HEADlines

As the Academic Year Comes to an End
05/15/2012 2:30 PM
From the Past
05/15/2012 10:29 AM
Mrs. Claire Lamb, whose family was friends with the Morrow's, sent us the following newspaper clipping. I thought you might enjoy reading about the very beginning of EMS! It is the Bergen Evening Record of September 24, 1930.

David
05/09/2012 2:18 PM
Making Music Together Increases Kids’ Empathy
04/30/2012 10:39 AM

The following article was recommended by a current parent. It is short and to-the-point! Perhaps the conclusions are not surprising, but it is always interesting to see that intuition is confirmed by data. LINK
HAPPINESS IS . . .
02/27/2012 3:51 PM

We often hear parents say, “I just want my child to be happy.” I have found that often that very parent also has a pretty good notion of what will make the child happy: what schools to attend, what profession to follow, and what type of person will make the best spouse. I rarely sense a parent leaving “happiness” up to chance!

A decade or so ago, I noticed that “Happiness Studies” had become a discipline within the realm of psychology that could be studied, majored in and could provide a Ph.D. thesis. I guess if you were not successful pursuing happiness, you could at least pursue “Happiness Studies.” In fact, the very first person I met who was getting a Ph.D. in “Happiness Studies” fit that profile. Rarely had I met a person who radiated so little satisfaction or contentment about her life or her 4-year-old! Maybe that is why I cast this new academic discipline into the bin along with paranormal studies.

Nevertheless, time has shown me to be prematurely dismissive. Why wouldn’t it make sense to research what makes people experience that positive mood state we call happy? If we had some sense of the causative factors, we might all know what it takes to have a “happy” child or to be happy our self. Therefore, I was pleased to see a piece titled Happiness is . . . by Richard Barbieri in the recent Independent School Magazine. It is a quick review of the research in this area, and the results are not very surprising, once you really think about it.

Because the article is not yet on-line, I have produced a somewhat rag-tag PDF that is 3 pages long, a bit cut-and-pasted. It takes a few minutes, and at the close, you will understand more about what makes people happy, your children included. (P.S. – It has nothing to do with material goods.) LINK

David M. Lowry, Ph.D.

Head of School
Are French Parents Superior?
02/08/2012 3:01 PM

Over the past few days, a number of parents and faculty members have referenced the article in the WSJ, Why French Parents Are Superior, by Pamela Druckerman. Today, the book the article was pulled from, Bringing up Bébé, was reviewed in the NY Times.

Having read the article, I had to admit to thinking what today’s reviewer felt: not particularly profound. The bottom line is Ms. Druckerman’s sense that French parents are less child-centric and firmer than their American counterparts are. French parents develop patience and the ability to self-amuse in their children far better than the average parent on this side of the Atlantic does. Thus, the energy and needs of children in Paris intrude less impulsively into the lives of the adults in, say, New York City or Tenafly.

Maybe, maybe not. Parenting styles vary so much, in any culture, that sweeping generalizations are suspect.

What the article did, however, was remind me of the many times I have written with American parents as my audience about the imperative to raise independent, self-sufficient, internally motivated young people. Helicoptering around children handicaps them, in the long run.

I hope that the increasing mention of “resilience,” “grit,” “self-reliance” and the like in parenting and educational articles will remind all of us about the Blessing of a Skinned Knee, a book by Wendy Mogel, Ph.D., published in 2005. If you missed it, there is no time like the present to give it a read.

There is nothing wrong with clearing a path for your children. Paving it with rose petals is another thing.

David Lowry
SCHOLASTIC WRITING AWARDS
02/02/2012 12:42 PM
Spelling, Math, and Etymology Awards
02/01/2012 10:01 AM
Six Students Win Art Awards
01/31/2012 5:29 PM

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Insider Tours
01/24/2012 3:31 PM