Guidelines and sources this guide follows
This is a reflective course for parents, not a clinical program. Most of the research below comes from adults in lab or survey studies, not from dads and kids at home. We use it as a guide, not as proof.
Play as the engine: Fredrickson and Levenson, 1998 (lab study, adults: amusing film clips sped heart-rate recovery after a stressful clip); Fredrickson's broaden and build theory; Gottman's 5 to 1 ratio (from observing couples, not parents and kids; used here as a rough target).
Regulation: Jill Bolte Taylor's "90 second" surge (her rule of thumb from her book, not a lab measurement); Balban and colleagues, 2023, Cell Reports Medicine (about 100 adults, one month: daily cyclic sighing improved mood more than mindfulness; small study, needs replication); Lieberman and colleagues, 2007 (brain scans, adults: naming a feeling dampened alarm activity); Gollwitzer and Sheeran, 2006 (review: if-then plans help follow-through); Gross on reappraisal over suppression; Bushman, 2002 (dwelling on anger kept it up). Goleman's "amygdala hijack" and HALT are popular ideas, used here as handy pictures, not science. Focused-attention practice trains attention by noticing the mind drift and returning it, a core idea in mindfulness research (for example, Amishi Jha).
The home: Wang and Kenny, 2014, Child Development (teens: harsh verbal discipline linked to later problems; correlational); Baumrind on authoritative parenting (warm and firm; mostly correlational); the thinking brain keeps maturing through adolescence into early adulthood (the exact age is debated); Siegel and Bryson's upstairs and downstairs brain (a metaphor, not a brain map).
Yogi Berra and Jackie Robinson quotes are well documented. The Lou Gehrig lines are from his July 4, 1939 farewell speech at Yankee Stadium. Popular Babe Ruth quotes were left out because we could not find original sources for them.