accomplished adults.
Step 1: Get Happy Yourself
Because laughter is contagious, hang out with friends or family members who are likely to be laughing themselves.

Step 2: Teach Them To Build Relationships
(Just saying “Hey, knock it off” when kids don’t get along really doesn’t go far in building essential people skills.)
It doesn’t take a lot. It can start with encouraging kids to perform small acts of kindness to build empathy.
This not only builds essential skills and makes your kids better people, research shows over the long haul it makes them happier.

Multiple sclerosis (MS) patients who were trained to provide compassionate, unconditional positive regard for other MS sufferers through monthly fifteen-minute telephone calls “showed pronounced improvement in self-confidence, self-esteem, depression, and role functioning” over two years.


Step 3: Expect Effort, Not Perfection
Note to perfectionist helicopter parents and Tiger Moms: cool it.
Relentlessly banging the achievement drum messes kids up.
Parents who overemphasize achievement are more likely to have kids with high levels of depression, anxiety, and substance abuse compared to other kids.

The research is very consistent: Praise effort, not natural ability.
Why? Dweck explains: “When we praise children for the effort and hard work that leads to achievement, they want to keep engaging in that process. They are not diverted from the task of learning by a concern with how smart they might — or might not — look.”


Step 4: Teach Optimism
Author Christine Carter puts it simply: “Optimism is so closely related to happiness that the two can practically be equated.”


Step 5: Teach Emotional Intelligence
Thinking kids will just “naturally” come to understand their own emotions (let alone those of others) doesn’t set them up for success.

A simple first step here is to “Empathize, Label and Validate” when they’re struggling with anger or frustration.


Molly: “I am SO SO SO MAD AT YOU.”
Me: “You are mad at me, very mad at me. Tell me about that. Are you also feeling disappointed because I won’t let you have a playdate right now?”
Molly: “YES!! I want to have a playdate right NOW.”
Me: “You seem sad.” (Crawling into my lap, Molly whimpers a little and rests her head on my shoulder.)
Relate to the child, help them identify what they are feeling and let them know that those feelings are okay (even though bad behavior might not be).

More on active listening and labeling (and how hostage negotiators use this) here.


Step 7: Teach Self-Discipline

What’s a good way to start teaching self-discipline? Help kids learn to distract themselves from temptation.


Step 8: More Playtime

Researchers believe that this dramatic drop in unstructured playtime is in part responsible for slowing kids cognitive and emotional development… In addition to helping kids learn to self-regulate, child-led, unstructured play (with or without adults) promoted intellectual, physical, social, and emotional well-being. Unstructured play helps children learn how to work in groups, to share, negotiate, resolve conflicts, regulate their emotions and behavior, and speak up for themselves.

No strict instructions are necessary here: Budget more time for your kids to just get outside and simply play.


Step 9: Rig Their Environment For Happiness
What’s a simple way to better control a child’s surroundings and let your deliberate happiness efforts have maximum effect?
Less TV.
…research demonstrates a strong link between happiness and not watching television. Sociologists show that happier people tend to watch considerably less television than unhappy people. We don’t know whether TV makes people unhappy, or if already unhappy people watch more TV. But we do know that there are a lot of activities that will help our kids develop into happy, well-adjusted individuals. If our kids are watching TV, they aren’t doing those things that could be making them happier in the long run.