Category Archives: Mind in the Making

Reducing Aggression in Children

By Ellen Galinsky | Published: March 1, 2010
This article is cross posted on The Huffington Post. Last week, I wrote about preventing aggression in young children, but what about reducing violence when it has already flared up. Several years ago, Families and Work Institute (FWI) conducted a nationally representative study of young people in the fifth through the twelfth grades on this issue. Our [...]
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Preventing Aggression in Children

By Ellen Galinsky | Published: February 24, 2010
Since the days when my children were little, child development researchers have made great headway in understanding the genetic, biological and family triggers of aggression. There have also been new and much more sophisticated studies on how to prevent aggression or reduce it, if it has already flared up in children. A new study by Colleen [...]
Also posted in Child Development, Early childhood, Families, Minds in the making | 1 Comment

Updates on the Science of Children’s Development: A New Study by Annie Bernier, Stephanie Carlson, and Natasha Whipple on How Parents Can Help Young Children Gain Life Skills

By Ellen Galinsky | Published: February 17, 2010
Cross-posted from the Huffington Post: I have spent the past eight years reading child development research, interviewing leading scientists, and we have even filmed these scientists as they conduct their studies. I have been driven by the question: what can we learn from studies of child development that will help our children thrive now and in the [...]
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Listen to the “What Kids Really Think About Their Working Parents” Podcast

By Morra | Published: February 10, 2010
Great discussion with Ellen Galinsky, Lisa Belkin, and Dr. Joshua Coleman: click here for the podcast. (Note: the Talkshoe service doesn’t like Firefox, for some reason. If the link doesn’t work, try another browser. Sorry). Lisa Belkin blogged about the show here. For highlights, check out the live Twitter feed on Fem2pt0, with good quotes, including: # [...]
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Don’t Seal Your Child’s Fate Based on a Kindergarten Test!

By Ellen Galinsky | Published: February 2, 2010
Cross posted from the Huffington Post: If you haven’t read New York Magazine’s January 31, 2010 article on “The Junior Meritocracy,” read it right now. New York has done a stupendous job of summarizing the best research arguing that children’s fate should NOT be sealed by a test they take for Kindergarten admission at age four. [...]
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Homemade Playdough and other snow-day projects

By Morra | Published: January 18, 2010
Here in Boston it’s a snowy, cold day and we’re inside. On a day like today you need an activity that engages kids and the grown-ups. A project to stick with for a little while, no pun intended. A friend suggested the toddler and I make homemade play-dough today. So I asked for recipes on [...]
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A Tale of Two Worlds: High School and B-School

By Ellen Galinsky | Published: January 15, 2010
From the Huffington Post today: I’ve spent the past eight years immersed in the science of early learning, working with researchers from the world’s great universities. We have distilled this science into seven essential life skills you can teach your children (not typical academic achievement-oriented skills. Real life skills). The result of this journey is Mind [...]
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Mind in the Making: an 8 month old learns to crawl

By Morra | Published: September 4, 2009
Joseph Campos from UC Berkeley has illustrated how babies use and interpret adult feedback when determining whether to take on new challenges. Yes, that’s right. Anyone who doesn’t believe that infants don’t deliberately take on challenges has not seen my eight month old try to crawl. Night and day, he’s up on all fours, practicing, practicing. [...]
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Throw a baby a bone

By Amy McCampbell | Published: August 19, 2009
A few weeks ago an article appeared on my internet home page with the screaming headline “Dogs as Smart as 2-year-old Kids.” You can read the article here.   Really?!  I love dogs, and know quite a few very bright ones.  And certainly, dogs have some surprising mental capacities, but they are in no way equivalent to [...]
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Along the visual cliff

By Amy McCampbell | Published: August 11, 2009
About a month ago, the Sears Tower (or, as it’s known by its new name, the Willis Tower) unveiled a glass balcony on its 103rd floor. Visitors get to creep about four feet out from the building…and 1,353 feet high above the city of Chicago. (You can see some dizzying pictures of it here) Some of [...]
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