Getting Control Over Kids' Birthdays

University of Minnesota family science professor Bill Doherty has teamed up with St. Paul parents to launch Birthdays Without Pressure. The group is hoping to combat extravagant children's birthday parties. Their website (www.birthdayswithoutpressure.org) offers tips to parents, a birthday pressure quiz, research, and other resources for parents. Doherty says:

Today’s parents feel pushed to do more for children, provide more experiences and opportunities—and in less time because of overloaded schedules. Toys overflow, birthday parties become Hollywood productions, and electronic gear takes over the home. If we are not paying for something or driving our kids somewhere, it’s hard to feel we are doing enough as parents. It’s time to take a deep breath and ask ourselves how to parent wisely nowadays, beginning with small things like birthday parties.

What would happen if you paid your kids to get along?

From NPR's "This American Life":
"Lisa LaBorde has two daughters, and having grown up an only child, she can't understand why they fight all the time.... Lisa decides to enlist the aid of science to see if she can turn these enemies into friends, in just a month." So Lisa paid the older sister, who was 12, $100 to play with her four-year-old little sister every day for a month. Her theory was that the positive attention from her older sister would reduce the younger sister's inclination to annoy her older sister...she called it the "Kill Her With Kindness Experiment." She recorded the number of times she needed to intervene in the kids' fighting. After a month, she found that the kids were indeed fighting less...but also realized that her constant intervention had been part of the problem.

You can hear the whole story (18 minutes), including clips of the kids' interaction and some reflection on whether it makes sense to pay siblings to be nice to one another (!), at This American Life. Click on "Complete archives," then on the show for November 10, 2006 (David and Goliath).

Better parenting through neuroscience

Mel Levine, a neuroscientist at the University of North Carolina, studies how children learn. In a speech this past summer, he suggests that education needs to be much more personalized and more specialized. In a speech this past summer, he talked about how kids learn, and what that suggests about how we ought to raise our kids. Some of his thoughts:

• Parents and teachers should teach kids how to learn by talking to them about what's happening in their brain as they learn, and helping them to hone key learning skills--for instance, practicing previewing skills.
  
• Parents and teachers should look for their kids strengths, and work on building those strengths rather than focusing exclusively on kids' deficits.
• "Kids who have to struggle a bit in their time in school are really getting an education that's very valuable."
• Too much success too early in life can leave kids vulnerable later on, because those kids don't learn how to cope with feelings of inadequacy.
• "Don't tell your kids to have fun in school. Say, 'I hope you have an extremely interesting day....'" Why? "Fun" has connotations of instant gratification through a relatively superficial experience. Interest develops more gradually and probes more deeply.
• The strong emphasis on visual motor ecstacy -- video games, sports, and so on -- is causing kids to have trouble expressing themselves through language, because those activities don't require kids to practice their language skills.
• Between the ages of 11 and 20, kids brains change dramatically as the most-used neural pathways get reinforced with a protective coating, and the least-used neural pathways get pruned away.
  
• "Kids ought to start working on their autobiographies starting at age six" -- that is, kids should be taught to reflect on who they are, what their affinities are, and where they're going.

You can listen to the whole talk at Minnesota Public Radio.

"When I connect with my neighbors, they return it in kind"

“Can one act of friendliness start to generate peace? I believe it can. Peace begins with one person but spreads like warmed syrup. When I connect with my neighbors, they return it in kind.” One waitress's moving testimonial to the power of building relationships in our community, from Ivory Harlow at NPR.

Sudden Infant Death Syndrome linked to brain defects

From the Boston Globe:

Babies who die of SIDS apparently have not developed a sort of "alarm system" that would make them respond to rising carbon dioxide levels by turning their heads and breathing harder, said Dr. Hannah Kinney of Children's Hospital, who is senior author of the study, published in today's issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

You can read the whole article at the Boston Globe.

Why do kids have more energy than adults?

"Why has evolution given children so much energy and their parents so little?" asks NPR reporter John Hamilton. According to the scientists he interviewed, it's all about brain development. But kids' sluggish parents have a role to play, too. Read the whole story at NPR.

Overscheduled kids a myth?

From Newsweek magazine (Oct 2 issue):

For parents who fear they're "overscheduling" their children, a new study carries a soothing message. The paper, published last week by the Society for Research in Child Development, is the first to take a data-driven look at the issue—and whether being so busy is really a bad thing. The study suggests the phenomenon is more isolated than media reports suggest: in fact, 40 percent of children (ages 5 to 18) are engaged in no activities, typical kids spend just five hours a week in structured activities, and very few children—3 to 6 percent—spend 20 hours a week. On average, most kids spend far more time watching TV and playing games. And for kids who are extremely busy, there's also good news: the more activities they do, the better kids stack up on measures of educational achievement and psychological adjustment.

Read the full article here; leave comments on this story below.

Summer playgroup visits fire station

The Wednesday ECFE summer playgroup visited the central fire station in early August. We got to see real fire engines, a fireman fully dressed, firemen sliding down a fire pole, and more. Each of the kids got a fire helmet, a "safety sucker," and a fire safety tattoo. Thanks to the Winona Fire Department for a fun and informative tour!