Happy summer. Enjoy. Let go wherever you are able of excessive thinking and ongoing planning and any striving. Come back to whatever feels best for your family. Relax, recharge, and reset your priorities. As parents, letting go does not have to mean ignoring reality. We can use these times of relative relaxation to reconnect with our own common-sense wisdom. Under…
Excerpted from HOW CHILDREN THRIVE: The Practical Science of Raising Independent, Resilient, and Happy Kids, by Mark Bertin, MD. Sounds True, May 2018. Reprinted with permission. The day ends and you pull into your driveway. You open the mailbox and, groaning, take out a two-inch pile of mail, 90 percent junk, but needing to be sorted. Riffling through it as…
“And so, kids, if you don’t find this awesome new game under the tree you’ve really got to ask yourselves what you’re doing there.” – New Yorker Cartoon Take a moment to reflect on what “the holidays” mean to you–whatever ones you celebrate and all the other parties that crop up this time of year. Or what they could mean,…
As part of our “Garrison Talks at the JCC” event series, Dr. Perri Klass, Dr. Mark Bertin, and Dr. Chris Willard discussed strategies for fostering happy, successful children. In the podcast below, they explore their professional experience with children as well as with both established and cutting-edge research, emphasizing practical approaches to real life. Key questions: What is executive function, and how does…
Kids and screen time cause considerable parental angst these days—and for good reason. Research shows children spend on average seven hours a day glued to computer, tablet, smart phone, or television screens. This reality has created such a stir that last month, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) updated its decade-old recommendation on childhood screen time. Far from a radical…