April 2023 - Half Full - The Network of Care

Can Children’s Media be Made to Look Like America?

In the last couple of years, particularly since Black Lives Matter, the urgency for increased diversity, representation, and inclusion in kids’ media has become undeniable. We know through various scholarly studies that when kids see themselves represented...

Published Fri, Apr 28 2023 8:23 AM by Greater Good Articles

How Your Body Posture Communicates Feelings to Others

People often say that your feelings are “written all over your face.” That’s because our facial expressions are a main way we communicate emotions, whether that means smiling and crinkling our eyes when we’re happy or furrowing our brows and tensing our...

Published Thu, Apr 27 2023 5:02 AM by Greater Good Articles

Do You Experience Pareidolia? It Could Help You Be Creative

As a child, painter Paul Klee was fascinated by the vivid faces he saw in the swirly surfaces of the marble-topped tables in his uncle’s restaurant. As a pupil in school, the artist Salvador Dalí gazed up at the ceiling of his classroom, perceiving outlandish...

Published Wed, Apr 26 2023 5:36 AM by Greater Good Articles

What Art Does for Your Brain

One of my favorite sayings comes from David Thoreau: “My life has been the poem I would have writ / But I could not both live and utter it.” It speaks to the way that life and art are intertwined, and how we gain so much from living life with a sense...

Published Tue, Apr 25 2023 7:44 AM by Greater Good Articles

How Mindfulness Can Help Create Calmer Classrooms

It’s 7:50 a.m. on a Friday in a fourth-grade classroom at Crockett Elementary School in Phoenix, Arizona. The students are quiet and focused, working on their “Zen Tangles,” a mindfulness-based art activity. The teacher encourages them to settle in, take...

Published Mon, Apr 24 2023 6:56 AM by Greater Good Articles

The Evolutionary Origins of Human Imagination

You can easily picture yourself riding a bicycle across the sky even though that’s not something that can actually happen. You can envision yourself doing something you’ve never done before – like water skiing – and maybe even imagine a better way to...

Published Fri, Apr 21 2023 8:48 AM by Greater Good Articles

What Stressed Children the Most During the Pandemic?

The disruption of schooling caused by COVID-19 was less likely to harm children’s mental health than pandemic-related financial stress at home, according to a study co-authored by two researchers at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health. The study,...

Published Thu, Apr 20 2023 1:10 PM by Greater Good Articles

How Our Relationship to Stress Changes Over a Lifetime

Daily stress levels make a huge difference in the quality of our lives. From our emotional state to our immune system to our mental and physical health and even our longevity, our well-being is profoundly affected by how often we encounter stressful situations...

Published Wed, Apr 19 2023 8:14 AM by Greater Good Articles

How Parents Can Help Their Kids To Navigate Romance

Children’s love relationships can be challenging for their parents, writes Terri Orbuch in her new book, Secrets to Surviving Your Children’s Love Relationships: A Guide for Parents. Orbuch is a therapist and Distinguished Professor at Oakland University...

Published Tue, Apr 18 2023 8:43 AM by Greater Good Articles

What is Creative Mortification and How Can You Overcome It?

I’ve had my fair share of mortifying moments, but I’d never heard the term creative mortification until I happened upon it in author Peggy Orenstein’s newest book, Unraveling. While others were making sourdough during the pandemic, Orenstein learned how...

Published Mon, Apr 17 2023 9:54 AM by Greater Good Articles

Seven Tips for Better Relationship Conversations

My 33-year-old daughter and I were on a walk together through the hills of Missoula, Montana. It was a clear, cold, crisp afternoon. My wife and I were visiting her, her husband, and their two-year-old son in their new home after they had spent the previous...

Published Wed, Apr 12 2023 8:59 AM by Greater Good Articles

Can Mindfulness Reduce Anxiety as Well as a Drug?

Anxiety is the most common psychiatric disorder, with over 301 million people affected around the world. Whether extreme anxiety arises in social situations, is triggered by a particular phobia, or manifests as a general unease in the world, it can severely...

Published Tue, Apr 11 2023 12:55 PM by Greater Good Articles

Moving From Grief to Wellness in Schools

“There is so much grief in schools right now, from the loss of staff and family members,” a wellness expert at a California County Office of Education recently told me. “We can’t touch wellness until we address the grief.” I understood this only too well...

Published Mon, Apr 10 2023 4:10 AM by Greater Good Articles

Four Lessons From Mediators for Bridging Differences

By the time Josh and his cohort of U.S. federal mediators entered the negotiation room in Washington, D.C., what should have been a momentous occasion was a hot mess. At a meeting between negotiators representing hundreds of Native American tribes and...

Published Fri, Apr 07 2023 6:34 AM by Greater Good Articles

Debunking the Myths of Gun Violence Could Help Prevent It

Tage Rai is a psychologist and assistant professor of management at UC San Diego’s Rady School of Management who studies ethics and violence. He coauthored the book Virtuous Violence outlining research that finds that most acts of violence are driven...

Published Thu, Apr 06 2023 5:42 AM by Greater Good Articles

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