Science Experiments For Kids Quotes

I have always believed that raising kids means more than just being a good parent and trying to do the right things. It means surrounding your kids with amazing people who can bring science experiments and jam cookies, laughter and joy, and beautiful experiences into their lives.

The mystery that remains in the sunset is the riddle of why and how a mixture of seemingly inert, unthinking atoms of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and several other varieties can produce humans capable of having the subjective experience we refer to as beauty, or the love that would have us kiss our kids good night. Science is no closer to answering those questions today than it was a century ago.

Delilah. We react to each other like the vinegar-and-baking-soda experiments we used to do in science class as kids. Even now she brings out the immature ass in me. But the second she walked back into my life, I became aware of two uncomfortable but undeniable facts: I am lonely as hell, and Delilah Baker feels like home.

I find that some philosophers think that my whole approach to qualia is not playing fair. I don’t respect the standard rules of philosophical thought experiments. “But Dan, your view is so counterintuitive!” No kidding. That’s the whole point. Of course it is counterintuitive. Nowhere is it written that the true materialist theory of consciousness should be blandly intuitive. I have all along insisted that it may be very counterintuitive. That’s the trouble with “pure” philosophical method here. It has no resources for developing, or even taking seriously, counterintuitive theories, but since it is a very good bet that the true materialist theory of consciousness will be highly counterintuitive (like the Copernican theory--at least at first), this means that “pure” philosophy must just concede impotence and retreat into conservative conceptual anthropology until the advance of science puts it out of its misery. Philosophers have a choice: they can play games with folk concepts (ordinary language philosophy lives on, as a kind of aprioristic social anthropology) or they can take seriously the claim that some of these folk concepts are illusion-generators. The way to take that prospect seriously is to consider theories that propose revisions to those concepts.

Because taxes are so high - in part to pay for state-serving science experiments, a lot of parents feel they both need to work and so the mum can't breastfeed her kid. These fucking scientists, these fucking fascist corporations, these fucking warmongers, these military industrial clusterfucks, these arsehole academics are literally profiting from the ripping of mothers milk out of the mouths of babes.

Materials Needed: Epsom

I have always believed that raising kids means more than just being a good parent and trying to do the right things. it means surrounding your kids with amazing people who can bring science experiments and jam cookies, laughter, and joy, and beautiful experiences into their lives.

If you’re asking the schools to be the answer, you’re also asking a lot. If you take a kid from a bad background and expect the overburdened teachers to turn him around in seven hours a day, it might or might not happen. What about the other seventeen hours in a day? People often ask us if, through our research and experience, we can now predict which children are likely to become dangerous in later life. Roy Hazelwood’s answer is, “Sure. But so can any good elementary school teacher.” And if we can get them treatment early enough and intensively enough, it might make a difference. A significant role-model adult during the formative years can make a world of difference. Bill Tafoya, the special agent who served as our “futurist” at Quantico, advocated a minimum of a ten-year commitment of money and resources on the magnitude of what we sent into the Persian Gulf. He calls for a wide-scale reinstatement of Project Head Start, one of the most effective long-term, anticrime programs in history. He doesn’t think more police are the answer, but he would bring in “an army of social workers” to provide assistance for battered women, homeless families with children, to find good foster homes. And he would back it all up with tax incentive programs. I’m not sure this is the total answer, but it would certainly be an important start. Because the sad fact is, the shrinks can battle all they want, and my people and I can use psychology and behavioral science to help catch the criminals, but by the time we get to use our stuff, the severe damage has already been done.

After all, we invest a lot in our children, and it can be terrifying to realize how little control we really have. But our years of experience have taught us that trying to force kids to do things you think are in their own best interest will compromise your relationship and waste energy that could be spent building them up in other ways.

Let us make one thing clear: we don’t think it’s possible to protect kids from all stressful experiences, nor would we want to. In fact, when kids are constantly shielded from circumstances that make them anxious, it tends to make their anxiety worse. We want them to learn how to deal successfully with stressful situations—to have a high stress tolerance.

Connor had become a doctor just two days ago—along with all of his friends. They were hand-selected at just three years old to undergo intensive medical training as part of a controversial experiment, called Kid Docs. In the past few years, the Kid Docs program had produced some of the best doctors in the entire country, if not the world. They had some of the lowest complication rates and the highest success rates, and they had developed innovative new procedures that saved lives that were previously unsalvageable. Connor hoped that he would be among the best doctors in the world someday. But right now, he was focused on only a single thing: saving this one man’s life.

Learning from Negative Experiences Many people with social anxiety can remember certain events that contributed to their fears. Martin knows exactly why he is afraid to speak in class. When I was in seventh-grade science class, the teacher had each student read aloud a paragraph from the textbook. It was a chapter on different types of organisms. When it was my turn, I accidentally said “orgasm” instead of “organism.” Everyone howled with laughter, including the teacher. I felt so embarrassed. My face was bright red and I wanted to hide. Kids teased me about it for a long time. Ever since then, I am terrified about reading anything aloud. Sometimes, I am even afraid of simply speaking. This event, together with Martin’s biochemistry and genes, set him up to have a form of social anxiety. People who don’t have the same heightened sense of awareness or the same chemicals rushing through their bodies may not have been upset by this event. They may have laughed with the class or even have been able to make fun of themselves.

recent research indicates that unstructured play in natural settings is essential for children’s healthy growth. As any parent or early childhood educator will attest, play is an innate drive. It is also the primary vehicle for youngsters to experience and explore their surroundings. Compared to kids confined indoors, children who regularly play in nature show heightened motor control—including balance, coordination, and agility. They tend to engage more in imaginative and creative play, which in turn fosters language, abstract reasoning, and problem-solving skills, together with a sense of wonder. Nature play is superior at engendering a sense of self and a sense of place, allowing children to recognize both their independence and interdependence. Play in outdoor settings also exceeds indoor alternatives in fostering cognitive, emotional, and moral development. And individuals who spend abundant time playing outdoors as children are more likely to grow up with a strong attachment to place and an environmental ethic. When asked to identify the most significant environment of their childhoods, 96.5 percent of a large sample of adults named an outdoor environment. In

High-reactive kids also tend to think and feel deeply about what they’ve noticed, and to bring an extra degree of nuance to everyday experiences. This can be expressed in many different ways. If the child is socially oriented, she may spend a lot of time pondering her observations of others—why Jason didn’t want to share his toys today, why Mary got so mad at Nicholas when he bumped into her accidentally. If he has a particular interest—in solving puzzles, making art, building sand castles—he’ll often concentrate with unusual intensity. If a high-reactive toddler breaks another child’s toy by mistake, studies show, she often experiences a more intense mix of guilt and sorrow than a lower-reactive child would. All kids notice their environments and feel emotions, of course, but high-reactive kids seem to see and feel things more. If you ask a high-reactive seven-year-old how a group of kids should share a coveted toy, writes the science journalist Winifred Gallagher, he’ll tend to come up with sophisticated strategies like “Alphabetize their last names, and let the person closest to A go first.” “Putting theory into practice is hard for them,” writes Gallagher, “because their sensitive natures and elaborate schemes are unsuited to the heterogeneous rigors of the schoolyard.” Yet as we’ll see in the chapters to come, these traits—alertness, sensitivity to nuance, complex emotionality—turn out to be highly underrated powers.

They pop in the mouth, just like salmon roe! But inside... ... is the savory saltiness of seaweed!" "Those pearls are seaweed?!" But how?!" "Delicious! Not only is the pop of the pearl a fun texture, the salty, savory flavor of the seaweed melts seamlessly with the rice! I can barely stop myself! It's an addicting combination!" "Wait... how do you know that technique? Those pearls are seaweed extract gelled into a spherical shape. The only way to do that is by using a calcium-chloride bath and an alginic-acid gelling agent!" "What the heck?!" "That's food science!" "Yukihira pulled a page from Alice Nakiri's own book!" "I've experimented with this stuff before, y'know. When I was a little kid, anyway." "Wha-?! But that's-" "Convenience store Dagashi Candy?!" "Dagashi?! What's that?" Both chemicals are on the ingredients list! "It's what's called an educational candy. Kids play with that to learn how to make their own jelly pearls. I had a blast with it when I was little. I made lots of different stuff." "Dad, look! I made miso pearls!" "Aha ha ha! That's great! Now don't let any of the customers see that." "You can get both alginic acid and calcium chloride at any pharmacy. I used those, along with some seasoned seaweed extract and a little bit of ingenuity... ... to make these savory seaweed bombs- my own spin on the traditional seaweed bento!" "That's right! There were some educational candies in that pile of sweets he got from the kids yesterday!" "The transfer student used a food-science trick?" "And it was one he got off of a package of children's dagashi candy?!" "Hmm? What's this? I see something that looks like okaka minced tuna hiding inside the rice..." Mmmm! It's dried tunatsukudani! This, too, earns full marks for flavor! And its smooth, juicy texture is a wonderful contrast to the pop of the seaweed pearls!

Stay involved in democracy. Fight for democracy. It can be messy and frustrating, believe me, I know. I understand why many Americans are frustrated by government and feel like it doesn’t make a difference. It’s not perfect, and not supposed to be. It’s only as good as we are, as what we choose to care about, as the people we elect. We’re never going to get 100 percent of what we want right away. But what if we got some of it right away, and protected it, and kept moving forward until we got the rest? That’s what voting is about. It’s not about making things perfect; it’s about making things better. It’s about putting us on track so that a generation from now, we can look back and say, “things got better starting now.” Voting is about using the power we have and pooling it together to get a government that’s more concerned, more responsive, more focused on the things that matter. This precious system of self-government is how we’ve come this far. It’s worth our time and effort. It’s worth protecting. I was heartened to see voter turnout leap this year over where it usually is. That’s great. Now imagine if we did that every time? Imagine if sixty or seventy percent of us, or even more, voted every time. We’d have a government that looks more representative, that’s full of life experience that’s more representative, that understands what people are going through and how we can work together to make people’s lives better. We’d have a government full of people who could corral a pandemic, who believe in science and have a plan to protect this planet for our kids; who care about working Americans and have a plan to help folks start getting ahead; who believe in racial equality and are willing to do the work to bring us closer an America where no matter what we look like, where we come from, who we love, or how much money we’ve got, we can make it if we try. That’s not science fiction. It’s possible! We just have to keep at it. Dec. 2020

The Western medical model — and I don't mean the science of it, I mean the practice of it, because the science is completely at odds with the practice — makes two devastating separations. First of all we separate the mind from the body, we separate the emotions from the physiology. So we don't see how the physiology of people reflects their lifelong emotional experience. So we separate the mind from the body, which is not something that traditional medicine has done, I mean, Ayuverdic or Chinese medicine or shamanic tribal cultures and medicinal practices throughout the world have always recognized that mind and body are inseparable. They intuitively knew it. Many Western practitioners have known this and even taught it, but in practice we ignore it. And then we separate the individual from the environment. The studies are clear, for example, that when people are emotionally isolated they tend to get sick more quickly and they succumb more rapidly to their disease. Why? Because people's physiology is completely related to their psychological, social environment and when people are isolated and alone their stress levels are much higher because there's nothing there to help them moderate their stress. And physiologically it is straightforward, you know, it takes a five-year-old kid to understand it. However because in practice we separate them... when somebody shows up with an inflamed joint, all we do is we give them an anti-inflammatory or because the immune system is hyperactive and is attacking them we give them a medication to suppress their immune system or we give them a stress hormone like cortisol or one of its analogues, to suppress the inflammation. But we never ask: "What does this manifest about your life?", "What does this say about your relationships?", "How stressful is your job?", "To what extent do you lack control in your life?", "Where are you not authentic?", "How are you trying to work so hard to meet your attachment needs by suppressing yourself?" (because that is what you learn to do as a kid). Then we do all this research that has to do with cell biology, so we keep looking for the cause of cancer in the cell. Now there's a wonderful quote in the New York Times a couple of years ago they did a series on cancer and somebody said: "Looking for the cause of cancer inside the individual cell is like trying to understand a traffic jam by studying the internal combustion engine." We will never understand it, but we spend hundreds of billions of dollars a year looking for the cause of cancer inside the cell, not recognizing that the cell exists in interaction with the environment and that the genes are modulated by the environment, they are turned on and off by the environment. So the impact of not understanding the unity of emotions and physiology on one hand and in the other hand the relationship between the individual and the environment.. in other words.. having a strictly biological model as opposed to what has been called a bio-psycho-social, that recognizes that the biology is important, but it also reflects our psychological and social relationships. And therefore trying to understand the biology in isolation from the psychological and social environment is futile. The result is that we are treating people purely through pharmaceuticals or physical interventions, greatly to the profit of companies that manufacture pharmaceuticals and which fund the research, but it leaves us very much in the dark about a) the causes and b) the treatment, the holistic treatment of most conditions. So that for all our amazing interventions and technological marvels, we are still far short of doing what we could do, were we more mindful of that unity. So the consequences are devastating economically, they are devastating emotionally, they are devastating medically.

My kids come through the door at the end of the day, and I ask, How was your day at school? In stereo, I get back, Fine. Instead of considering that a dead end, I follow up with another question. I inquire, What did you like about it today? My teenage son usually says, I don’t know. I look him right in the eye and tell him, Really, tell me about one class you liked today. He thinks about it for a minute. Finally he says, Science. And I inquire, What did you like about science? He launches into a colorful description of an experiment they did, and we’re talking. The bottom line is that you have to open it up, and you have to show you truly care.

But as we pointed out in Chapter Two, it doesn’t make sense to wait until your children’s brains have fully matured before entrusting them with decisions, or you would be waiting until their late twenties or early thirties. The brain develops according to how it’s used. This means that by encouraging our kids—and requiring our adolescents—to make their own decisions, we are giving them invaluable experience in assessing their own needs honestly, paying attention to their feelings and motivations, weighing pros and cons, and trying to make the best possible decision for themselves. We help them develop a brain that’s used to making hard choices and owning them. This is huge and will pay big future dividends.

3. Giving kids a sense of control is the only way to teach them competency—in decision making, and in whatever skill they’re learning. As the adage goes, “Wisdom comes from experience, and experience comes from bad decisions.” Kids need to practice making their own decisions before they can do so legally. Telling our children how to make good decisions (or telling them how to do things for themselves) isn’t enough. It’s not enough to show them, either. They need to actually do it. They need practice. They need to experience the natural consequences of their choices, ranging from being uncomfortably cold when they decided not to wear a coat, to getting a bad grade on a test because they decided not to study. We commonly see adolescents and young adults go off to college without having had much of an opportunity to make decisions about the things that matter, including how they want to structure their time, what they want to commit their energy to, or whether they want to be in school at all.

It means saying something like, “I trust you to make a good decision, and this will ultimately be your call, but I want to be sure you make the best decision possible, so I’d like to help you think through the pros and cons of either option. I also want you to talk to people who have more experience and to get their feedback. Finally, I think it’s important that we talk together about a possible Plan B if your decision doesn’t go the way you want.

What to Do Tonight Teach your kids that they are responsible for their own education. Kids should feel in charge, not that school is being done “to them.” Note this is very different from blaming kids who are struggling. If your child is not learning from his teacher, acknowledge this without blaming the teacher. “Mr. Cooper is doing the best he can. He just doesn’t know how to teach you the way you learn.” Encourage your child to think of what will motivate him to master the material being taught in the class anyway. Remind your child of the big picture, that grades matter less than the ways he or she develops as a student and person. Resist the pressure to push your child if he’s not ready, be it reading in kindergarten, algebra in eighth grade, or AP classes in high school. Create an advocacy group made of up teachers, parents, and kids to talk about what you can all do to make school a less stressful experience. Consider advocating for brain-friendly experiences in school such as exercise, the arts, and meditation.

Parents tend to think there are two ways to be: autocratic or permissive. Autocratic parenting places a premium on obedience, and permissive parents emphasize the importance of their child’s happiness and attempt to fulfill their child’s desires to make them happy. But virtually all child development experts, including influential psychologists and authors like Madeline Levine and Laurence Steinberg, have advocated a third option: authoritative parenting. This entails being supportive, but not controlling. Authoritative parents want their kids to cooperate because they like and respect them, and want kids to learn from their own experiences

Explain to your child how important music is to you and your family. Let him know that for many people, it brings great happiness and satisfaction. Tell him that although it’s a lot of work, it’s worth it if you learn to play. Tell him you want him to be able to play, that you’re willing to pay for lessons as long as his teacher says he’s practicing enough, and that you’re willing to help in any way you can to make practicing an enjoyable experience. But as with homework, also tell him that you’re not willing to fight with him about practicing because you love him and don’t want a constant hassle at home—and you don’t want to ruin music for him by making it nothing but a chore. If the child starts lessons, offer to help him develop a practice schedule. Tell him that you’re willing to sit with him during practice time and that if he wants to practice but just can’t make himself do it, you’ll offer a little incentive.

Why should I discuss it with you?” she said, turning her gaze on Sax. “It’s clear what you all think about this, we’ve gone over it many times before, and nothing I’ve said makes any difference to you. Here you sit in your little holes running your little experiments, making things like kids with a chemistry set in a basement, while the whole time an entire world sits outside your door. A world where the landforms are a hundred times larger than their equivalents on Earth, and a thousand times older, with evidence concerning the beginning of the solar system scattered all over, as well as the whole history of a planet, scarcely changed in the last billion years. And you’re going to wreck it all. And without ever honestly admitting what you’re doing, either. Because we could live here and study the planet without changing it— we could do that with very little harm or even inconvenience to ourselves. All this talk of radiation is bullshit and you know it. There’s simply not a high enough level of it to justify this mass alteration of the environment. You want to do that because you think you can. You want to try it out and see— as if this were some big playground sandbox for you to build castles in. A big Mars jar! You find your justifications where you can, but it’s bad faith, and it’s not science.

professional musicians and athletes experience anxiety prior to a performance, but they interpret it as energizing, whereas amateurs interpret it as detrimental.

An early study that looked at stress in rats found that when a rat is given a wheel to turn that will stop it from receiving an electric shock, it happily turns the wheel and isn’t very stressed. If the wheel is taken away, the rat experiences massive stress. If the wheel is then returned to the cage, the rat’s stress levels are much lower, even if the wheel isn’t actually attached to the shocking apparatus anymore.6 In humans, too, being able to push a button to reduce the likelihood of hearing a noxious sound will reduce their stress levels, even if the button has no real effect on the sound—and even if you don’t push the button!7 It turns out that it’s the sense of control that matters, even more so than what you actually do. If you have confidence that you can impact a situation, it will be less stressful. In contrast, a low sense of control may very well be the most stressful thing in the universe.

Toxic stress is defined as frequent or prolonged activation of the stress system in the absence of support. Toxic stress is either severe, such as witnessing an assault, or recurs day in and day out, in which case it is chronic. Supportive adults—who minimize exposure to things that a child isn’t developmentally ready to handle—aren’t readily available. The child perceives that he or she has little control over what happens. There seems to be no reprieve, no cavalry coming, no end in sight. This is the space many kids live in today, whether they are obviously at-risk students like Adam, or seemingly high-functioning kids like Zara. Toxic stress does not prepare kids for the real world. It damages their ability to thrive.13 To return to rat studies for a moment, when rat pups were taken from their mothers not for fifteen minutes but for three hours a day, the experience was so stressful that when they were returned to their mothers, the rat pups didn’t interact with them. They remained easily stressed for the rest of their lives.14 So how do you capitalize on positive or tolerable stress while avoiding the bad kind? It is simple in theory, but tricky in execution: kids need a supportive adult around, they need time to recover from the stressful event, and they need to have a sense of control over their lives.

mindfulness as “paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally.” The basic mindfulness meditation practice involves focusing awareness on the breath and noticing thoughts as they arise. The goal is to focus on the moment-to-moment experience, without judging or reacting. You monitor the content of your thoughts and your reactions to them.

What to Do Tonight Support autonomy, support autonomy, support autonomy. Explore where your child’s true inner motivation lies. You can do this by asking when in life he or she feels “really happy.” Kids with a healthy self-drive will commonly think of times when they perform well in school or in sports, are engaged in pleasurable pastimes, or do something fun with their friends or family. In contrast, kids who are obsessively motivated or have difficulty sustaining motivation and effort will often say that they feel happiest when they have no responsibilities, when nothing is expected of them, and when they feel no pressure. Make a point of speaking with your kids about what it is they want in life. What do they love to do? What do they feel they’re good at? If there’s a reason they’re here, what might that be? Help your child articulate (and write down) goals. We will explore this in more depth in Chapter Ten. For now, simply the act of voicing where she wants to get is a remarkably constructive step. Encourage flow in any activity by giving your kids the space and time they need to do what they love. Teach and model a love of challenge and persistence in the face of difficulty. Attribute positive motivational qualities to young kids (e.g., “I’ve noticed that you don’t give up on things.”). Teach your kids not to be overly preoccupied with pleasing others. If they’re focused on external feedback, consider occasionally saying something like, “Everybody feels good when they’re successful at things and get positive feedback from other people. It’s completely normal. My experience, though, is that the wisest thing is to evaluate your own performance and to focus on getting better at doing the right thing.” If your child doesn’t seem to have a passion, remember that there are many people and experiences that will positively influence their lives. Seek out mentors or role models in different fields, and expose them to a range of careers and life choices.

By giving your child the opportunity to make decisions for herself while still young, you will help her brain build the circuits that are necessary for resilience in the face of stress. A small experience of control over her circumstances, such as choosing her own clothing or decorating her own room, will activate her prefrontal cortex and condition it to respond effectively.3 Strengthened by this sense of control, the brain’s Pilot grows stronger, rather than ceding power to the Lion Fighter at the first hint of stress. By giving your five-year-old the ability to wear clashing clothes if she chooses, you will be helping her to cope better in every situation, including those she can’t control, such as where she’s seated in a testing room, or when someone breaks up with her.

stereotype that darker-skinned kids weren’t bright. He knew from experience that although talent is evenly distributed, opportunity is not. He could see potential where others had missed it. He was looking to grow roses in concrete.

There’s a charge to being around Duncan, like one of those light bulbs you touch in the science museum that make your hair stand up, and we hadn’t stopped talking—urgently—since I arrived. We bounced from topic to topic, frantically, like fast friends excited to find someone else who also wanted to talk about religion, mysticism, sex, ghosts, and drugs. We sat down next to the incense like two kids in a dorm room trying to mask illegal aromas, and Duncan hit Record. I told him I wasn’t used to things getting so deep and so interesting so quickly. “That’s what happens when you’re with cool people,” Duncan said. “You end up getting in great conversations.” I wondered in this moment if Duncan knew how unique he was. I wondered if he knew how bored and dismissive people can be when you try to talk about dreams, or out-of-body experiences, or the afterlife, or if you suggest that the physical world is only just a small piece of what’s really going on here. “The plague of the world is that so many people allow themselves to be surrounded by vampires,” Duncan said, using the classiest monster as a word to describe all the what-you-see-is-what-you-get people, the ones who are busy cockblocking the curious weirdos from tripping out on their basic wonder. “Their whole life is one shit conversation to the next to the next to the next until they’re on their deathbed, and that’s the one real conversation they have. They finally say, ‘I love you so much!’ And then they die.” This is Duncan, the opposite of a vampire. He doesn’t drain life from people, he infuses them, resuscitating their awe and bringing color back to their cheeks. The vampires, he warned, “will keep you stuck in the harbor of sorrows. They’ll try to keep your fucking anchor down.” I cackled with laughter. Duncan is one of those rare people who remind you that we’re all here, stuck in our human bodies, confused and curious since we all emerged from the interdimensional space portal commonly known as a vagina. He wants to get into it; he wants to touch, taste, scream, laugh, and sing his way toward enlightenment, and as I sat with him that day, he made me think he just might bring me along with him.

Nearly every doctor I worked with dreamed as a child about curing disease and worked like crazy to become a doctor. They studied tirelessly to learn science, entered medical school with idealistic visions, and became the pride of their family. They entered residency with hundreds of thousands of dollars of student loan debt and initially saw the chronic sleep deprivation and verbal abuse by their superiors as integral parts of the experience—because “great achievement is born of great sacrifice.” But almost universally among doctors I have met, this idealism eventually turns to cynicism. My colleagues in residency talked often about questioning their sanity, of wondering whether this was all worth it. I spoke with successful surgeons who’d drafted their resignation letters dozens of times. Another had a recurring daydream of leaving everything behind and becoming a baker. Many of my supervising physicians were desperate to spend more time with their children. I witnessed more than one tearful breakdown in the operating room when surgical cases were delayed and led to yet another missed bedtime for their kids. Several had dealt with suicidal depression. I understood why doctors had the highest burnout and suicide rate of any profession. Inevitably, these conversations led to an insight that I believe is whispered by doctors in every hospital in America: they feel trapped inside a broken system.

To take it even further, consequences and punitive reactions are actually often counterproductive, not only in terms of building brains, but even when it comes to getting kids to cooperate. Based on our personal and clinical experience, as well as the latest science about the developing brain, we can tell you that automatically giving consequences is not the best way to accomplish the goals of discipline. What is? That’s the foundation of the No-Drama Discipline approach, and it comes down to one simple phrase: connect and redirect.

The Happiest Story about a Kid Dying of Cancer I’ve Ever Seen.” Upworthy watched the “feedback” pour in, monitoring both the percentage of people who clicked each headline and the number who shared it with their friends. It was a perfect, dispassionate science experiment, where the feedback could show Upworthy editors exactly which packaging would have the biggest impact—before they released it to the rest of the world. In moments, the results became clear: people clicked on the third headline 20 percent more often than the original. But that wasn’t the end of the test. Upworthy wrote alternate versions of the winning headline and sent it out to several other groups. It repeated the process a ruthless 18 times, for a total of 75 variations in all. Here are a few of the contenders: Headline % Lift We Lost This Kid 80 Years Too Early. I’m Glad He Went Out with a Bang 0% I Cried Through This Entire Video. That’s OK Though, Because This Kid’s Life Was Wonderful + 9% The Happiest Story about a Kid Dying of Cancer I’ve Ever Seen + 28% RIP Amazing Rock Star Teenager Who Punched Cancer in the Face with Love on the Way Out + 65% Cancer Wasn’t a Death Sentence for This Kid. It Was a Wake Up Call. -22% Her Parents Asked, “Would You Date Him If He Didn’t Have Cancer?” So There Ya Go. + 75% This Kid Just Died. What He Left Behind Is Wonderful. + 96% In the end, Upworthy tweaked the winning headline one more time: Headline % Lift This Kid Just Died. What He Left Behind Is Wondtacular. + 116%

The most important pillar behind innovation and opportunity—education—will see tremendous positive change in the coming decades as rising connectivity reshapes traditional routines and offers new paths for learning. Most students will be highly technologically literate, as schools continue to integrate technology into lesson plans and, in some cases, replace traditional lessons with more interactive workshops. Education will be a more flexible experience, adapting itself to children’s learning styles and pace instead of the other way around. Kids will still go to physical schools, to socialize and be guided by teachers, but as much, if not more, learning will take place employing carefully designed educational tools in the spirit of today’s Khan Academy, a nonprofit organization that produces thousands of short videos (the majority in science and math) and shares them online for free. With hundreds of millions of views on the Khan Academy’s YouTube channel already, educators in the United States are increasingly adopting its materials and integrating the approach of its founder, Salman Khan—modular learning tailored to a student’s needs. Some are even “flipping” their classrooms, replacing lectures with videos watched at home (as homework) and using school time for traditional homework, such as filling out a problem set for math class. Critical thinking and problem-solving skills will become the focus in many school systems as ubiquitous digital-knowledge tools, like the more accurate sections of Wikipedia, reduce the importance of rote memorization. For children in poor countries, future connectivity promises new access to educational tools, though clearly not at the level described above. Physical classrooms will remain dilapidated; teachers will continue to take paychecks and not show up for class; and books and supplies will still be scarce. But what’s new in this equation—connectivity—promises that kids with access to mobile devices and the Internet will be able to experience school physically and virtually, even if the latter is informal and on their own time.

This research confirms a classic experiment from the 1960s conducted by a third-grade schoolteacher named Jane Elliott on her class in the small, all-white rural town of Riceville, Iowa. Elliott began her experiment by dividing her class into two groups by eye color—blue and brown—then presented the kids with examples of blue-eyed good people and brown-eyed bad people. In addition, the blue-eyed kids in the class were told that they were superior and were given special privileges, while the brown-eyed kids were called inferior and treated as second-class citizens.

Richard Dawkins lamented,9 we think that our kids need to have "fun, fun, fun" rather than, say, experience wonder or interest (they are not the same thing) when going to school or a museum.

taught” specific sport skills that are not commensurate with their physical, cognitive, and emotional maturation levels. I have alluded to this at several places in the book. This is an alarming trend that has many long-term consequences. Certainly in most cases the young athletes have the specific sport skill and physical capabilities to excel, but what about for the long term? The early specialization can result in long-term stagnation. In reality, the ones who would have made it anyway do so because they matured early or just simply were more talented. At the other end of the spectrum there is greater incentive to compete longer because of the monetary rewards that are available in the later years of an athlete’s career. There is no simple solution to this. Intuitively we certainly know that the human cost is high. We always hear about those who made it, but what about the many who are cast by the wayside? The goal in youth sport should be to provide a good experience by teaching fundamentals and the rules, not by trying to identify the next National League MVP or Cy Young Award winner. Give them the opportunity to be kids. Play and playfulness

Even more controversial was Google’s insistence on relying on academic metrics for mature adults whose work experience would seem to make college admission test scores and GPAs moot. In her interview for Google’s top HR job, Stacy Sullivan, then age thirty-five, was shocked when Brin and Page asked for her SAT scores. At first she challenged the practice. “I don’t think you should ask something from when people were sixteen or seventeen years old,” she told them. But Page and Brin seemed to believe that Google needed those … data. They believed that SAT scores showed how smart you were. GPAs showed how hard you worked. The numbers told the story. It never failed to astound midcareer people when Google asked to exhume those old records. “You’ve got to be kidding,” said R. J. Pittman, thirty-nine years old at the time, to the recruiter who asked him to produce his SAT scores and GPA. He was a Silicon Valley veteran, and Google had been wooing him. “I was pretty certain I didn’t have a copy of my SATs, and you can’t get them after five years or something,” he says. “And they’re, ‘Well, can you try to remember, make a close guess?’ I’m like, ‘Are you really serious?’ And they were serious. They will ask you questions about a grade that you got in a particular computer science class in college: Was there any reason why that wasn’t an A? And you think, ‘What was I doing way back then?

I walked out onto the stage and I started telling the tale of the “Untold Story of the Origin of Zombies.” And it went like this: Where do Zombies come from? Not many people know. But after some extensive investigative Zombie journalism, we’ve discovered the truth. It all began when the human government decided that they wanted to create stronger soldiers. They had lost too many battles, and now they wanted to win every war that they fought. So they approached some soldiers in their army to join a special secret project. The only requirement was that the soldiers they chose had no living relatives. This way, no one could claim their bodies in case something went wrong. So, they exposed these soldiers to an experimental virus to enhance their abilities and make them into super soldiers. The experiment seemed to be working. But then, something terrible happened... The soldiers went crazy, and they were horribly disfigured. Ultimately, the experiment claimed their lives. But, when the soldiers were being prepared for burial, they suddenly came to life. They were not only walking, but they had enhanced strength, enhanced sense of smell and enhanced hearing. They attacked the soldiers in charge of burying them. And the recently bitten soldiers also transformed into the living dead. Before long, the entire army base was contaminated with the virus. Once everyone in the base was exposed, the virus mutated and the soldiers began having an overwhelming craving for something warm and mushy. They longed for brains! Soon, the army of the living dead found their way to the next unsuspecting town in search of brains. They attacked that town, biting anything that moved both human and animal. Soon that town was overrun. The virus spread from town to town, and city to city, until the entire world was contaminated. It was the first Zombie Apocalypse. After hundreds of years had passed, the Zombies started to evolve and began developing intelligent thoughts. They began forming villages, and then towns, and then entire cities of Zombies were created. The Zombies made great advances in health and science, and became highly advanced technologically. But, eventually the Zombies’ appetite for brains and warm flesh gave way to an even greater craving... The craving for CAKE! Their overwhelming desire for cake resulted in an explosive rise in the baking industry. Cake shops began springing up on every corner of every Zombie city street. They just couldn’t get enough! The human race began growing again, too. Human villages of farmers and miners began springing up. And because the Zombies were a peaceful race, they coexisted with the humans by staying away from them. But soon, the Zombie’s resources began to become scarce, especially the cake. So Zombies began scaring villagers in order to get the supplies they needed, especially the highly valued resource of cake. Now Zombies send their kids to Scare School to train their children from a very young age. They train them on how to effectively scare humans in order to get their needed supplies, especially cake. And so it has been until today. Thank you.

While stressful experiences can happen at any college, and social conflicts can and do erupt among Black students at Black colleges as well, there is considerable evidence that Black students at historically Black colleges and universities achieve higher academic performance, enjoy greater social involvement, and aspire to higher occupational goals than their peers do at predominantly White institutions.4 For example, according to data from the National Science Foundation, Spelman College, a historically Black college for women, sends more Black women on to earn PhDs in the sciences than any other undergraduate institution.5

The primary challenge of happiness research comes in the application of insight to actual lives, each of which is highly individual and does not fit neatly into any group template. The findings and ideas we’ve presented in this book are based on research, but science can’t know the turmoil or contradictions you feel in your heart. It can’t quantify the stir that you experience when a certain friend calls. It can’t know what keeps you up at night, or what you regret, or how you express your love. Science can’t say whether you’re calling your kids too much or too little, or whether you should reconnect with a particular family member. It can’t say if it would be better for you to have a heart-to-heart over a cup of coffee or play a game of basketball or go for a walk with a friend. Those answers can only come through reflection, and figuring out what works for you. For anything in this book to be useful, you will need to tune in to your unique life experience and make its lessons your own. But here’s what science can tell you: Good relationships keep us happier, healthier, and help us live longer. This is true across the lifespan, and across cultures and contexts, which means it is almost certainly true for you, and for nearly every human being who has ever lived.

A major goal of this book is to help parents help their kids increase their stress tolerance—their ability to perform well in stressful situations—and to “throw off” stress rather than accumulate it. Stress tolerance is highly correlated to success in all aspects of life. We want to challenge our kids without overwhelming them, to stretch them without breaking them. We want them to experience some positive stress and some tolerable stress, but in the right ways, and with the right bolstering. We want to give their brains all the support and room they need to grow strong. The how of all of this comes back again and again to a sense of control.

When you add the Alka-Seltzer, it reacts with the water to make tiny bubbles of carbon dioxide gas. These bubbles attach to the blobs of colored water (food colored water) and float to the top. When the bubbles pop at the top, the colored blobs drop to the bottom. When you apply heat to the mixture (flashlight), the heavier liquid (water) absorbs the heat and expands because it becomes less dense. Since the density of water and oil is similar the moment the water is heated, it becomes lighter than the oil and also causes the colored water blob to rise. It sometimes changes the shape of the bubbled-blobs from the Alka-Seltzer, making the shapes and colors prettier and different. When it cools, it drops back down. The Alka-Seltzer will ultimately finish, at which point you can put more Alka-Seltzer. You can also try a stronger light source for more heat to adjust the view. 16. Cloud in a Jar Question: How is a cloud formed? Hypothesis (Form Your Educated Guess Here): _________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________ Materials: Jar Hot water Food coloring Matches Paper towel Plastic baggie with ice cubes Procedure:

Are we like the expert marathoners who are able to match expected effort at any given moment during a race with their actual experience? Or are we like the grade school kids who misjudge how difficult running a mile will be? Does our appraisal of our skills match our appraisal of the demands of the situation? This mismatch between situational demands and our capacity to cope doesn’t just determine running performance; it determines what kind of response to stress we’ll have.

Despite a dystopian depiction of social isolation and inaccessibility in the popular culture, all children should enjoy computer science experiences. It is simply unacceptable to celebrate the occasional kid who makes a fortune programming an iPhone app when his classmates are relegated to keyboarding instruction.

Another study from Gallup and Purdue University found that the type of college students attended (e.g., public versus private; highly selective versus less selective) made very little difference to their workplace engagement and well-being. The factors that best predicted well-being were those more intrinsic to the college experience itself, such as: 1) having a professor who showed personal interest in them, stimulated them to learn, and encouraged them; 2) having an internship or job in college that allowed them to apply what they were learning; and 3) being actively involved in extracurricular activities or projects that took a semester or more to complete.

When we discovered that a low sense of control is enormously stressful and that autonomy is key to developing motivation,1 we thought we were onto something important. This impression was confirmed when we started to probe deeper and found that a healthy sense of control is related to virtually everything we want for our children, including physical and mental health, academic success, and happiness. From 1960 until 2002, high school and college students have steadily reported lower and lower levels of internal locus of control (the belief that they can control their own destiny) and higher levels of external locus of control (the belief that their destiny is determined by external forces). This change has been associated with an increased vulnerability to anxiety and depression. In fact, adolescents and young adults today are five to eight times more likely to experience the symptoms of an anxiety disorder than young people were at earlier times, including during the Great Depression, World War II, and the cold war.

I had a religious experience somewhere around Exit 9," I tell Jeff later that night. "I was looking up at the stars, and I thought, whatever happens, it's okay. You're part of the universe. You're connected to it forever." "Yeah, well," he says, "That's nice that you want to be a star somewhere in the Milky Way. But I just spent five hours in the car with those kids, and there's no way you're leaving me alone with them. You're not going into the light. You're not leaving to become a moonbeam. Forget it. I won't let you. Fuck off." It's the sweetest thing anyone's ever said to me.

Oops! This young scientist tried to clean his friends’ copper ID bracelets. But the acid was too strong and it removed part of each letter! Question: Can you add the missing lines to complete the letters and see to whom each bracelet belongs?

Who is affected?

seeing.

Sometimes it isn’t a matter of continued trauma, but the demands of our everyday lives that cause this shutdown. Sometimes we don’t have the time and space to heal from our grief experience. Because we have to keep getting up in the morning, getting to work, feeding the dog, finding our kid’s missing left shoe. There is only so much work our overtaxed brain can handle. Taking care of OURSELVES often becomes a luxury we can’t afford, rather than a necessity we can’t ignore.

may be down a pair of rain boots, she thought, but I’m definitely up in friends. Dunwiddle Magic School was fifth through eighth grades. The students were divided into the five magic categories: Flares, Flyers, Flickers, Fluxers, and Fuzzies. Then there was group of unusual kids like Nory: the fifth-grade Upside-Down Magic kids. Those kids studied with Ms. Starr, the Upside-Down Magic teacher. Ms. Starr taught literature, social studies, gym, math, and science—and she also had special training to help kids with upside-down magic. She wanted them to get in touch with their unusual talents. They did headstands in class. They hula-hooped. They did interpretive dance (though none of them liked it). They did trust exercises. They tried to feel their emotions and channel their magical talents productively. Today, after math, Nory slid her protractor into her desk. Her friend Andres Padillo was floating on the ceiling, attached to a long leash connected to his belt, as usual. Andres was an Upside-Down Flyer. He’d flown up, up, up on the day his magic came in, and he had never flown down. That’s why he had to be on a leash. He couldn’t stop flying. Nory had an idea she’d been wanting to try. “Pull Andres down,” she told Elliott. “Hey, Andres! Let’s do a gravity experiment. I’m going to sit on you, okay?” Marigold Ramos came over. “We’re going to sit on Andres?” “I’m not sure about this,” muttered Andres as Elliott reeled him down. “You’ll be fine!” Nory said. “It’s for science!” To Marigold, she added in a whisper, “Don’t shrink him.” Marigold wasn’t an upside-down talent. Or at least, no one had ever been able to put a label on her magic. She shrank things, but she couldn’t make them big again afterward. Andres was now floating level with the desks. He grabbed on to the back of a chair with one hand and on to Elliott’s shirt with the other. Elliott struggled with the leash, trying to keep him low. Andres’s feet kept floating up. Nory hopped onto a chair. She pulled Marigold up with her. “I’ll sit on his shoulders. Marigold, you sit on his back. And, Andres, we’re going to try to weigh you down. But maybe you’ll fly us up, instead. Either way will be excellent, okay?” “You might hit your heads on the ceiling,” warned Andres. “Students!” Ms. Starr said, walking over. “What in the world is going on?” “An experiment, Ms. Starr,” said Andres. Nory and Marigold were sitting on him, but he hadn’t lowered down to the floor. He was just about two feet off the ground, with Elliott still holding the leash tightly. “Girls, there will be no riding of Andres.

Why does taking part in a scared-straight program make kids more likely to commit crimes? The story-editing approach suggests an answer, by asking how these programs change kids’ interpretations of why they should stay out of trouble. The problem is that the programs provide kids with external motivation—wanting to avoid the horrors of prison—that can, paradoxically, undermine their internal motivation to take the straight path. A number of years ago, Daniel Lassiter and I demonstrated this phenomenon in a two-session experiment with college students.

I can never understand the experiences that shaped my parents, how it felt to come to America without speaking a lick of English, the racism they must have endured, the violence they'd fled, or the sense of longing they felt for their homeland. It's why Asian parents want their kids to study unambiguous subjects like math and science, be good at golf and violin, and avoid liberal arts like English or philosophy or political science or cooking - anything subjective can be taken away from you. If I could stop being so angry, maybe I could understand my dad.

Unanticipated rewards in the future, such as a paycheck bonus in two weeks or an athletic trophy you get at the end of a season, will not change neural connections in the same way. Rewards have to be experienced right after we do something in order to build habit associations (context-response) in memory. Given this timing, the most effective habit-building rewards are often intrinsic to a behavior, or a part of the action itself. This could be the feeling of pleasure you get when you read an engaging story to your kids and see their enjoyment; or maybe the warm glow of generosity you experience when doing a good deed, like volunteering at the soup kitchen. You aren’t a rat. If you volunteer, don’t then go and buy yourself a big chocolate bar and expect the habit to start forming. Let the warmth intrinsic to the activity be the reward. Take advantage of your built-in humanity. As you’d expect, those who liked to exercise—who rated it a fun activity that made them feel good—exercised more often and reported that it was more habitual and automatic. They didn’t have to think much before heading out to the track or gym. Most interesting is that students who exercised just as often, but who indicated that they went mostly out of guilt or to please others, failed to form a robust habit.

We ignore the science of circadian clocks at a societal level, most disastrously when it comes to kids. During puberty, teens experience a shift in their circadian rhythms that causes them to naturally want to stay up later and sleep in longer. However, most schools still have start times that are very early in the morning, some before 8:00 a.m. This can be incredibly damaging to the metabolic health of teens, as research has shown that insufficient sleep can lead to insulin resistance, weight gain, and an increased risk of type 2 diabetes, and up to 45 percent of teens are getting inadequate sleep.

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In the nonlocal model,” she continued, “your brain does not create consciousness, but rather your brain experiences what already exists around it.” She glanced from Faukman to Langdon and back. “In simple English, our brains interact with an existing matrix of awareness.” “That was simple English?” Faukman looked bemused. “Count your blessings,” Langdon said. “She could ruin lunch by trying to explain the triadic dimensional vortical paradigm.” “Seriously, Robert?” she chided. “A man of your intellectual capacity should be able to grasp a nine-dimensional quantized, volumetric reality embedded in an infinite continuity.” Langdon rolled his eyes. “See what I mean?” “Kids.” Faukman held up his hands. “Don’t make me stop the car.