Critical Periods – Age 12 (TMBMS074)
Welcome to The Mental Breakdown Morning Show! Each weekday morning, we will to help get your day off to a great start. This week on the show, we will be talking about five critical ages at which particular skills and abilities should be attained. At this stage of development, children are entering puberty and are well on their way to separating from their parents. By age 12, pre-teens should be able to independently manage their daily living needs. They should be able to feed and clothe themselves. They should be able to make decisions that are in their best interest. And they should be able to be trusted to do things outside of the home without a parent present.
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Critical Periods – Age 8 (TMBMS073)
Welcome to The Mental Breakdown Morning Show! Each weekday morning, we will to help get your day off to a great start. This week on the show, we will be talking about five critical ages at which particular skills and abilities should be attained. By age 8, children must be self-regulated. That is, building on their emotional control, by this critical period of development children should be able to regulate their emotional and behavioral responses to their environment.
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Can We Come Together (Part 1)
Yesterday the Electoral College made it official. Donald Trump is the 45th president of the United States. And while that decision makes it final–finally, our country still faces the larger problem of what to do about the yawning chasm that divides red and blue states, conservatives and liberals, republicans and democrats. Election fever is still running high among our citizens; passions have not yet cooled and a still-hot anger remains visible just below the surface. Read More
Critical Periods – Age 5 (TMBMS072)
Welcome to The Mental Breakdown Morning Show! Each weekday morning, we will to help get your day off to a great start. This week on the show, we will be talking about five critical ages at which particular skills and abilities should be attained. By age 5, children are starting to enter the next major phase of life – school. To be successful at school, though, children must be able to control their emotions. While they will not be 100% successful, by the time they enter kindergarten, little ones need to be able to control their emotions so that they can take directions from others (i.e., teachers) and transition between activities.
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Can You Really Make Them Smarter?
I just read a most fascinating article by Jenni Ogden on the Flynn Effect. As most psychologist know, the Flynn Effect refers to the small but gradual increase in the average IQ score of the American children. As it turns out, IQ tests are revised about every ten to fifteen years. They are then administered to a new group of children. And what Flynn discovered was that the average score of the new group of children tested with the new tests is about 3 points higher than the average score of the children tested 10 years before. Read More
Critical Periods – Age 3 (TMBMS071)
Welcome to The Mental Breakdown Morning Show! Each weekday morning, we will to help get your day off to a great start. This week on the show, we will be talking about five critical ages at which particular skills and abilities should be attained. On today’s show we talked about the critical age of three. By the age of three, children should be able to do many things, including walking and talking. But another important developmental milestone for this age is toilet training. Opportunities for social interactions become affected when children are not toilet trained, so it is critical that parents work to prepare their children for this transition.
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