By David Marshak, an excerpt from his book, Evolutionary Parenting

“What our societal leaders unknowingly did in the 1950s in the United States, Canada, and western Europe was to create a cofigurative culture. Adolescents were sentenced to years of schooling, even though formal schooling is unengaging and unproductive for most of them. They were excluded from meaningful roles in the adult world, and teens’ capacity for perceiving the present in a quickly changing society more acutely than their parents was ignored or ridiculed.”

By Peter Kareiva, via UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability

“Currently, fewer than one in three kids in the United States go outdoors every day, compared to two thirds of their parents. Per capita visits to national parks have declined by 30% in the last two decades, while hunting, fishing and simply observing wildlife have all declined.

This trend is happening elsewhere, too. In Japan, half of the kids have never climbed a tree and 40 percent never caught an insect. In England, less than one-third of the children visit natural areas more than twice a month. And in China, localized extinctions mean that, in some areas, a generation is growing up without seeing woodland birds or hearing their songs.”

By Mark Bertin, via The Garrison Institute

Kids and screen time cause considerable parental angst these days—and for good reason. Research shows children spend on average seven hours a day glued to computer, tablet, smart phone, or television screens. This reality has created such a stir that last month, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) updated its decade-old recommendation on childhood screen time.

By James Baraz and Michele Lilyanna, via Greater Good

Can joy be cultivated? And, if so, can we teach our kids how to be more joyful in their lives?
In our experience, the answer to both of these questions is yes. But it takes knowing what kinds of practices bring true happiness—and not just momentary pleasure—to your life. Once you’ve mastered that, it’s not too hard to introduce those practices to kids in a way that they can understand and appreciate.

By Valerie Brown, JD, MA, ACC, via Getting Smart

Research on listening indicates that the we spend about 80% of our waking hours communicating:

Writing 9%
Reading 16%
Speaking 30%
Listening, to people, music, TV, radio, etc. 40-50%

About 75% of that time we are forgetful, pre-occupied or not paying attention. One of the factors influencing this statistic is that the average attention span for an adult in the United States is 22 seconds. It’s no surprise to note the length of television commercials is usually anywhere from 15 to 30 seconds.