empathy

REACH2: Six tips to help regulate stress levels in our organizations

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Recent­ly, an employ­ee at a major Ohio com­pa­ny lost his moth­er to coro­n­avirus. Under nor­mal cir­cum­stances, his col­leagues would have offered expres­sions of sup­port and sym­pa­thy in per­son. They would have attend­ed a funer­al or memo­r­i­al ser­vice. They would have made a meal for his fam­i­ly. But, since the state was under stay-at-home orders, none of that was possible.

At first, the team looked to their man­ag­er for guid­ance about what to do. But the man­ag­er hadn’t faced a sit­u­a­tion like this and didn’t real­ly know. So, he reflect­ed the ques­tion back to his team: “What do you think we can do to help?” [Read more…] about REACH2: Six tips to help reg­u­late stress lev­els in our organizations

Three Ss to reduce the stress of “homeschooling” our kids: Simplify, Structure, Support

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With nation­wide school clo­sures in effect, many par­ents are now mon­i­tor­ing home­school­ing while at the same time try­ing to make a liv­ing in the midst of an eco­nom­ic cri­sis. In this envi­ron­ment of bro­ken rou­tine and uncer­tain­ty, chances are your child is show­ing big feel­ings and chal­leng­ing behaviors.

In my work as a school psy­chol­o­gist, I’ve been hear­ing from par­ents that despite their best efforts, their chil­dren are strug­gling with meet­ing home­school expec­ta­tions. Kids who [Read more…] about Three Ss to reduce the stress of “home­school­ing” our kids: Sim­pli­fy, Struc­ture, Support

Three key insights to celebrate the holidays meaningfully

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There is plen­ty of evi­dence to con­vince us that social con­nec­tion is key to well-being. But rela­tion­ships are com­pli­cat­ed, bring­ing good and bad into our lives. 

Let us share a few key insights from sci­en­tif­ic stud­ies pub­lished in 2018 on top­ics rel­e­vant to lead­ing a mean­ing­ful life. They won’t solve all of our social problems—but we hope they will help you to bet­ter under­stand your­self and the peo­ple around you.

Keep on reading!

Study finds the limits of putting oneself in another’s shoes (instead, ask and listen)

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I still remem­ber the time I tried to com­fort one of my best friends when her father died. Because I’d lost my own par­ents years before, I thought I under­stood her pain. But, when I offered sym­pa­thy, she balked. Her father’s death had been tran­scen­dent, filled with love and fam­i­ly con­nec­tion. She didn’t feel pain; she felt at peace. [Read more…] about Study finds the lim­its of putting one­self in another’s shoes (instead, ask and listen)

Six tips for social-emotional learning (SEL) to transfer into real-world skills

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Social-emo­tion­al learn­ing (SEL) teach­es the key atti­tudes and skills nec­es­sary for under­stand­ing and man­ag­ing emo­tions, lis­ten­ing, feel­ing and show­ing empa­thy for oth­ers, and mak­ing thought­ful, respon­si­ble deci­sions. For five years, I was an edu­ca­tor in the field teach­ing mind­ful­ness and emo­tion­al skills to teenagers at six dif­fer­ent high schools.

Over and over, I saw the pow­er of mind­ful­ness to trans­form the inner lives of stu­dents. Stu­dents became less stressed, more self-reg­u­lat­ed, and more thought­ful toward their class­mates. But I also saw that [Read more…] about Six tips for social-emo­tion­al learn­ing (SEL) to trans­fer into real-world skills

The neuroscience of positive, vision-based coaching

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Good coach­es get results, respect, and awards. But what makes a coach or men­tor good?

One school of thought says they should hold their mentees to spe­cif­ic per­for­mance bench­marks and help them reach those bench­marks by tar­get­ing their per­son­al weaknesses.

But new research sug­gests a dif­fer­ent tack—namely, to nur­ture a mentee’s strengths, aspi­ra­tions for the future, and goals for per­son­al growth. Indeed, [Read more…] about The neu­ro­science of pos­i­tive, vision-based coaching