Focus

WILL - Focus - May 13, 2013 ~ Comment (0)

The Case for Summer Camp

What’s your favorite memory from summer camp as a kid? Do those memories influence how you feel about sending your kids there? This hour on Focus, we’ll talk about the psychology of summer camp.

Katie Nolan is pictured on the far left with campers at Camp Peairs near Bloomington.

When you go away to camp, you’re automatically part of a new community. You sleep in an unfamiliar bed in a room with unfamiliar bunk mates; you eat food you aren’t used to or go hungry. This hour on Focus, we’ll talk about how that “camp experience”  can be good for kids. Michael Thompson is author of the book “Homesick and Happy: How Time Away from Parents Can Help a Child Grow.” He joins host Jim Meadows to talk about the things camp can teach children, lessons he argues parents can’t.

Katie Nolan also joins us. She’s a camp director at Camp Tapawingo near Peoria and Camp Peairs outside Bloomington. She’s been spending her summers working with campers for almost a decade and will tell us from first-hand experience what kids go through at camp.”

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WILL - Focus - May 10, 2013 ~ Comment (0)

Find Out More About What’s Coming Up Next Week on Focus

We'll talk about the psychology of summer camp, the case for comics in the classroom, personal finance and more! 

Next week on Focus, we’ll talk about the magic of summer camp, the growing need for translators and why some are pushing for comics in schools.


WILL - Focus - May 09, 2013 ~ Comment (0)

Let’s TALK Kids

This hour on Focus, we’re going to T.A.L.K. about kids with Baby TALK Founding Executive Director Claudia Quigg about the Baby TALK model, her organization and her new book. 

Claudia Quigg founded Baby TALK in the late 1980’s in Decatur after having children of her own and realizing that even though she had a supportive group of friends, she needed advice and access to resources. Today the organization has a presence in 36 states and Canada and has more than 100 programs in operation in Illinois communities. This hour on Focus, host Jim Meadows talks with Claudia about why the earliest years of life, from birth to age 3, are so important and what resources her organization provides in East Central Illinois. We’ll also talk about the memories and lessons she’s taken away from working with families for more than three decades and about her new book "Let's Talk Kids: Becoming a Family." 

Claudia writes a weekly column for the Decatur Herald-Review and has a weekly radio segment that airs on NPR member station WUIS in Springfield at 7:55 on Thursday mornings.

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WILL - Focus - March 25, 2013

50 Years Later: Assembly Hall

What’s your fondest memory of Assembly Hall? A concert? A speech? Today on Focus, we remembered 50 years of the Hall with Fred Kroner, author of the new book “A Saucer Coming to Rest, A Half Century of Assembly Hall” and Kevin Ullestad, Assembly Hall’s Director.

Assembly Hall

Assembly Hall has been the focus of attention since its inception more than a half century ago. With new plans to renovate the space, we remember the hall this hour on Focus. We’ll talk about how many people thought the funds should go to academics when the hall was first built and how some said the design was doomed to collapse. 

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WILL - Focus - January 22, 2013 ~ Comment (0)

International Adoption in Illinois

Ben and Timmy McClelland

The Russian government recently instituted a controversial ban on adoptions to the United States. Outcry from both families in the middle of the adoption process with Russia and families who have previously adopted from the country has been harsh.

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WILL - Focus - December 04, 2012 ~ Comment (0)

Growing Up In Poverty

Nearly one out of every five children in Illinois is growing up in poverty, and in more than half of Illinois' counties, 1 out of every 4 kids experiences food insecurity. Nationwide, childhood poverty costs the country $500 billion a year, or 4 percent of GDP. In addition to the economic costs, there are high personal costs: children growing up in poverty face ongoing psychosocial stress that affects their health and development, from high blood pressure and impaired immune functioning to deteriorated connections in the brain. We’ll explore the effects of poverty on children, and what can be done to ameliorate those effects.

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WILL - Focus - October 30, 2012 ~ Comment (0)

How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character

Paul Tough, Writer specializing in education, child development, poverty, and politics and contributor to "This American Life."

Host: Craig Cohen

Children's success in school is usually measured by test scores – the SAT, IQ test, standardized exams. But in How Children Succeed, writer and This American Life contributor Paul Tough argues that the qualities that matter most have more to do with character: skills like perseverance, curiosity, conscientiousness, optimism, and self-control. As scientists discover more about the longterm effects of early adversity on the developing brain, Tough argues that the ways parents can instill these qualities in children can have ramifications that last a lifetime.

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