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Category: Emotional Intelligence

Motivating a Teenage Boy

The Game Design class ended on a Friday with the team pleading for more time to finish the game on their own until it was posted. The challenge was accepted and I gave them a new deadline of the following Wednesday if they wanted to work on their own.  And work they did! Over 30 …

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Permanent link to this article: https://growageneration.com/2017/07/30/the-secret-sauce-of-motivating-a-teenage-boy/

Saying a Professional Farewell to Leah

For more than two years this phenomenal woman and professional has served as Star Lord to my Galactic Problem Solving. She has helped mentor over a hundred kids in the Baden Academy Media Lab, has led another hundred on STEM Career Tours, and served as confidant, business consultant, professional organizer and project manager.  She is …

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Permanent link to this article: https://growageneration.com/2017/06/08/saying-a-professional-farewell-to-leah/

Aleenia Reich – Youth Champion

Aleenia Reich, Research Fellow and leader of the Baden Academy Take Action club has received the 2017 Youth Champion award from the Pennsylvania Statewide Youth Development Network. She is a personal hero and I am so proud of her! I nominated her a few months ago with the following:  Aleenia is an extraordinary young woman …

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Permanent link to this article: https://growageneration.com/2017/03/09/aleenia-reich-youth-champion/

Superhero Pose

Pictures of Superhero Poses

Walk into the media lab during a class and shout out “Superhero” and watch 20 some kids leap from their stools, throw their shoulders back and strike a superhero pose with hands on their hips or cast into the air about to take flight. Some think it an odd “attention signal” but I assure you, …

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Permanent link to this article: https://growageneration.com/2014/01/11/superhero-pose/

Distracted: How Mindfulness and Meditation Transformed a College Classroom

“I was able to feel relaxation, tranquility, focus.” – Dan Suriano “It helps get my thoughts and feelings in order,” – K.J. Miller “The mandalas brought us together and cleared our minds” – anonymous “I enjoyed it so much, I couldn’t stop [when the assignment was over.]” – Ventura Simmons “helped me calm down at …

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Permanent link to this article: https://growageneration.com/2013/10/26/distracted-how-mindfulness-and-meditation-transformed-a-college-classroom/

Conversations with kids in the wake of violent tragedies

  The below comments are written for parents and grandparents of children over ten. The funerals at Newtown have come to an end, the days of mourning have (for those of us not directly affected by the tragedy) given way to Christmas celebrations. Group prayers have turned to other concerns.  And yet the shadow of …

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Permanent link to this article: https://growageneration.com/2012/12/26/conversations-with-kids-in-the-wake-of-violent-tragedies/

Childhood Dreams

Children can and do change the world.  They recognize injustice, they experience fear and anger.  The father of the Buddha tried to protect him from all suffering, injustice, and anguish. He created a beautiful bubble for him, a bubble of plenty of sweet food, no harsh words, no sickness, no poverty, and no loss. The …

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Permanent link to this article: https://growageneration.com/2012/10/23/childhood-dreams/

Lifting a Teen from the Mud of Self-Absorbed Pity

Judge Gilliam – I disagree.  The latest “viral” Faceook is a reprint of a 1959 published letter from Judge Philip B. Gilliam of Denver,Colorado.  Parents (and grandparents) of teens and tweens are lauding it as sage advice that “Every teenager should have this framed and hung on their wall in their room.” A part of …

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Permanent link to this article: https://growageneration.com/2012/08/15/lifting-a-teen-from-the-mud-of-self-absorbed-pity/

Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard

I just finished reading Switch by Chip and Dan Heath from the perspective of a person and parent trying to understand how to motivate myself and my child to action. It was a great complement to Kahneman’s Thinking Fast and Slow reviewed last month.  The Heath’s metaphor for what Kahneman called System One and System …

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Permanent link to this article: https://growageneration.com/2012/07/13/switch/

Thinking Fast and Slow and Being a Devil’s Advocate

Daniel Kahneman, the psychologist who won the 2002 Nobel Prize in Economics, wrote what is considered by the NY and LA Times, Economist, and Wall Street Journal, one of the best books of 2011. In Thinking Fast and Slow :  He uses questions to understand the brain, for example: A bat and ball cost a …

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Permanent link to this article: https://growageneration.com/2012/06/16/thinking-fast-and-slow-and-being-a-devils-advocate/