Being Human

This article caught my eye. It discusses the importance of spontaneous play and the development of children.

Many parents load their children's schedules with get-smart videos, enrichment activities and lots of classes in a drive to help them excel. The efforts often begin as early as infancy...

It is available here.

I read the two reading preping for the world cafe. I must say from this perspective of my life as a want to be downsizer and not collector, I value a good slow-cooked meal shared with friends across the table from me. I like to see their expressions and share the humanity. I have takes several courses here that look at what world globalization is doing to us and now the rest of the world. I find that at work when I go on my computer it creates more work, not less. It moves information faster but that means someone half a country away gets to create more work for me! I have less time to spend on the floor with my people interacting. Computers are designed to be addictive. They get you hooked and suck the time right out of you. I like not killing trees but reading the articles was hard on my eyes on line, and what fossil fuel was used to generate the energy to run my computer.

What happens when the fuel runs out and unless you have solar computers does learning stop?

As far as "relationships" on line, I think it is a bad idea. I have read enough Carol Gilligan to be recruited to her way of thinking that this is another way to supress women. It dehumanizes and degrades people. When people can create false fronts it is called deception. We had a friend that was going to date an on line person that represented herself as a tea totaler and some other things she was not, we clued him in and he was able to avoid a real bad situation. Human networking one, on line dating zero!

Computers have thier place as proper tools. It is convenient to go to the library from my home computer. A virtual walk through fall leaves is just not the same as a walk through Mc clain nature trail or around Capital Lake. Anyway I want to return to relationships and friends as "old school" as possible. See you at the long house and we can chat eye to eye.

I have read a lot about twin studies to know that some traits are highly heritable. I have also read a lot about how emotional intelligence can be taught in ways to help people function in society. How children interact with parents and peers can change thier behaviors. Lykken and Tellegen (1996) believe in a genetic happiness set point. You can go high or low for a time then tend to return to that set point. You do have control of your life and can learn things to increase your happiness. If you google seligman/authentic happiness you can take a free test and be part of a longitudinal study. 

I wonder if there is a maturation point that you recgonize your "personality self" and think about changes you may want to make. This would be like when a baby first recgonizes itself as a seperate person from others. There seems to be a time in teens to twenties that an awakening happens. This is an extreme time of hormonal changes, peer awareness, seperation from the home nurturing situation and final brain growth. Any thoughts out there? 

(The interesting part starts at 30 min. in, so jump ahead to that point.)

Be sure to watch the comments. Here are a couple of tests that will tell you if you are an empathizer or systematizer.

Sense of justice discovered in the brain - health - 05 October 2006 - New Scientist Tech

Sense of justice discovered in the brain

A brain region that curbs our natural self interest has been identified. The studies could explain how we control fairness in our society, researchers say.

Humans are the only animals to act spitefully or to mete out "justice", dishing out punishment to people seen to be behaving unfairly – even if it is not in the punisher's own best interests. This tendency has been hard to explain in evolutionary terms, because it has no obvious reproductive advantage and punishing unfairness can actually lead to the punisher being harmed.

Now, using a tool called the “ultimatum game”, researchers have identified the part of the brain responsible for punishing unfairness. Subjects were put into anonymous pairs, and one person in each pair was given $20 and asked to share it with the other. They could choose to offer any amount – if the second partner accepted it, they both got to keep their share.

Philosophy of Genetics: Development genes and stem cells

Development genes and stem cells

Human development is breathtaking in its complexity. After an egg is fertilized by a sperm, the cell starts to divide. Some of the earliest cells in the clump are known as embryonic stem cells because they can duplicate themselves endlessly, and change themselves (or differentiate) into any cell in the body by selectively switching off some of their genes.

Later, the cells become more specialized. The neural stem cells can only differentiate into neural cells of various kinds, and skin stem cells can only differentiate into skin cells (but not neural cells), even though the underlying genes in each cell are still the same (but selectively de-activated).

I want the note again how impressed I am with the way in which everyone has made use of the blog. I've witnessed topics from class being discussed on the blog, and topics from the blog crossing over into class. This is exactly what I'd hoped for -- that the conversation would become bigger than what we can do just in the classroom. So, good job!

I have a few thoughts that I hope will make the blog even more relevant to what we're doing:

• We've had lots of posts on a range of issues, many of which may not seem to be concerned with human development at first. I think this is fine (we're still breaking in the blog, and getting used to online conversation). And there isn't much that can't be connected to human development at some level. But, I'd like to suggest that everyone begin to focus in a little when considering what to choose as a topic. When you post something, be sure to comment about how it relates to the themes in the class.
• When you read other's posts, try to make a comment. Ask a question, make an observation, or connect the topic to something we've discussed in class. This might help our conversations go a little deeper, instead of being spread out over such a wide range of topics. If you are thinking about contributing on an specific issue, do a quick check to make sure that it isn't already being discussed on an existing thread.
• Support each other in thinking about things. If someone has posted something without making a connection to our work, engage that person by helping to make that connection. One of the great things about blogging is that it allows us to think as one mind. We are smarter together than we are individually, so use each other's minds to take these ideas further than we would be able to solo.

Remember, this is an experiment. I don't know of another class that has attempted to establish a true community blog as a learning tool. That means that y'all are blazing the trail. It also means that we're making this up as we go along, so be sure to pipe up if you're having any problems.

 It should be interesting to follow up on this in a year and see how the results turn out. If my family member recieved the placebo, I would be a little pissy if recieving the progesterone could have helped them.   

Treatment with progesterone, a well-known hormone that prepares the womb for pregnancy, safely reduces the risk of death and disability in people who suffer a traumatic brain injury, new research suggests

Find this article at: http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/conditions/10/03/brain.injuries.reut/inde...

So here's the deal, when I grew up my parents helped me out time to time.  I think we all can say that, but for the most part I started to work and support wants, and become money savy around the seventh grade.  If I wanted something outside of basic needs then i worked for it.  Starting at 7th grade I worked for 4.50 a hour bucking hay, from that I moved on to tree farms during the holidays, milked cows before school, biulding fence for the other farms, cleaning culverts/ fueling rigs for a local timber company and haying during the summer.  Mind you my rate of pay went up, as I got older. The thing is those jobs made me the hard working dedicated employee that I am today, and I would not trade those experiences for anything.  But ,after reading this article and the amount of money that was handed out to these kids just seems a tad to much, for doing what, not much more then what should be expected.  Just a random rant

But at some level, giving too much too often can deprive kids of more important things - the ability to set priorities or make long-term plans; the pride of achievement; even empathy. A teenager with an enlarged sense of entitlement and a credit card is one of the least attractive species on the planet.

Find this article at:
http://money.cnn.com/2006/10/06/magazines/fortune/pluggedin_murphy_power...

I was looking online for more information on baby dreams but I couldn't find anything specific to what babies dream, only what their mothers dream while pregnant. However, I found something really interesting. With my focus on psychology, I try to connect information from this class to psychological theory. I found an article that discusses a new program called "Bringing Home Baby" that Swedish Medical Center is doing for new parents. Their fear is that new parents do not quite understand how their emotions influence their baby. Think of how many parents become depressed and how this might effect children.

Because the baby is so finely tuned to parental emotions, however, these positive effects on the baby are easily disrupted and distorted. For example, even mild parental depression has a major impact on babies’ belief that what they do and feel can have an effect on their world. A depressed, unresponsive parent teaches an infant to also be unresponsive, emotionally withdrawn, and joyless. Conflicted parents ignore even strong signals from the baby, either by becoming withdrawn or by over-stimulating the infant and not correcting what they do in response to how the infant reacts. The end results in most cases is the tragedy of infants who have lost a sense of wonder and curiosity about the world, babies who do not explore, and who experience novel events like soap bubbles slowly rising in a room with profound wariness and withdrawal. Research using infant brain-wave patterns show that the infant of a depressed parent rapidly learns to process experiences in the same depressed, withdrawn pattern that her depressed parents have. This is a tragedy in the making.

The WHO (the World Health Organization) has predicted that within the next ten years (or so), depression will have become the second largest health ailment (first is heart disease). Not only will it be a problem in the mental health field but a problem in the entire medical field.  The rest of the article is found at www.kirlinfoundation.org/KFportfolio_bringing_baby_deep.htm

After talking in class today about habituation, I kept thinking about it and came up with a couple of questions I want to throw out there.  Is habituation a sign or indicator of intelligence?  Does habituating quicker show better adaptability and processing skills?

Ok, so in chapter 5.2 they talk about inner speech..well this blog has nothing to do with that..but it did strike up a random thought... you know how some kids have thier 'own' language they share with siblings and peers..is that for real? I mean are kids capable of coming up with their own language and actually understand it? or are they just making weird obnoxious noises and saying its theirs? like twins i guess....they are so close they can feel each others emotions suposedly, and i was watching law and order:svu where a set of twins communicated in there own language.(law and order:svu probably isnt the best source for info but its a great show!) do kids just want to believe they understand their languages and go along with it, and make up what the other kid could be saying and goign off that? or is there actually some thing there? I mean my mom said that me and my brother had our own language and that is why i didnt talk till i was much older, because he did it for me, but, i think she is just crazy. so yeah, that is my question, can kids make up their own language while their imagination is still soo very active and growing, and then lose it when they hit a certian age?

I think someone already brought this up but why do people constently make the same bad mistakes over and over? Dont you think that you would learn the first time that if some action lands you in jail or kicked out on the street you wouldnt do it agian? i would use like drug addicts as an example but its not a really good one, because they go through rehab and all that and get straight but then bam..like that one hit of what ever and they are back at step one. but drug addicts are just that addicted to some thing..but where does addiction come from? is it like a serious brain(for lack of better word) defect? i know that some people are more likley to get addicted to certain things than others, but now that im off track, let me try to remember what i was thinking first of all. So if you touch a hot stove, and get burned...are you going to purposly do it again? I just cant grasp the idea that when people mess up, work so hard to get good, how they can go and mess it all up over their previous mistake..whats wrong with them? did they not get the 'hot stove means burn' theory? why do people give up so easily on themselves? why are people so self destructive? its hard to compile full thoughts while on my cellular device to a beligerant angery man...so goodbye untill next random thought..

I found this study about how a child's initial capacity to differentiate words may detect future difficulties with language building ability. This caught my attention mainly because the researchers realized that this is an individual capacity and therefore cannot be neccessarily done in the traditional statistical manner.

http://www.apa.org/monitor/sep06/words.html

I found an interesting article in the internet. I looked into study of the evolution. I was in awe with the DNA. I can understand how the DNA is the big part of the evolution. Like the design on the computer we watch on Wednesday, we were made from our parent’s DNA. I am glad that they discovered DNA. It really explains a lot about us as human and it is our personal DNA. It helps solves a lot of crimes these days. Read this article about the DNA and the evolution.

Read this article about the DNA and the evolution.

Ok guys here's the deal... 

On my lunch break today I went to have one of my tattoos embellished. While there I had a interesting conversation with the artist "T". We first talked about how men act getting tattos alone vs with their girlfriends. This lead to talking about why people do things like get tattoos. I found it very interesting to hear T's observation on the first subject and thought I would share it.

He has been tattooing for 10+ years and has always found it interesting that men who get tattooed alone or with other men act tough or just get their tattoos without fuss. But when women are around they, (and I am just generalizing here) fuss and moan and whine. Why is that and wouldn't you think that it would be the opposite?

Now about why we do the things we do. Why is it that some people live to ride a roller coaster over and over again? What was it in our development that gave this person the need to bungy jump off a bridge that another person can not even walk on? Where does our need for these adreanline rushes come from and why do we develop them?

This movie is all about how children deal with stressful events, and how parents can help them to deal with such things in better ways.

I like the suggestions that they make here about modeling coping skills. I also like the fact that they mention that if you don't do a good job of modeling those coping skills the children might benefit from hearing you admit that you have a problem with it, and showing them that you are going to get help with it to get better.

I really think kids need to see parents ask for help when they don't know something, and then show growth and strength to change. I think it gives children a very firm idea of their own responsibility to recognize their issues and consciously work on them.

Patty
 

One of the things I'm really interested in is language development and acquisition.

I found two very basic films about it that you can watch here and here. I'm currently very fascinated with how children are being taught sign language, and I found a short video about that as well.

I'm curious about whether any of you have tried teaching your children ASL? Did they seem less frustrated and less likely to spend a lot of time crying or having tantrums after you taught them how to communicate?

I tried that approach with my own child, and she picked up quite a bit. The thing is, gestures just don't come naturally to her (so in her case she actually prefers to talk or write). Before she could speak or write down things, the best intervention I ever found was art. The first time she painted a representational figure (which was of a woman that looked remarkably like the goddess figures popular in early human civilizations) I cried my eyes out because we'd finally found a way to "talk".

I know that most children are way more comfortable with gesturing before talking or drawing though, so I wonder how this panned out in your households?

Do you know what your first word or words were?

In family lore, my first utterance was, "No, Bob that's my cookie!"

I was always wordy. I have also continued to have strong feelings about cookies. heh

Patty

(I'm pretty sure my language started out more basic than that. I think that my parents just didn't pay attention until that particular incident.)

since we seem to have a lot of discussion around autism, I thought this article was relavent.  The money is gong to a study of children 2-5 years of age to help indentify factors that may pose risk factors. 

ATLANTA -- The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is initiating a multi-state collaborative study to help identify factors that may put children at risk for autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) and other developmental disabilities. Approximately 2,700 children, ages 2 to 5, and their parents will be part of this study.

www.theolympian.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061006/NEWS/61006011