-NYT: A Silicon Valley School That Doesn’t Compute
The chief technology officer of eBay sends his children to a nine-classroom school here. So do employees of Silicon Valley giants like Google, Apple, Yahoo and Hewlett-Packard.[related] -> GOOD: Why Are Silicon Valley Executives Sending Their Kids to a Tech-Free School?
But the school’s chief teaching tools are anything but high-tech: pens and paper, knitting needles and, occasionally, mud. Not a computer to be found. No screens at all. They are not allowed in the classroom, and the school even frowns on their use at home.
-Pure Montessori (in Cape Town, SA): Why our Montessori Classrooms are Computer Free [.doc] -
-Wired: Exposure to Dogs Could Protect Kids From Asthma [hygiene hypothesis]
-Geekdad: 32-Year Study Shows How Geeky Kids Become Happy Adults [social engagement better predictor of well being as adults than academic achievement]
-FastCOExist: To Raise A Generation Of Creative Kids, Let Them Make Their Own Stories
-SciAm: Even A Few Years Of Music Training Benefits The Brain
There is a body of research that suggests music training not only improves hearing, it bolsters a suite of brain functions. Musically trained kids do better in school, with stronger reading skills, increased math abilities, and higher general intelligence scores. Music even seems to improve social development, as people believe music helps them be better team players and have higher self-esteem. “Based on what we already know about the ways that music helps shape the brain, the study suggests that short-term music lessons may enhance lifelong listening and learning,”-Smithsonian: Why School Should Be More Like Summer Camp
-NPR: In Constant Digital Contact, We Feel 'Alone Together'
On young children using digital devices
"Children are getting these phones earlier and earlier. These are years when children need to develop this capacity for solitude, this capacity to feel complete playing alone. If you don't have a capacity for solitude, you will always be lonely, and my concern is that the tethered child never really feels that sense that they are sort of OK unto themselves; and I talk to college students who've grown up with the habit of being in touch with their parents five, 10, 15 times a day. And it's no longer Huckleberry Finn as a model of adolescence, you know, sailing down the Mississippi alone — we've developed a model of adolescence and childhood where we sail down the Mississippi together with our families in tow." -
"Children are getting these phones earlier and earlier. These are years when children need to develop this capacity for solitude, this capacity to feel complete playing alone. If you don't have a capacity for solitude, you will always be lonely, and my concern is that the tethered child never really feels that sense that they are sort of OK unto themselves; and I talk to college students who've grown up with the habit of being in touch with their parents five, 10, 15 times a day. And it's no longer Huckleberry Finn as a model of adolescence, you know, sailing down the Mississippi alone — we've developed a model of adolescence and childhood where we sail down the Mississippi together with our families in tow." -
-NPR: Docs Say Choose Organic Food To Reduce Kids' Exposure To Pesticides
And that Stanford study you may have heard about that indicated no nutritional differences between organic and traditional food? It didn't really say what it was said to.
And that Stanford study you may have heard about that indicated no nutritional differences between organic and traditional food? It didn't really say what it was said to.
-Resilience.org: Resilience: Why so many parents today are getting it wrong
-NYT: The Competing Views on Competition
“One of the biggest culprits in psychology is wanting kids to feel good all the time,” Dr. Tauer said. “Trying to avoid competition is making it bigger than it needs to be.”
-BUTWT: Do parents actually matter?
-NPR: Random Acts Of Kindness Can Make Kids More Popular
-NYT: Understanding How Children Develop Empathy
Don’t offer material rewards for prosocial behavior, but do offer opportunities to do good-WSJ: At-Home Dads Make Parenting More of a 'Guy' Thing
-BrainPickings: How to Raise a Child: 10 Rules from Susan Sontag
-OnPoint: Ken Jennings: Don’t Believe Your Parents
-NYMag: Why You Truly Never Leave High School: New science on its corrosive, traumatizing effects.
