David Elkind, a professor emeritus of child development at Tufts University, wrote a succinct response to the fact that some of our country’s schools are using “recess coaches” to help teach kids to play during their time away from the classroom. Because many schools are dropping recess in favor of more academic time and because children often favor gazing at computers and TVs over goofing around with siblings or friends, our kids are losing the benefits of unstructured time. Elkind believes that recess coaches might be more freeing than intrusive when they force children to play rather than sit around during class breaks. He wants to see kids get the advantages that come from being imaginative with one another, running around for exercise, and socializing (such as solving problems — he finds a correlation between a lack of knowing how to play with others and more bullying among peers).
Elkind does not condemn or deny the reality of changing times. He writes, “We have to adapt to childhood as it is today, not as we knew it or would like it to be. The question isn’t whether recess coaches are good or bad — they seem to be with us to stay — but whether they help students form the age-old bonds of childhood. To the extent that the coaches focus on play, give children freedom of choice about what they want to do, and stay out of the way as much as possible, they are likely a good influence…In any case, recess coaching is a vastly better solution than eliminating recess in favor of more academics.”
What do you think? Right now, I’m going to turn off the TV (which often entertains my boys while I write this blog) to kick off a game of hide-and-seek. It’s a small effort, and I’ll lean on electronics again (not always for worse), but I do think there are lots of things we can do as our children’s personal “recess coaches.”
A few years ago, I sought the counsel of Dr. David Swanson when my wife and I needed more help with managing our parenting challenges. Swanson was down-to-earth, non-judgmental, and incredibly direct in his advice, which we use to this day. Now, any parent can access Swanson’s insights by reading his new book, Help–My Kid is Driving Me Crazy: The 17 Ways Kids Manipulate Their Parents, and What You Can Do About It. Part of what makes Swanson such a valuable resource — in addition to being a husband and father — is that he treats children, teens, and families as a whole. Even though he’s writing for parents who are beleagured by their children’s use of negotiation, self-victimization, and emotional blackmail, he’s also firmly advocating for the well-being of the children. This book can really help adults feel better and stronger in their efforts to parent their kids.
Many of you have kids who are teenagers or are getting there all too fast. With this in mind, I am teaming up with the Mom’s Choice Award winning site, Radical Parenting. Writer-publisher Vanessa Van Petten brings teen writers to topics about parent-child communication, online safety, and more. I will present articles by her writers on my site and she will offer some of my work for the teens to read. Check out my first posting for them, Middle Earth…
My oldest son is entering middle school and I’m wondering who tinkered with my clock? Wasn’t it just the other day that I was in middle school? Wasn’t I so afraid of talking to other kids that I lugged a heavy book bag to avoid locker conversations and never showered after PE because of embarrassment? Wasn’t I too clueless to appreciate the smiles of Jaynee Strickstein and didn’t I choose to sit alone in my room reading about The Hobbit’s Middle-earth?
For me, reality is sinking in. I’m middle-aged. And if my son’s transition to the next level of school isn’t symbolic enough, there are other signs. Two icons of my junior high years, Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett, prematurely exited the world. My back muscles spasm if I look the wrong way. Facebook reconnects me with friends and pictures from my elementary through high-school years (did I really part my hair in the middle and wear such tight swim trunks?).
I stop the 8-track rewind to consider my first born. The one who had baby thighs like the Stay Puft marshmallow man and giggled hysterically when I crawl-chased him through our apartment. The one who liked to flash his size 4 superhero underpants to everyone because he thought he was cool. The one who just yesterday learned to read the picture book George Shrinks.
I found myself stuck to this enlightening video clip because of the reference to marshmallows. I admit to adoring ’smores, Rice Krispy treats (especially the ones with milk chocolate and almonds my wife makes). I’ve also won a family camp marshmallow eating contest (yes, it was disgusting).
Then I watched this piece featuring Dr. Joachim de Posada, an author, speaker, and adjunct professor at the University of Miami. He talks about an experiment in which a Stanford psychology professor put one four-year-old kid at a time into a room alone with a marshmallow and told them to not eat it. Each kid approached the puffy treat differently, with some eating it immediately, some waiting a bit, and a couple refraining altogether. What Dr. de Posada points out is that the experiment determines a child’s ability to delay gratification and may very well suggest the child’s long-term self-discipline.
I’m going to try the experiment on my kids and see what happens. Chances are, they’ll delay gratification longer than I could.
With Spring Break upon us, I am a first-hand observer of all the chaos that breaks out when my boys have nothing better to do than pound each other in the head and see whose shoes can get most full of sand. So I’m ready for April 10, which is National Siblings Day!
If you’d like a bit of great advice on making siblings more harmonious, or at least occupied, you have a chance to win a signed copy of the awarding-winning The Siblings Busy Book: 200 Fun Activities for Kids of Different Ages. Simply email hkempskie@comcast.net with the subject line “siblings” by May 1. A winner will be chosen at random. In the meantime, visit the Busy Siblings blog for more tips and advice on sibling fun!
My older two kids (10 and 7) still talk about what they did at recess before anything else. Sure, I’d love if they talked a bit more about the lessons they learned inside the classroom, but now there is extra proof showing that recess makes learning more effective. A new study published in the journal Pediatrics shows that children who get at least 15 minutes of recess for a school day behave better in the classroom than those who get less or no play time. According to an article in the New York Times, there are other recent studies linking physical activity to improved in-class performance. The reason this is such important research is that, as schools endeavor to improve academic achievement for their students and concurrently battle with shrinking budgets, one thing that should be a staple is recess and perhaps even more time to play (P.E., anyone?) and rest the brain so the kids can go back inside and learn more effectively. Still, not all schools can afford supervision for play time. At our own public school, the parents banded together to raise money to pay for a P.E. teacher and we really feel it’s been money well spent.
Gesticulate more with your kids! Research published in the February, 2009, issue of the journal Science indicates that children who use more gestures are likely to develop greater language skills. When it comes to language, even for babies, a lot of parents emphasize making sounds and worry that, if their kids are not verbalizing to communicate, they might be delayed in their language. This new study underscores how valuable non-verbal communication is, both in helping kids get what they need — since babies gesture before they learn to talk — and in assisting their later vocabulary. Although it’s important to not push little ones too hard to learn baby sign language, developing more signs with them can be quite beneficial. The key is empowering babies and toddlers to communicate in various ways so they do not get overly frustrated, though that is part of the language development process as well. Just be aware that, since children learn gestures so readily, they might copy that middle finger reaction to the car that cut you off in traffic today.
In his first two years of life, my middle son liked to put just about anything from the ground in his mouth. He ingested rocks and pebbles from the park, sand from the beach, spare change, you name it. Aside from the fear that he would choke on the grimy objects, my semi-OCD tendencies caused me to imagine Pokemon-like germ characters mounting bacterial attacks on his immune system. We tried everything to keep him from mouthing all that dirt and even learned about a condition called pica (or pika) which causes people to crave dirt to alleviate a vitamin deficiency. He didn’t have pica. What he had was a natural curiosity in the world and a habit of using his mouth as one of his tools.
Now comes a new book called, Why Dirt Is Good: 5 Ways to Make Germs Your Friends, which I discovered via Jane E. Brody’s personal health article in the New York Times. In Dr. Mary Ruebush’s book, she explains that our obsessions with cleanliness and the overuse of anti-bacterial soaps can actually do more harm than good. This is because children need some bacteria to help their immune systems learn what to fight. Brody quotes Ruebush, a microbiology and immunology instructor, who says, “What a child is doing when he puts things in his mouth is allowing his immune response to explore his environment…Not only does this allow for ‘practice’ of immune responses, which will be necessary for protection, but it also plays a critical role in teaching the immature immune response what is best ignored.”
Brody’s nicely researched piece continues to cite the conclusions of other professionals in immunology and gastroenterology, who tell us such true but gross facts as how helpful intestinal worms are in making the immune system strong. The article also offers recommendations for keeping the balance between too-clean-to-be-healthy and just right, including moderate hand washing with plain soap and water. Some experts even suggest children not always wash before eating, explaining that kids on farms, who are exposed to animals with lots of germs, are less prone to allergies and autoimmune diseases.
I’m not sure how far I can go to let more dirt near my children’s mouths, but I have to say that I’m a bit more relieved and enlightened about letting my kids roll in the mud and eating snacks while playing with the dog. Dirt is my new friend.
There’s a new, brutally frank book called A Nation of Wimps: The High Cost of Invasive Parenting, by Hara Estroff Marano (www.nationofwimps.com/). It really has me thinking. Am I raising my kids to depend on me for everything? Sure, I’ve read and agreed with most of Wendy Mogel’s The Blessing of a Skinned Knee (www.wendymogel.com/books.html), but have I followed its principles to allow my children to fall on their butts now so they learn how to get back up on their own power?
I battle with myself almost daily about being appropriately protective and educational. Just the other night, my wife and I discussed the fact that our kindergartner is not reading yet. The teacher said the other kids in the class were reading and she didn’t want our kid to lag. She wasn’t mean about it but she did alarm us. Should we work with our son every night, drill him, get him a tutor, as some parents seem to be doing even at this early stage of education? Up till this point, it hadn’t been a concern because our oldest didn’t learn to read until he was well into first grade — well behind his classmates. His teacher told us not to push, to let our child struggle and come to reading on his own steam. Now he consumes books out of the joy of reading. Certainly, our kids are different, but we are going to refrain from making a federal case out of it and let him fail a little. We have faith that he’ll learn to read and realize that he doesn’t need us to move his eyes across the page.
I’m not sure if this is a perfect example of how to avoid invasive parenting, but it is one touchpoint of concern in an age in which many moms and dads believe good parenting means hand-holding a child through school, friendships, athletics, and more. A Nation of Wimps addresses the dangers too much coddling can lead to, including depression and aimlessness in kids as they grow older. The author also offers approaches to helping our children take smart risks and make decisions for themselves. As shattering as the book can be to our own sense of being good, involved parents, it is worth the pain now to learn how to raise strong, independent human beings.
A twenty-year veteran of early childhood education and consulting, Brett Berk writes in the intro to his new book that, “it was seeing firsthand — as a preschool teacher — just how difficult parenting is that convinced me that I was not cut out for it. But blind unconditional love [as shown by parents to their kids], by definition, must contain blind spots. My job in this book is to shine a light on these.”
Indeed, Berk’s “outsider” perspective in The Gay Uncle’s Guide to Parenting(http://brettberk.com/the-gay-uncles-guide-to-parenting/) offers analysis and solutions that cut through many assumptions — or what Berk calls “parenting bubbles” — about what’s supposed to work in parenting. And the fact that he presents such clearheaded ideas with witty commentary and personal anecdotes about his family and friends makes this a snappy read.
As a former teacher and preschool director, the author has insightful tips about handling school difficulties. As a consultant to media companies who aim toward kids, he has advice about managing your child’s media diet. And as a compassionate human being who believes parents can feel more in control and more balanced in their lives, he peppers this guide with checklists and sidebars that are easy to refer to again and again. One of the best charts in the book is the “How to Talk to Your Kids About: Everything.” This tool grabs the subject of communicating with children by the roots and branches out with vital strategies, assessments of the wrong way to talk to kids, and suggestions on what he’s seen work in the field. With its fresh viewpoint, The Gay Uncle’s Guide to Parenting is the standout family advice book of this young year.
