Connecting science and parenting
From the first poop, we have paid attention to them. Are they too wet? Too dry? Right colors? Have undigested material?
The intensity waxes and wanes. At the moment, Fleur is fighting off a stomach bug, so we are at the zenith of scrutiny. Relief at a normal one amused me.
Twelve year old me laughs at my continued interest in poop.
Being in with the doctor, I was able to describe what we had seen. I need to learn the technical terms.
Walking with a toddler is less exercise unless you mean in patience. There is constant stopping along the route.
I only just noticed the pauses are for very specific places. Fleur is really going to the places to:
Her purpose on the walks is not really to go do one of these. She goes to hit them ALL. So this go quickly to the end of the neighborhood and back is not in her purpose.
We ask if she wants to go see one of them and she probably says yes. But that doesn’t mean avoiding the rest. I need to try enticing her to the next stop.
A nurse showed an excellent approach to getting Fleur to cooperate. She took the temperature of the doll and thanked the doll by name. Fleur became curious and let it happen to her.
Recently, we took another trip to the doctor. She was resistant to this different nurse doing stuff, so I suggested the demonstration which helped a good bit. This nurse was not as enthusiastic.
Need to use this tool more often.
A children’s hospital found that a antibiotic-resistant pathogen was spreading in their facility and evading their efforts to squelch it. They ended up finding that the culprit was their washing machines. They found it in the detergent drawer and on the door seal of the washing machine.
They are warning that it can happen in residential homes too. Apparently they replaced the machine. Though, when they say they disposed of the machine, I hope that doesn’t mean they put it in surplus where it or contaminated parts end up on the market to end up in someone’s home or laundromat.
This caught my eye because I’ve read about the growth mindset often over the past several years. And, I feel that how I responded to stress in my professional life is responsible for my achievements.
Study 1: I found the use of the invention of a Work Performance Scale adapted from a Role-Based Performance Scale interesting. I’d like to compare the two. But, offhand, it is self-reporting, which I dislike for the tendency of the taker to say what they think is wanted not what they think. (And even if they put they think, our view of ourselves is skewed from inner dialogue biases and justifications.) They decided the data shows that stress mindset is a distinct variable among others already determined for stress. They probably overly generalize to health and well-being when their measure was just on work performance.
This additional variable thing seems to trigger warning bells about confirmation bias in my head. It strongly confirms my existing worldview in that I’ve seen people who take on challenges head-on and others who squander the opportunity.
I just skimmed the rest from here. Study 2 appears to try to determine if it works similar to growth-fixed mindsets. Study 3 appears to look at positive and negative feedback with stress mindsets.
Crum, AJ and Salovey, P and Achor, S. “Rethinking Stress: The Role of Mindsets in Determining the Stress Response.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2013, Vol. 104, No. 4, 716 –733. DOI: 10.1037/a0031201
It took a while to get a good ultrasound of Fleur’s face. When we did, there was no denying she was my kid. That wave of emotion was interesting. It felt like a huge connection to this new entity. Of course, it is good she now looks more and more like her mother not just because why look so ugly but to maintain that bond with mom even as she gets more independent.
Apparently the father feeling like I did indicates good things for their children.
“We find a child’s health indicators improve when the child looks like the father. The main explanation is that frequent father visits allow for greater parental time for care-giving and supervision, and for information gathering about child health and economic needs.
Polymath Parent 