【推荐2】Do you have a prized stuffed animal from your childhood? Is it still in your apartment? If so, you’re not alone. 60% of small children have Teddies and other comfort objects, and up to 35% of adults!

Conventional wisdom from the 1970s suggested kids depending on comfort objects somehow lacked secure attachment to their mothers, and that this dependence would threaten their proper development into well-adjusted adults.

However, not too long ago, studies began to show that comfort objects don’t threaten children’s mental health, and may indeed be developmentally advantageous. Children with comfort objects are less shy and more focused than those without them. This is probably because with their presence, children feel braver and less stressed in unfamiliar situations.

Even newer research shows only when a toy is his or her comfort object do children anthropomorphize it. That is, children don’t really mistakenly believe that all objects around them have inside lives. Having an emotional attachment to the comfort object causes children to think of it as a human-like friend, who they can practice telling stories to and share joy and sorrow with. Sometimes they even think from the perspective of this unnatural friend.

Comfort objects are not just soft things for children to grab when they feel sad or lonely. They mean something special to them. So, far from being “wacky toddler (学步儿童) behavior”, choosing a comfort object and treating it as a sacred part of daily rituals is actually extremely sophisticated behavior on the part of small children. If you have a comfort animal, or meet a kid who has one, let the cuddles (拥抱) begin.

【推荐3】If you happen to flip through TV channels, you’re likely to come across a commercial for a new vitamin or supplement (保健品) designed to improve your health. These pills often promise the world, claiming to cure baldness or fight overweight. But in the medical community, there’s some debate on whether these products provide any actual benefits.

Many people begin their day by popping a multi-vitamin. These pills are supposed to effortlessly provide our bodies with vitamins in case we have missed them in our meals. It seems to be a no-brainer that everyone should take one.However, a 2006 study by the Agency for Healthcare Research, concluded that multi-vitamins have zero effect on reducing a person’s chances of getting cancer or heart disease. The only people multi-vitamins benefited were those in poverty-stricken nations who lacked nutrition. In2009, a related study by the Hutchinson Cancer Research Center came to a similar conclusion.

Antioxidants are another supplement that is promoted to improve health and prevent aging. Antioxidants in vitamins A, C, and E are supposed to greatly reduce cellular damage. Yet, in a study involving over 180,000 adults, those who took these vitamins actually increased their risks of dying by 16 percent.

One likely cause for these negative results is that people who eat healthy diets and take vitamins are probably getting too many nutrients, which can be poisonous. Then why are these supplements being promoted? Many experts blame the health industry because supplements aren’t as highly inspected as they should be. What’s worse, vitamin makers aren’t required to list negative side effects like medicines do. In many cases, it can even be difficult for the U.S.’s Federal Drug Agency (FDA) to ban risky ingredients due to lengthy and expensive legal battles. On the other hand, after these studies were made public, people continued buying more vitamins than ever. It seems that no matter what evidence is presented, the majority of people aren’t ready to give upon a magic pill just yet.

【推荐1】It’s been almost a year since our third and last child graduated from stakes high school. Looking back, I can see now that there were some parenting mistakes we could have avoided. I share them so that you don’t have to repeat them.

I wish I had dealt with peer pressure better. During the senior year, it seems like every conversation I had at a school meeting ended up being about college. It made me anxious to see my kids’ classmates applying part of my brain kicked in with “Oh yeah? My kid has better scores than yours he could get in anywhere yours can!” I probably passed some of that stress to my kids, who didn’t need to deal with my anxieties on top of their own. Everyone has their own path. It doesn’t matter what anyone else is doing --- the only person that matters is your son or daughter.

I also worried about their social lives. It made me anxious that my kids didn’t seem to have the common teen interest in school dances or parties but preferred to have a few friends over for a movie sometimes. I can now say this: worrying about their social lives was a total waste of time and energy. I should simply have enjoyed them being at home. They saved their focus for things like Physics and History. And they are doing just fine in college.

I simply thought teenagers would go to bed when they were tired. I didn’t realize the addictive(上瘾的) power of video games or texting. My daughter slept with her phone in her bed for at least two years. If I could do it again, every kid would have been required to leave the phone in the kitchen before bed.

I’m proud to say that today we have three college students who are well-prepared young adults in spite of every parenting mistake I made in high school to delay(推迟) that.

【推荐2】I heard about a high school in Chicago where students had to pass a certain number of courses to graduate, and if they didn’t pass a course, they got the grade “Not Yet”. I thought that was fantastic.     1     But if they got the grade “Not Yet”, they understood that they were on a learning curve.

“Not Yet” also gave me more insight. I wanted to see how children coped with challenge and difficulty, so I gave 10-year-olds problems that were slightly too hard for them. Some of them reacted in a shockingly positive way.     2     They understood that their abilities could be developed. They had what I call a growth mindset. But other students felt it was tragic. From their more fixed mindset perspective, their intelligence had been up for judgment and they failed.

I’ll tell you what they do next. In one study, they told us they would probably cheat then next time instead of studying more if they failed a test.     3     For the fixed mindset students, there was hardly any. They ran from error. They didn’t engage with it. But the students with the growth mindset engaged deeply, exhibiting increased electrical activity in their brains. They processed the error and learned from it.

    4     First of all, we can praise wisely. Praise the process that kids engage in: their effort, their strategies, their focus, their perseverance, their improvement. We can also change students’ mindsets. Research found that students who were not taught growth mindset continued to show declining grades.     5