Encourage personal connections

It’s both natural and useful to take time to explore a task before committing to one path forward. 

While children tend to do this automatically, adults may need to plan ahead for their exploratory time. Explore: consider multiple solutions, ask questions that may seem tangential, and be open to discovering unexpected ways to tackle the project.

Adults generally do a great job of applying past knowledge to new situations. Children’s brains thrive instead in unfamiliar contexts, in part because more contexts are unfamiliar to them. 

So the next time you’re tasked with a completely new project, don’t force your prior knowledge onto it.

In Japan and Norway, parents are focused on cultivating independence.

• In Norway, most children enter state-sponsored daycare at 1 year old.
• In Japan, children run errands without parental supervision. The children take subways by themselves and walk on busy streets alone.

American parents focus on grooming their children's talents for success. Many Asian nations focus highly on academics, while the Dutch parents believe in not pushing their children too hard.

In Spain, families are focused on the social and interpersonal aspects of child development.

Children learn to act kindly the same way they learn anything else - with practice.

Give them daily opportunities to practice kindness, such as helping another child.

Children need to learn to focus on individuals and truly listen to them.

They also need to learn to see the bigger picture by putting human experience in context.

A big part of treatment for children with anxiety is to teach parents stress tolerance.

A mental health professional can help you work through methods of stress management for your specific needs.

You might learn strategies in therapy that you can impart to your child when she is feeling anxious.

Try to maintain a calm, neutral demeanor in front of your child, even if you are still trying to manage your anxiety. Children are quick to read facial expressions.

While going through a crisis of any kind can be challenging for most of us, one category that for sure feels the change is represented by the teaching staff worldwide.

When asked to teach their subject via Zoom or applications alike, teachers have to change their way of presenting the topic, make them seem more interesting and, what is even more important, to make the class more interactive; this can eventually lead to sadness, anxiety and fear even for the most experienced teachers.

If there is one thing that teachers should be particularly good at, this has to be mentoring their students.

By doing so, not only do they guide an individual's self-development throughout his or her school years, but they also emphasize the idea of human interaction, which should actually be the basis for most of our successful actions.

• The adaptiveness of the brain, which scientists have now better understood is called Neuroplasticity.
• Studies show that brains of adults and elders can learn a new language just as a child could, provided they get the opportunity and are not inhibited towards making mistakes.

A child's brain is indeed completely raw, known as 'Tabula Rasa' and they can find it easier to master certain skills of perception, but at the same time, adults have the advantage of analysis, self-reflection and greater discipline.

The barrier to learning in adults may consist of preconceived notions, negativity or lack of confidence.
Older adults also underestimate the power of their own memories, reinforcing the belief that they cannot learn or remember, and making it a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Education has no age limit, and older adults need to break these psychological barriers to learning, leading to profound benefits and a sharper mind.

Individuals who experience adversity at an early age have a decreased sense of purpose according to research.

For some, it works in the reverse, with adversity providing them with the 'kick' they need to pursue a particular calling in life.

Relationship issues with parents lead to a decreased sense of purpose as the young person grows older.

Frequently fighting or arguing with parents drains the child's energy and enthusiasm.

As the content is based on an existing book, TV show, movie, video game, or something they already love, the participants have a genuine interest and personal identification with the topic.

Websites specializing in fan-fiction are using the existing bodies of work, playing and tinkering with it, while providing feedback to each other. In this process, the participants are learning and teaching each other to write well. The continuous, constructive feedback helps make fanfiction writing a collective effort, which is sometimes better than the original, in which only one mind was involved.

This kind of vast, community-based learning is called distributed mentorship.

Being average should not be looked down upon. There are a lot of successful people, who are good at what they do and are average at best.

Being consistent and reliable is more important than being exceptional. We should know our strengths and weaknesses, and move smartly towards success.