Are you raising nice kids? A Harvard psychologist gives 5 ways to raise them to be kind

By Amy Joyce at the Washington Post.

"Earlier this year, I wrote about teaching empathy, and whether you are a parent who does so. The idea behind it is from Richard Weissbourd, a Harvard psychologist with the graduate school of education, who runs the Making Caring Common project, aimed to help teach kids to be kind.

I know, you’d think they are or that parents are teaching that themselves, right? Not so, according to a new study released by the group.

About 80 percent of the youth in the study said their parents were more concerned with their achievement or happiness than whether they cared for others. The interviewees were also three times more likely to agree that “My parents are prouder if I get good grades in my classes than if I’m a caring community member in class and school.”

Weissbourd and his cohorts have come up with recommendations about how to raise children to become caring, respectful and responsible adults. Why is this important? Because if we want our children to be moral people, we have to, well, raise them that way."


Whole article here

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/parenting/wp/2014/07/18/are-you-raising-nice-kids-a-harvard-psychologist-gives-5-ways-to-raise-them-to-be-kind/

To his list of 5, I'd say add a component of nature/respect for living things to their metrics for kindness.

"Who's The Man? Hollywood Heroes Defined Masculinity For Millions"

by Bob Mondello for NPR

"Tony Curtis used to say that he'd learned how to kiss a girl by watching Cary Grant at the movies. Let's give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he wasn't just sitting behind Grant at the theater — while also noting that he's hardly alone in taking instruction from films.

Movies have always offered a window through which audiences, sitting in the dark, can observe human nature without being observed. A movie theater is where many a boy learned how to make things right, the way John Wayne did in so many pictures, with fists or a gun. Movies taught about sacrificing for the greater good, as Humphrey Bogart did when he sent Ingrid Bergman off with a "here's lookin' at you, kid" in Casablanca. They're a place to learn about standing firm against injustice (with Spencer Tracy in Inherit the Wind), and about standing up for yourself (with Sidney Poitier in A Raisin in the Sun).

All of which was useful for a nation that thought of itself as a melting pot. For generations, newly arrived immigrants had emerged slowly from their ethnic enclaves in big cities, where things were comfortingly just like the old country. Assimilating was hard.

But film — even back when it was silent — was like an instruction manual for the American experience. For a nickel at the nickelodeon, a foreign fellow fresh off the boat could see exactly how American men dressed, how they greeted each other (with a handshake, not with European kisses on each cheek), and, more generally, how people in his newly adopted country behaved. Admittedly, silent films used a kind of shorthand for American behavior — stereotypes, to allow directors to brush in characters quickly without dialogue: women were almost always domestic, delicate and passive, while men were outgoing, strong and active."

SNIP to comply with DU's 4 paragraph rule. Article is really interesting and doesn't end up how you think it will. Mondello makes a good arguement for why there are so many super hero films these days.

Whole article and/or link to listen here:

http://www.npr.org/2014/07/30/336575116/whos-the-man-hollywood-heroes-defined-masculinity-for-millions

Craft help!

I want to attach a 11"x17" photo (on photo paper) to a piece of foam core. What adhesive can I use to not ruin the photo.

Thanks.

r>g A Formula of Inequality Told in Four Generations

Illustrated version of Banksy's "Taking the Piss"

Sorry, can't post the image without posting the entire story. Recommended reading.

http://zenpencils.com/comic/155-banksy-taking-the-piss-explicit/

Words by Banksy and art by Gavin Aung Than.

Isn't birth control cheaper than pregnancy? Won't insurance cost more for companies that

opt out of preventive* medicine or opt out of birth control options? Of course, those companies will either pass the cost on to the employee or blame Obamacare.


* I realize that BC isn't preventative medicine, but it is similar and vastly cheaper than the alternatives.

Best book title

For me it has to be:

"An arsonist's guide to writers' homes in New England : a novel by Brock Clarke.

From The Top Secret Files of Dick Cheney

Ruben Bollings' "Tom the Dancing Bug"

Despite crying ALCOA all the time, I'm normally not a very tin foily person, but is

there any evidence that the Koch brothers are behind the recent influx of child refugees from Central America? Who is telling everyone to come? Any articles/reporters investigating it? The RW wants to blame Obama which seems awfully convenient. What is the real cause?

Was Howard Baker's death an extinction level event for good Republicans?

Another species gone from the Earth?