#Parenting

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Thinking and Linking

The power of struggle

Joanne Jacobs

Oct 2, 2018
1 min

The power of struggle

Zachary Wright “had to drag my son kicking and screaming into kindergarten.” He remembered his own “struggles with anxiety, depression and panic” as a child. There I was, a terrified boy, probably 10 or so, hiding in bathrooms, trying to breathe, convinced of my own eventual insanity. There I was, a quiet boy trying to avoid the notice of the older kids. Refusing to get out of the car to go into day camp. Paralyzed with fear at being called upon to present in front of the cla

The babysitter is a spycam

Joanne Jacobs

Sep 7, 2018
1 min

The babysitter is a spycam

spycam is the babysitter, reports Ronda Kaysen in the New York Times. Working parents can use an array of security devices to keep tabs on middle and high schoolers who are home alone after school. I could install a keyless lock, like Kevo by Kwikset, and receive a text message when he unlocks it. With a digital home security system, like SimpliSafe, I could get an alert that he has disarmed the system and a video clip of him walking in. I could use SimpliSafe door sensors to

Spoiled children

Joanne Jacobs

Sep 5, 2018
2 min

Spoiled children

A college education isn’t intended to make people think any more, write Greg Lukianoff, a First Amendent specialist, and Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist, in The Coddling of the American Mind. “It is meant to make them comfortable.” The culture of “safetyism” promotes three Great Untruths, they write. What doesn’t kill you makes you weaker; always trust your feelings; and life is a battle between good people and evil people. In a New York Times op-ed, they cite “efforts

Questions to ask your child’s teacher

Joanne Jacobs

Aug 18, 2018
1 min

Questions to ask your child’s teacher

Rick Hess suggests 10 questions to ask your child’s teacher on Forbes. I like: What’s the one paper, project, or unit that I should really expect my student to come home excited about?What was the most serious disciplinary issue at school last year, and how was it addressed?How frequently should I expect to hear updates about how my child is doing?If I email with a question or concern, how quickly should I expect to hear back?What’s the most important thing I can do to help m

Joanne Jacobs

Jul 20, 2018
1 min

Oh, theyby

There has to be a simpler way of avoiding gender stereotypes than refusing to admit that your twins are boys, girls or one of each. Raising “theybies” is a micro-fad, reports NBC News. #genderfluidity #genderstereotypes #Parenting #transgender

When tiger kids become parents

Joanne Jacobs

Jun 29, 2018
1 min

When tiger kids become parents

The son of tiger parents, lawyer Ryan Park wants to raise his daughters to be “happy, confident, and kind,” he writes in the New York Times. They don’t have to be academic superstars. His parents pushed him to achieve — or else. After graduating from Harvard Law, he clerked for two U.S. Supreme Court justices. His wife, also Asian-American, is a physician. . . . like many second-generation immigrant overachievers, I’ve spent decades struggling with the paradox of my upbringi

Raising self-regulating kids

Joanne Jacobs

Jun 9, 2018
2 min

Raising self-regulating kids

Children — and their parents and teachers face a “crisis of self-regulation,” argues Katherine Reynolds Lewis in The Good News About Bad Behavior. Kids are “less disciplined than ever,” she writes. The good news is that parents can do something about it. The sharp rise in anxiety, depression, attention-deficit diagnoses and addiction is related to children’s inability to “manage their thoughts, behavior and emotions” in a healthy, Lewis tells NPR’s Cory Turner. Many children

Joanne Jacobs

Jun 6, 2018
3 min

Does babytalk matter? Word gap wrangle

By the age of three, children growing up in poverty hear 30 million fewer words than the children of educated parents, concluded a study published in 1992. Since then, encouraging low-income, less-educated mothers to talk more to their young children has been seen as a way to narrow the achievement gap, writes Anya Kamenetz on NPR. The “word gap” research “inspired early intervention programs, including the citywide effort Providence Talks in Rhode Island, the Boston-based Re

Parenting: Are you a carpenter or a gardener?

Joanne Jacobs

Jun 2, 2018
2 min

Parenting: Are you a carpenter or a gardener?

Gopnik, a psychology and philosophy professor at Berkeley, wants parents to let their children grow freely without too much worry about how they’ll turn out. “I think the science suggests that being a caregiver for human beings is … much more about providing a protected space in which unexpected things can happen,” she tells NPR’s Modern Brain series. In The Guardian, Oliver Burkeman writes about the “diabolical genius of the baby advice industry,” with an emphasis on diaboli

Parents spend more time with kids

Joanne Jacobs

May 12, 2018
1 min

Parents spend more time with kids

My mother, my sister and me (the fat baby) in 1952. Parents — especially educated parents — spend a lot more time caring for their children than in the past in wealthy countries, concludes a new study, reports The Economist. One analysis of 11 rich countries estimates that the average mother spent 54 minutes a day caring for children in 1965 but 104 minutes in 2012. Men do less than women, but far more than men in the past: their child-caring time has jumped from 16 minutes a

‘Baby, may I change your diaper?’

Joanne Jacobs

May 11, 2018
1 min

‘Baby, may I change your diaper?’

Deanne Carson An Aussie sex education expert says parents should ask for permission to change a child’s diaper, reports Kashmira Gander on Newsweek. “We work with parents from birth” on how to create a “culture of consent,” said Deanne Carson, who works for Body Safe Australia. She acknowledges that babies can’t talk. “I’m going to change your nappy now, is that OK?” Of course a baby’s not going to respond “yes mum, that’s awesome I’d love to have my nappy changed.” “But if y

Joanne Jacobs

Apr 12, 2018
1 min

Parents, stop coddling your kids

Students and parents disrespect teachers, complained Julie Marburger in a Facebook post that went viral. She teaches sixth grade in a suburb of Dallas. Administration always seems to err on the side of keeping the parent happy, which leaves me with no way to do the job I was hired to do … teach kids. . . . People absolutely HAVE to stop coddling and enabling their children. It’s a problem that’s going to spread through our society like wildfire. It’s not fair to society, and

. . . and ‘theyby’ makes three

Joanne Jacobs

Apr 6, 2018
2 min

. . . and ‘theyby’ makes three

New York magazine features parents who are raising “theybys” — children whose biological sex is kept a mystery, so they can avoid boy-girl stereotypes. It’s called gender-creative, gender-open or gender-affirming parenting, reports Alex Morris. Type #gendercreative into Instagram and there are posts from families from Louisiana to Tokyo. And for all these families, there is a timeline, if not an end point: Most children gender-identify well before they leave preschool. “Zoome

Help parents help kids before they start school

Joanne Jacobs

Feb 26, 2018
1 min

Help parents help kids before they start school

Education reformers are working hard to “rescue” children who arrive at school without the language skills, knowledge and emotional maturity needed to succeed, writes Ian Rowe. His charter management organization, Public Prep is trying to help low-income parents so fewer children need to be rescued. Public Prep, which runs six single-sex elementary and middle schools in New York City, has partnered with the Parent-Child Home Program (PCHP) to offer 30-minute home visits to th

Having the ‘social media talk’ with a 7-year-old

Joanne Jacobs

Feb 24, 2018
1 min

Having the ‘social media talk’ with a 7-year-old

When is a child ready for social media asks Judi Ketteler in the New York Times. Her 9-year-old son is showing off his flips on Instagram. Her 7-year-old daughter wants her own YouTube channel. “Spend some time introducing your child to social media, the same way you introduce them to your neighborhood,” advises Sherry Turkle, a MIT psychologist and author of Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age. The “social media talk” — like discussing the birds and t

Screen waivers

Joanne Jacobs

Feb 23, 2018
3 min

Screen waivers

Upper-middle-class parents are worried about screen time, writes Michael J. Petrilli. They worry about attention deficit disorder, violent video games, sexting or “that a thoughtless post will ruin their college applications.” It’s perfect timing for two new books, he writes. Anya Kamenetz, NPR’s ed-tech reporter, is “mostly soothing” in The Art of Screen Time: How Your Family Can Balance Digital Media & Real Life. Naomi Schaefer Riley is mostly alarming in Be the Parent, Ple

Naked tykes by the fire pit

Joanne Jacobs

Feb 17, 2018
2 min

Naked tykes by the fire pit

Sara Zaske moved to Germany with a four-year-old daughter, then gave birth to a son. In Achtung Baby she praises “the German art of raising self-reliant children.” At her daughter’s Kita, preschoolers frolic naked in the water-play area, notes Slate’s Rebecca Schuman. The school hosts a “gleefully parent-free sleepover” for four-year-olds. An adventure playground in Berlin. “Adventure playgrounds” are designed to be a little dangerous. One children’s park “consists solely of

‘Nudging’ aims to change habits

Joanne Jacobs

Feb 1, 2018
2 min

‘Nudging’ aims to change habits

Text-messaged “nudges” can help parents support their children’s learning, writes Daisy Yuhas, citing research at Stanford’s Center for Education Policy Analysis (CEPA) Labs. Three times a week, researchers from CEPA Labs send parents and other caregivers suggestions on how to support children’s literacy, numeracy and social and emotional skills. Bath time, walks in the park and familiar household interactions become opportunities for children to learn and practice concepts t

Your baby is not Einstein

Joanne Jacobs

Jan 12, 2018
2 min

Your baby is not Einstein

A Colorado mother shot the first video for her child in 1996. “Five years later, she sold the company to Disney for a reported $25 million,” reports Graham. In 2009, “Disney was forced to admit that the videos had no educational value and offered full refunds to parents who had bought them.” It “was like something out of Baby Shakespeare,” Graham concludes. “Baby Einstein” videos — later “Baby Mozart,” “Baby Galileo,” “Baby Van Gogh” and “Baby Shakespeare” — featured “toys, p

Don’t oaf-rock your kids

Joanne Jacobs

Dec 19, 2017
1 min

Don’t oaf-rock your kids

fabulous, long-forgotten word: Oaf-rocked. In a story on Paul Anthony Jones’ book, The Cabinet of Linguistic Curiosities, the BBC reports on lost words such as “frowst,” which is “19th-Century schoolboy slang word for ‘extra time spent in bed on a Sunday’.” Lie too long in bed and you’ll feel “frowsty.” “Oaf-rocked” comes from Yorkshire dialect, meaning “weak as an adult due to a sheltered or pampered childhood.” Jones explains: Oaf here is either a corruption of ‘half’ (in t

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