Psychology Today

College counseling services report increases in emotional fragility in students. What is the evidence that these changes are the result of a rise in helicopter parenting?

In this interview, conducted by guest blogger Alex Walker, the founder of Free Student Press, David Krane, explains that student free speech is legally protected by the first amendment, but students must fight for that protection. School officials typically do everything they can to prevent students from knowing about and exercising their constitutional rights.

In the absence of an appropriate intellectual foundation and motivation to learn, students acquire academic skills by rote, in shallow, meaningless ways. This not only wastes students' time, but can cause serious harm to their future intellectual and academic development. Here's some of the evidence.

Danielle and Alexander Meitiv have been giving their children some of the same freedom that they themselves enjoyed as children, in a world that is safer than the one in which they grew up. As a consequence, they have been visited by police, and the county Child Protective Services have threatened to take their children away. Here is my interview with Danielle.

The Bedley brothers (Tim and Scott), who are both teachers in California, have started a movement, and it seems to be taking off. They have declared Feb. 4, 2015, to be the first annual Global School Play Day. Let's do everything we can to support it!

One of my secret pleasures (well, it was secret up until now) is writing sonnets. I love to play within the boundaries of the classic Shakespearian sonnet. Here's one I wrote about the value of play.

Many people urge parents to read stories to children because it helps children become smarter and more verbal. An even better reason, I think, is that stories may help children become nicer.

The joy of school letting out is not just superficial and fleeting. Data from one children's mental health center indicate that children are far more likely to experience psychological breakdowns during the school year than during the summer. School is bad for children's mental health as well as their physical health.

Our survey of grown unchoolers—who had skipped all or much of K-12—revealed, not surprisingly, that many went on to careers in the creative arts. But that is not all. Many also pursued STEM careers and many become entrepreneurs. They chose careers that are enjoyable, meaningful, and high in occupational self-direction.

How do people who didn't go to school or do curriculum-based homeschooling as children and teenagers fare in adult life? Can they go to college and do well there without previous schooling? What kinds of careers do they pursue? In retrospect, are they happy or unhappy with their unschooled background? In this study, 75 grown unschoolers tell us about their experiences.

Children love to play with great heights, rapid speeds, dangerous tools, dangerous elements (e.g. fire), chasing and fighting, and getting lost (or nearly so). Why has the drive for such play evolved? What happens when children are deprived of such play? How dangerous, really, is such play? How does the danger compare with the danger of adult-directed sports?

Many adults are puzzled, and some are appalled, by the amount of time teens spend online and by what they seem to do there. In her new book,"It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens," Danah Boyd helps us make sense of teens' uses of social media. Her data and analyses debunk some common myths about teens, technology, and social media....

Children in China, Japan, and Korea may have a head start in learning mathematics because they enter school already understanding the base-ten number system. Here's why.

One of the questions I'm often asked by professors who teach from my introductory psychology textbook is this: "Why don't you include Zimbardo's classic Stanford Prison Experiment in your book, like all other introductory psychology textbook authors do?" Here's why.