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Anti-Thanksgiving? Complaining can be a good thing
msnbc: If Thanksgiving weekend is a time for gratitude, let's make the weekend before the holiday a time for whining. Actually, two studies out this week explore the upside of negative thinking. Sometimes, believing that everything's the worst can ultimately be for the best, the research suggests. Fun fact 1: Complaining can help inspire people to change a bad situation. “In order to actually change the system, you’ve got to know what’s wrong with it,” says India Johnson, a graduate student at Ohio State University who helped lead a study set to appear in the journal Psychological Science.
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Bipolar Kids May Focus on Different Facial Features
U.S. News & World Report: Children with bipolar disorder and a similar condition called severe mood dysregulation spend less time looking at the eyes when trying to identify facial features, compared to children without the psychiatric disorders, researchers say. This new study finding may help explain why children with bipolar disorder and severe mood dysregulation have difficulty determining other people's emotional expressions, said the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health investigators. The researchers tracked the eye movements of children with and without psychiatric disorders as they viewed faces with different emotional expressions, such as happy, sad, fearful and angry.
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Mom-to-Be’s Mental State May Affect Child’s Development
U.S. News & World Report: A fetus is sensitive to, and can be affected by, the expectant mother's mental state, a new study suggests. University of California, Irvine, researchers recruited pregnant women and tested them for depression before and after they gave birth. The women's babies were tested after birth to assess how well they were developing. Consistency in the mother's mental state appeared to be important to a baby's well-being. Development was best in babies with mothers who were either depression-free or had depression before and after giving birth. Read the full story: U.S. News & World Report
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Taming temper tantrums: Are you doing it wrong?
Today: Research shows that 70 percent of children throw temper tantrums, according to parenting expert Michele Borba. Wait, what? Who are these 30 percent of calm children, and where can I get one? Just kidding – like most parents I’ve accepted that the occasional tantrum is going to be a kicking, screaming, brain-jarring pothole on the road to maturity. But researchers from Yale University and Kings College in the U.K. have been hard at work studying tantrums, and they say taming them is possible. It's all about proper training – for the parents, not the children. "Hold those sticker charts, fancy point systems and our pleads and threats.
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Kid apps explode on smartphones and tablets. But are they good for your children?
The Washington Post: There has been no definitive study that shows whether apps on mobile devices are harmful for youths. And although lawmakers and regulators have been seeking to strengthen federal rules that protect the privacy of children online, few have examined the rapid growth of mobile content getting in front of very young eyes. Some educators are dubious of the educational promises espoused by app developers. Zimmerman co-authored a report in 2007 that debunked marketing by Disney’s “Baby Einstein” DVD series touting early developmental benefits. He said it is too early to say that apps are any more effective at getting children ahead.
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Sikh Teenager Raps Against Bullying
The Wall Street Journal: Michigan-based Gulshan Singh, 18, felt strongly about countering the widespread bullying of Sikh teenagers in the U.S. “I wanted to do something about it but never knew how to, or never had the means to do it,” said Mr. Singh. In the end, he chose to rhyme about it – and to make a three-minute music video to go with it. The video, titled “Let It Out,” sums up the emotions of a Sikh teenager who is harassed because he looks different. Mr. Singh said the video, which was recently showcased at the Sikh International Film Festival in New York, is not based on a specific person but on an experience shared by many Sikhs, including many of his friends.
