Photography has become portable, a constant possibility that we carry in our pockets and purses. An American study by The NPD Group showed that the percentage of photos taken on a Smartphone grew to 27 per cent in 2011, from 17 in 2010. It’s a cross-generational obsession, fanned by social media: I haven’t been to too many adult parties lately where there hasn’t been at least one incident of joyful picture-taking that’s ended up in the electronic ether later.
But if the photo obsession is all in fun, then why was the preening kid in the park disturbing?Perhaps, in part, it’s because the best personal photos are usually the accidental ones: a loved one laughing, unawares, or a friend caught staring out a window. A kid with a hand on her hip, posing to please, has passed out of innocence into pageantry – from cinéma verité to Toddlers and Tiaras.
Earlier this week, novelist David Zweig wrote on The New York Times’s Motherlode blog that he was distressed by his own three-year-old daughter’s repetitive demands to see personal pictures, often of herself, on his phone and computer. “There’s something to be said for being un-self-aware,” he wrote. “Yet I suspect our collective obsession with photos is hastening its demise.”

But as Zweig wrote, the ubiquity of photography for this generation necessitates self-consciousness. Many in the field of child development believe that children begin to recognize themselves as subjects separate from the world between about 18 months and three years old. Mirrors and photos are key to the process. Surely this generation, the most photographed in history, will come into subjectivity earlier, and self-consciousness. One study by the U.S. organization Common Sense Media found that 52 per cent of all children have access to a mobile device at home – smartphone, tablet or iPad. The diversions offered by the devices are many, but the camera is an easy, built-in one; my eight-year-old literally taught me how to take videos with my new HTC phone.

If a child is constantly being photographed and looking at the photos, there’s a collapsing of the distance between experience and memory. The moment and the recorded moment are so close together now that, in its most alarming form, the actual moment doesn’t seem fully experienced. “Let me see!” is the battle cry of a kid who’s not living in the present. As Susan Sontag wrote in On Photography: “Life is not about significant details, illuminated in a flash, fixed forever. Photographs are.”

Tell that to parents. If you’ve attended a childrens’ concert or play, then you know how hard it is to see through the waving branches of arms extended, clutching cameras and phones. This seems like an appropriate metaphor for my generation’s obsessive parenting practices: By locking our gaze on our own little singular snowflakes, we can easily miss the whole. The real story might be the unknown kid in the crayon costume rocking out on the edge of the stage, but parents are prone to record only the stories that star their own kids. Then, of course, these images are disseminated via social networks, endlessly casting our progeny as the players in a parents’ narrative of My Perfect Family, with or without the offspring’s permission.

Digital photography allows for constant curation of images, which usually means the selection of only the happiest moments. When pictures had to be printed, the good and the bad had an almost equal chance of survival, and some of those ugly pictures are some of the best: Dad’s wobbly eye; the cat's butt caught in the corner; the really bad perm. The perfectly posed childhood leaves little room for the messy part of living, where the joy is.

I don’t want to give up pictures – and my kids would never let me – but I do notice the moments without the camera, because they’re increasingly rare and lit with a different, quieter energy. Adults need to remember what it’s like to experience an undocumented, uncontained moment, and kids need to feel that they are forming themselves not to be seen, but to be.

Narcissistic traits are quite common in adolescence but this does not necessarily mean that the child will go on to become a narcissist. Research has found the diagnosis of narcissism to be significantly more common among men.Ref Faulty or inadequate parenting, for example a lack of limit setting, is believed to be a major cause, and both permissive and authoritarian styles of parenting have been found to promote narcissistic symptoms. The following parenting behaviors may result in a child becoming a narcissist in adulthood:

• Permissive parents who give excessive praise to the child, thus fostering an unrealistic view of themselvesRef
• Overindulgence and spoiling by parentsRef
• Failing to impose adequate disciplineRef
• Idealization of the childRef

A child who is spoiled or idealized will grow into an adult who expects this pattern to continue. Idealization may require the child to suppress their own self-expression to meet the desires of the parent and to gain their love and approval.Ref To develop a realistic image of the self the child must be provided with realistic information of discipline and reasonable limits must be set by the parents as to what the child can and cannot do. Narcissists generally feel unprepared for adulthood, having been fostered with an unrealistic view of life.Ref

Narcissists are concerned with their image rather than their selves. They often act to promote their image at the expense of their self. The self is a bipolar structure with the two extremes of an immature grandiosity at one end and a dependent over-idealization of other people at the opposite end. Healthy self-esteem is not formed if a child is not valued for his or her own self worth. Usually the child is only used for the benefit of the parent's self-esteem and to further the parent's needs. A narcissistic personality may be formed to make up for this lack of support and encouragement from parents.

The natural narcissistic tendencies in children during adolescence can cause parents to behave either in an authoritarian way or in a permissive way towards their child. This narcissistic vulnerability in adolescence is prone to embarrassment and shame, self-consciousness and shyness, and questions of self-esteem and self-worth. Healthy development of the self requires parenting that is demanding enough to encourage growth and independence but not so demanding as to prevent growth through over-control. Both extremes, a lack of guidance (permissiveness) and authoritarianism, should be avoided to reduce the likelihood of the adolescent becoming a narcissist in adulthood.

Many people, including many psychologists, believe that narcissism is a product of our times and our system of values. In the western world in particular, we are constantly bombarded by images of the ideal through the media, this may contribute to the rapid growth of narcissism in society. In extreme cases, narcissism may be linked to invocation whereby an individual's normal personality is replaced by another. This psychological state, where the narcissist becomes almost entirely divorced from reality, can be a means of communicating with or getting closer to a deity or spirit which some believe can result in demonic possession.

Soucres:
http://www.winning-teams.com/narcissism_causes.html
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/parenting/are-we-raising-a-generation-of-self-conscious-narcissists/article4621215/
http://www.winning-teams.com/narcissist_tests.html

More than one in five Canadian workers suffer from depression. New survey says 22 per cent say they currently battle depression, 16 per cent report earlier difficulties More than 22 per cent of Canadian employees say they currently suffer from depression, with an additional 16 per cent reporting they have experienced depression previously, according to results of a new survey.

Meanwhile, more workplace managers and supervisors are getting training in how to deal with an employee showing signs of depression, says the national survey conducted by polling and research firm Ipsos Reid.  Five years ago, only one in five managers had received training in mental-health intervention. Today, one third have, says the survey.

While measures to increase training across the board are needed, managers are well aware of the importance of doing something when an employee shows signs of emotional distress. Eighty-four per cent of managers and supervisors surveyed said they believe it's part of their job to intervene in such cases, according to the results, based on 6,624 online surveys – 4,307 among employees and 2,317 among managers and supervisors.

"The really good news is that more managers have received training in how to intervene," Mary Ann Baynton, program director at the Great-West Life Centre for Mental Health, said in a news release Tuesday.

"We're not there yet, though. Nearly two thirds of managers are still seeking better training to address this type of situation. They are asking for more support and flexibility from upper-level management and human resources."

Survey results still indicate that employers are perceived to be more responsive to physical health issues than to mental health concerns, said Mike Schwartz, senior vice-president of Group Benefits for Great West Life and a centre director.

"The consensus appears to be that it is easier for workplaces to deal with physical disabilities than with mental health conditions – perhaps because employers may not be aware of available resources to help them do so, or because employees are less likely to self-identify as needing support."  Mental illness in the workplace is costly for business.

A report last year by the Global Business and Economic Roundtable on Addiction and Mental Health characterized the cost of mental-health problems at work as a "tsunami of economic loss."
It put the annual toll at $51-billion (U.S.) in Canada, or 4 per cent of gross domestic product, and $1.1-trillion across North America and Europe.

Among the encouraging signs in the latest Ipsos Reid survey results:

In 2012, 14 per cent of employees surveyed said they have been diagnosed as suffering from depression. That's down from 18 per cent in 2007.

In 2012, 31 per cent of managers or supervisors said they have received training to help them identify and help employees showing signs of depression. That's up from 18 per cent in 2007.

Other indicators:

Of employees suffering from depression, 61 per cent said in the 2012 survey that they receive no support or very little support from human resources, while 61 per cent said they get some or a great deal of support from co-workers.

Respondents are most likely to indicate that their employer is accommodating of those with physical health problems and less accommodating of those experiencing stress, anxiety or panic disorders, or bouts of depression. In 2012, 33 per cent said their employer is not at all accommodating or somewhat unaccommodating of stress, panic or depression, up from 30 per cent in 2007.

Proving that someone is actually depressed is also an issue.  Seven in 10 – 71 per cent, up 11 points from 2007 – supervisors or managers said they agree that there needs to be a way to verify that someone is actually suffering from depressions before being given any special consideration at work. Three in 10 – 29 per cent – disagree.

Ipsos Reid measures the accuracy of its online polls using a so-called "credibility interval." This particular poll has a credibility interval of plus or minus 1.7 percentage points for employees and 2.3 percentage points for managers and supervisors.

The greater the sample size, the lower the credibility interval.  The survey – done for the Great-West Life Centre for Mental Health - was conducted between July 18 and July 24 and the sample was drawn from the Ipsos Reid Household Panel.

Sources :
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/careers/more-than-one-in-five-canadian-workers-suffer-from-depression/article4597909/
http://www.cmha.ca/mental_health/depression-in-the-workplace/
http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/09/20/health.depression.workplace/index.html

There has been a lot of information written on "ThGiving Thanks and Gratitude in the last few of years.   Most people  celebrate Thanksgiving yearly as is the custom, and of course giving thanks is always a good thing.   But, when we give thanks each and every day, we can transform our lives.    "If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, "thank you," that would suffice."  ~Meister Eckhart

If people wait until only one day each year, they might be so down and depressed that they might not be able to remember what they are thankful for.  I am not taking anything away from Thanksgiving, because as was already mentioned, any day a person spends giving thanks is a good day, but, let's work on giving thanks each and every single day.
  
Our rural ancestors, with little blest,
Patient of labour when the end was rest,
Indulged the day that housed their annual grain,
With feasts, and off'rings, and a thankful strain.
~Alexander Pope

Why Give Thanks or be Grateful Each Day?  
You might be saying to yourself, the world is crashing down all around me, I am sick, I need a job, why me, or I just can't make ends meet.  There are so many reasons why people don't feel grateful. But, the very best time to "Give Thanks" or be "Grateful" is when you feel it least.  And that is the time you need to say it the most.

University of California Davis psychology professor Dr. Robert Emmons has researched "thanksgiving."    His study has shown that people who count their blessings -- not just on "Thanksgiving Weekend" each year, but in daily gratitude expressions - exercise more regularly, complain of fewer illnesses and symptoms, and feel better about their overall lives and experiences.  In other words, they express more wellness, fulfillment, happiness, connection and a complete sense of well being.  Why ? Because they often say "Thank You" which creates positive energy.  

How can we make a daily habit of becoming more thankful? 
Here's a  suggestion.   Keep and write in a book or journal and label it :  'My Gratitude's' or 'Thankfulness'.  Of course it's your book, so you can name it whatever you wish.  And practice "Giving Thanks". 

I find that my clients who are anxious or depressed and keep a "Gratitude Journal" begin to like keeping a gratitude journal and then see themselves using this skill in everyday life.  There's only one rule to this, which is; don't write down negative thoughts- only positive ones.   A while back I read that you should write 5 things to be grateful for at the end of each day. So, you could keep your journal right beside your bed, and after your prayers if that is your custom, you will probably be in the mood to write what you are grateful for. 

Grateful people "feel more alert, alive, interested, enthusiastic. They also feel more connected to others," said Emmons, who has written two books on the science of gratitude and often studies the effects of those gratitude diaries.

"Gratitude also serves as a stress buffer," Emmons said in an e-mail interview. "Grateful people are less likely to experience envy, anger, resentment, regret and other unpleasant states that produce stress."

Remember this is your journal, so do it anyway that works for you.      Try it and see how it begins to transform your life.  Now, what do you record in your book or journal?  Remember, it is yours so that is your choice.  But, just think about what you are truly thankful for.  

Here are just some examples of what I am so thankful for.  I think about my family and friends.  I am very thankful for them.  I know that I won't have my parents too much longer so I am thankful that they are still here.  I am thankful for getting home safely when I arrive home from anywhere.  I am thankful for flowers, their beauty as well as their fragranc; even though I have allergies.  I am thankful that I have a home, with a roof over my head, as lots of people around the world don't have what I have. I am thankful that I have good food to eat, and proper whole food based supplements that I can take to keep me healthy.  That being said, I am very thankful that at my age I am healthy and do not need to take any medications.  I pray that it holds. I am thankful when I look into the beautiful faces of those dear to me.  I am thankful for true friends that are there any time of the day or night that I might need them.  And believe me I have called on some of them during times of stress. They know who they are.  I am thankful that I have fulfilling work that helps others and gives me true satisfaction.  I really enjoy helping people and I enjoy any physical outdoor work I do.  

I think you get the idea.   When you begin to remind yourself of what you have to be thankful for, you develop an attitude of thankfulness, and you begin to transform your life.  This transformation is a good one as it gives you a sense of well being, happiness and true joy.

This feeling is a wonderful blessing. It is the blessing of having a rich life, by means of the cultivation of our own perspective.  So, transform your life by putting more thankfulness or gratitude in it.  Your health and those that you love are worth every effort and some expense.

"As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation
  is not to utter words, but to live by them."  ~John Fitzgerald Kennedy

Souces :
http://www.squidoo.com/topics/healthy-living/mental-health/personal-development
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/grand-rounds/201111/giving-thanks
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/22/give-thanks-health-psyche-brain-emotion_n_1108590.html