Joseph Chilton Pearce pioneers the first of the TMI Wisdom Series. Joe is an author of a number of books on child development. Here, he presents the idea of the heart, or compassionate mind, as another categorization of brain function with equal stature as the thalamus, prefrontal cortex, and lower brain. He believes that active, imaginative play is the most important of all childhood activities because that cultivates a mastery of one’s environment. He coins the term “creative competence” to discuss that mastery. Further, children without that form of play develop feelings of isolation and anxiety. He also believes that child-parent bonding is important, and blames both a lack of breastfeeding and modern childbirth as obstructive to that bonding.
