In the news

Ellen Galinsky Talks with Katie Couric About Mind in the Making

April 28, 2010

Ellen Galinsky spoke with Katie Couric recently about Mind in the Making on the @katiecouric web series.  You can watch the full 40 minute interview, or watch short clips on Examining the Marshmallow Test, Overpraising Children, and The Way We Praise Children. 

Mind in the Making: #1 in parenting books on Amazon!

April 22, 2010

Thank you for making Mind the Making hit #1 in parenting—child development books and #1 in parenting—child care books on Amazon the day after its release. We are so grateful for your support.

The many messages we have received indicate that you continue to appreciate our bringing the best research to you. Here’s an example from Dr. Sue Bredekamp from the Council for Early Childhood Professional Recognition.

"Mind in the Making is literally a mind-expanding contribution to the field and will have a huge impact on how teachers and parents think about and understand children's learning and development, and hopefully their interactions with them. Accolades to you and all your colleagues."

Some of you have written us that you missed Ellen Galinsky's interview on CBS Evening News with Katie Couric. She talked about Mind in the Making, the seven essential life skills, and Dr. Walter Mischel's famous "Marshmallow Test." If you missed it, here is a link so you can see it:

Watch CBS News Videos Online

New CCF Release: How do we teach children the most important life skills?

April 14, 2010

Press release from the Council on Contemporary Families:

Chicago, IL, May 14: How do we use what we know? That is the theme of the Council on Contemporary Families’ 13th annual conference this year. In connection with the conference, CCF is releasing a list of research-tested tips for building the seven life skills that children really need—and that parents can teach simply. The tip sheet is based on a preview of Work and Family Institute’s Ellen Galinsky's new book, to be released April 20, which summarizes her eight years-long review of research on child development and interviews with 75 of the leading researchers in this field.

Her advice sheet, included below and available at www.contemporaryfamilies.org, provides one example for how to teach each skill. In short, what works is NOT high-tech, high-cost gadgets but simple skills- and values-focused interactions. Her report is being circulated at the April 16-17, 2010 conference of the Council on Contemporary Families, Augustana College. Rock Island, Illinois. Read Ellen's full tip sheet after the jump.

Mind in the Making in the LeapFrog Blog

April 13, 2010

The LeapFrog Community's Learning Team member, Jim Gray, EdD recently wrote a post about the Fred Forward conference from the Fred Rogers Center for Early Learning and Children's Media.  Ellen Galinsky spoke at that conference. Here's what Jim had to say about it:

Among the many insightful ideas and projects presented at Fred Forward, the Mind in the Making project stands out as having direct, immediate benefit to parents.  Through a book, companion website, DVD, and other materials, this project aims to translate the best scientific research on how young children learn into useful lessons for parents and educators.  Ellen Galinsky, the author and head of the Families and Work Institute, proposes seven skills that are essential for life success in the 21St Century.  These include: Focus and Self Control, Perspective Taking, Communicating, Making Connections, Critical Thinking, Taking On Challenges, Self-Directed and Engaged Learning.

Read the full post on the LeapFrog Learning Team blog.

Bullying: We All Can Make A Difference

April 05, 2010

Every few years, there is a local incident of bullying that is so horrible, so beyond our understanding that the local incident escalates to a national incident with continued coverage.

The latest of these occurrences is the tragic story of Phoebe Prince, the 15-year old high school student who moved to South Hadley, Massachusetts from Ireland and committed suicide in January. At the end of March, criminal charges were filed against nine students—six of the teenagers were charged with felonies and three were charged as juveniles, all for bullying.

Much of the news coverage of this incident and others like this one has focused on our attempts to figure out what went wrong and to assign blame.  We go over and over the known facts and dig deeper for new facts to try to understand. Is it families with children who bully who are at fault? Is it the school personnel—teachers and administrators—who seemingly stand by and don’t take action when the signs that something is wrong abound? Is it the community—from the law enforcement system to the community culture that are to blame?

I, too, have been asking myself the question of what goes wrong and what can go right. These are especially urgent questions for me because I have spent decades conducting and studying the research on children’s development.