Earlier this week, Dr. G wrote about the “Big Five” personality traits – five characteristics that have generally been accepted as the building blocks of personality. Coincidentally, the current issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology includes a study that analyzes research on the impact of the Big Five traits on parenting style! [...]
The cover of the August 3 issue of Maclean’s magazine (the Canadian equivalent of Time or Newsweek) presents, in large, bold type, “The Case Against Having Kids,” noting that, ‘They can hurt your career, your marriage, your social life, your bank book. Why bother?” The cover story coincides with the Canadian release of a French [...]
Philosophers and people in general have been interested in personality characteristics for many centuries. Over the past 30 years, psychologists have been able to arrive at a consensus regarding the main personality variables seen in most people. Factor analytic studies have led to a wide spread consensus around the belief that there are five broad [...]
Brothers and sisters learn a lot about relationships from their interactions with each other; on the Family Anatomy podcast, Dr. G and I have described the sibling relationship as a testing ground in which kids develop and practice their social skills. But if kids learn about the social world by interacting with their brothers or [...]
Doctors Brian and Giuseppe talk about three recent stories from the familyanatomy.com website, including:
Food ads lead to snacking, and some portray drug-seeking behaviour
Caffeine reduces memory loss, at least in mice
Ritalin works better for bad sleepers
Listen here: [Audio clip: view full post to listen]
You can get your free podcast subscription in iTunes. If you use iTunes, [...]
Popular belief suggests that single people have more interesting, passionate and frequent sex than married people. Is this true? Sex surveys consistently indicate that married people have more sex than single people. One could conclude that, this fact alone, settles the question. Presumably, if you are having more sex, it must be because you are [...]
Lots of children feel afraid about visiting the dentist or getting an injection at the doctor’s office. Although it’s difficult to find statistics about the rates at which these fears occur, one Swedish study found that over 13% of women experienced dentistry phobia; the majority of those women could not recall a specific anxiety-provoking incident [...]
In an earlier episode of Family Anatomy, Dr. Brian and I talked about sibling rivalry and how sharing toys gets played out in this context. Kids can become very attached to their toys. Many times, toys symbolize a sense of security. Young kids in particular often want to travel with their toy and keep it [...]
When your doctor tells you that you have a serious medical condition, it’s stressful. When you have kids, it can be even more so as you and your partner debate about how much the kids should know, along with when and how they should be told. Most parents that I know want to be honest [...]
Doctors Brian and Giuseppe talk about what parents go through as their kids grow up.
You can’t stop them from getting older, but does growing up necessarily mean letting go?
Are you a parent who misses the baby stage, or do you become excited about your child’s growing independence?
Or do you feel a bit of both?
Listen here: [...]
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