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learning

Imagination and Play are Essential to Healthy Childhoods, by Brenna M. Hicks PhD

Imagination and Play are Essential to Healthy Childhoods

Have you taken time lately to witness your child’s imagination at work? Just stood and observed as creative play unfolded in front of you, without prompts or coaching? Children at play are in their most natural and happy state. Through your child’s play, you can witness the development of character […]

Creativity
The Benefits of Play are "Oh, so Big!" by Katie Hurley LCSW

The Benefits of Play are “Oh, so Big!”

Many scholars have studied and written about the benefits of play for children. According to psychologist and research professor Peter Gray, play “serves many valuable purposes. It is a means by which children develop their physical, intellectual, emotional, social, and moral capacities.” For quite some time, my daughter was afraid […]

Creativity
Science Experiments for Kids: Making Learning Fun, by Marilyn Price-Mitchell PhD

Science Experiments for Kids: Making Learning Fun

If you’re looking for creative science experiments for kids, we’ve got some great resources for you! Whether or not you have a budding ecologist, neuroscientist, or engineer, all children gain important abilities when parents support and encourage doing at-home, easy science experiments. For kids of all ages, the benefits are […]

Resourcefulness
Listening for Understanding: A Win-Win for Families, by Marilyn Price-Mitchell PhD

Listening for Understanding: A Win-Win for Families

Listening to one another is one of the most important ways parents and children create close, loving relationships. When kids feel seen, heard, and understood, they learn the meaning of empathy. They acquire the abilities to emotionally connect with others, make friends, and develop lifelong social skills. Yet listening is […]

Empathy
Negativity and Your Child's Brain: How to Help Kids Stay Positive, by Marilyn Price-Mitchell PhD

Negativity and Your Child’s Brain: How to Help Kids Stay Positive

How does negativity affect your child’s healthy development? It’s likely no surprise to learn that all of us have inner voices, private conversations we have with ourselves. Neuroscientists have discovered that those voices are naturally more negative than positive in tone. Unfortunately, children’s inner voices are particularly negative, usually driven […]

Self-Awareness
Self-Awareness in a World of Constant Chatter, by Marilyn Price-Mitchell PhD

Self-Awareness in a World of Constant Chatter

Technology and self-awareness can seem incompatible. In fact, mobile devices often prevent us from seeing what’s right before our eyes. YouTube is filled with hilarious and sometimes scary videos of people unexpectedly falling into water fountains, walking into walls, or tripping off curbs. On a recent trip to the shopping […]

Self-Awareness
Raffi: Advocate for Children, Earth and Music, by Marilyn Price-Mitchell PhD

Raffi: Advocate for Children, Earth and Music

Many of our cherished memories are tied to childhood and music. Today, neuroscience is beginning to understand how music heals the body, influences our emotions, sparks creativity, and even connects us with nature. From infancy onward, I tried to fill my daughter’s life with melody – from classical to folk […]

Compass-Inspired
Psychology Today Articles: 10 Essential Reads for Parents, by Marilyn Price-Mitchell PhD

Top Psychology Today Articles for Parents

Some of the best psychologists and educators in the world author Psychology Today articles in a variety of fields, including child development, parenting, autism, happiness, intelligence, and resilience. In the same spirit that I publish and update my list of the Best Back-to-School Articles for Parents in late summer, this […]

Compass-Inspired
Mentoring Youth: Being a Good Teacher and Helpful Friend, by Varda Meyers Epstein

Mentoring Youth: Being a Good Teacher and Helpful Friend

Robert Moskovits began mentoring David* at a summer camp when David was 12. For the next four summers, the two spent time together during camp sessions, chatting about the deep stuff in life. Even after David was too old for camp, Robert stayed in touch, calling him from time to […]

Resourcefulness
Teaching Children Perseverance and the Value of Work, by Marilyn Price-Mitchell PhD

Teaching Children Perseverance and the Value of Work

America Rice, age 11, recently expressed her views about hard work and perseverance: “If you want something,” she said, “you have to earn it. Everything is not going to come to you just when you want it.” How do children grow up to think and feel like America Rice? How […]

Resilience
Why Risk-Taking May Increase Teen Happiness, by Marilyn Price-Mitchell PhD

Why Risk-Taking May Increase Teen Happiness

One of the first things you might associate with teenagers is their risk-taking behavior. And most of the time, those associations are negative. Right? That’s because we are deluged with stories of troubled youth whose risk-taking actions got out of hand —sometimes with tragic results. But what if there was […]

Resilience