The Lesson: Attention span flexibility is incredibly important for young students in school. It can help to predict a child’s success with science, math, and even college graduation – which is why parents are being called to read to their children more often than ever.
When parents read to their children, the chemicals in their adult brains begin to change, reflecting an increased desire to bond with and nurture others, reductions in stress hormones, and most importantly of all in this age of digital distraction, it facilitates the growth and development of attention span.
In this podcast, these parenting experts go on to explain why we should also be reading not just to our children, but to elderly people and newborns as well – for their sake, as well as our own.
Notable Excerpt: “Somehow, mankind has stumbled upon this magical object which is the picture book. And when a child gets to look at the picture book, sit with an adult, have the words read aloud, they’re getting this multi-dimensional experience. But it’s happening at a speed that they can absorb.”
The Host(s): Christina Hoff Summers is the author of several books including “The War on Boys” and “One Nation Under Therapy”, and she is a scholar and contributor for several major journalistic and scientific publications including The Atlantic, The Journal of Philosophy, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal.
Danielle Crittenden is the author of four books, including “What Our Mothers Didn’t Tell Us”. In addition to serving as a contributing editor for Huff Post, her essays and articles have appeared in such publications as The Daily Telegraph, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal, which has prompted Vanity Fair to describe her as “one of the most important new thinkers about women and family.”
The Guest: Meghan Cox Gurdon is the author of the newly-published book “The Enchanted Hour”, which encapsulates all the science and magic of reading aloud to your children and pleads a convincing case for you to put down the phone, turn off the TV, and open a book.
The Podcast: The Femsplainers is a cheery, open-minded forum of scholarly repute that tackles some of the most compelling and divisive social issues facing women and men today. Whether it’s #MeToo, the Google memo, or the Women’s March, Danielle and Christina give a measured response based on “factual feminism”, regardless of how many cocktails or glasses of wine are consumed in the process. The Femsplainers podcast is available for streaming on Player FM, iTunes, and Spotify.
(LISTEN to the intriguing talk below)
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