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By jamie, October 29, 2010 12:19 pm

When I was a kid, I used to love playing with “gadgets.” Also, if I got a toy that required assembly, I would try to figure out what I could without looking at the instructions. Jigsaw puzzles – it’s cheating to look at the picture on the box! Computer programs or any computerized device – these were my favorite – I would explore everything I could to see what I could do. Fast forward to today – I have thought it must be a function of getting older, but now it takes me forever to figure things out. I am anxious to get a book on the latest version of Photoshop so I can maximize my effectiveness using it. I actually broke down and read a book “For Dummies” to figure out how to put up this blog – I would like to learn how to do more, but one day I attempted to edit the CSS file all by myself and the ENTIRE BLOG DISAPPEARED, so now I’m a little gun shy. Our nice new camera? I can point and shoot and that’s about it, even though I had actively lobbied for a camera that “does more stuff.” This one does, but I have to download the book to figure out how to use the extra features. My new cell phone? Forget it. I had to be shown how to answer the thing – the first couple of days I had to wait until the call went to voice mail and then call them back (that was particularly embarrassing). I finally got the data feature and I waited until we saw our nieces to attempt using it – it was tricky to figure out.

So, I have become “that grownup” the one who needs the kids to show her how to work the computer. I read Chapters 11 and 12 of Wimps today, and it specifically talks about the divide between kids and adults with regard to technology. Marano suggests that adults tend to fear technology, because it is new enough for us that we have to scramble to keep up with what is new while, for our children, it is “simply the water they swim in.” I’m not sure – I think I am probably of an in-between generation, because I had a computer when I was a kid, and I got a cell phone pretty early (not while in middle school, but early). Part of me is willing to believe this though, because I’m not sure I will appreciate any alternative explanation – I had thought it was because I don’t have as much free time to explore and figure things out, but I have spent so many hours trying to figure out these style sheets for this and my other blog that now I’m not so sure.

Anyway, the book gives this parental fear of technology as one reason why so many parents give their children whatever they want – some parents might subconsciously fear our children because they have the upper hand with regard to the tools of today. I guess it goes something like this – because they will ultimately “rule us” since their brains are developing with better capability to understand what is to us “new” and to them “ubiquitous,” we cede the power to them when they are still small.

This section also takes a look at parents who are taking increasingly young children to the psychiatrist, demanding meds for conditions such as “bipolar.” The symptoms? Tantrums or other willful behavior. Here is one particularly disturbing quote:

“The temper tantrums of belligerent children are increasingly being characterized as psychiatric illness.” [psychiatrist Elizabeth Roberts] singles out bipolar disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and Asperger’s syndrome as the diagnoses particularly favored today “to explain away the results of poor parenting practices.” It’s simply easier to tell parents their child has a brain-based disorder than to suggest their parenting skills need an overhaul.

I am always surprised at how casually people think of pharmaceuticals today, particularly with children, for whom we cannot possibly know the long-term effects. It almost makes me fearful in the other direction – I HATE to give Baby Girl medicine because I don’t want to do the wrong thing.

On a more positive note, some kids are growing up in a non-pressure atmosphere at a special school where the kids just play if they want to, where learning is entirely up to each child. Here is their website: Sudbury Valley School. I just spent over an hour looking at the photos and reading how the school works – my gut level reaction is that it’s ridiculous to put your children in this type of environment – if you have the money for this school, why not find one with an actual curriculum? After thinking about it a bit, the idea might be growing on me – at least these kids will grow up knowing how to be self-motivated, with leadership and social skills that can be well-utilized in whatever they decide to do next. (I won’t address my standard problems with access and socioeconomic status except to say that if it’s a school only for rich kids, it’s not for my kids, even if I win the lottery tomorrow – unlikely because I don’t play, of course).

Other posts about A Nation of Wimps:

Post 1: A Nation of Wimps, by Hara Estroff Marano
Post 2: Bathing Suits and Bogeymen
Post 3: My Favorite Subject is Recess
Post 4: Beer Bongs and Fragile Children
Post 5: Cell Phones Can Cause Depression?
Post 6: Teach Mommy How to Answer the Phone, Baby Girl

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By jamie, October 26, 2010 4:11 pm

I attended a parochial school as a child, and one day in class my teacher basically made fun of my religion in front of all the students (she knew that I was not a member of her church, but she did not know my denomination). She didn’t know what she was talking about, and she said some things that were untrue and unfair, and then she laughed about it and so did the other kids. I was horrified and devastated, but I mustered up the courage to say “that’s my religion you are talking about.” This earned me a full day of exile (kids can be so mean), but I survived it and made it home to tell my parents what had happened.

My mom responded the way she generally did with things like that – she taught me how to handle it. She helped me formulate what to say, she practiced with me how to say it, and then she assigned me to ask the teacher for a few minutes to talk about what had occurred during religion class. I hated it when my mother did this, because really I wanted her to “fix it,” but she insisted that I had to do this. So I did – I explained to my teacher why her statements were inaccurate and why they were unfair. Later that day, she apologized to me in front of the class, explained a little to them too, and I had “friends” again. There were a few more of these assignments from my mom throughout elementary school, and eventually I learned to speak up for myself without first running it by my parents.

I read chapters 9 and 10 today – we made it to the science chapters, which I love. She consolidates the negative effects of doing everything for our children (including choosing their classes and accompanying them to job interviews). We basically hinder their growth and set them up for problems with anxiety and depression. Also, working hard to achieve goals (instead of having things handed to us) causes endorphin production, which brings a feeling of well-being; the action makes us feel happier than receiving the reward

She talks a lot about cell phones: constant (cell phone facilitated) contact hinders intellectual discussion in college, makes people less interested in friendships,and keeps them tethered to their parents, which hinders them from reaching adulthood at the pace previous generations did. They can also contribute to depression – many reasons are given for this, including the brain chemistry explanations, but they include the fact that, with easy phone access there is no need to plan ahead, and it lets people think they are connected, but without the feeling of true connection (too easy to pick up when bored).

Some of today’s reading bothered me, but that is because I am more inclined toward interdependence than independence (and of course I see the value in both). This chapter pushes too hard in the direction of strict independence for my tastes – I think it’s NICE for adult children to call their parents every day, and to want their parents’ opinions about important matters. At the same time, I really think that the author, as well as the researchers quoted in this section are really talking to parents who create “dependence” – they want to control their children and their children to through adolescence and reach adulthood relying on this. “Yet one more thing that maintaining a tight parental bond does is impede young people in the development of close emotional bonds to others, bonds that should be forming in young adulthood and that become the basis of romantic partnerships.”

Some experts thing that a main reason for “hooking up,” or having casual sexual relations with people they don’t plan to see again, is one way today’s teens and young adults get around the “tight parental bond.” This way they can prolong the time when they will have to make decision about marriage and starting their own families, focusing their emotional bonds within their parental relationship instead of transferring it to their dating/sexual partners. The book asserts that many young people today “hang out” in groups instead of dating, probably for the same reason. I wonder how this will factor into the divorce rate among the generation in question.
One surprising bit of research – on a 42 point “scale of infantilization, which measures “specific ways that the behavior of teens is restricted,” U.S. teens reported experiencing over 26 different things (such as parents requiring them to take certain courses or routinely searching their rooms without permission). “American adolescents had far higher scores–indicating far more restrictions–than U.S. marines and incarcerated felons.” I want to keep my children safe, but I also hope I will trust them to make wise decisions when they are teenagers – I hope I promote interdependence, rather than making them feel like I should make all of their choices for them.

Remember when we learned that we can grow new cells in our brains? According to Marano, the chemical that facilitates this (brain-derived neurotrophic factor, or BDNF) is “missing in the brain cells of depressed or anxious people. They are frozen in ruts of thought and behavior; they have lost flexibility of response.” So does this mean that depressed or anxious people cannot learn or maintain what they learn as well as others? I need to make friends with a neuroscientist. Exercise and other challenges stimulate BDNF production, so Marano and the experts she features agree that we should make sure our children are challenged, and that they regularly work hard instead of just giving them things to make them happy.

Other posts about A Nation of Wimps:

Post 1: A Nation of Wimps, by Hara Estroff Marano
Post 2: Bathing Suits and Bogeymen
Post 3: My Favorite Subject is Recess
Post 4: Beer Bongs and Fragile Children
Post 5: Cell Phones Can Cause Depression?
Post 6: Teach Mommy How to Answer the Phone, Baby Girl

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By jamie, October 24, 2010 10:25 pm

Drinking is a major problem on college campuses. I know some people who say that the best way to combat it is to lower the legal drinking age to 18 – that way kids will be exposed to it sooner, and they won’t go crazy with alcohol consumption once they move out of their parents’ watchful eyes and into dorms with other young, repressed people. Some even say that the best way to inoculate kids from college binge drinking is to let them experiment with alcohol at home, while they are teenagers, with parental permission and supervision. Anecdotal evidence is not generalizable, but I know several people who have parents who went this route – one is now a responsible drinker, but occasionally drove while intoxicated and was once arrested for DUI before getting married and becoming a parent; another was twice hospitalized for binge drinking while in college (before being expelled altogether).

I have been of two minds on the subject. On the one hand, I think that a lot of people drink too much and don’t consider it a problem. At the same time, it’s hard to argue with the logic that says it’s better for your teen to sleep it off on your couch than to have him lie about his experimentation with alcohol by indulging somewhere he is unlikely to be caught but very likely to get into trouble as a result (make the teen a girl, and now I’m thinking that she is at an increased risk of sexual assault if she drinks anywhere but at home).

Here is a quote that has taken me off of the fence:

The Duke study suggests that heavy drinking by students is not a pastime to wink at. Drinking prior to full brain maturation damages neurocognitive functioning in many ways–it impairs decision making in the executive center of the brain, boosting preference for short-term rewards and desensitizing people to long-term losses. But the most troublesome outcome of all may be that it especially undermines the structures that allow people to impose voluntary control over drinking in the future. Sure, it impairs learning and memory–and the adolescent brain is more sensitive to memory impairment than is the adult brain–but is also increases the risk of later alcoholism by close to 50 percent.

Instead of telling our kids to “just say no” we have to tell them why they should say no. This could be tricky: What do you say to a little kid who wants to taste beer because the grownups drink it? Well, beer stinks, so that might be a temporary deterrent, but what about those fruity drinks that look like dessert and taste like it too? I think we should tell them the facts – it is dangerous for growing brains. We now know that the brain grows until around age 25, so they should know this too. I also think that we should not casually drink in front of kids.

Marano quotes psychologist Bernardo Caraducci, who studies shyness and finds that alcohol is attractive to today’s students who have not learned vital social skills: “[Alcohol] provides an instant identity; it lets people know that you are willing to belong.” I remember the first “grownup” conference I went to. They served wine at dinner, and it was interesting to be the only one who did not imbibe – everyone was stiff at first, and then they got better at socializing once they had a few swallows. They also talked louder. I’m a bit of a wallflower – I was nervous and shy, and I wondered if it would be easier if I had some wine too, but I drank my water and stared at my plate and got through dinner.

At the risk of sounding pious and obnoxious, I will say that now when I attend parties hosted by non-family members, I am always surprised at the pressure people put on me to drink alcohol. It’s strange – if there is no booze at a function, no one strong arms you into drinking a soda. But if you are the lone teetotaler (it’s easier in a mixed group of drinkers and non-drinkers), people get uncomfortable – you can’t even use the “designated driver” excuse because then they promise you coffee and tell you that you have plenty of time to sober up and that one drink won’t hurt. I can’t imagine what it must be like for a recovering alcoholic – they must have to avoid all functions where alcohol is served. It must be so hard for shy teenagers who go away to school.

I read chapters 7-8, and there is so much besides alcohol in these chapters, particularly about the difficulties today’s college students, including the mental disabilities they struggle with (mainly anxiety and depression) and the dangerous self-help techniques they use to cope (such as self mutilation and eating disorders).

Here a just a few highlights:

If infants receive a great deal of tactile stimulation from their parents (hugging, holding, cuddling, etc.) this actually turns on genes in their DNA that enables them to better handle stress. Did you know that prolonged stress can actually impede learning and memory? The affection children receive in their early days can actually set them up to better manage stressful situations for their entire lives. Reading this reinforced my belief that “cry it out” is a bad idea.

It is really important to let children do things on their own, even if it takes longer this way. The “sense of mastery” they feel when they have accomplished something all on their own lowers depression, improves well-being, makes them believe that they can solve problems on their own in the future. I have to work on this one again – my kiddo has been able to dress herself for months, but when we were potty training I started stepping in to help her so she wouldn’t make a puddle. Now she sometimes doesn’t even try, because she knows I am faster – she’ll say “it’s too tricky Mommy, you do it!” She spills her yogurt when she feeds herself, so lately she hands one of us the spoon and says, “feed me.”

The belief that children are fragile makes fragile children – they should be able to handle anger, fear, anxiety, etc., and we should not try to shield them from every one of life’s imperfections. We communicate our anxiety to our children – if we act like they need constant care and supervision, they will think that something is wrong with them. I had to struggle with this one during the ISR lessons – Baby Girl did a lot of screaming and sputtering at first. Her swim teacher had to instruct me to smile and cheer if I wanted to say sitting at the pool, because looking like I was ready to burst into tears was not doing my daughter any favors.

The protectionism that takes all the risk of life for kids rests on the assumption that children are easily bruised. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The fact is that too much protectionism creates frailty. Not only do children fail to create coping skills for life’s vicissitudes, and fall apart when they hit a speed bump, but kids come to think that something must really be wrong with them if they need so much protection. They are deprived of real opportunities for learning about themselves and for growth.

Other posts about A Nation of Wimps:

Post 1: A Nation of Wimps, by Hara Estroff Marano
Post 2: Bathing Suits and Bogeymen
Post 3: My Favorite Subject is Recess
Post 4: Beer Bongs and Fragile Children
Post 5: Cell Phones Can Cause Depression?
Post 6: Teach Mommy How to Answer the Phone, Baby Girl

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By jamie, October 22, 2010 9:30 pm

Baby Girl got into trouble at school this week. Evidently, she refused to stop digging in the dirt when asked to. There was dirt in her hair; it was plastered to her face, and all over her arms and legs. When I got there to pick her up, there she was, seated next to her teacher (not really in “time out”, but close enough I’d say), looking little and defiant. And filthy.

My reading for today gives enough evidence about play – including evidence that we are causing children to miss out on leadership skills that previous generations developed in the playground. I really like this author’s turn of phrase – I find myself reading some passages out loud, and putting sticky notes on almost every page to quote something for you. I’m not in full agreement on everything, but the writing style is lovely.

Here’s one of my favorites from chapters 5 and 6, which is what I read today:

By its very ambiguous nature, [play] gives brains a workout. It is cognitively challenging. It requires attention, and so it sharpens senses. it both demands and inspires mental dexterity and flexibility. It thrives on complexity, uncertainty, and possibility. That makes play just about the perfect preparation for life in the twenty-first century.

So, take your kids to outside today and let them run around. Run around with them too, but let them guide the fun so they can work on their leadership skills and develop their creativity. And don’t take any computerized learning toys with you because they actually have a negative effect on learning – if there are really specific rules for playing with the toy, there is less room for pretending and being creative.

Another important tip – try not to stifle their exploration, even if our natural inclination is to put bumpers around our children to keep them from getting dirty or a little dinged up. When I was a child I broke my arm rollerskating in the kitchen (right after my mom said “TAKE THOSE ROLLER SKATES OFF RIGHT NOW BEFORE YOU FALL AND BREAK YOUR ARM!” or something like that). Of course they should use helmets with their bikes, but some parents – I’m looking at myself in the mirror right now too – take safety overboard. When GB roughhouses with Baby Girl, I sometimes have to leave the room because he lets her climb onto the top bunk bed all by herself and do all sorts of other dangerous shenanigans. As for my mom, today she is far less restrictive with her grand kids than she used to be with us – she lets them jump on the furniture and do all sorts of other dangerous shenanigans. She says beds make the best trampolines and it’s great to pretend that the back of the couch is an old-fashioned fence (to use as a make-shift balance beam – terrifying).

Marano discusses ADHD, specifically that play seems to help alleviate symptoms – when parents make sure their kids get vigorous, active playtime every day, their kids tend to get better. Evidently kids with ADHD can actually concentrate on tasks that they find interesting, and many have excellent attention spans – being active helps them with this. Big Pharma wouldn’t want this to get out – they sell a lot of medication to kids diagnosed with ADHD, and I think they sell it for adult usage too because the drugs make everyone calmer and more focused. Could ADHD be a social disorder, a label for kids who just have a strong urge to play or that are being stifled by parents and teachers (especially boys, who are more likely than girls to get this diagnosis)?

You know what else? PE class doesn’t cut it. Peer play predicts academic success up to 40 times better than standardized tests – not TEACHER play, PEER play. This makes sense to me because, when an adult guides the activity, kids end up having to fall in line instead of being able to invent new games or imagine exciting ways to entertain themselves. They also have an ever-present referee too, so the don’t have to develop social problem-solving skills. Unfortunately, I think recess is pretty much history in our state, and many others. Gotta teach to those tests, you know.

One more tidbit: fidgeting can enhance memory and learning, and gesturing helps kids process information.

There is so much more to say, but I can’t just paraphrase the entire book. I’ll close this post with another eloquent quote:

Learning, then, hinges on the surprise of getting things wrong. Failure, after all, is just information, a signal to try something else, another chance to learn. But failure is information–and not a fixed and frozen outcome or catastrophe–only if children are allowed to see themselves as problem solvers, little scientists learning by trial and error, and not as trophies of talent or perfection who need to look smart and always produce the right answer.

Other posts about A Nation of Wimps:

Post 1: A Nation of Wimps, by Hara Estroff Marano
Post 2: Bathing Suits and Bogeymen
Post 3: My Favorite Subject is Recess
Post 4: Beer Bongs and Fragile Children
Post 5: Cell Phones Can Cause Depression?
Post 6: Teach Mommy How to Answer the Phone, Baby Girl

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By jamie, October 20, 2010 6:18 pm

My daughter loves the free “wipies” that they have at store entrances now. For her, it’s like a wonderful party favor put there to enhance the fun of shopping. She calls them “back-ewial wipies,” which might be somewhat accurate in her case–after she polishes every reachable inch of shopping cart, she generally wants to wash her face. With her filthy disgusting cart scrubber party favor. Sometimes she even licks the germ-laden wipe. For me it is a competition – I need to concentrate on my shopping list while constantly monitoring my kiddo so I can confiscate the wipe before she touches it to her face. (In case you are wondering – I AM concerned about the chemicals in the wipes, but she already expects them, and they really help her behave in the store – I need to remember to put some chemical-free wipes in my purse so she can use those instead.)

I read Chapters 3 and 4 of Wimps. Marano criticizes parents for using shopping cart liners and wipes, agreeing with Skenazy that it is not possible to avoid all germs. She says that we should let our kids get some germ contamination in order to help them build their immune systems. Baby Girl is in preschool, so she is getting plenty of contamination without licking a germed-up wipe (alright, and sometimes she also licks the shopping cart before she cleans it – I think she likes to mortify her mother). I think we should be careful to avoid germs when possible, especially since some bacteria is difficult to kill. I know that antibacterial soaps are a problem, and we use regular hand soap now. The trouble is, unless we all stop using it, I think sometimes we need to use it.

So far one of the main messages of the book is that some people who aim for perfection in parenting do not give their kids space to make decisions, make mistakes, and develop into the adults they will be. (These are the parents who accompany their children on job interviews, I guess.) I sometimes feel as though there is a fine line between lazy and excellent parenting: you want to let kids do things themselves, but you also can’t be TOO casual. When Baby Girl takes herself to the potty all by herself (when I’m on the computer or cooking or something), I sometimes feel like I have crossed the line into lazy. On the other hand, when I actually try to steer her into letting me choose her wardrobe or standing behind her when she brushes her teeth (so she won’t fall off of her step stool and hurt herself), I can see that I am capable of being one of “those parents.”

There was a lot in these two chapters. I can’t share all of it, but here are a few of my favorites, starting with a surprising passage:

A vice president of a major investment group…confided that she now makes a point not to hire any but the children of first-generation immigrants. Why? I asked. Because, she said, she has found that the kids of immigrant parents are resourceful, hardworking, and good at figuring things out and at problem solving. The “fancy kids,” she said, are not persevering, not willing to work hard, not clever at problem solving, not resourceful. The kids she hires who did well in school but whose parents did not speak English all that well had to figure out things for themselves; they couldn’t rely on their parents. Their “disadvantage” wound up making them stronger.”

Marano shares some of the new neuro-scientific research on infants, particularly about how babies learn more from just interacting with their closest caregivers and a lot less from watching DVDs: “attachment relationships of the infant shape the developing brain.” It doesn’t matter how smart you are – what counts the most is that you spend time bonding with your children and letting them learn about how to be a human being by watching you. Neat, huh?

She also talks about how parents are so afraid of kidnappings and pedophiles and all of the bogeymen we fear today. Some of this sounds a lot like Skenazy, but she takes it further and scolds parents for doing things that actually hurt children:

If parents were serious about attacking risks, as opposed to projecting their own fears and uncertainties, they might focus on the important events that go on every day in America’s households that are of far more immediate harm to children than the possibility of kidnapping based on the report of an abduction in Colorado. If we are serious about protecting the kids from risks, we would attend to the larger and more present dangers.

She talks about how we are sexualizing our children (specifically our daughters) by allowing them to dress in grown up clothing and letting them play with provocatively dressed dolls. This was quite a contrast from her previous talk of parents trying keep their children young forever, but I can see her point, even if it did seem oddly placed. I buy my girl clothing one size up so that it won’t be too tight on her. Jeans, especially, fit so snugly that it makes me mad. The boy’s clothing is not this way – if she wears jeans made for toddler boys (so far thanks to her cousin who has outgrown them, but I might start shopping that department for her) the same size fits comfy and loose. They even sell low-rise underwear for little girls so that they can fit properly under their low-rise pants. And bathing suits – some teenage girls wear almost nothing, and their parents don’t seem to mind. I have even seen mothers and daughters together in the grocery store both wearing a string bikini top and shorty shorts. I am not the fear-mongering type, and I am not trying to push religion on anyone, but I think it’s particularly inappropriate for little girls (pre-teens and young teens) to dress this way in public.

Marano makes the point that, instead of worrying over pedophile lists on the Internet, we should encourage our daughters not to dress too sexy – this is not blaming the potential victim – this is just better use of our fearful energy. I think that, when young teens dress too provocatively, particularly when by doing so they appear to be much older than they are, they run the risk of attracting someone, even if it’s a young man not too much older than they are, someone who wouldn’t look twice at an appropriately dressed child; this might not lead to trouble, but it might.

Other posts about A Nation of Wimps:

Post 1: A Nation of Wimps, by Hara Estroff Marano
Post 2: Bathing Suits and Bogeymen
Post 3: My Favorite Subject is Recess
Post 4: Beer Bongs and Fragile Children
Post 5: Cell Phones Can Cause Depression?
Post 6: Teach Mommy How to Answer the Phone, Baby Girl