If you're a parent, the idea of adding the care and feeding of an animal to your responsibilities might feel like too much work. But having a dog, cat, bunny, hamster or other animal as a part of the family benefits kids in real ways. Studies have shown that kids who have pets do better — especially in the area of Emotional Intelligence (EQ), which has been linked to early academic success, even more so than the traditional measure of intelligence, IQ.

Even better news is that unlike IQ, which is thought by most experts to be unchangeable (you can't really change your IQ by studying), EQ can improve over time with practice. Animal friends can help kids do that by cultivating the very skills that lead to better Emotional Intelligence. (And pooches and kitties aren't even trying; it just comes naturally.)

The following EQ skills are developed by children with pets:

1. Compassion: Researchers Nienke Endenburg and Ben Baarda did an overview of the scientific literature in The Waltham Book of Human-Animal Interaction. "If there are pets in the house, parents and children frequently share in taking care of the pet, which suggests that youngsters learn at an early age how to care for and nurture a dependent animal," they wrote. Even very young children can contribute to the care and feeding of a pet — a 3-year-old can take a bowl of food and set it on the floor for a cat, and at the same age, a child can be taught to stroke an animal nicely, maybe using the back of the hand so they don't grab the animal. Supervising kids during the first few interactions is a teaching moment. Later, once they have learned the ropes, their memory and understanding of a life outside themselves will be stimulated each time they interact with the animals. Older kids can be responsible for walking a dog or playing with it in the yard, cleaning out a cat's litter box, or taking veggie scraps from dinner to a rabbit or hamster. A study of 3- to 6-year-olds found that kids with pets had more empathy towards other animals and human beings, while another study found that even having an animal in a classroom made fourth-graders more compassionate.

You probably experience worry, stress or anxiety at least once on any given day. Nearly 40 million people in the U.S. suffer from an anxiety disorder, according to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America. Three out of four Americans reported feeling stressed in the last month, a 2017 study found. But in one of these moments, if asked which you were experiencing — worry, stress or anxiety — would you know the difference?

I reached out to two experts to help us identify — and cope with — all three.

What is worry?

Worry is what happens when your mind dwells on negative thoughts, uncertain outcomes or things that could go wrong. "Worry tends to be repetitive, obsessive thoughts," said Melanie Greenberg, a clinical psychologist in Mill Valley, Calif., and the author of The Stress-Proof Brain (2017). "It's the cognitive component of anxiety." Simply put, worry happens only in your mind, not in your body.

In 2018 the results of a massive and audacious online experiment into human morality, published in the journal Nature, provided a window into our moral preferences and occasionally reflected badly on us, highlighting strange predilections regarding age and gender.

Now, researchers have challenged how accurately the research portrayed our choices and suggests we might be more morally egalitarian than previously thought.

Called the Moral Machine Experiment (MME), the original study, led by Edmond Awad from MIT, US, was designed to "explore the moral dilemmas faced by autonomous vehicles" by presenting people with a series of accident scenarios in which the vehicle finds itself unable to save everyone involved.

Participants visited the website and were asked to choose what the car should do, who should live and who should die.

These are, essentially, complex and subtle versions of the 'Trolley Problem' first put forward in its contemporary form by the British philosopher Phillippa Foot in 1967.

The idea of the experiment was to guide the moral choices made by machines by tying them to the real moral choices made by people in the same situations. Over the life of the experiment, the website collected 40 million decisions in ten languages from people in more than 200 nations.

The story those decisions told was a complex and sometimes unnerving one.

One of the earliest, most eloquent, and most influential of all advocates for Christianity was the Apostle Paul; his letters are widely quoted the world over. After many centuries of translation, interpretation and analysis, bible scholars and historians have continuously pored over his writings to uncover just what the ancient figure meant, what he truly believed, and what he was trying to convey to the various communities he was reaching out to during the times in which he lived. But have they been correct? In his book Paul's Necessary Sin - The Experience of Liberation, Timothy Ashworth presents a new, coherent and consistent rendering of Paul's central ideas that breathes new life and understanding into what are probably the most famous letters ever written.

This week on MindMatters we discuss Ashworth's book and its rigorous examination of Paul's thoughts on a range of themes: The life of the spirit - as opposed to the 'law', the materialistic identification that individuals have with the self, his understanding of 'The Fall' and the potential for humanity's ultimate redemption, among others. Join us as we look at some of the deepest and most perennial themes and questions that have been asked since, well, Adam and Eve.


Running Time: 00:58:08

Download: MP3 — 53.2 MB

The alternative approach to discipline allows students to ground themselves in their senses and calm emotions.

An increasing number of schools across the country are introducing mindfulness practice and yoga classes to address student anxiety, tardiness, and disruptions. The alternative approach to school discipline seeks to address student misbehavior by addressing one of its root causes — namely, allowing students to ground themselves in their senses and calm their emotions.

Two such schools — Yellow Springs High School and McKinney Middle School, both in Yellow Springs, Ohio — have already seen some success after introducing mindfulness practice to students as an alternative to detention, reports Yellow Springs News.

For half an hour every Monday following the end of the class day, students gather in Donna Haller's classroom to sit on blankets and meditate, allowing themselves to calm down and concentrate on stillness, feeling present, and boosting their awareness of themselves and their classroom environments.

Different learning difficulties do not correspond to specific regions of the brain, as previously thought, say researchers at the University of Cambridge. Instead poor connectivity between 'hubs' within the brain is much more strongly related to children's difficulties.

Between 14-30% of children and adolescents worldwide have learning difficulties severe enough to require additional support. These difficulties are often associated with cognitive and/or behavioural problems. In some cases, children who are struggling at school receive a formal diagnosis of a specific learning difficulty or disability, such as dyslexia, dyscalculia or developmental language disorder, or of a developmental disorder such as attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), dyspraxia, or autism spectrum disorder.

Scientists have struggled to identify specific areas of the brain that might give rise to these difficulties, with studies implicating myriad brain regions. ADHD, for example, has been linked to the anterior cingulate cortex, caudate nucleus, pallidum, striatum, cerebellum, prefrontal cortex, the premotor cortex and most parts of the parietal lobe.

One potential explanation is that each diagnosis differs so much between one individual and the next, that each involves different combinations of brain regions. However, a more provocative explanation has been proposed by a team of scientists at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge: there are, in fact, no specific brain areas that cause these difficulties.

There are lots of differences between those who express opposing political affiliations — and they may not just be ideological. Liberals and conservatives have different shopping habits, for instance, with one series of studies finding that liberals preferred products that made them feel unique, whilst conservatives picked brands that made them feel better than others. They even view health risks differently when they're choosing what to eat.

But could there also be physiological differences between liberals and conservatives? Some evidence seems to suggest this might be the case, though as we reported earlier this month past findings, such as differences in physiological responses to fear, may not be as solid as previously thought. However, new research in Psychological Science has found that people of different political affiliations may differ in another way: where in the body they feel emotions relating to moral concerns.

It's well established that we feel particular emotions in the body — butterflies in the stomach when we're nervous or excited, a racing pulse or flushed cheeks when we get angry. But these physical reactions are not uniform: where one person might feel disappointment in their chest, another may feel it in their stomach.

Plants beautify our world offering us so many benefits in terms of nutrition and health. The walks in vegetation can offer tranquility and release of stress. According to the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Brigham Women's Hospital women that have plants in their homes live longer.

The researchers carried out this study for 8 years and they have come to the conclusion that spending your day surrounded with vegetation increases longevity. Not only that you breathe in fresh air but staying in nature allows you to have better social engagement and physical activity. Moreover, the forests are for sure less polluted than your neighborhood.

In terms of mental well-being the vegetation is a great therapy reducing the risk of depression. The best would be to be outdoors, but if that is not possible for you, then you should by all means keep plants in your home. Their presence in your home will clean the inside air, reduce the blood pressure and enhance the productivity.

Experts in the emotional needs of small children say increased levels of the stress hormone cortisol in babies and small children who are separated from their parents, especially their mothers, could have a long-term genetic impact on future generations. In a commentary published by the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, the authors say that several studies show that small children cared for outside the home, especially in poor quality care and for 30 or more hours per week, have higher levels of cortisol than children at home.

Professor Sir Denis Pereira Gray, Emeritus Professor of General Practice at the University of Exeter, and President of the children's charity 'What About the Children?' who wrote the paper with two colleagues, said: "Cortisol release is a normal response to stress in mammals facing an emergency and is usually useful. However, sustained cortisol release over hours or days can be harmful."

Monday kicked off Children's Mental Health Week, an opportunity for various lobby groups and organisations (and there are many) to air their increasingly apocalyptic claims about childhood. In an appearance last week, the Duchess of Cambridge informed children that the world is a 'scary and daunting place' and encouraged parents to tell their children to 'feel confident about seeking support'.

For at least two decades, we have been subject to increasingly shrill claims about a crisis of childhood. However, it is difficult to disentangle the truth about what appears to be relatively small increases in diagnoses of childhood mental illness and some underhanded claims-making by interested parties.

For instance, back in 2007, claims appeared based on a UNICEF study that, Britain has the 'unhappiest children in the developed world'. The study was criticised for being manipulated toward a predetermined conclusion, having for instance equally weighted 'poor breakfasts' with 'child abuse'. But this did nothing to stop it being repeated so frequently that it has come to acquire an air of common sense.