Posts Tagged ‘addiction’

BRAIN HACKING: Hijacking You From the Inside

A WARNING FROM TECH INSIDERS

What do you, me and Anderson Cooper have in common? A creeping suspicion that we have, to some degree, an addiction to our devices. That was Cooper’s opening question for former Google product manager Tristan Harris during his “Brain-Hacking” segment on 60 Minutes this week.

What followed makes my job easy for this Wired Wednesday: I suggest… nay, I implore… you to see this episode. And with due recognition to the efficiency demands of our current “attention economy,” you don’t even need to spend the time it would take to watch the episode: CBS News has kindly provided a transcript that you can read through very quickly.

Yup, you can have your (brain-hacked) mind blown in a mere 3 minutes. Is it chilling? For sure. Frightening? Definitely. Surprising? Not really. (more…)

Protect Your Child’s Mental Health with WONDER

The Protection of Wonder | Marcy Axness, PhDAugust 11 was a day of two unrelated yet poignantly simultaneous events: the passing of Robin Williams, whose white-hot brilliance has often been characterized as other-wordly; and the celestial light-show of the Perseids meteor shower. As if heaven was welcoming its newest arrival with a fireworks display of thrilling extravagance befitting Robin’s unfathomable talent and heart.

That he was suffering so deeply came as a shock to even those who thought they knew him well. Insights into his psycho-history began emerging with revelations about his depression–possibly bipolar disorder; reports of his solitary childhood in an affluent family, being raised primarily by hired help; and Robin’s own recorded descriptions of using his comic gifts to make his mother laugh.

As people who were touched by Robin’s gifts, we feel sad. As parents who are raising children in this complicated world, we feel concern. Will our child grow up to wrestle with such demons? {Please read the rest at Natural Baby Pros}

Image
snowpeak under its Creative Commons license

Teen Addiction Prevention

I pointed out in Part 1 that our culture harbors a common, dangerous misconception about teens — that they need us to drop the reins and let them “do their thing.” But in terms of their brain and social development, they are as tender as they were as infants. So, we need to remain their active guides and examples. Adults staying actively, enthusiastically involved in the lives of their children and students is one of the best teen addiction prevention measures. In addition to the 3 guidelines offered in Part 1, what else do teens need from us during this time when our window of potent influence is so soon to close? (more…)

Wonder-Bred: Nourishing Intelligent Minds in At Least 12 Ways

As I watched the solar transit of Venus this week, it was a vivid reminder of one of the most important Parenting for Peace qualities: wonder.

A fundamental need of the young child until around seven is an atmosphere in harmony with his natural impulse to celebrate beauty and feel reverence and awe about almost everything. But what does our culture do in this techno-materialist age? We foist upon even the youngest child a flat world of facts and commentary. At a time when the child most needs wonder and reverence, we explain away all sense of the miraculous (more…)