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Emotion and Creativity: Is There a Link?

Ever wonder what it feels like to dance down the street or wave at people you don’t know? Ask a kid. Kids do those things. Suddenly though, they reach an age when it is no longer cool, and they stop playing. Sure, they play video games, but that’s not the same. Maybe we should all continue to play – if only for the sake of reaching into our creativity.

In her book, My Stroke of Insight, brain scientist Jill Bolte Taylor writes that due to the way the brain works, we are feeling beings before we are thinking beings. Perhaps the ability to express emotion plays an important role in creativy, the unlocking of the thought process. It’s as though by expressing emotion, the cognitive process is sharpened, thereby allowing innate talent to blossom.

Friends of the late Steve Jobs say he was an extremely emotional man. He was also creative to the extreme. It’s like he never stopped playing with Legos, all the while building Continue reading

Finally, A Gluten-Free Pie Crust That Works!

This pie crust came together like magic. I had some idea of the ingredients from previous attempts, but I made a couple of changes that did the trick!

Gluten-free pie crust

This recipe calls for xanthan gum and ground flax meal as  binders. It’s elastic and easy to handle, a big improvement over my earlier attempts. When I swooshed in the liquid, those dry ingredients just pulled together. I was thrilled.
I rolled it out on waxed paper and peeled it off. It was that easy! Pre-baking for about 7 minutes gave the dough a head-start before I added the filling .

*BAKING TIP*  Spritz a light coat of cooking spray on the waxed paper and on your rolling pin to keep dough from sticking. 

GLUTEN-FREE PIE CRUST

Mix together dry ingredients:

2/3 C brown rice flour

1/3 C arrowroot powder (or cornstarch)

1 tsp. xanthan gum (sold at health food stores)

¼  tsp. salt

Cut into dry ingredients:

6 Tbs. butter

In a small bowl, mix and let sit five minutes:

1 Tbsp ground flax

1/4 cup water

Add water and flax mixture to dry ingredients. Wet hands with water and gather into a ball.

On counter-top, roll out a sheet of waxed paper.  Gently roll dough into a circle. If more moisture is needed, dip hands under water and lightly work into dough until it is just the right consistency.

Preheat oven to 425

Peel dough off waxed paper and press into  9” pie pan. Bake for 7 minutes. This gives the crust a head-start. Add filling and return to oven.

For quiche, reduce heat to 400⁰ F and bake for an additional 10 minutes. Then reduce heat again, to 350 ⁰ F.  And finish baking another 20 minutes, or until a knife comes out clean.

My first filling for this new crust was a ZUCCHINI-RICOTTA PIE (recipe follows). The second was CHOCOLATE CREAM PIE. For this pie, I baked the crust completely before filling with a recipe I found online and adapted using natural cocoa. Often gluten-free baked goods are more difficult to brown. I make sure to turn my crust during baking to ensure even heat, and am happy with a lightly browned finished product.

ZUCCHINI-RICOTTA PIE FILLING

1 cup ricotta cheese

¼ cup feta cheese (or other crumpled or grated cheese)

3 eggs

1 tsp. salt

Few dashes pepper

¾ cup grated zucchini PLUS 1/4 cup for topping (substitute asparagus tips, crumpled bacon and spinach, etc.)

½ chopped onion or several stalks diced green onion

Topping: Tomato salsa

Mix in bowl: ricotta, feta (or other) cheese, eggs, squash, onion, salt and pepper. Pour into lightly baked crust. Drizzle salsa in a circle and sprinkle remaining zucchini in the center.

One slice left over!

 

Take out the crust and pour in filling. Drizzle salsa on the top.

Bake 10 minutes at 400⁰F, and then reduce heat to 350⁰F Bake an additional 20 minutes or until fork comes out clean.

Robust Words: Words that Make Kids Smarter

I used to lead my second grade remedial reading students down the hall to a tiny room, one that I was lucky to have at all. And in that closet-of-a-room I opened up a whole new world of written language – one concept at a time – using a multi-sensory reading approach that tapped auditory, visual, and kinesthetic/tactile learning channels. For most of them, I think it stuck.

How exciting for emergent readers to blend sounds into words and words into sentences. Decoding, however, is just the first step. Next comes comprehension. Kids have to be able to make sense of written text. They need to be able to “see” mental images of what they’ve read and draw on prior knowlege to make meaning. I remember listening to one little boy read a decodable text story that I’d written. Decodable text uses only letters, sounds and language concepts that have been previously taught. It gives kids lots of practice with new learning and builds fluency and confidence. The story was about two brothers, Bud and Chad, who visited a fireman named Jim Smith. Jim lifted Bud and Chad up onto the seat of the fire truck and let them steer the wheel.

The student, a boy of about eight, looked up from the story. His eyes widened, as though he’d witnessed a miracle. “I can see it in my mind!” he announced. The light bulb had turned on.

No matter how much progress that little boy made in phonics, however, if he did not understand the meaning of a word – even a single syllable word – he could have trouble understanding the text.

They call it the Matthew Effect in Reading, a term coined by psychologist and reading researcher Keith Stanovich. Taken from the Bible, it means that those who have – in this case, reading ability – will get more, and those who do not have, will lose even what they started with. How can this happen to sweet little children, just learning to read?

It’s simple: kids don’t read enough. According to the research, children who read independently for about five minutes per day will gain in roughly 300,000 words per year. Those reading for 65 minutes per day take in 4 million. Big difference.

All that exposure to words helps kids comprehend more. Imagine you’ve just read an article about honey. You love honey and want to find a local source to help your family fight seasonal allergies. Searching online, you find a guy in town to buy from. His website talks about how bee pollen helps fight allergies. The following day you’re sitting in the dentist’s office reading a Time Magazine article about colony collapse disorder. Your interest is piqued because you had just been researching honey. After your appointment you go home and tell your spouse about the story. Not only did you learn that honey production is in jeapardy, but California’s almond crop, which depends almost entirely upon pollenation by bees. And on it goes. Even as an adult, you are building knowledge and excitement.

Comprehension helps create a positive learning cycle. It makes kids want to read more. The more they read, the more they will want to read. They will talk about what they’ve read and share their knowledge with others. And they will do better in school and on tests. Kids who don’t comprehend what they read end up reading less, and the cycle becomes a negative one that can have an impact across a lifespan.

Imagine nine-year-old Emma is reading a story about a princess and her brother, the prince. Every day she mocks his red curls. He vows to banish her when he is king. Emma does not understand the meaning of “mock” or “banish.” She thinks the princess has curled his hair and the prince plans to pay her back when he is king. She gets test questions wrong because she guesses at word meaning. She wishes she didn’t have to read at all.

What sorts of words help kids improve comprehension and their love of reading? ROBUST WORDS! Word like “mock” and “banish.”

I first heard the term “robust words” several years ago at an International Dyslexia Association conference. An educator led a session on closing the achievement gap, the difference in achievement between kids from middle and high income families and kids at the low end who are normally exposed to far fewer words.

What are robust words, anyway, and why do they matter? They’re words that pack a lot of meaning, and usually fall somewhere between the mommy-daddy vocabulary kids take to kindergarten and the jargon of a post-doctoral research fellow.

As a former reading interventionist, I know that some children can decode like little banshees but can’t tell you what they’ve just read. Some of the problem stems from a lack of practice making mental images; but part of it is the lack of word meaning skills.

Think of vocab like a thermometer, with extremes on either end. You can “go” out to the old barn, or you can trudge, mosey, stroll, march, scamper, dart, sprint, etc.

How’s the weather? It’s not just good or bad – not if you want to challenge your child’s inner word-wizard! It’s got to be agreeable, pleasant, enjoyable, exquisite, worrisome, deteriorating, ominous, harsh, horrific… Get the idea?

One exposure is not enough to make a new word “stick.” During the week, point out the word on radio and TV. Use it in conversation with family and friends so that your child overhears. And use it with your child in context. Don’t try to teach vocab in isolation. Ask your child questions that prompt the use of the new word: Would you say the weather looks ominous today, or is it just generally bleak?

I used to make my kids “Word Wizard” notebooks. Staple together several half-sheets of lined paper. Have them decorate a cool cover with the words “Word Wizard” on it, (a recycled file folder works). You can search their reading material in advance for robust words they don’t already have in their vocabulary. Make a list and as they read – and you discuss word meaning – they can jot down these words and simple definitions in their “Word Wizard” notebook. When the notebook is full, it’s time to pick out a chapter book. (Our Friends of the Library book store was my favorite place to shop – still is.)

If you are not sure your child understands what he’s reading, ask him to draw a quick picture on a piece of paper. Ask what color the dog is; if his ears are long or short and if he’s on a leash. Get him thinking and involved. And on a positive learning cycle.

Word knowledge not only makes reading more enjoyable, it gives kids an edge. Increasing your child’s word power could bump him up a reading level, improve his book reports,essays and college entrance exams. It could even help him – or her – land a job. FFG

 

Toxic Stress in Children: Why the American Academy of Pediatrics Had to Take it On

Betty attached herself to Mrs. Heck the playground monitor like a wad of Bazooka, all the while talking a blue streak. Her short brown hair hung limp beside her pale, oval face; and in the classroom she cried over the least little thing. At any given moment tears pooled in her sad blue eyes and her shoulders slumped inside a dowdy dress. She muttered under her breath, evidently injured by a force unknown to the rest of us. Eventually, her perpetual whines blended into the background, like a sliver of sky in a thousand-piece jig saw puzzle.

We lived only two blocks apart, Betty and I, but I had never seen her running around the neighborhood on a bicycle or roller skates, nor did she sled on Frenchie’s Hill or skate at the lake. I walked her home one day and we said goodbye in front of her house, a run-down place with a long front porch. Once I heard that her father worked at the tire store on the corner, and once I heard someone mention the word “alcoholic.”

After college graduation I worked in a government-funded preschool. Housed in a former barracks, it was not the kind of place a conscientious parent would send a child. Among my class of three-five year olds were a set of twins that everyone called “Los Cuates,” the buddies. Barely verbal, the boys appeared severely malnourished and were behind in every skill imaginable. Their pants sagged over non-existent back sides, secured by too-long belts that flapped when they walked. If a gust of wind had come along, I believe the two might have blown away.

I don’t remember when I first noticed the bruises, but I thought maybe I’d seen some discoloration on their arms even before then. Other employees checked the boys out, too. It was a sensitive issue. No accusations could be made. Someone would visit the mom, they said, but nothing ever happened. At the time I was not aware of a formal reporting system. If I had tried to intervene, I might have lost my job.

Years later, I had little girl named Marissa* in my remedial reading group. Marissa wore paper-thin blouses in winter and hugged her arms for warmth; and every day complained of a stomach ache. Her mother had died, leaving behind five children; and her father was out of work with an injured leg. One day I asked Marissa if she’d eaten breakfast. She said she hadn’t. It seemed Marissa’s older sister forced her to sit still while she braided her hair every morning. The girl took so long that Marissa had no time for to eat. So I marched her to the cafeteria and asked for anything they might have. “We’re only allowed to give milk,” the cafeteria lady said. No exceptions.

That night I made energy bars and the next morning handed one to Marissa. I loaned her my sweater and she wore it like a second skin. She began to smile and then to make progress. She took pride in herself, as though she finally believed she could succeed. I did not know if Marissa’s family had enough food in the fridge; or if they did, whether anyone bothered to cook it. All I knew was that I had a bright child on my hands that could not learn.

Recent advances in science have shown that family secrets harbored by children, the kind Betty and Marissa couldn’t talk about, are dangerous to their cognitive, behavioral, mental and physical health. According to a policy statement published in the January 2012 issue of Pediatrics, the cause is “toxic stress.”

How does it hurt children? “Toxic stress early in life plays a critical role by disrupting brain circuitry and other important systems in ways that continue to influence physiology, behavior, and health decades later.”

It’s a condition that happens in the body due to the release of stress hormones, primarily cortisol; caused by “prolonged or severe exposure to abuse, neglect and economic hardship – exacerbated by a dearth of stable, supportive relationships with adults.”

Despite the policy statement’s long title: “Early Childhood Adversity, Toxic Stress, and the Role of the Pediatrician: Translating Developmental Science into Lifelong Health,” its message is simple: it’s an urgent call to the pediatric community, asking them play a role in reducing “external threats to healthy brain growth.”

The new scientific framework that addresses these issues encompasses the latest advances in neuroscience, molecular biology, genomics, and social science. It’s called ecobiodevelopmental (EBD). To me, the combination of disciplines is brilliant and nothing short of a miracle.

The move to describe these nonmedical yet very real threats to children began in 1975, when pediatric health care providers began to recognize “noninfectious disease entities” affecting children’s health and well-being, the article said. At the same time they recognized changes in society caused by an increase in single parent households and families with two working parents.

What they were seeing are children like Betty and Marissa, and parents who cannot understand why their children are doing so poorly, why they suffer daily stomach aches or can’t sit still. While well-nurtured kids lap up knowledge like hungry kittens, the fearful Marissas in the classroom have trouble processing new information. The normal learning channels seem to have a “block.”

In her 2004 book, Secrets, Lies, Betrayals: The Body/Mind Connection, author Maggie Scarf quotes analyst and author Joyce McDougall: “The body, like the mind, is subject to the repetition compulsion.”

What this means, writes Scarf, is that emotional experiences such as fear, pain and humiliation exist not only in the mind, but are experienced in the body. They involve a host of neurobiological reactions as well as physical feelings and sensations.
Frightening, stressful experiences, said Scarf, become situated in a person’s body in such a way that they feel completely familiar. The AAP refers to these disruptive physiologic responses as “biological memories” that increase the risk of health-threatening behaviors and frank disease later in life.”

For Betty, anything that even remotely resembled the threat of an attack might have been enough to set her on a crying jag; her body was no doubt familiar with that state of stress. While other kids were busy learning, she was perhaps afraid of receiving more verbal abuse or worse, preparing for a slap or punch. How can a brain on “high alert” think about multiplication or grammar?

The last child I had in private practice for reading remediation was a little boy of six, whom I will call David. His mother had ignored him for the first four years of his life, until “Mimaw” intervened. David perceived everything as an attack and whined and pouted and carried on for no reason. His diagnoses read like the list of ingredients on a package of Twinkies, and Mimaw told me he was on meds for ADHD. I quickly realized what this little boy needed most was love and consistency from a caring adult. He didn’t need remediation; he needed to be taught in the first place, and even that was putting the cart before the horse. The first day of kindergarten David hit another child and wound up on the principal’s bench. That pretty much set the tone for the whole year.

At any point in the lesson David might dissociate, stare off in the distance, eyes fixed for ten or fifteen seconds before “snapping” back. He also pretended to be a velociraptor, a kind of dinosaur, and turned his hands into taut pincers that he snaked in and out above the table. And he wanted to control absolutely everything. This little boy, I told myself, did not feel safe. He had not had an adult in his life to nurture him and be a parent in the truest sense. After nine months of lessons he’d begun to read and was learning to write in cursive. He could sit in his chair for at least 45 minutes, fully engaged in our activities. And then without warning his mother said he could no longer come. He was getting too close to Mimaw, and apparently that had to stop.

Unlike positive or tolerable stress—the kind kids feel when they have to study for a test or try out for baseball— toxic stress, the AAP position paper says, is the excessive or prolonged activation of the physiologic stress response system in the absence of the buffering protection afforded by stable, responsive relationships.

In other words, without nurturing adults to intervene in stressful situations, children cannot regulate themselves; their stress response system stays “turned on,” and is not returned to normal functioning.

The effects of ongoing stress in the home are significant “because they can undermine the development of those adaptive capacities,” the statement said; the kind that make us emotionally stable and resilient human beings. It doesn’t matter whether the stress is caused by alcoholism, poverty, screaming and yelling, or neglect; a child’s brain cannot tell the difference.

People used to think such children should somehow be able to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, and by sheer grit and gumption manage to succeed. Today we know why that is not likely to happen without specific intervention.

Toxic stress affected all of the children I’ve written about here. It damaged their ability to learn, relate, and behave in developmentally appropriate ways. Now, with an unprecedented push for prevention, intervention, and treatment of toxic stress in children, the American Academy of Pediatrics has committed itself to combating one more dangerous “disease.” According to the Policy Statement, “The AAP is committed to leading an invigorated, science-based effort at transforming the way our society invests in the development of all children, particularly those who face significant adversity.” FFG

* Name changed to protect the child’s privacy.

To read the full AAP Policy Statement online go to http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/129/1/e224.full.html.

To watch a webcast on toxic stress click here: Watch the webcast