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A Spendthrift 5-Year-Old? Researchers Say Yes
For some people spending money is very stressful. For others, it’s fun—even therapeutic. Might children share these same tendencies? Scholars use a scale to measure adults’ propensity to spend and save. On one end of
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Imaginary Worlds of Childhood
In 19th-century England, the Brontë children created Gondal, an imaginary kingdom full of melodrama and intrigue. Emily and Charlotte Brontë grew up to write the great novels “Wuthering Heights” and “Jane Eyre.” The fictional land
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Playtime May Bolster Kids’ Mental Health
“Play has become a four-letter word.” So says Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, a psychologist at Temple University and one of the authors of a new paper about the importance of play in children’s lives. The clinical report
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To Raise Confident, Independent Kids, Some Parents Are Trying To ‘Let Grow’
Walking through the woods alone can be a scary prospect for a kid, but not for 7-year-old Matthew of Portland, Oregon. He doesn’t have much of a backyard at his condo, so the woods behind
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5 Proven Benefits Of Play
It may be a new school year, yet I come to sing the praises of trampolines and bubble-blowing, pillow forts and peekaboo, Monopoly and Marco Polo. A new paper in the journal Pediatrics summarizes the
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Getting Kids to Eat More Vegetables
If you want a child to eat more vegetables, it might help to use plates illustrated with pictures of vegetables. Researchers tested 235 preschoolers in day care centers. At lunchtime, they gave half the children
