5 03, 2013

Parenting: Is Technology Preventing Two Key Ingredients for Kids’ Relationships?

By | March 5th, 2013|Categories: Parenting|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , |1 Comment

Selflessness and empathy are two of the most important ingredients for children to develop healthy relationships. Selflessness involves the capacity for children to place the concerns of others appropriately ahead of their own. It allows others to sense that, whatever children do, their interests will be considered. Empathy is the ability for children to understand [...]

27 02, 2013

Parenting: Are Online Relationships Healthy for Young People?

By | February 27th, 2013|Categories: Parenting|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , |1 Comment

More and more these days, young people are establishing and maintaining relationships online. These “cyber” relationships often arise because parents, out of fear for their children’s safety, no longer allow them to be “free range” to congregate in local parks, at malls, and on street corners. The only place that they have permission to “meet [...]

10 02, 2013

Parenting: Is Technology Changing the Way Children Develop Relationships?

By | February 10th, 2013|Categories: Parenting|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , |2 Comments

Popular culture and technology are redefining the meaning of relationships; what relationships are, how they develop and are maintained, and how many relationships we can have. Popular culture, for example, suggests that love can be found in a few weeks on shows like The Bachelor, real family’s lives mirror shows such as Kate Plus 8 [...]

4 02, 2013

Parenting: How to Raise Mindful Children in a Digital World

By | February 4th, 2013|Categories: Parenting|Tags: , , , , , |2 Comments

In my previous post, I asked the question: “Is technology making your children mindless instead of mindful?” I think it’s safe to say that it is incredibly difficult for children to be mindful, present, and calm in our culture that is now dominated by the constant flow of information. Yet, if you want your children [...]

22 01, 2013

Parenting: Is Technology Making Your Children Mindless Instead of Mindful?

By | January 22nd, 2013|Categories: Parenting|Tags: , , , , , , , , |1 Comment

I’m no Zen master and I don’t expect you to teach your children to meditate all day. At the same time, the notion of mindfulness has much broader meaning than as an Eastern philosophy or for practitioners of Buddhism. In fact, it has tremendous significance for your children growing up in this crazy new world [...]

2 01, 2013

Teach Your Children to Single Task, not Multitask

By | January 2nd, 2013|Categories: Parenting|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , |0 Comments

After reading my last post, I hope you’re convinced now that so-called multitasking isn’t what it purports to be and definitely doesn’t do your children any favors in school or anywhere else. So, the next thing to do is to show them (and perhaps yourself) that “single tasking” is a much better way to go. Single tasking is definitely not rocket science, but it may require that your children break some deeply ingrained habits around their use of technology and learn new habits that will enable them to be more productive and efficient. The good news is that, with some commitment and discipline, your children can retrain those habits and, in a relatively short time and with the benefits clear, become comfortable and adept single taskers. Given that single tasking may involve some pretty big changes in your children’s use of technology, I would encourage you to collaborate with them so they have buy into whatever changes you want to implement. The reality is that if they don’t see the value in changing the way they focus, they will resist any efforts you make with them and those efforts will be doomed to fail. Educate your children about what multitasking really is and why it doesn’t work well, especially in their studies. Then, introduce them to single tasking and show them how it can help them in so many ways.

10 12, 2012

Parenting: Are Your Children Overloaded with Information?

By | December 10th, 2012|Categories: Parenting|Tags: , , , , , , |1 Comment

The Internet, and all of the new computer and communication technology that has sprung from it, have been a boon to the information age, making information available at children’s fingertips instantaneously. The sheer volume of information now accessible online is staggering; there are around 50 billion pages on the Web. Information continues to become more available [...]

3 12, 2012

How Technology is Changing the Way Children Think and Focus

By | December 3rd, 2012|Categories: Parenting, Technology|Tags: , , , , , , , |0 Comments

Thinking. The capacity to reflect, reason, and draw conclusions based on our experiences, knowledge, and insights. It’s what makes us human and has enabled us to communicate, create, build, advance, and become civilized. Thinking encompasses so many aspects of who our children are and what they do, from observing, learning, remembering, questioning, and judging to innovating, arguing, deciding, and acting. There is also little doubt that all of the new technologies, led by the Internet, are shaping the way we think in ways obvious and subtle, deliberate and unintentional, and advantageous and detrimental The uncertain reality is that, with this new technological frontier in its infancy and developments emerging at a rapid pace, we have neither the benefit of historical hindsight nor the time to ponder or examine the value and cost of these advancements in terms of how it influences our children’s ability to think. There is, however, a growing body of research that technology can be both beneficial and harmful to different ways in which children think. Moreover, this influence isn’t just affecting children on the surface of their thinking. Rather, because their brains are still developing and malleable, frequent exposure by so-called digital natives to technology is actually wiring the brain in ways very different than in previous generations.

26 11, 2012

Practical Ways to Teach Values to Your Children

By | November 26th, 2012|Categories: Parenting|Tags: , , , , , , , , |0 Comments

Values are a pretty darned touchy subject to bring up these days when it comes to raising children. Values have gotten a bad rap because of how they are discussed in politics and as they relate to religious beliefs. When most people hear the term values used, they often think of the hot-button value issues [...]

19 11, 2012

Healthy Values Protect Your Kids from Media’s Unhealthy Messages

By | November 19th, 2012|Categories: Parenting|Tags: , , , , , , |2 Comments

So what values will children growing up in the 21st century need to thrive? Perhaps surprisingly, my answer is the same values that have enabled children to thrive in previous generations: respect, responsibility, hard work, integrity, compassion, just to name a few. The increased presence of popular media in no way changes that calculus. To [...]