Understanding the Language Of Children’s Behavior: Lessons From the Research of Berry Brazelton
August 13, 2012
On May 10, 2012, pediatrician T. Berry Brazelton turned 94 years old. On June 18, 2010 The White House honored him as a Champion of Change.
If you ask this inspirational man -- this Professor of Pediatrics Emeritus at Harvard Medical School, this author of the best-selling Touchpoint books, this star of the long-running Lifetime Television show What Every Baby Knows, this founder of the Brazelton Touchpoints Center -- what his most significant accomplishment is, as I did when he received the Families and Work Institute's Work Life Legacy Award in 2010 and when I interviewed him for Mind in the Making, he says: "The Newborn Assessment was really probably the most important thing I ever did for the field."
read moreThe Great Outdoors
July 04, 2012
Julie A. Riess, Ph.D., is the Senior Advisor on Child Development and Education at Families and Work Institute. She is a developmental psychologist and the director of the Wimpfheimer Nursery School at Vassar College.
Portions of this article were originally published on June 24, 2012 in the Poughkeepsie Journal by Gannett Publications.
In the late 1960s, life was good. At least if you lived on my suburban neighborhood block. We would eagerly do our dinner clean up chores in order to get outside. Within 15 minutes of the last bite, at least 10 kids would be gathered on one of our front lawns, ready to play. Would it be a game of kickball or Hide and Seek? After it got dark, would it be Flashlight Tag or Ghost Comes Out at Midnight? Some nights, it was all of the above.
One thing is certain. We took it for granted. The grass, the trees, the street with chalk-drawn bases. We weren’t inside watching TV or playing on computers. Why do that when you could run around with the neighborhood pack of kids?
Fear Is an Ally: The Story of Kennedy Odede of Kibera, Kenya—Ellen Galinsky
May 31, 2012
On May 27, a 27-year-old graduating senior at Wesleyan University from Kenya stepped onto the podium and delivered the commencement address. Kennedy Odede rallied the graduates, their families and the Wesleyan community by having them repeat with him, "I promise to promote the power of hope."
I have spent much of my career looking at the research on what helps children thrive, what keeps the fire for learning and doing burning brightly within them. Studies that I have reviewed tell us about averages, but not about the individual. So after listening to Kennedy Odede's speech at Wesleyan, I looked back on what he has written about his growing up years to search for clues.
read moreYou Can Turn No Into Yes and Other Lessons Learned — Ellen Galinsky
May 31, 2012
Being asked to give a speech about lessons learned in life is daunting; every day, you accrue new ones. That said, here is a list of life lessons I've learned as of May 2012:
1. Dare to Dream
I am often asked how my career began. My first real job was as an assistant teacher at the Bank Street School for Children. And I got that job because I dared to dream. As college was ending, I looked far and wide for what I wanted to do next. Like all soon to be college graduates, this is scary. One feels, rightly or wrongly, that the first steps you take into a career begin to set you on a path for life.
read moreAn Ageless Education
May 28, 2012
Julie A. Riess, Ph.D., is the Senior Advisor on Child Development and Education at Families and Work Institute. She is a developmental psychologist and the director of the Wimpfheimer Nursery School at Vassar College.
Portions of this article were originally published in the Poughkeepsie Journal by Gannett Publications on May 27, 2012.
As the director of a laboratory school on a college campus, I sometimes hear parents say to their preschool children that they “go to college”. In fact, one of our advertisers recommended the tag line “Send your child to college!” – a phrase that made me bristle. “An early childhood education is NOT the same as a college education,” I stated emphatically. To me, this was the ultimate push-down of a curriculum. Is kindergarten the new sophomore year?
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