## Highlights - The truth is, the key predictors of healthy intellectual and emotional development are "responsive, nurturing relationships with parents and caregivers," according to extensive research by the National Research Council of the Institute of Medicine in its report "From Neurons to Neighborhoods." - Research has shown that, as Daniel Goleman, cofounder of the collaborative for Social and Emotional Learning at the Yale University Child Study Center and author of Emotional Intelligence, points out, "Helping people better manage their upsetting feelings-anger, anxiety, depression, pessimism, and loneliness-is a form of disease prevention." - In fact, an ongoing landmark study that one of us (Kathy) works on, the National Institute for Child Health and Human Behavior Study of Early Child Care andYouth Development, finds that even when children are in child care for more than 30 hours per week, the family contributes more to the child's social and cognitive well-being than does the child care arrangement. Parents matter, and chil­dren are attached to parents even when children are in care. - Though disappointments are a fact of life, learning how to reframe them into something positive turns them into a growth experience. - The bottom line for this chapter is to talk to your children and invite them to talk to you. The more you try to understand how they feel and help them understand how an event happened, the more coping skills your child will develop. And, as we have documented, social skills are essential for doing well, both in school and in life. - First, play must be pleasur­able and enjoyable. Second, play must have no extrinsic goals. Third, play is spontaneous and voluntary, freely chosen by the player. Fourth, play involves some active engagement on the part of the player. And finally, play contains a certain element of make-believe. - Psychologists talk about "convergent" problems and "divergent" problems. Convergent problems are like the one we described at the beginning of the chapter-figuring out how to get a toy out of a box by putting sticks together. There is only one possible solution to a convergent problem. The ability to solve con­vergent problems has been linked to successful performance on standard classroom and intelligence tests where there is one right answer. Diver­gent problems have multiple solutions, as when you play with blocks: There are a variety of structures that can be built. Divergent problem solving seems to require a greater amount of creativity because there is no one right answer. - Play is a safe haven in which our children can conquer their fears and work out emotional problems. In fact, the only kind of therapy that can really be done with children is called play therapy. Play is nature's way of dealing with stress for children as well as adults. - In her recent book, Imaginary Companions and the Children Who Create Them, Professor Maljorie Taylor tells us that children with imaginary com­panions tend to be more intelligent and more creative than children who don't have such friends. - <mark style="background: #FFF3A3A6;">Did you ever wonder as a child how children everywhere seemed to know the same games? We did. Why was it that even if you went to visit your grandparents, the children there knew the hand clap games you played at home? Children play many of the same games and at the same ages because play is a mirror of children's thinking and motor abilities.</mark> - These are the precursors to that syndrome that is so familiar in elementary school­ ''I'm bored." The bored child is one who is just waiting for someone to announce the next activity so that he is always engaged. The bored child is one who has never learned to be creative. - To understand what we mean, you have to distinguish between real and superficial learning. In real learning, children can take what they have learned and apply it widely. When they learn how to ride a bike, for example, it could be any bike. When they learn how to add two small numbers together, they can apply their counting skill to any set, regard­less of the kind of objects it contains. When children can apply their knowledge beyond the original situation in which they learned it, their learning is secure. The ability to apply what we have learned is called transfer. Unfortunately, much of the early learning movement is not teaching skills that can transfer, but skills that are superficial, limited only to the context in which they are learned. And when our skills are limited to the box in which we learn them, we are not learning to be creative. We are not learning to use our information in new and exciting ways. - Four principles - Principle 1 : The Best Learning Is Learning within Reach - Principle 2 : Emphasizing Process over Product Creates a Love of Learning - Principle 3: It's EQ, Not Just IQ - Principle 4: Learning in Context Is Real Learning-And Play Is the Best Teacher - Remember that process is more important than product. It's not what you know (the boring facts) but how you know that will help build creative thinking and problem solving in math, reading, and lan­guage. - Reflect, Resist, Re-center