Most adults are so busy trying to force little children to act like miniature adults that they don’t allow kids the healthy development they need. Researcher Erika Christakis says this is because most adults don’t seem to understand the importance of being little. Christakis is a former faculty member of the Yale Child Study Center, and she says today’s parents are so eager to “invest in the future” for their children that they completely lose sight of the fact that being “little” — and doing child-like things — will give their children better outcomes than their “adultification” of childhood. Children desperately need more unstructured play and more unstructured time in general with adults who are willing to allow them to be little investigators rather than sponges for stuffing with dry facts. The very things which most affluent parents believe are helping their children get ahead are setting them up for failure instead.
Briefly: You have natural human rights, not ‘constitutional rights’
Briefly: Death of teens is reminder how quickly life can be snuffed out
Briefly: Film festival announcement for 2019 makes me nostalgic for 2005
End of life brought cancer patient to baptism six days before death
Life is too short to hide the love you would regret hiding at death
Depression can be mind’s way of saying, ‘Hey, we’re way off track’
Don’t trust this con man — or almost anybody else on ‘TV news’
Homeless man on a cold night leaves me with hard questions
Have you finished your tax return? That’s a ‘do-it-yourself mugging’