#FF Wonderful Weekend Review: Psychology, Health, Art, Music & Comics

Thought for the Day: Here's some interesting articles about #Alzheimer's research, #Couples & #Memory, A #Blind Artist accomplishing their dreams, #stress, & reducing the calorie count of rice along with some great #GIF's and some funny #comics & a #Multimedia, #Music, #Dance and water sculpture video. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I did. Have a great weekend!  View my Flipboard Magazine.

Sunday's Comic Strips: Technology's Impact on Humanity

Thought for the Day: Here are a few comics which offer commentary on technology's impact on humanity. Hope you enjoy them. I found them all on google+. Thanks to +Rahul mina, +Little Fun ,
+AnGeLo BeAu  +Florina Ciurea & +Frank Majidi from G+ community Funny Technology.

Sunday Comics: What the World Needs Now! Photos, A Road Sign & Charlie Brown

Thought for the Day: For today's Sunday's comics, I am reposting two great finds on two of my social media feeds. The 1st is a photo of a sign which I found on a tumbler feed by 365SelfImprovement.  The 2nd came up on my Debbie Smith on my Facebook feed, a great Peanuts comic strip with Charlie Brown's very sensible suggestion. #MomsDemandAction made some progress in the great state of Texas, where I grew up, where gun shows will now require background checks for those who purchase guns. They are finally realizing that it is just common sense to weed out criminals or mentally ill from purchasing guns. It speaks for itself and deserves sharing with anyone who would like to see #Gunsense in our nation & our world. Please pass it on & lets get a more than a group hug going around the world, let's reduce gun violence.

#FF Friday's Fab Finds: Cyberparenting, Royal Tweetsters, Mark Zuckerburg, Philanthropy & The New Yorker Cartoons

Thought for the Day: I am excited to let you know that I have a new Dream Team of interns who are starting to help me with my blog & other activities connected to my book. Today, I had the pleasure of reviewing leads for #FF Friday's Fabulous Finds from my new team member, Steph, a rising Junior at Pace University studying Applied Psychology, with minors in Sociology & Criminal Justice.(There will be more about Steph & the rest of the new team on my newsletter soon.) I combined some of the posts she found with some I found over the week. In time, my interns may guest post or co-write posts with me.

Today, in conjunction with the week's theme about the impact of online social communities, there are a few posts that show some of the wonderful things that social media can make possible & even how the 85 year old Queen of England is realizing that Twitter can help the monarchy's ailing brand. There's a touching profile & video of an 8 year old philanthropist & a kickstarter.com project also with a video raising money for a documentary film about the Comics of The New Yorker Magazine. Here's the fabulous finds Stephanie & I have for you today:

Cyberparenting and the Risk of T.M.I  Here's an article by Pamela Paul from the NY Times, on May 3, 2013. Does being friends with your children on Facebook lead to T.M.I (Too Much Information)? Or is it safer to be friends with them, & bare the consequences?

The Royal Family

Corinne Purtill's article for the Globalpost Press and Guide: The Queen’s Tweets: English Royal Family Embraces Social Media appeared on June 9, 2013. The English Royal Family has acquired a twitter handle, as well as one dedicated to the princes & their families. The Royal Family is trying to appear “like normal people.” They want to rebrand the royal family & keep the monarchy alive. One wonders if they actually compose the royal tweets or it they have a royal tweetster, the modern equivalent of a royal jester!

Mark Zuckerburg Facebook Founder

Mark Zuckerburg announced that  Facebook (is) Encouraging Organ Donations. CNN writer, Steve Almasy, reported  about new Facebook applications that will allow users to share their willingness to be organ donors, support medical organizations, & learn more about organ donations.



 

Sunny Skyz Happy News

On June 10, SunnySky shared an inspiring story, Eight-year-old raises $1200 for paralyzed man’s physical therapy sessions, by Sarah Mervosh of DallasNews.com. An eight year old has raised over $1200 for 21-year-old Luka Da Cruz’s physical therapy sessions after he was shot & paralyzed last year. She did not meet him until recently. Her positive generous outlook will touch your heart (video & article).

 
Very Semi-Serious by Leah Wolchok and Davina Pardo Kickstarter.com is a kickstarter.com project with 14 days left to reach their goal. On my Sunday's Comic Strip Posts & other posts I have written about the healing power of humor.  If you love the cartoons in The New Yorker Magazine, you will want to help make this offbeat documentary about humor, art & the genius of the New Yorker cartoon happen. They are accepting donations from $1 up. 


In case you missed Motivational Monday's  Post: A Twist: A Psychologist Needs Your Help, "We Need to Talk!" I really would like your input to help me improve this blog & make sure it is informative & useful for you. Thanks in advance for any comments or suggestions.

Have a wonderful weekend! I hope you will come back for Saturday's Songs for the Soul & Sunday's Comic Strips.

Photos

Mark Zuckerberg photo by Guillaume Paumier from Wikipedia

Guillaume Paumier, CC-BY.

The Royal Family
photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/nakedcharlton/573748521/">Jon's pics</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/">cc</a> 

New Yorker from Kickstart Campaign

Sunny Skyz Happy News from SunnySkyz.com

Throwback Tuesday: Sunday's Comic Strips: How Do Super Heroes Build Self Confidence?

 

Thought for the Day: The above comic strip was posted on 4/7/2013. In light of a connection I made to another psychologist, +Theresa Regan. I decided to share a guest post from Theresa. She is a Neuro-psychologist at the Illinois Neurological Institute, mother of a child on the autism spectrum &  the author Soul Cries for parents praying for struggling kids. You can view additional posts on her blog: soulcriesparent.blogspot.com. Dr. Regan holds a PhD in Neuropsychology & is a Certified Brain Injury Specialist & also does public speaking about brain function, autistic spectrum, Christian faith, sensory symptoms & executive function.

Here is what I wrote when the post first came out:

Thought for the Day: It's time for Sunday's Comic Strips & decided to stay on the topic of the week, self confidence, Hope you like the it. Join me next week when I will be posting about the Psychological importance of friendships.

This response from New Parenting Hangout on Jul 3, 2013 helped me connect with Theresa:

+Barbara Lavi We all have our own super powers. +Theresa Regan and her son have identified some super powers that help their communication

 

Here's a wonderful post about how Theresa turns her son's symptoms into a  super powers. It could be helpful for kids with ADD & other symptoms as well:

Does Your Child Have 'Super Powers?": Talking to your kids about their autistic spectrum symptoms

By Dr. Theresa Regan
 

                                               

My son is 7 years old and has a diagnosis in the autistic spectrum.  One of the features of the spectrum is that some children and adults can have many sensitivities that feel overwhelming at times.  My son has many sensory symptoms like this: the sun is too bright, crowded places are noisy and chaotic, being touched can feel overwhelming.  The strength of these symptoms seems to be variable through different ages and seasons of life for him.  When he is having a hard day, he has more symptoms.  I remember one season when he was 4 years old.  He was so sensitive at that time that it was hard to function.  He didn't want me to use any of our kitchen appliances because they were too noisy.  Even if he was in a different room with the door closed, he seemed bothered by the noises.  We even considered taking the appliances to the basement!

One decision facing parents whose kids are struggling is how to discuss the struggles without making the child feel chastised or bad about themselves.  In this case, we started talking to him about his super powers!  He could really resonate with this concept.  We talked about how not everyone could see and hear what he could.  His super powers (hearing, vision, etc) could be really valuable and wonderful (e.g., he can pick out details in a picture that no one else sees).  We also talked about how his powers can make life hard or uncomfortable. 

One of our goals was to teach him how to monitor how his powers were doing that day.  We would say, "Are your super powers bothering you today?" or when he could see or hear something we couldn't, we might say "Ah!  Your super powers are turned on.  I didn't even notice that noise."  Then we would ask him to start monitoring his own powers and telling us what he needs that day.  We would say, "If your super powers are really strong today, what can we do to make it feel better."  We would start to teach him options for coping with really strong inputs.  For example, we might suggest sunglasses outside.  I would warn him before I turned on kitchen appliances so he could decide whether he wanted to put his hands on his ears, go upstairs to his room, etc. 

He really responded to the concept of super powers having good aspects as well as challenges.  And he also started monitoring how he was doing on a certain day, and letting us know (with prompts).  Pretty soon, he could start to choose from options about how to cope on that day.

What super powers do your kids have?  How do you talk to your kids about their strengths and challenges? 

I hope this post was helpful to you. You can build your own superpowers by reading my book, too. Stay tuned for our 1st free e-book promotion coming soon!

Sunday's Comic Strips: Panic Attacks & Facing Fears