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By jamie, April 30, 2010 11:00 pm

My daughter does not like to go to bed, so she employs a series of delaying tactics to help prevent the inevitable. First she is thirsty, then she has to use the potty, then she has to “go potty again” and again, and again. The other night I asked her, on her third or fourth bathroom request, “do you really need to go potty, or do you just want to get up and play in the bathroom?” She took a second to think about it, and then responded honestly – “I want to play in the bathroom.” Hubby overheard, and suggested that maybe this is not a good question to ask her, because, over time it might encourage her to lie.

Studies show that kids lie. Parents and teachers always say that they are good at catching kids, especially their own, when they are being untruthful, but they fail miserably when this is tested in a lab. Yikes! And while most parents are convinced that their children are the exception, almost all kids lie by age four (and often!), and only get better at it as they get older.

Every time we go back on our word, or make empty threats, or tell a “little white lie” we are teaching our children that it is acceptable to make false statements if we can justify doing so. So kids learn to justify lies when trying to keep themselves out of trouble, or if they do not want to disappoint their parents. We also teach our children to lie by letting them get away with it – when kids lie about doing something wrong, most parents confront the wrongdoing and ignore the lie (over 99 percent of the time!).

One interesting experiment involves having children play a game in a lab setting, and giving them a bar of soap as a prize. Kids as young as preschool age pretend to be happy with the gift, even though they are clearly disappointed. The most embarrassing part of this study is that the parents are watching the interaction on a television screen – most are thrilled when their children are polite (when they act like they are happy with the soap), failing to recognize that they are congratulating their kids for lying. This is embarrassing to me because I am sure I would be right there with those parents, crossing my fingers that my kid acted grateful even though the gift was a crummy one.

Another way we teach kids to lie, or more specifically, to withhold the truth, is by teaching them “Don’t Tattle!” Instead of helping them work out their problems with peers, we are giving them the message that is it not only acceptable, it is preferred, to keep their mouths shut when other kids do something wrong (obviously that is not our intention, but it’s what we end up doing when we punish tattling). This is reinforced by peer pressure later on, especially if we have already planted the seeds when our kids are small. “According to one researcher’s work, parents are ten times more likely to chastise a child for tattling than they are to chide a child who lied.”

So how should we confront a lie? We should make sure our children know that not only will we not be upset with them if they tell us something we don’t want to hear, we will be very happy with them for telling the truth. This way they can learn that truth has value, instead of just learning that lying is wrong (but effective at keeping them out of trouble as long as we don’t catch them in a lie).

Other posts about NurtureShock:

Post 1: NurtureShock, by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman
Post 2: Your Brain is a Muscle
Post 3: Sleeping Makes Kids Smarter
Post 4: Race is a Tricky Topic
Post 5: Tattletails and Liars
Post 6: IQ Tests for Toddlers
Post 7: I Love My Sister
Post 8: Those Wacky Teenagers
Post 9: Learning Through Play
Post 10: Daddy, Hug Mommy Now
Post 11: I am Raising a Little Chatterbox

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By jamie, April 29, 2010 1:36 pm

When it came time to put my daughter in nursery school, one of my main requirements was that we put her somewhere with a diverse population, and we were thrilled to find a school with about 40% white students and 60% mostly black students. My daughter has blue eyes and light brown hair, and no one would guess that she is anything but white, but I want her to learn about her ethnicity, and I especially don’t want her to think that her light skin makes her superior to anyone else. But race and ethnicity are hard to talk about, and people get embarrassed – soon after Michael Jackson died, I overheard two white women at the grocery store checkout counter planning to purchase a magazine with Jackson on the cover. One woman said to the other that they should move to another checkout line because she didn’t want to insult the black woman working at that register (she was trying to be quiet, but I could hear her). I thought it was strange, that having someone buy a magazine with Michael Jackson on the cover could possibly be insulting to anyone. Yeah, race is a tricky topic (I am feeling nervous and anxious writing this post, which is unbelievably surprising to me).

This chapter is the one that made the papers as well as the cover of Newsweek when this book first came out, because it suggests that small children, even babies, can be racist. This chapters (and the article I linked to, which gives you a lot of the chapter), blew me away. I will only mention a tiny bit about the research here, because I want to share my stories, and I invite you to share yours as well: Evidently, small children notice when people look like they do, and they prefer the people who look like they do. When race is considered a taboo topic, they do not learn to be “colorblind” as many parents expect, they learn the opposite – that race is something so bad that it can’t even be mentioned.

I have spoken with so many people who say that they are “color blind” or that race does not matter. All of these people of course, are white; most people of color would never say that race/ethnicity does not matter because we know that it matters a lot. I remember shocking my husband (who, unfortunately, refers to me as a “white girl”) by telling him stories of being followed around in stores–even when shopping with my mother–by clerks who do not think Latinos can be trusted. I remember someone at church telling my mother that, because of her intelligence, she “must be Dutch” rather than Latina! And we speak English with no Spanish accent, we dress like “everyone else,” we have the same mannerisms as “everyone else” – yet, race/ethnicity matters. Maybe it makes white people uncomfortable that their race gives them privileges and benefits, so it’s easier to pretend that they are “colorblind.” I am not colorblind, and I don’t want my daughter to be either. And that’s not a racist statement, although I suspect that some white people will probably think otherwise.

Some of the current research shows that, when placed in a very diverse environment, children actually are LESS likely to have have friends of different races/ethnicities, because instead they segregate themselves by color/ethnicity. While school segregation is still morally wrong, desegregation is not an adequate solution to helping people get along with those outside of their race/ethnicity. The bottom line is, we have to talk about race. It cannot be a taboo subject – we should teach our children the words, and explain that our differences do not mean that one is better than another, just like brown eyes are not better than blue ones. Here is my own addition: If we don’t want our children loudly pointing out people’s differences in public, we should also teach them that it’s rude to point out people’s differences in public; just as we wouldn’t loudly point out who is blond or short or fat, we don’t loudly point out who is pink or brown.

Recently, my daughter saw a photograph of the Obamas, and asked me who they are. I told her their names, and had her repeat them. Then a few days later, she saw the President on television, and excitedly ran up to the screen pointing, “Look, it’s Barack Obama!” Everyone in the room cheered for her that she recognized President Obama, and she received a great deal of praise for her cleverness. A few days later, she saw a photo of a handsome, well-dressed black model in a Kohl’s sale, and again, excitedly said, “look, it’s Obama!” I was really embarrassed by this, and surprised because she sees black men at her school every day. Then came the last straw: she found a magazine that had a large close-up photograph of Tiger Woods on the cover and said, again excitedly, “it’s Obama!” We were visiting family, and she proudly showed everyone the magazine, and said “it’s Obama!” over and over again.

I didn’t know what to do at first, because she’s so little. Finally, I took her aside and showed her pictures of various black men, including President Obama. I explained to her that all of these men have one thing in common, their skin is dark (I didn’t say “black”). She smiled and correctly identified President Obama in the group. I told her that she was correct, and then went all to tell her that we all have different skin colors, and that hers is light (I didn’t say “white”), just like some of the kids she knows at school, and Obama’s is dark, just like some of the kids she knows at school. I showed her that I am a little bit darker than she is, that her eyes are blue and mine are brown, and told that we all are the same inside. I don’t know how great I did with this, but I knew I had to tell her something. I am sure we will have similar discussions like this again and again, and it’s really ridiculous to be embarrassed about it. She still gets excited when she sees the President on television or in print (which makes me so proud!), and she hasn’t incorrectly identified anyone else since.

We cannot be “colorblind” or we will teach our children, through our silence, that race is bad. We should, instead, recognize racial and ethnic differences in a positive way, try to make sure our children are involved in situations where they can positively interact with people with different skin colors than their own, and emphasize that skin color just tells us a little about people’s ancestry and does not mean anything bad.

This book is fantastic so far. I recommend you get it at the library if you don’t want to purchase it – the authors report current research in child psychology, and really the bulk of their editorializing is to share their own experiences with their children. This is a gift, really, because most parents do not have the time or resources to obtain and read every recent academic study concerning children.

Other posts about NurtureShock:

Post 1: NurtureShock, by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman
Post 2: Your Brain is a Muscle
Post 3: Sleeping Makes Kids Smarter
Post 4: Race is a Tricky Topic
Post 5: Tattletails and Liars
Post 6: IQ Tests for Toddlers
Post 7: I Love My Sister
Post 8: Those Wacky Teenagers
Post 9: Learning Through Play
Post 10: Daddy, Hug Mommy Now
Post 11: I am Raising a Little Chatterbox

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By jamie, April 28, 2010 11:35 pm

I have to add a couple of books this week, even though the week is half over.

The first one is a children’s novel, called The Girl Who Could Fly by Victoria Forester. A friend of mine is reading this for her book club, and I am reading it with her. (Hi Jennifer!)

Next up, is If You Have to Cry, Go Outside: And Other Things Your Mother Never Told You, by Kelly Cutrone and Meredith Bryan. I thought it might be fun to read this one, part memoir, part advice book about being a strong, powerful woman. And no, my mother has never told me to go outside to cry.

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By jamie,

Karl Rove, who (big surprise) has a competitive streak, had a contest with George W. Bush to see who could read the most books. They recorded the number of books, as well as the number of pages, on a card. Six months into 2008, Bush had read 91 and Rove had read 93. Now really – 91 books in six months? This number makes sense for student or a book reviewer, and might work if you are a taxi driver or a computer tech (where you can read while programs load, etc.), or if you work in a calling center and have some down time. But when you are supposed to be running a country, managing a war, etc., you might want to rethink your priorities if you are reading that many books! I have to admit that I really want to see the list – what was he reading? Did he remember anything he read? Or, maybe he was just skimming the books.

I almost had to put this book down several times last night, but I dutifully made it through chapters 8 and 9. The arrogance of these people. And if people don’t follow the “party line” they are criticized, even when the party line is wrong! Warning – political rant ahead, unavoidable: I hear people complaining about illegal immigration all the time. Latimer distills the Republican party line to the following, “Many conservatives welcome immigrants who come to this country, stand in line, and play by the rules.” This thinking might sound fair and logical, but it reflects an ignorance, willful or otherwise, of history – many of the illegal immigrants we are complaining about (let’s face it – the ones from Mexico) are following unwritten rules that have been in place for generations, and are part of the way our country is run. And that leaves out a host of other reasons why this thinking is completely wrong (globalization, colonialization, etc.).

Latimer also says, of environmental policy, “The small but merry band of conservatives it the White House–who were suspicious of climate change and the movement behind it–were opposed to any shift in our policy.” What about the science behind it? He criticizes the Council on Environmental Quality and suggests that they are not useful to Republicans. Don’t these people have children that they worry about? It is a left-leaning position (therefore a bad one) to force businesses to limit CO2 emissions? That’s willful ignorance and arrogance at its finest.

And he doesn’t like President Jimmy Carter at all. He says that he used to challenge himself to write a standby eulogy for this man who has earned a Nobel Peace prize and who is a longstanding champion of human rights, this man Latimer refers to as “a hopeless, embarrassing, disaster.”

At the end of chapter 8, Latimer is inducted into a society for speechwriters. He attends an event with people who quietly wrote some of the most memorable and meaningful words in our country’s history. He looks around and feels sorry for himself that he is a part of an administration that will not achieve greatness. “We didn’t have a boss like Kennedy or Reagan whose oratorical gifts might burn our words into history…Mediocrity was the highest level our words would likely reach.” Indeed. All that sucking up for nothing.

Other posts about Speech-less:

Post 1: Speech-less, by Matt Latimer
Post 2: I Laughed Until I Cried
Post 3: The Donald Rumsfeld is a Stand Up Guy
Post 4: I Miss President Bartlet
Post 5: Ninety-One Books in Six Months

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By jamie,

When I was in junior high, we had a teacher who used to pride herself in not sleeping more than five hours a night. She enthusiastically told all of us that it was possible to wean oneself off of too much sleep, and encouraged us to try cutting back in fifteen minute increments until we, too, were down to five hours a night. Imagine, she told us, how much more we could accomplish when we were not sleeping our lives away! She had a reputation for being perky and high strung, but now that I think about it, she was probably just sleepy. And heavily caffeinated.

This chapter presents a ton of current research about sleep deprivation in children, noting that most children sleep at least one hour less than they should. You might want to check it out in the bookstore if you aren’t going to read the entire book (although I have a feeling I am going to tell you that about other chapters as well). Basically, children need to sleep in order for their brains to function properly (adults do too, but a child’s

brain is still growing, so it’s even more important up until age 21). While they are sleeping, the things they have learned are moving into their memories, and their brains are forming connections between one piece of information and another, so that they actually know more when they wake up than they did when they went to sleep! Studies show that SAT and math scores improve when kids get more sleep. The score improvements are actually tied to every fifteen minutes of increased sleep!

And teenage attitude problems? They are probably caused by sleep deprivation, according to research, including at school districts who have shifted the start of the school day by one hour later. The same goes for obesity – kids who get more sleep are less likely to be overweight. Over all, sleep probably matters more than we know.

Our kiddo sleeps about eleven hours a night, but she hardly ever naps. Hubby says we are letting her stay up too late, which causes her to wake up late, which gets her to nursery school two hours before nap time, limiting the likelihood that she will nap. Sometimes she comes home so grumpy that we have to work very hard to keep her happy until she goes to sleep. I think we will probably try to inch her up an hour or two earlier and see if this makes a difference in napping. I want her to be happy, and I want her brain to function properly of course! I don’t know if I am ready to rethink my opinion on bedtimes, but I just might.

Other posts about NurtureShock:

Post 1: NurtureShock, by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman
Post 2: Your Brain is a Muscle
Post 3: Sleeping Makes Kids Smarter
Post 4: Race is a Tricky Topic
Post 5: Tattletails and Liars
Post 6: IQ Tests for Toddlers
Post 7: I Love My Sister
Post 8: Those Wacky Teenagers
Post 9: Learning Through Play
Post 10: Daddy, Hug Mommy Now
Post 11: I am Raising a Little Chatterbox