Reading List

Some things regarding parenting that I've read and other parents may find interesting.

-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.

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.

[related] -> GOOD: Why Are Silicon Valley Executives Sending Their Kids to a Tech-Free School?

-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." -

-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.

-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.”

-TheAtlantic: The Evolutionary Importance of Grandmothers

-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.

Parenting Advice From An Unlikely Source

Prison.

See MJ: What Parents Can Learn From Prison Guards

The article, "7 things never to say to anyone, and why", listed common statements used by prison guards and police officers and explained why they make people do the exact opposite of what they're being told to do. The seven things were:

1. "Hey you! Come here!"

2. "Calm down!"

3. "I'm not going to tell you again!"

4. "Be more reasonable!"

5. "Because those are the rules!"

6. "What's your problem?"

7. "What do you want me to do about it?"

Crazy For You

The Freedom to Learn blog at Psych Today has this advice: How to Advise and Help Your Kids Without Driving Them (or Yourself) Crazy (see the linked article for the full list)

1. When your child asks for help or advice, give only what was asked for...
2. Before offering unsolicited help or advice count to ten...
3. Before trying to protect your child from danger, think of the potential benefits as well as the potential costs of the "dangerous" behavior...

Can Parents Affect Teenage Alcohol Abuse?

Yes.

See NPR: Parenting Style Plays Key Role In Teen Drinking

The parenting style that led to the lowest levels of problem drinking borrowed something from each of the extremes. From the strict parents: accountability and consequences for bad behavior. From the indulgent parents: warmth and support

Recent Parenting Reads At The New York Times That I Found Interesting

INCONCEIVABLE! Exercise is good for kids: Phys Ed: Can Exercise Make Kids Smarter?

An Explanation For Why Dads Toss Their Babies: Why Mothers and Fathers Play Differently

Re-defining Maslow’s Hierarchy: Living to Be a Parent

Peers And Parents And Teen Behavior

It appears that even good parents will have kids who experiment with drugs, but drug addicts can be predicted by the teenager's peer group.

See PsyToday: Do parents cause drug addictions in teens?

Happy children who enjoy a supportive relationship with their parents may occasionally use drugs, or have drug-using friends, but rarely get identified with drug-using cliques.

"I Want A Cynical 4 Year Old"

I read a recent article about IQ tests for 4 yr olds and parents in New York City prepping their kids with study materials to get into kindergarten.

Crazy.

See NYMag: The Junior Meritocracy

But it was balanced with comments about how much IQ can change. And an interview with the headmaster from a school that does not use test scores until the kids are freshman.

“I want a school full of kids who daydream,” he says. “I want kids who are occasionally impulsive. I want kids who are fun to be with. I want kids who don’t want to answer the questions on those tests in the way the adult wants them to be answered, because that kid is already seeing the world differently. In fact,” he adds, after thinking it over for a moment, “I want kids who are cynical enough at age 4 to know that there’s really something wrong with someone asking them these things and think, ‘I’m going to screw with them in the process!’ ”

At least there are some people who have some sense.

This NYMag article reminded me of a parent's comment at a recent Montessori meeting. This parent was concerned about the realism of the Montessori environment. At Montessori the kids use materials that are real world analogs and this parent wondered about when was there time for imagination. It seemed like a valid question to me; the way I have been handling the development of my child's imagination is I see my role as a parent to help her be creative and wacky as a balance to the realism of Montessori.

Another parent also recently expressed guilt that their 3 and 5 year olds had not been downhill skiing yet. And it does seem like many other kids are skiing or swimming or ice skating, et cetera. And all these kids are taking lessons when 3 and 4 for these activities. But from my standpoint, the only lessons I think a toddler and pre-K child needs are swim lessons for their own safety. Other than that, I want my children to experience childhood without the structure of lessons. Yes, we go ice skating and snowshoeing and she has a keyboard and other instruments to play on, but I will not be signing her up for summer soccer even though she's old enough.

But now is the time for her to have fun and to play and to imagine anything she wants. Once she is 5 we'll start trying more organized sports and activities and she'll be fine. And I will know she's old enough to make some choices for herself.

When Reverse Psychology Works

If, as a parent, you have hit a wall in trying to change a child's behavior, there is observational research that indicates showing disinterest in if the child does or does not do what the parent requests can be effective in producing the desired result.

See Slate: Plan B: What to do when all else has failed to change your kid's behavior

...back off almost entirely: to stop asking their child to do the desired behavior and say it's OK not to do it at all, stop offering praise or other rewards for doing it, and mask their attitude of engaged enthusiasm or frustrated rage with an appearance of bland disinterest in whether the child does it or not. What happens next, frequently, is that within a day or two the child starts doing the behavior with no prompting from parents or anyone else. If you try something similar with your own recalcitrant child, within a few days he or she may well be using the toilet, eating green beans, or bathing without dire struggles.

Making A Base

As mentioned before on this site: Kids Need Domestic Stability

New research reinforces the idea that what kids need to thrive is a stable base to grow upon: Family stability may be more crucial than two parents for child success

The advantage that children get from living in two-parent families may actually be due to family stability more than the fact that their parents are married. A new study finds that children who who are born and grow up in stable single-parent homes generally do as well as those in married households in terms of academic abilities and behavior problems.

It Takes Genes And An Environment

It is time to end the nurture vs nature debate. We are all products of the interaction of our genes and the environment around us.

See PhysOrg: Nature? Nurture? Scientists say neither

Kids Need Domestic Stability

I've read a couple of articles recently that are related by dismissing the notion that married parents are always the best option for raising kids. If parents are fighting and always angry at each other, then this is going to be hurtful to the kids.

See:

PhysOrg: Staying together 'for kids' sake' isn't always best

...when their parents frequently argue, young adults are significantly more likely to binge drink than other teenagers. They also tend to smoke, and their poor school grades are similar to those of their peers who don't have both biological parents at home.

TheAtlantic: Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off

So, herewith, some modest proposals. Clearly, research shows that what’s best for children is domestic stability and not having to bond with, and to be left by, ever new stepparent figures. Less important is whether or not their overworked parents are logging “date night” (or feeling the magic). So why don’t we accept marriage as a splitting-the-mortgage arrangement? As Fisher suggests, rekindling the romance is, for many of us, biologically unnatural, particularly after the kids come. (Says another friend of mine, about his wife of 23 years: “My heart doesn’t lift when she walks in the room. It sinks, slightly.”) If high-revving women are sexually frustrated, let them have some sort of French arrangement where they have two men, the postfeminist model dad building shelves, cooking bouillabaise, and ignoring them in the home, and the occasional fun-loving boyfriend the kids never see. Alternately, if both spouses find life already rather exhausting, never mind chasing around for sex. Long-married husbands and wives should pleasantly agree to be friends, to set the bedroom aglow at night by the mute opening of separate laptops and just be done with it. More than anything, aside from providing insulation from the world at large, that kind of arrangement could be the perfect way to be left alone.

As far as the children are concerned, how about the tribal approach (a natural, according to both primate and human evolution)? Let children between the ages of 1 and 5 be raised in a household of mothers and their female kin. Let the men/husbands/boyfriends come in once or twice a week to build shelves, prepare that bouillabaisse, or provide sex.

Or best of all, after the breast-feeding and toddler years are through, let those nurturing superdads be the custodial parents! Let the Type A moms obsessively work, write checks, and forget to feed the dog. Let the dads then, if they wish, kick out those sloppy working mothers and run effective households, hiring the appropriate staff, if need be. To a certain extent, men today may have more clarity about what it takes to raise children in the modern age. They don’t, for instance, have today’s working mother’s ambivalence and emotional stickiness.