Anthony James The two-year-old stood at the bottom of the stairway. From her perspective it must have looked massive, probably unlike any stairway she had ever seen, wide enough for a dozen people to ascend shoulder to shoulder. We were in the multi-storied atrium of an art museum and these stairs wound their way to galleries on the top floor. She stood there for a moment, then took her mother's hand. "I want to go up these stairs," she said. "I want to go up them until they stop." When she lifted her short, chubby leg to step onto the first of the stairs her entire body ti ..read more

Psychology is half-baked, literally half-baked. We have baked the part about mental illness. We have baked the part about repair and damage. But the other side is unbaked. The side of strengths, the side of what we are good at, the side . . . of what makes life worth living. ~Martin Seligman If you're a mental health professional, you're aware of the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health) which is published by the American Psychiatric Association. It's the go-to resource for anyone attempting to diagnosis a mental illness. Martin Seligman is a psychologist, r ..read more

I had an unopened travel package of tissues that had been in my backpack for I don't know how long. It had gone with me to Khazakstan, Vietnam, and New York City. It's there because I have a tendency toward mild allergic reactions to dusts, pollens, and recirculated jet cabin air. Over the past year or so, I've blown and wiped my nose on napkins, paper towels, and even my sleeves, while that damned package has remained untouched. What am I saving it for? An emergency, I suppose; for a moment when I have no other choice. What I've learned, I guess, is that there are no nose blow ..read more

Imagine two young women, identical in every way, right down to their aspirations of becoming great actors. The first women graduates from her prestigious theater program and struggles to get work. She gets a few tiny roles here and there, but the fame, fortune, and professional success she had hoped for eludes her. Slowly but surly, however, she begins to get herself cast in increasingly prestigious roles, until, at the age of 65, after decades of perseverance, just as her classmates are beginning to retire, she lands her dream role. She wins an Academy Award and finds herself wealth ..read more

"I didn't do it!" I'd seen the boy push his friend, knocking him to the ground. He was lying there still, whimpering. His mother had once told me, crossly, that she believed in punishment. She understood, however, that I was not going to resort to punishments, although she doubted that I could stick to that, not with her son. "Punishment is the only thing that works," she insisted. "I saw you push him," I replied matter-of-factly. I strive to never threaten children, even with the volume of my voice, although I will, when I want to make sure my point is made, speak firmly, which I ..read more

During a recent Q&A webinar with Parent Map, I was asked by host Laura Kastner to define play. Specifically, she wanted me to react to definitions that assert that play is purposeless activity. Generally, when asked this question, I respond by comparing it to love: we can't agree on a definition, but we know it when we experience it. We can, of course, make guesses about the motivations of children when they, say, choose to build with blocks or create with paint. We surmise what might be spurring them to climb a tree or roll down a hill. We think we can perhaps understand why a c ..read more

"Let's pretend we're dinosaurs." Any sentence that begins with "Let's . . ." and especially those that begin with "Let's pretend . . ." are music to this preschool teacher's ears. "Let's be princesses." "Let's make a bad guy trap." "Let's play firefighter." They are invitations to create the world together.  In his book Nineteen Ways of Looking at Consciousness, neuroscientist Patrick House writes, "A body . . . is restless to get moving; in fact, the entire purpose of the brain is to make efficient movement from experience, and everything else, including consciousness ..read more

One of the most universal play activities across any number of species is "play fighting," or as we sometimes call it, "rough-and-tumble play." The research available on this type of play is even more limited than on other types of play, but it appears that it represents some 20 percent of all spontaneous, self-selected play observed on playgrounds around the world and, apparently, throughout history. If you view play as our instinct to educate ourselves made manifest, and I do, then it's obvious that this type of play exists and persists for good reason, even as our society increasi ..read more

A baby waved at me over its mother's shoulder. I'd done nothing to get its attention, yet, from across the crowded, busy room it picked me out, miraculously. As you might imagine, was at once filled with joy at being recognized by this unspoiled human. It made me feel special, good, worthy. And then, in a flash, I realized it wasn't waving at me, but rather assertively patting its mother's back, not aware of me at all. In a moment I went from joy to disappointment. I would have been better off emotionally had I continued on in my ignorance. Had I looked away a moment earlier, I might ..read more

"The grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and, for children, it's tiresome always giving them explanations." This is perhaps the most famous line from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's novella The Little Prince. It's memorable and funny, to adults at least, because in this case the child is exasperated with adult ignorance instead of the other way around. It's also instructive because it shows us ourselves in a kind of mirror. Over the years, I've found it useful to regularly look in that mirror. Before saying something about or to a child, I try to listen to how it would sou ..read more