{"id":3901,"date":"2023-05-26T11:15:03","date_gmt":"2023-05-26T15:15:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mattwkane.com\/?p=3901"},"modified":"2023-05-26T11:15:03","modified_gmt":"2023-05-26T15:15:03","slug":"brain-rules-for-baby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mattwkane.com\/?p=3901","title":{"rendered":"Brain Rules for Baby"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>John Medina\u20142010<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>INTRODUCTION<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>If you want her to do well in math in her later years, the greatest thing you can do is to teach her impulse control in her early years (see \u201cSelf-control,\u201d page 105).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Truth: The greatest pediatric brain-boosting technology in the world is probably a plain cardboard box, a fresh box of crayons, and two hours. The worst is probably your new flat-screen TV. (See \u201cHurray for play,\u201d page 132.)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Truth: They\u2019ll become less willing to work on challenging problems (see \u201cWhat happens when you say, \u2018You\u2019re so smart,\u2019\u201d page 140). If you want your baby to get into a great college, praise his or her effort instead.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Truth: The greatest predictor of happiness is having friends. How do you make and keep friends? By being good at deciphering nonverbal communication. (See \u201cHow to make friends,\u201d page 167.) This skill can be honed. Learning a musical instrument (page 209) boosts the ability by 50 percent. Text messaging (page 151) may destroy it.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Can brain science weigh in on this situation? Not really. Research tells us that parents must have clear rules and swift consequences for rule violations.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The kids in the program (head start) academically outperformed the controls in virtually every way you can measure performance, from IQ and language tests in the early years to standardized achievement assessments and literacy exams in the later years. More graduated from high school (84 percent vs. 32 percent for the girls). Not surprisingly. They were more likely to attend college. The kids who were not in the program were four times more likely to require treatment for a mental-health problem (36 percent vs. 8 percent). They were twice as likely to repeat a grade (41 percent vs. 21 percent).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Pregnancy<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Babies develop an active mental life in the womb Stressed mom, stressed baby Eat right, stay fit, get lots of pedicures<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>If I were to give a single sentence of advice based on what we know about in utero development during the first half of pregnancy, it would I be this: The baby wants to be left alone.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>No commercial product has ever been shown to do anything to improve the brain performance of a developing fetus.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Women who take it around conception and during the first few weeks of pregnancy are 76 percent less likely to create a fetus with neural tube defects than those who don\u2019t take the supplement.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>This is the basis for an odd \u201cpiece of advice: Immediately after your baby is born, rub her with her own amniotic fluid before washing her with soap and water. It will calm her down, studies show<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>&nbsp;The effect is so powerful that what you eat during the last stages of pregnancy can influence the food preferences of your baby.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>This is called flavor programming, and you can do it soon after your baby is born, too. Lactating mothers who eat green beans and peaches while nursing produce weaned toddlers with the same preferences.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>You\u2019re pregnant, so you need to eat more food. And if you don\u2019t overdo it, you will grow a smarter baby. Why? Your baby\u2019s IQ is a function of her brain volume. Brain size predicts about 20 percent of the variance in her IQ scores (her prefrontal cortex, just behind her forehead, is particularly prescient). Brain volume is related to birth height, which means that, to a point, larger babies are smarter babies. The fuel of food helps grow a larger baby.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The other: omega-3 fatty acids<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The result is scary. By the time these \u201cice storm\u201d children were 5, their behaviors differed markedly from children whose mothers hadn\u2019t experienced the storm. Their verbal IQs and language development appeared stunted, even when the parents\u2019 education, occupation, and income were taken into account. Was the mother\u2019s stress the culprit? The answer turned out to be yes.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>RELATIONSHIP<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The baby had remembered! She\u2019d had only a single exposure to this event, but she had recalled it perfectly a week later. Babies can do this all over the world.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>It may be a bit disconcerting to realize, but infants have their parents\u2019 behaviors in their slights virtually from the moment they come into this world.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>If we take the end point of this instability\u2014divorce is a convenient target\u2014we observe that kids are still paying for it years later. Children from divorced households are 25 percent more likely to abuse drugs by the time they are 14. They are more likely to get pregnant out of wedlock. They are twice as likely to get divorced themselves. In school, they get worse grades than children in stable households. And they are much less likely to receive support for college. When marriages stay together, 88 percent of college-bound kids will receive consistent support for their college education. When marriages fall apart, that figure shrinks to 29 percent.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Even after a year, 50 percent still require some form of nighttime parental intervention.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>After the birth of a child, couples have only about one-third as much time alone together as they had when they were childless.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Household duties increase three times as much for women as for men when the baby comes home<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>And 99 percent of them earn less than $117,000 per year<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Choosing to empathize\u2014at its heart it is simply a choice\u2014is so powerful it can change the developing nervous systems of infants whose parents regularly practice it.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>What must you do to get the kind of marital successes Gottman reported? You need to close that gap I described, the imbalance between what you know about your inner feelings and what you deduce about your spouse\u2019s. The way to do that is to create an \u2018empathy reflex\u201d\u2014your first response to any emotional situation. Researchers defined the empathy reflex while attempting to socialize high-functioning autistic children. It\u2019s surprisingly simple and surprisingly effective, something akin to the little boy crawling up onto the old man\u2019s lap. When you first encounter somebody\u2019s \u201chot\u201d feelings, execute two simple steps:<ul><li>1. Describe the emotional changes you think you see.<\/li><\/ul>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>2. Make a guess as to where those emotional changes came from.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Beginning with a simple affective description, she comer \u201cYou look scared out of your mind.\u201d The teenager paused, nodded slightly. \u201cYou not only look scared.\u201d She continued, \u201cYou look upset. Really upset. In fact, you look humiliated.\u201d The teenager paused again. This was not what she was expecting. The mom then deployed step 2, guessing at the origin. \u2018You had a bad time tonight, didn\u2019t you?\u201d The daughter grew wide-eyed. A tough night indeed. Tears suddenly sprang into her eyes. Mom guessed what probably occurred, and her voice softened. \u201cYou had a fight with your boyfriend.\u201d The teenager burst out crying. \u201cHe broke up with me! I had to get another ride home! That\u2019s why I was late!\u201d The daughter collapsed into her mother\u2019s loving arms, and both of them cried. There would be no smack down that evening. There seldom is in the arms of an empathy reflex\u2014whether in parenting or in marriage.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>SMART BABY: SEEDS<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>If cells and genes aren\u2019t any help, what about behaviors.-^ Here, researchers have struck gold. We now have in hand a series of tests for infants that can predict their IQs as adults. In one test, preverbal infants are allowed to feel an object hidden from their view (it\u2019s in a box). If the infants can then correctly identify the object by sight\u2014called cross-modal transfer\u2014they will score higher on later IQ tests than infants who can\u2019t. In another test, measuring something researchers call visual recognition memory, infants are set in front of a checkerboard square. This is an oversimplification, but the longer they stare, the higher their IQ is likely to be. Sound unlikely? These measurements, taken between 2 and 8 months of age, correctly predicted IQ scores at age 18!<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Take 1000 and add 40 to it. Now add another 1000. Now add 30. And another l000. Now add 20. Now add another 1000. Now add 10. What is the total?\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Did you say 5,000? If so, you\u2019re in good company. Research shows that 98 percent of people who tackle this question get that answer. But it is wrong. The correct answer is 4,100.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Contemplate your child\u2019s intellectual gifts. They are:<ul><li>The desire to explore<\/li><\/ul><ul><li>Self-control<\/li><\/ul><ul><li>Creativity<\/li><\/ul><ul><li>Verbal communication<\/li><\/ul>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Decoding nonverbal communication<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>An ability to associate creatively. They could see connections between seemingly unrelated concepts, problems or questions.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>An annoying habit of consistently asking \u201cwhat if.\u201d And \u201cwhy not\u201d and \u201chow come you\u2019re doing it this way.\u201d These visionaries scoured out the limits of the status quo, poking it, prodding it, shooting upward to the 40,000-foot view of something to see if it made any sense and then plummeting back to earth with suggestions.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>An unquenchable desire to tinker and experiment. The entrepreneurs might land on an idea, but their first inclination would be to tear it apart, even if self-generated. They displayed an incessant need to test things: to find the ceiling of things, the basement of things, the surface area, the tolerance, and the perimeters of ideas\u2014theirs, yours, mine, and anybody\u2019s. They were on a mission, and the mission was discovery.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>\u201cIf you look at 4-year-olds, they are constantly asking questions. But by the time they are 6 Vi years old, they stop asking questions because they quickly learn that teachers value the right answers more than provocative questions<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>But there are things that you, as a parent, can do to encourage your child\u2019s natural desire to explore\u2014starting with understanding how inquisitiveness contributes to your child\u2019s intellectual success.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>A healthy, well-adjusted preschooler sits down at a table in front of two giant, freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. It\u2019s not a kitchen table\u2014it\u2019s Walter Michael\u2019s Stanford lab during the late 1960s. The smell is heavenly. \u201cYou see these cookies?\u201d Michael says. \u201cYou can eat just one of them right now if you want, but if you wait, you can eat both. I have to go away for five minutes. If I return and you have not I eaten anything, I will let you have both cookies. If you eat one while I\u2019m gone, the bargain is off and you don\u2019t get the second one. Do we have a deal?\u201d The child nods. The researcher leaves.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Come to the interesting world of impulse control. It is part ^f a suite of behaviors under the collective term executive function. Executive function controls planning, foresight, problem solving, and goal setting. It engages many parts of the brain, including a short-term form of memory called working memory. Mischel and his many colleagues discovered that a child\u2019s executive function is a critical component of intellectual prowess.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>We now know that it is actually a better predictor of academic success than IQ. It\u2019s not a small difference, either: Mischel found that children who could delay gratification tor 15 minutes scored 210 points higher on their SATs than children who lasted one minute<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Mom, to whom I owe every atom of curiosity I possess, reacted with her typical parental insight and grace: She set aside her own preferences and followed my curiosity. She brought home two pictures wrapped in brown paper and sat me down. \u201cImagine,\u201d she began, with just a hint of eye-rolling, \u201cthat you tried to express in two dimensions all the information of a three-dimensional object. How would you do it?\u201d I stumbled around trying to get the right answer. Or any answer, but made no progress. Mom interrupted. \u201cPerhaps you would come up with something like this!\u201d With the flourish of an actress, which she briefly was. Mom ripped open the bag, revealing prints of Picasso masterpieces: Three Musicians and Violin and Guitar.&nbsp; It was love at first cube.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The test has been translated into 50 languages and taken by millions of people. It is the go-to standard for evaluating creativity in children<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Only thing keeps that door open to another language. You have to deliver the words through a social interaction. A real live person has to come into the room and speak the language directly to the child.&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>They were great at a specific kind of networking. Successful entrepreneurs were attracted to smart people whose educational backgrounds were very different from their own. This allowed them to acquire knowledge about things they would not otherwise learn. From a social perspective, this behavioral pirouette is not easy to execute. How did they manage to do it consistently? Using insights generated by the final common trait.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>They closely observed the details of other people\u2019s behaviors. The entrepreneurs were natural experts in the art of interpreting extrospective cues: gestures and facial expressions. Consistently and accurately interpreting these nonverbal signals is probably how they were able to extract information from sources whose academic resources were so different from their own.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>SMART BABY: SOIL<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>At every precious point, Dad would encourage Teddy to try hard. Then harder. Then hardest. Said the president in a diary decades later:<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Brain research tells us there are also several toxins: pushing your child to perform tasks his brain is not developmentally ready to take on; stressing her to the point of a psychological state termed \u2018learned helplessness\u2019 and, for the under-2 set, television.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Open-ended play? Not \u201copen-ended purchase of electronic educational toys\u201d? Not French lessons, followed by hours of militant drilling? Actually, I do believe in a form of disciplined repetition as children begin formal schooling. But many parents are so preoccupied with their young child\u2019s future that they transform every step of the journey into a type of ended anything. From 1981 to 1997, the amount of free time parents gave their kids dropped by about a quarter. The making-baby-smart product industry\u2014fashioning toys that are the opposite of open-ended (what could possibly be more claustrophobic than a DVD for infants?)\u2014is a multibillion-dollar industry.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>No, the type of play that gives all the cognitive benefits is a type that focuses on impulse control and self-regulation\u2014those executive-function behaviors we discussed in the previous chapter as an ingredient of intelligence, revealed by the cookie experiment.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The cascade of confirmatory research that followed these findings led directly to the Tools of the Mind program. It has a number of moving parts, but the three most relevant to our discussion involve planning play, direct instruction on pretending, and the type of environment in which the instruction takes place. Here\u2019s what happens in a Tools of the Mind classroom:<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>These data radiate a light that can hurt unaccustomed eyes. They challenge the notion that rote-drilled learning atmospheres always equal better performance. These data flatly state that emotional regulation\u2014reining in impulses\u2014predicts better cognitive performance.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>From a psychological perspective, effort is in part the willingness to focus one\u2019s attention and then sustain that focus. Effort also involves impulse control and a persistent ability to delay gratification. Sounds like executive function, spiced with a few I unique ingredients.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>What to say instead: \u2018You really worked hard\u2019\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>What should Ethan\u2019s parents have done? Research shows a simple solution. Rather than praising him for being smart, they should have praised him for working hard. On the successful completion of a test. They should not have said, \u201cI\u2019m so proud of you. You\u2019re so smart.\u201d They should have said, \u201cI\u2019m so proud of you. You must have really studied hard.\u201d This appeals to controllable effort rather than to unchangeable talent. It\u2019s called \u201cgrowth mindset\u201d praise.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The first is that kids are really good at imitation. (Remember the light box and the baby touching her forehead to it?) This ability to reproduce a behavior, after witnessing it only once, is called deferred imitation.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>What he found was extraordinary. Those students who had been exposed to an \u201celderly\u201d mix of words took almost 40 percent longer to walk down the hall than those who had been exposed to \u201crandom\u201d words. Some students even stooped and shuffled as they left. As if they were 50 years older than they actually were. To cite Bargh\u2019s clinical observation, these words \u201cactivated the elderly stereotype in memory, and participants acted in ways consistent with that activated stereotype.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Another example comes from a study that looked at bullying. For each hour of TV watched daily by children under age 4, the risk increased 9 percent that they would engage in bullying behavior by the time they started school.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>For each additional hour of TV watched by a child under the age of 3, the likelihood of an attentional problem by age 7 increased by about 10 percent. So, a preschooler who watches three hours of TV per day is 30 percent more likely to have attentional problems than a child who watches no TV.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Just having the TV on while no one is watching\u2014secondhand exposure\u2014seemed to do damage, too, possibly because of distraction. In test laboratories, flashing images and a booming sound track continually diverted children from any activity in which they were otherwise engaged, including that marvelous brain-boosting imaginative play we discussed. The effects were so toxic for kids in diapers that the American Association of Pediatrics issued a recommendation that still stands today:\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Pediatricians should urge parents to avoid television viewing for children under the age of 2 years. Although certain television programs may be promoted to this age group, research on early brain development shows that babies and toddlers have a critical need for direct interactions with parents and other significant caregivers (e.g., child care providers) for healthy brain growth and the development of appropriate social, emotional, and cognitive skills.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Before age 2, TV is best avoided completely. But after age 5, the jury is out on this harsh verdict\u2014way out, in fact. Some television shows improve brain performance at this age. Not surprisingly, these shows tend to be the interactive types.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Here are a few recommendations for TV viewing the data suggest:<ul><li>1.&nbsp; Keep the TV off before the child turns 2.1 know this is tough to hear for parents who need a break. If you can\u2019t turn it off\u2014if you haven\u2019t created those social networks that can allow you a rest\u2014at least limit your child\u2019s exposure to TV. We live in the real world, after all, and an irritated, overextended parent can be just as harmful to a child\u2019s development as an annoying purple dinosaur.<\/li><\/ul><ul><li>2. After age 2, help your children choose the shows (and other screen based exposures) they will experience. Pay special attention to any media that allow intelligent interaction.<\/li><\/ul>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>3- Watch the chosen TV show with your kids, interacting with the media, helping them to analyze and think critically about what they just experienced. And rethink putting a TV in the kids\u2019 room: Kids with their own TVs score an average of 8 points lower on math and language-arts tests than those in households with TVs in the family room.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Unless all of their digital interactions involve a video camera, kids won\u2019t get much practice interpreting nonverbal cues. That\u2019s the world autistic kids live in, by the way<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Pushy parents often become disappointed, displeased, or angry when their kids don\u2019t perform\u2014reactions children can detect at an astonishingly young age and want desperately to avoid.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>This loss of control is toxic. It can create a psychological state called learned helplessness, which can physically damage a child\u2019s brain<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>HAPPY BABY: SEEDS<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>These findings about the importance of human relationships\u2014in all their messy glory\u2014greatly simplify our question about how to raise happy kids. You will need to teach your children how to socialize effectively\u2014how to make friends, how to keep friends\u2014if you want them to be happy.<ul><li>Emotional regulation<\/li><\/ul>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Our old friend, empathy<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>This overruling is emotional regulation. There is nothing wrong with crying, or any other number of expressions, but you realize that there are social contexts where the behavior is appropriate and social contexts where it is not. People who do this well generally have lots of friends. If you want your kids to be happy, you will spend lots of time teaching them how and when this filtering should occur.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Along with the ability to regulate emotions, the ability to perceive the needs of another person and respond with empathy plays a huge role in your child\u2019s social competence. It\u2019s big enough to be a Brain Rule<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>HAPPY BABY: SOIL<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>I start with Tyler\u2019s tantrum because of a startling fact: how Rachel responds to Tyler\u2019s intense emotions profoundly matters to his future happiness. In fact, response is one of the greatest predictors of how he will turn out as a young man. It affects his ability to regularly empathize with people and thus maintain friendships\u2014big factors in human happiness.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Starting with the process of bonding with baby, parents who pay close attention to the emotional lives of their children, in a very particular manner, have the best shot at making them happy. The point of this chapter is to explain what \u201cvery particular manner\u201d means.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The infant abruptly turns away from his mother as the game reaches its peak of intensity and begins to suck on his thumb and stare into space with a dull facial expression. The mother stops playing and sits back, watching. \u2026After a few seconds, the infant turns back to her with an inviting expression. The mother moves closer, smiles, and says in a high-pitched, exaggerated voice, \u201cOh, now you\u2019re back!\u201d He smiles in response and vocalizes. As they finish crowing together, the infant reinserts his thumb and looks away. The mother again waits \u2026 the infant turns \u2026to her, and they greet each other with big smiles.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>For our purposes, the chicken is your child\u2019s emotional life. The spices, six of them, are your parenting behaviors. When parents properly spice this chicken on a regular basis, they increase their probability to raising a happy kid.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>There is one that does. How you deal with the emotional lives of your children\u2014your ability to detect, react to, promote, and provide instruction about emotional regulation\u2014has the greatest predictive power over your baby\u2019s future happiness.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Here are the six spices that go into this parental dry rub:<ul><li>A demanding but warm parenting style<\/li><\/ul><ul><li>Comfort with your own emotions<\/li><\/ul><ul><li>Tracking your child\u2019s emotions<\/li><\/ul><ul><li>Verbalizing emotions<\/li><\/ul><ul><li>Running toward emotions<\/li><\/ul>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Two tons of empathy<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Responsiveness. This is the degree to which parents respond to their kids with support, warmth and acceptance. Warm parents mostly communicate their affection tor their Rids. Hostile parents mostly communicate their rejection of their kids.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Demandingness. This is the degree to which a parent attempts to exert behavioral control. Restrictive parents tend to make and enforce rules mercilessly. Permissive parents don\u2019t make any rules at all.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Unresponsive plus demanding. Exerting power over their kids is very important to these parents, and their kids are often afraid of them. They do not try to explain their rules and do not project any warmth.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Responsive plus undemanding. These parents truly love their kids but have little ability to make and enforce rules. They subsequently avoid confrontation and seldom demand compliance with family rules. These parents are often bewildered by the task of raising kids.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Responsive plus demanding. Probably the best of the lot. These parents are demanding, but they care a great deal about their kids. They explain their rules and encourage their children to state their reactions to them. They encourage high levels of independence, yet see that children comply with family values. These parents tend to nave terrific communication skills with their children.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Some people welcome emotional experiences, considering them an important and enriching part of life\u2019s journey. Others think that emotions make people weak and embarrassed and that emotions should be suppressed.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Earlier I mentioned parents paying close attention to the emotional lives of their children in a particular manner. You could see it with the mom and baby playing peekaboo in Tronick\u2019s laboratory:\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The mother stops playing and sits back, watching\u2026. After a few seconds, the infant turns back to her with an inviting expression. The mother moves closer, smiles, and says in a high-pitched, exaggerated voice, \u201cOh, now you\u2019re back!\u201d He smiles in response and vocalizes.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The mom was extraordinarily attuned to her child\u2019s emotional cues. She knew that her baby\u2019s turning away probably meant he needed a break from the sensory flood ne was receiving. Mom withdrew, waited patiently, and did not resume until baby signaled he was no longer flooding. He could then be delighted when mom returned. Smiling, rather than staying over stimulated by her persistence and probably crying. The total elapsed time was less than 5 seconds, but. Stretched over years, this emotional sensitivity can make all the difference between a productive kid and a juvenile delinquent.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Emotional surveillance comes with a caveat, however, for it is possible to give too much of a good thing. In the late 1980s, researchers were somewhat startled to find that when parents paid too much attention to their kids\u2019 cues\u2014responding to every gurgle, burp, and cough\u2014the kids actually became less securely attached.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>You seem sad. Are you sad?\u201d is what the girl\u2019s dad said. The little girl nodded, still angry, too. The dad continued. \u201cI think I know why. You\u2019re sad because Ally\u2019s gotten all the presents. You only got one!\u201d The little girl nodded again. \u201cYou want the same number and you can\u2019t have it, and that\u2019s unfair and that makes you sad.\u201d The dad seemed to be pouring it on. \u201cWhenever somebody gets something I want and I don\u2019t, I get sad, too.\u201d Silence.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Then the dad said the line most characteristic of a verbalizing parent. \u201cWe have a word for that feeling, honey,\u201d he said. \u201cDo you want to know what that word is?\u201d She whimpered, \u201cOK. He held her in his arms. \u201cWe call it being jealous. You wanted Ally\u2019s presents, and you couldn\u2019t have them. You were jealous.\u201d She cried softly but was beginning to calm down. \u201cJealous,\u201d she whispered. \u201cYep,\u201d Dad replied, \u2018and it\u2019s an icky feeling.\u201d \u201cI been jealous all day,\u201d she replied, nestling into her daddy\u2019s big strong arms.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>This big-hearted father is good at a) labeling his feelings and b) teaching his daughter to label hers. He knows what sadness in his own heart feels like and announces it easily.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Research shows that this labeling habit is a dominant behavior for all parents who raise happy children.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Notice in the story that as the dad addressed his daughter\u2019s feelings directly, the little girl began to calm down. This is a common finding; you can measure it in the laboratory. Verbalizing has a soothing effect on the nervous system of children. (Adults, too.) Thus, the Brain Rule: Labeling emotions calms big feelings.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>I knew from\u2019 the research literature that occasional tantrums are normal for kids in the first couple of years<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>One day, as he was subsiding from a particularly fierce temblor, I looked at him squarely and said, \u201cYou know, son. We have a word for this feeling. I would like to tell you that word. Is that OK?\u201d He nodded, still crying. \u201cIt is called being \u2018frustrated.\u2019 You are feeling frustrated. Can you say \u2018frustrated\u2019?\u201d He suddenly looked at me as if he had been hit by a train.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>There\u2019s another powerful way to fine-tune a child\u2019s hearing for the emotional aspects of speech: musical training.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Fireman Don Lopez did not scream or hesitate. He immediately lowered himself into the raging, frigid waters and began trying to ^attach a safety harness to the young girl. He failed, once, twice \u2026 several times. The girl\u2019s strength was nearly exhausted when Lopez, at the last second, finally got her attached. Photo journalist Annie Wells was on the scene working for the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, and she captured that moment (and a Pulitzer Prize). It is an incredible photo to see, the weakened teenager nearly letting go of the branch, the muscular fireman saving her life. Like first responders everywhere, then everyone else was either screaming, sitting on the sidelines, or running away, Lopez ran toward trouble.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Parents who raise kids like my friend Doug, the valedictorian, have this type of courage in spades. They are fearless in the face of raging floods of emotions from their child. They don\u2019t try to shoot down emotions, ignore them, or let them have free reign over the welfare of the family. Instead, these parents get involved in their kids\u2019 strong feelings. They have four attitudes toward emotions (yes, their meta-emotions):<ul><li>They do not judge emotions.<\/li><\/ul><ul><li>They acknowledge the reflexive nature of emotions.<\/li><\/ul><ul><li>They know that behavior is a choice, even though an emotion is not.<\/li><\/ul>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>They see a crisis as a teachable moment.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>One response might be: \u201cKyle, I\u2019m sorry your fish is dead, but it\u2019s really no big deal. He\u2019s just a fish. Death is part of life, and you need to learn that. You wipe those tears away, son, and go outside and play.\u201d Another might be: \u201cThat\u2019s OK, honey. You know, the fish was already old when you were born. We\u2019ll go to the store tomorrow and get you another one. Now put on that happy face, outside and play.\u201d Both responses completely ignore how Kyle is feeling at the moment. One seems to actively disapprove of Kyle\u2019s grief; the other is trying to anesthetize it. Neither deals with his intense emotions. They give him no tools that might help him navigate through his grief. Know what Kyle might be thinking? \u201cIf this is not supposed to matter. Why do I still have this big feeling? What I am supposed to do with it? There must be something really wrong with me.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Day-to-day, parents of happy kids do not allow bad behavior simply because they understand where it came from. A little girl might slap her baby brother because she feels threatened. That does not make slapping OK. These parents understand that kids have a choice in how they express emotions, reflexive though emotions can be.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Parents who raise the happiest kids constantly rummage through their offspring\u2019s intense feelings looking for stray teachable moments.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Let\u2019s say you are waiting in a long line at the post office with your restless 2-year-old, Emily. She announces, \u201cI want a glass of water.\u201d You calmly respond, \u201cHoney, I can\u2019t get you water right now. The drinking fountain is broken.\u201d Emily starts to whine. \u201cI want some water!\u201d Her voice cracks. You anticipate what\u2019s coming, and your blood pressure begins to rise. \u201cWe\u2019ll have to wait until we get home. There\u2019s no water here,\u201d you say. She retorts, \u201cI want water NOW!\u201d The exchange escalates in intensity, in danger of erupting into a very public fight. What now? Here are three tactics you might take:<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>You acknowledge the child\u2019s feelings and empathize. \u201cYou\u2019re thirsty, aren\u2019t you? Getting a big gulp of cold water would feel so good. I wish that drinking fountain was working so I could lift you up and let you drink as much as you wanted.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Empathy reflexes and the coaching strategies that surround them are the only behaviors known consistently to defuse intense emotional situations over the short term\u2014and reduce their frequency over the long.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>If 30 percent of your interactions with your child are empathetic, Gottman contends, you\u2019ll raise a happy kid. Does this mean 70 percent of the time you can cut yourself some slack? Perhaps. Really, the statistic points to the great power of paying attention to feelings.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>MORAL BABY<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Harvard researchers developed a Moral Sense Test, which hundreds of thousands of people from more than 120 countries have taken. (You can take it, too, at <a href=\"http:\/\/moral.wjh.harvard.edu\">http:\/\/moral.wjh.harvard.edu<\/a>.) The data they\u2019ve compiled appear to confirm a universal moral sense<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>In the 1960s, Bandura showed preschoolers a film involving a Bobo doll, one of those inflatable plastic clowns weighted on the bottom. In the film, an adult named Susan kicks and punches the doll. Then repeatedly clobbers it with a hammer\u2014buckets o\u2019 violence. After the film, the preschoolers are taken into another room filled with toys, including (surprise) a Bobo doll and a toy hammer. What do the children do? It depends.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>If they saw a version of the film where Susan was praised for her violent actions, they hit the doll with great frequency. If they saw a version where Susan got punished, they hit Bobo with less frequency. But if Bandura then strides into the room and says, \u201cI will give you a reward if you can repeat what you saw Susan do,\u201d the children will pick up a hammer and start swinging at Bobo. Whether they saw the violence as rewarded or punished, they learned the behavior.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Bandura calls this \u201cobservational learning.\u201d He was able to show that kids (and adults) learn a lot by observing the behaviors of others. It can be positive, too. A Mexican soap opera in which the characters celebrate books, and then ask viewers to sign up for reading classes, increased literacy rates across the country. Bandura\u2019s finding is an extraordinary weapon of mass instruction.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>\u201cFamilies who raise moral kids follow very predictable patterns when it comes to rules and discipline. The patterns are not a behavioral insurance policy, but they are as close as research gets us right now.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>This well-balanced triad statistically provides children with the sturdiest seat\u2014the most finely attuned moral reflexes. The three legs are:<ul><li>Clear, consistent rules and rewards<\/li><\/ul><ul><li>Swift punishment<\/li><\/ul>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Explaining the rules<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Nanny\u2019s solution? Next day, she brings in a physical chart with rules and expectations written right on it\u2014including a reasonably formulated time for bed\u2014then mounts it where the entire family can see. The chart produces an objective authority where the rule is a) realistic, b) clearly stated, and c) visible to all.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Scientists (and good parents) discovered long ago that you can increase the frequency of a desired behavior if you reinforce the behavior.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Instead of waiting for your 3-year-old to get on the swings, you can reinforce his behavior every time he gets near the door.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>This process, called shaping, can take much patience, but it usually doesn\u2019t take much time. Famed behaviorist B.F. Skinner got a chicken to turn the pages of a book as if it were reading in less than 20 minutes using a shaping protocol. Humans are much easier to shape than chickens.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Praising the absence of a bad behavior is just as important as praising the presence of a good one.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Researchers distinguish between two discipline strategies: negative reinforcement and punishment. Both deal with aversive situations, but negative reinforcement tends to strengthen behaviors. Whereas punishment tends to weaken them.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>As a child you probably discovered that when you burn your finger, cold water provides immediate pain relief, removing the obnoxious experience. When a response pays off, it tends to get repeated. The next time you got a burn\u2014an aversive stimulus\u2014the probability multiplied of you running to the nearest sink. This is negative reinforcement, because your response was strengthened by the removal (or avoidance) of an aversive stimulus. It\u2019s different from positive reinforcement, which is when an action leads to such a wonderful experience, you want to repeat the action. Negative reinforcement can be as powerful, but it is also trickier to apply.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>I knew a preschool girl who craved her mom\u2019s attention. She started off her terrible twos by throwing her toys down the stairs on a regular basis, disrupting the entire family. The little girl seemed to enjoy misbehaving and was soon throwing lots of things down the stairs. Mom\u2019s books were a favorite target, which, this being Seattle, proved to be the last straw. Mom tried talking to her, reasoning with her, and, when these failed, yelling at her. She eventually brought out the heavy artillery\u2014spanking\u2014but nothing changed.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Why were Mom\u2019s strategies failing? Because her punishments were actually providing the little girl what she desired most: Mom\u2019s undivided attention. As difficult as this might seem, Mom\u2019s best shot at breaking this cycle was to ignore her daughter when she misbehaved (after first locking away some of the books), destroying this unholy alliance between the stairs and attention. Instead, Mom would reinforce her daughter\u2019s desirable behaviors by paying rich, undivided attention only when she acted in accordance with the laws of the family. Mom tried it, consistently lavishing praise and attention when the daughter opened one of the remaining books rather than tossing it. The throwing stopped within a few days.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The first type is sometimes called punishment by application. It has a reflexive quality to it. You touch your hand to a stove, your hand gets burned immediately, and you learn not to touch the stove. This automaticity is very powerful. Research shows that children internalize behaviors best when they are allowed to make their own mistakes and feel the consequences. Here\u2019s one example:\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The other day my son had a tantrum in the phone store and took his shoes and socks off. Instead of arguing with him to put them back on, I let him walk outside a few feet in the snow. It took about 2 seconds for him to say, \u201cMommy, want shoes on.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>In the second type of punishment, the parent is subtracting something. Appropriately, this is called punishment by removal. For example, your son hits his younger sister, and you do not allow him to go to a birthday party. Or you give him a timeout. (Jail time for crimes is the adult form of this category.) Here\u2019s how it worked for one mom:<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The punishment should be firm. This does NOT mean child abuse. But it also doesn\u2019t mean a watered-down version of the consequences. The aversive stimulus must in fact be aversive to be effective.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The punishment must be administered consistently\u2014every time the rule is broken. That is one of the reasons why hot stoves alter behavior so quickly: Every time you put your hand on it, you get burned. The same is true with punishment. The more exceptions you _allow, the harder it will be to extinguish the behavior. This is the basis of a Brain Rule: Let your yes be yes and your no be no. Consistency must be there not only from one day to the next but from one caregiver to the next<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>If you are trying to teach a pigeon to peck on a bar but delay the reinforcement by lo seconds, you can do it all day and the pigeon won\u2019t get it. Shrink that delay to I second, and the bird learns to peck the bar in 15 minutes. We don\u2019t have the same brains as birds, but whether we are being punished or rewarded, we have remarkably similar reactions to delay. The closer the punishment is to the point of infraction, the faster the learning becomes. Researchers have actually measured this in real-world settings.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The punishment must be administered in the warm atmosphere of emotional safety. When kids feel secure even in the raw presence of parental correction, punishment has the most robust effect. This evolutionary need for safety is so powerful, the presence of the rules themselves often communicates safety to children. \u201cOh, they actually care about me,\u201d is how the child (at almost any age in childhood) views it, even if he or she seems less than appreciative. If the kids don\u2019t feel safe, the previous three ingredients are useless. They may even be harmful.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Want a simple way to make any form of punishment more effective, long-lasting, and internalized\u2014everything a parent could ask for? It\u2019s \/ the third leg supporting our stool of moral awareness. It just takes one magic sentence, Parke found, added to any explicit command.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The bottom line: Parents who provide clear, consistent boundaries whose reasons for existence are always explained generally produce moral kids.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Overall, a clear picture emerges about how to raise well-adjusted, moral children. Parents whose rules issue from warm acceptance and whose rationales are consistently explained end up being perceive as reasonable and fair, rather than as capricious and dictatorial. They are most likely to evince from their kids committed compliance gather than committed defiance. Remind you<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>CONCLUSION<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The first theme is empathy. Empathy is enabled by the ability to understand someone else\u2019s motivations and behaviors, as this little girl did:\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>My preschooler was harassed by a class \u201cmean girl.\u201d We explained that the mean girl was jealous of a pretty craft project that we had made at home that others were praising. Our dear daughter made another one at home and gave it to mean girl, who was so, so, so happy. I don\u2019t know that I have ever been prouder.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The parents asked their daughter to make an effort to understand the psychological interiors of the bully. This compelled the girl to do a difficult thing: temporarily remove herself from her own experience and jump into somebody else\u2019s. Powerful idea. Hard idea. This skill. Theory of Mind, is the first step to empathy. It is a consistent willingness to turn down the volume of one\u2019s own priorities and experiences in favor of hearing another\u2019s. Theory of Mind is not the same thing as empathy. You can use your secret knowledge of someone else\u2019s motivations to be a dictator if you like. You need to add a certain measure of kindness to Theory of Mind skills to get empathy.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>What she chose to focus on once she got there was his emotional life. She empathized with his obvious feelings of rejection. Mom did not try to hide them, neutralize them, or throw stones at them. This consistent choice separates the superstar parents from the rest.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Be willing to enter into your child\u2019s world on a regular basis and to empathize with what your child is feeling.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>PRACTICAL TIPS<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>This notion requires more research, but it is very possible that helping a child start a lifelong love affair with vegetables (or, more probably, a lifelong \u201cI don\u2019t hate all vegetables\u201d affair) may start with you eating lots of fruits and vegetables in the last trimester of pregnancy.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The solution is obvious: Reconstitute a vigorous social structure using whatever tools you have at hand.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>My wife and I devoted nearly 600 square feet in our house to creating such an environment, filled with music stations, reading and drawing and painting and crafting areas, lots of Legos, and lots of cardboard boxes. There was a math and science station, including a toy microscope. We changed the contents of these stations on a regular basis, and we eventually turned the space into our kids\u2019 classroom.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>I would tell them that today was \u201copposite day.\u201d When I held up a drawn picture of the night, an inky black background sprinkled with stars, they were supposed to say \u201cday.\u201d When I held up a picture with a big blue sky inhabited by a big yellow sun, they were supposed to say \u201cnight.\u201d I would alternate the pictures with increasing rapidity and check for their responses. They had a blast with this; for some reason we always ended up rolling on the floor laughing.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The rule was that when I struck a pan with a spoon once, he had to do it twice. When I hit a pan twice, he had to strike it three times. Or once. (I changed it up quite a bit.) The idea for both exercises was to a) give the boys a rule and b) help them inhibit what they would do automatically in the face of this rule.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>See if elements of the Tools of the Mind program will fit in with your lifestyle. Here\u2019s one way this worked at my house: Our boys might decide that they wanted to make a construction site. (They had a 1 favorite video that featured various construction machines, which we watched ad nauseam. We still take it out for birthdays, as a funny nostalgia piece.) We would sit down together and plan the elements of what would go into the construction site, what might occur there once it was built, and how cleanup should best be handled once finished. Our imaginations ran wild, but a linear list of goals would be created from the exercise. Then the boys would play. A full description of the Tools program is available here: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mscd.edu\/extendedcampus\/toolsofthemind\">http:\/\/www.mscd.edu\/extendedcampus\/toolsofthemind<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Step 1: Make a list of all the behaviors\u2014the actions and words\u2014 you regularly broadcast to the world. Do you laugh a lot? Swear on a regular basis? Exercise? Do you cry easily or have a hair-trigger temper? Do you spend hours on the Internet? Make this list. Have your spouse do this, too, and compare.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Step 2: Rate them. There are probably things on this list of which you are justifiably proud. Others, not so much. Whether good or bad, these are the behaviors your children will encounter on a regular basis in your household. And they will imitate them, whether you want them to or not. Decide which behaviors you want your children to emulate and circle them. Decide which behaviors you\u2019d rather have them not imitate at all and put an \u201cX\u201d through them.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Step 3: Do something about this list. Engage regularly in the behaviors you love. It\u2019s as easy as telling your spouse on a regular basis how much you love her. Put on an extinction schedule the ones you don\u2019t want to have around. It\u2019s as easy (and as hard) as turning off the TV.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Get into the habit of rewarding the intellectual exertion your child puts into a given task rather than his or her native intellectual resources.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Recreational experiences\u2014digital games, certain types of web surfing, and our Wii gaming system\u2014we called Category I. They were off limits except under one condition. Our sons could \u201cbuy\u201d a certain amount of Category I time. The currency? The time spent reading an actual book. Every hour spent reading could purchase a certain amount of Category I time. This was added up and could be \u201cspent\u201d on weekends after homework was done. This worked for us. The kids picked up a reading habit, could do the digital work necessary for their futures, and were not completely locked out of the fun stuff.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>That means arranging plenty of play dates. Let your children interact with multiple age groups, too, and a variety of people. But pay attention to how much your child can handle at one time. Social experiences must be tailored to individual temperaments.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>When faced with a strong emotion, turn to empathy first:<ul><li>Describe the emotion you think you see.<\/li><\/ul>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Make a guess as to where it came from.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>What are your emotions about emotions? One particularly insightful test can be found in John Gottman\u2019s book Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child: The Heart of Parenting.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Instruments, singing, whatever\u2014make music a consistent part of your child\u2019s experience. Long-term musical exposure has been shown to greatly aid a child\u2019s perception of others emotions, this in turn predicts your child\u2019s ability to establish and maintain friendships.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>John Medina\u20142010 INTRODUCTION Pregnancy RELATIONSHIP SMART BABY: SEEDS SMART BABY: SOIL HAPPY BABY: SEEDS HAPPY BABY: SOIL MORAL BABY CONCLUSION PRACTICAL TIPS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3902,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[238,7,252,239,242],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-booknotes","category-development","category-family-parenting","category-health-and-wellness","category-psychology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mattwkane.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mattwkane.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mattwkane.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mattwkane.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mattwkane.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3901"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.mattwkane.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3901\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3903,"href":"https:\/\/www.mattwkane.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3901\/revisions\/3903"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mattwkane.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mattwkane.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mattwkane.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mattwkane.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}