In November of 2010 the Pew Research Center released data on the state of marriage in the United States and described marriage as being in decline. They highlighted how over the past four decades percentages of traditional married couples have steadily decreased (from 72% to 52%) with a parallel increase in the numbers of adults who have never married (from 15% to 27%). The practice of cohabitation has also steadily increased and become more widely accepted (80% said an unmarried couple with children is a family). The responses I have observed to this information vary wildly. Some will use the data to argue that the traditional family is collapsing and it is just the beginning symptoms of a larger societal collapse. Others will suggest that the rise of new and diverse family structures is a sign of increased sophistication in our culture and we are leaving behind the oppressive patriarchal family system. I would suggest that both of these views are extremes that really only polarize an...

I think most of us have a view of children that makes us think once they have learned something it should always be with them. This is one of the reasons we become frustrated and fights ensue when our child makes a mistake doing something that we saw them be successful with in the recent past. This view suggests that we see learning as linear (step by step) and hierarchical (a skill is necessary to aid in the acquisition of a new skill). Some recent research suggests that maybe learning skills is not linear or hierarchical. Karen Adolph at New York University did some work with infants and their perceptions of keeping themselves safe from walking off the edge of a constructed "cliff." Below is some of the article from the November 2010 issue of Scientific American Mind. "Mountain goats are born understanding where they should and shouldn’t climb, but baby humans need practice puttering around before they can make sound judgments. Now New York University developmental psy...