goodreads

I was so happy to see in the New York Times book review section today that Michael Greenberg has a new book out I can't wait to read it. I'm in the middle of his last book, "Hurry Down Sunshine" about his daughter's bipolar illness, and, having become by necessity a minor expert in the sub-genre of parents writing about their challenging children, think it's one of the best -- sharpest and truest -- of the field.

dopamine

Fittingly, I'm sure I had a dopamine surge from writing this article about the biology of people with Attention-deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, which appeared in today's Washington Post....

Lost at School

I just broke my weakly self-imposed rule against using Amazon's one-click ordering option to buy a copy of Ross Greene's recently published book, "Lost at School." It sounds so much like my recent experience guiding a child through the nightmare of middle school -- the so-called "Bermuda Triangle of education" where so many kids indeed get lost, or maybe just wounded forever. Ross Greene is the Harvard psychologist who wrote the hugely compassionate classic, "The Explosive Child" . His theory is that all children basically want to be good, but some have a harder time than others. This new book is overdue, and I can't wait to read it.

power surge

Today's New York Times reports how consumer appliances are accounting for a huge amount of the energy we use. And they're just talking about electronic energy. On this bright Sunday morning I wasted 90 minutes trying to add one song to my iPod -- and still didn't get it right; I'm going to have to bribe my son to help, because Apple makes you pay $29 for a single call to their support desk! How much time do we waste on a typical day with our so-called labor-saving devices? How many unnecessary calls do we make just because we have cellphones? How much work are we willing to do to be entertained?