In the hierarchy of injuries, concussion is often considered to be near the bottom, almost a noninjury.  If a CT scan of the head is normal—meaning there is no bleeding or swelling in or around the brain, and no skull fracture—generally the person goes home to rest and recover.  I myself had a concussion a few years ago, and found that for a few days afterwards my brain didn’t work quite right. More…

Everyone knows that poor people are, on average, sicker than well-off people. This is true even where there is universal health care, as in Great Britain and Scandinavia. It’s not just a difference between the top and the bottom of the wealth ladder, but a stepwise gradient from level to level of socio-economic status (SES).

A study of the British civil service, for example showed that for heart health, administrators did better than professionals, who did better than clerical staff, who did better than porters and messengers.  Death rates from heart and vascular disease were about double in the lowest SES group what they were in the highest.

Surprisingly, only a third of this gradient was explained by life style differences, like smoking and amount of exercise, writes Dr. Robert Sapolsky in the journal Scientific American (Dec. 2005, pp. 92- 99).  A larger fraction of the gradient (about half) was explained by autonomy in the workplace.  The more a person made his own decisions at work, the better his cardiovascular health. More…

What do you do about a child or teenager who won’t do anything—who’s checked out of the family, won’t help around the house, and is failing in school?  Or the child who wants to be paid for everything he does?

And why, when there is no motivation for these everyday survival skills, is there more and more interest (at increasingly younger ages) in the kinds of “rewarding” activities we don’t want children to want—like alcohol, drugs, and sex?

What is our culture doing to motivation? More…

Last night I slept by a pond.  The night was warm.  No clouds, numberless stars in the sky and the grass—really, it looked like stars had fallen into the grass.  Little points of greenish light which appeared and disappeared.  With a flashlight I found something looking partway between a sowbug and caterpillar, with glowing greenish point at one end.  Nearby the dry leaves on the ground were rustling.  I crept over and looked, catching glimpses of glittery blue eye-shine—spiders moving among the leaves.

Something walked by in the shadows on little feet. More…

Last time I gave an introduction to Collaborative Problem Solving, psychologist Ross Greene’s method for teaching non-compliant kids to solve problems better, as described in his book The Explosive Child.  I described the skills deficits of kids, and adults, that keep them from solving problems well.

Plan A, as I described last time, is when the adult gets to say what will happen, without regard for the child’s preferences.  There is always going to be a certain amount of Plan A, but if there is too much, kids don’t get a chance to learn to make decisions.  Plan C is where the child’s will prevails.

Plan B (for both) is where the interesting learning occurs. More…