By Kathryn Rea Smith, PH.D.

Each February for the past nine years, I have attended an annual 3-day meditation retreat with a group of Knoxville friends held at St. Mary’s Sewanee Center. Most of the retreat, including meals, is held in silence, and twice daily we meditate as a group. Many of my retreat friends have a regular meditation practice and have spoken compellingly of the benefits of daily meditation. Each time I returned from the retreat I would think about starting to meditate on a regular basis but never did. I simply could not figure out how to fit it in to my busy schedule. Read more →

By Kathryn Rea Smith, PH.D.

Over the July 4th weekend my family and I saw the new Pixar movie Inside Out. Everyone from my 12-year-old son to my 72-year-old mother thought it was terrific. The movie shows the inner workings of the mind of Riley, an 11-year-old girl who moves with her parents from Minnesota to San Francisco, as she leaves behind friends she has known all her life. Inside Riley’s mind there are five “characters”, each representing a different emotion—Joy, Anger, Fear, Disgust and Sadness. These characters reside in “headquarters” in Riley’s brain and take turns operating a control console in response to events in Riley’s daily life. Read more →

By Kathryn Rea Smith, PH.D.

In psychological research, “parental warmth” is an important concept related to the quality of a parent-child relationship. Studies have shown that the presence of parental warmth is associated with a variety of positive outcomes including improved self-esteem, lower rates of teen pregnancy and underage drinking, lower delinquency rates, better parent-child communication, and greater college adjustment. Parental warmth seems to be a good thing. So what is it? And why should we try to get more of it into our relationships with our children?

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