bodhi tree swaying » children

Give the teens in your life the gift of calmness

bodhipaksa — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 15:41:37 +0000

Almost ever summer over the last ten years, I’ve been teaching low income teens how to use their minds more effectively so that they can be more successful students, but also so that they can be more successful, happier, less stressed individuals.

We cover a lot of ground in my six-week course, but a core element is the practice of meditation. I was hesitant to do this. I wondered whether these restless teens would be able to sit still even for five to ten minutes. And what if they thought it was lame?

As it turned out, the most common comment in the end-of-term evaluation reports was “The best part was the meditation. I wish we could have done more!”

So this summer I promised my students that I’d make a CD based on the meditations I’d done with them. We’d covered body scanning (focusing on bodily sensations in order to calm the mind), using looking and listening in an open and receptive way as a means to bring about inner peace, meditation on the breath, a little lovingkindness meditation, and even some creative visualization.

I’m pleased to announce that the CD — Mindfulness Meditations for Teens — is now available on Wildmind’s online store. This album is also available as an audio download. It’s on the way to Amazon, although they’re saying it’s currently unavailable.

Christmas is coming up. Why not treat the teens in your life to some inner calm? If you get them meditating it’ll probably bring a bit more calm into your life, too!

The moral life of babies

bodhipaksa — Wed, 05 May 2010 13:49:27 +0000

From a fascinating article by Paul Bloom:

Not long ago, a team of researchers watched a 1-year-old boy take justice into his own hands. The boy had just seen a puppet show in which one puppet played with a ball while interacting with two other puppets. The center puppet would slide the ball to the puppet on the right, who would pass it back. And the center puppet would slide the ball to the puppet on the left . . . who would run away with it. Then the two puppets on the ends were brought down from the stage and set before the toddler. Each was placed next to a pile of treats. At this point, the toddler was asked to take a treat away from one puppet. Like most children in this situation, the boy took it from the pile of the “naughty” one. But this punishment wasn’t enough — he then leaned over and smacked the puppet in the head.

This incident occurred in one of several psychology studies that I have been involved with at the Infant Cognition Center at Yale University in collaboration with my colleague (and wife), Karen Wynn, who runs the lab, and a graduate student, Kiley Hamlin, who is the lead author of the studies. We are one of a handful of research teams around the world exploring the moral life of babies.

Like many scientists and humanists, I have long been fascinated by the capacities and inclinations of babies and children. The mental life of young humans not only is an interesting topic in its own right; it also raises — and can help answer — fundamental questions of philosophy and psychology, including how biological evolution and cultural experience conspire to shape human nature. In graduate school, I studied early language development and later moved on to fairly traditional topics in cognitive development, like how we come to understand the minds of other people — what they know, want and experience.

But the current work I’m involved in, on baby morality, might seem like a perverse and misguided next step. Why would anyone even entertain the thought of babies as moral beings?

Wordless Wednesday – is this cute or creepy?

bodhipaksa — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 14:24:24 +0000

Related posts: Wordless Wednesday: Maia comes out of the closet Wordless Wednesday 9/26/07 Wordless Wednesday 11/07/07 Related posts:

Citizen Maia

bodhipaksa — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 02:04:46 +0000

On Monday, the processing of Maia’s citizenship papers came through. The nice people at Homeland Security gave her an American flag. Related posts: Department of Homeland Stupidity (III) More on baby sign language Wordless Wednesday: Maia comes out of the closet Related posts:

Toddlers, TV, and troubling behavior

bodhipaksa — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 12:00:54 +0000

Cognitive Daily reports that boys who watch violent children’s programming while toddlers (and we’re talking Disney here, not Texas Chainsaw Massacre) are four times as likely at age 7-9 to be in the top 10% of boys with behavioral problems.

…toddlers who are allowed to watch entertainment shows (as opposed to educational TV, and including violent shows) are significantly more likely to develop attention problems when they’re older.

But does violent TV have other impacts? In a separate study, the same researchers — Dimitri Christakis and Frederick Zimmerman — took a look at the same 1997 survey results and a 2002 follow up of families with small children (330 kids in all). The kids were age 18 months to 5 years old in 1997. This time in addition to TV-watching, the researchers looked at parents’ reports of antisocial behavior of their kids when they were older. The parents rated their kids on a scale of 1 to 3 for six different statements: “My child cheats, is mean to others, feels no regret, is destructive, is disobedient at school, and has trouble with teachers.” Based on these responses, they divided the kids into two groups — those whose antisocial behavior was problematic (corresponding to the 90th percentile of antisocial behavior in the general population), and those who showed normal social behavior.

Next they analyzed the TV-watching habits of these kids to see if TV-watching (including both live TV and videos like Disney movies) predicted antisocial behavior. Here are the results:

The results are expressed in terms of an odds ratio — in this case, the chance of developing antisocial behavior compared to not developing antisocial behavior five years later. An odds ratio of 1 signifies that there is no relationship between the two items compared. Preschool boys who watched violent videos when they were younger were significantly more likely to have problematic antisocial behavior at age 7-9. There was no significant relationship between any type of TV watching for girls and antisocial behavior, and nonviolent TV wasn’t related to antisocial behavior in boys (though with a larger sample, this result might have risen to significance).

Read the rest of the post here…

Wordless wednesday: kids in Ethiopia

bodhipaksa — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 23:45:18 +0000

Related posts: Wordless Wednesday: Boys fishing in Lake Awassa, Ethiopia Wordless Wednesday: Baboons in Ethiopia Wordless Wednesday: Cart near Awassa, Ethiopia Related posts:

Wordless Wednesday: Boys fishing in Lake Awassa, Ethiopia

bodhipaksa — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 22:19:43 +0000

Related posts: Wordless Wednesday: Cart near Awassa, Ethiopia Wordless wednesday: kids in Ethiopia Wordless Wednesday: Baboons in Ethiopia Related posts:

Wordless Wednesday: Maia comes out of the closet

bodhipaksa — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 00:25:44 +0000

Wordless Wednesday 11/07/07

bodhipaksa — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 14:26:27 +0000

To be honest, I could keep milking my Ethiopia photographs for several years’ worth of Wordless Wednesday posts. This one is of some kids who were fishing off a pier in Awassa, not far from from the motel (more like a hostel) where we were staying. Our driver was very wary about us going for unescorted walks, but we always felt completely safe in Ethiopia. The people there are very friendly and respectful and very few people beg, with the exception of the children. The kids, to their credit, usually start by asking for pens, which they need for school. Next time I go back to Ethiopia I’m going to buy a big box of pens locally so that I can hand them out. Many of the children know a little English — enough to ask for a pen, and maybe to explain that they are very poor and need money. But they were no trouble — we just explained that we’d left our money at the hotel and they didn’t hassle us.

These kids were fishing in the rather unsavory-looking waters of Lake Awassa, but they were very happy to take a break and pose. ~~Considering that most of them have never seen their own picture before,~~ they’re remarkably good models!

Wordless Wednesday 9/26/07

bodhipaksa — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 21:53:33 +0000

This is a picture of some kids I photographed in Ethiopia. This was taken in a small town south of Awassa, where another couple, Stacey and Eric, were meeting the surviving family of the two girls they were adopting. People in Ethiopia generally are very leery about getting their pictures taken. The children are an exception! Even kids who’ve never seen their picture before are natural posers!