Farhad Manjoo, a Slate technology writer, tells how to make your online passwords more secure, as holiday shopping season begins. (Slate.com)
A London newspaper says that today's lazy and "cosseted" children need to be assigned more chores. (Daily Mail)
Is our generation cosseting our children by over-helping with their homework? Radical Parenting says yes. (Radical Parenting)
Totally Her has found five places to listen to Christmas music online for free. Yes, I wrote Christmas. (Totally Her)
It's cold and flu season, in case you haven't heard. The good folks at Lifehacker compiled the Top 10 Homemade Remedies for What Ails You. (Lifehacker.com)
When word of tragedy spreads, such as the news that came out Monday about the deaths of five young people from Amherst -- four perished in a car crash and one died from illness -- it's something we want to talk about. At the water cooler (if those exist anymore), the coffee stand or the lunch table, we all say, "Did you hear? ... One of those girls went to grade school with my niece ... Didn't your neighbor, the math teacher, have him in class a couple of years ago? ... "
And our new gathering spots are online. Today's story on Buffalonews.com about the car crash has more than 65 comments from readers. The stories about both tragedies were much commented upon on this site and on the sites of Western New York's TV stations.
Some of the comments are respectful, some even informative. Others, not so much.
When word first came out about the death of 15-year-old Chelsea Oliver from a then-unspecified disease, some comment writers proclaimed that she died from swine flu. Another commenter responded that he was Oliver's father and that his daughter certainly did NOT die from swine flu. (Today's news story says that Oliver had breathing problems that developed into pneumonia and sepsis, and a connection to swine flu has not been ruled out.)
You know what bothers me the most about the opinions and speculation from those comment writers? The fact that they are anonymous. Anyone writing under a pseudonym can post anything they want in a forum for comments, and as long as they don't use profanity or otherwise violate the posting guidelines, they're free to say anything, with no accountability.
I know that in theory this is free speech and in the marketplace of ideas the truth should somehow rise above the din and the nonsense.
But I contrast this to public conversations that take place in forums such as Facebook, where one's identity is known. I can't post a comment on a Facebook page with a made-up identity such as "HeSaid2009," I can only post one as Greg Connors.
I noticed the same thing a few weeks back, when we were having a national conversation about health care reform. (This was somewhere between our national conversations about David Letterman and John and Kate Plus Eight.) A friend of mine started several discussions on Facebook about health care reform, and the debate was spirited -- occasionally heated -- between friends from each side of the political aisle.
I tend to avoid mentioning politics much on Facebook myself because I don't want to turn my wall into "Crossfire." I have good friends who are liberal and good friends who are conservative, and I see no need to provoke them into verbal sniping.
But you know what? Those debates on my friends' walls about health care stayed respectful because they were commenting under their real names.
The great blogger Seth Godin has written on this topic:
"Virus writers are always anonymous. Vicious political lies (with faked photoshop photos of political leaders, or false innuendo about personal lives) are always anonymous as well. Spam is anonymous. eBay fraudsters are anonymous too. It seems as though virtually all of the problems of the Net stem from this one flaw, and its one I’ve riffed on before. If we can eliminate anonymity online, we create a far more civil place."
There are Facebook pages dedicated to memorializing the victims of the Clarence car crash and to Chelsea Oliver. If I were one of the parents of any of those children, I probably could not bear to look at those pages for several months. But I would eventually get to them, and when I did I would be glad for the fact that anyone leaving a note would have the guts to attach their real name to it.
Byron Jenkins is a soccer dad from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, who is suffering from what could be called Empty Minivan Syndrome. The youngest of his three children graduated from high school last June. Now, Jenkins doesn't know what to do with all his free time.
Jenkins, in an essay in Toronto's Globe and Mail, says that for eight years, he was "out there on canoe trips, for football games, badminton tournaments, variety nights, school dances, band camp, jazz concerts, swimming training, school tours, parent-teacher meetings, Remembrance Day services and Christmas concerts."
Now that it's all over, he is going through severe withdrawal.
"I should be happy with all the free time I have," he writes. "I could travel, write a book, get a real social life. But I was hooked."
Jenkins' piece is light in tone and it no doubt touches a chord in all of us. I know that the empty nest years will hit me with the force of an NFL linebacker. But there is also a cautionary tale here. Did Mr. Jenkins lose himself a little too much in his fatherly duties? Is spending every weekend driving our children to swim meets, music camps, etc., etc., really for their benefit, or for ours?
Jenkins writes that "Being a high-school parent was an escape valve for me. Watching a raucous basketball game or a lively musical was a welcome diversion after a 9-to-5 day in my middle-aged work world."
It's great, for the most part, that today's parents make the time to
support their kids' activities so much. But we'd be well-advised not to
completely define ourselves by that role.
Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman (above) are known for their fresh thinking about parenting. Their books and articles have been called eye-opening, alarming and full of insights. Their latest book is "NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children."
The book contains some fascinating insights into why kids aren't getting enough sleep; why they aren't learning to cope with failure, and the price they are paying from getting too little sleep, among many other topics.
Parent Company did a Q&A with the authors via e-mail.
Q. The chapter on the inverse power of praise attracted a good bit of media buzz after it was adapted to an article in New York magazine. Since the publication of “NurtureShock,” is there one particular chapter that has stood out for attracting the most attention?
Po Bronson: People are really just starting to be able to dive into the book, so I
think the jury is still out in terms of what people are responding to.
However, the chapter "Why White Parents Don't Talk About Race," was
recently excerpted as a Newsweek cover story – so there's been a
tremendous interest in that issue. Particularly since the publication
of our book has coincided with discussions about race and the current
political climate.
Our book is apolitical – the lessons apply regardless of political
philosophy – but columnists from Rush Limbaugh to the Washington Post
have been looking to see if our piece can help explain what's going on.
We think it does actually. We think that reticence to talk about race
to children teaches kids from a very early age that race is an
explosive topic – so it isn't surprising to us that people explode when
they talk about it.
Q. I particularly enjoyed the chapter about sleep, “The Lost Hour.” It resonated strongly with me due to the ongoing battles I’ve had with our three kids over the years, trying to make them go to bed at reasonable hours. There are some startling examples of the effects of modest sleep deficits on children’s performances in school and on their general well-being. I wonder how many parents will actually heed the call to ensure their children get enough sleep.
Ashley Merryman: For those who haven't yet read the book – in it, we explain how every hour of lost sleep has an enormous impact on a child's school success, her mood, and physical well-being. Even 15 minutes of sleep loss can have a quantifiable effect: "A" students get 15 minutes more of sleep than "B" students, and so on.
Parents have been very responsive to this data: that's another chapter that we frequently hear described as a favorite.
The science in it is incredibly solid – but I think its power is that it just rings so true to so many people's experiences. Adults already know how hard it is to get by on sleep, and parents see their kids are exhausted. It's just that the science is now able to really quantify the effects of sleep loss in a way that was never done before.
Q. Another aspect of “The Lost Hour” that I find very interesting is the lack of correlation between hours spent watching television and childhood obesity. Did you find this surprising when you examined the research? I would imagine you could write a whole book that explores the relationship of television and childhood development.
Po Bronson: Certainly, there is a ton that can be written about television and child development, but in many ways, the research almost always boils down to the same point: turn off the TV. That's not a surprising finding, and it's not necessarily a helpful suggestion, either. Because we live in such a media-saturated society.
It was more interesting for us to look at larger questions – universal themes of childhood – and, along the way, look for research on how media affected these issues.
As in the case of sleep. University of Texas professor Elizabeth Vandewater studied time use data of 1,270 children, concluding that there was no relationship between kids' media use and their body weight. Overweight kids spend a lot of time in front of the television, but thin kids do, too. Then, Vandewater looked further, finding a relationship between kids' sleep duration and their weight.
We were stunned – this was just so contrary to what we'd heard. Then we looked into it and found that scientists looking at sleep from the metabolic perspective were coming to the same conclusion: shortened sleep increases the likelihood that a kid will be obese by as much as 300 percent.
Q. The chapter on “Why Kids Lie” is also very relevant to most parents. Is there a takeaway from that chapter on a strategy for the parents of young children in dealing with lying.
Ashley Merryman: First, parents need to recognize their own complicity in their kids' lying: kids don't understand about the kind intent of a white lie ("Those new jeans make you look thin.") From the kids' point of view, it's just that lies are usually bad – except when they aren't. Which is understandably confusing.
As for kids' own lies, we have to understand that kids are usually telling us what they think we want to hear. And if they say a lie that makes us happy, then they will avoid punishment.
So the old approach of threatening kids with punishment for lying doesn't get kids to come clean. Instead, it just encourages them to be better liars – so that they won't get caught.
The more effective approach is to tell a kid, "I will be really happy if you tell me the truth." It may sound corny, but it's amazingly effective.
Po. when you and Ashley were researching this book, I am wondering if you saw it as something like a manual for raising children (echoes of Doctor Spock), or something closer to a Malcolm Gladwell project, an accessible foray into a fascinating aspect of science?
Po Bronson: Yes, we saw it as the Freakonomics of kids – not remotely a manual.
Q. Is there a message for so-called Helicopter Parents that emerges from NurtureShock? Do today’s very-involved parents need to dial things back a bit, or just channel their energies a little differently?
Ashley Merryman: The science says the Helicopter parents are destroying children’s intrinsic motivation. These kids are easily bored, when they have a little free time, because their parents schedule so much for them that they don’t know what to do with free time.
But helicopter parents aren’t our major concern. Most parents are simply well-involved, not overinvolved.
We're more concerned with the bubble-wrapped kids. The bubble-wrapped kid is the kid constantly told he's brilliant, talented and special. The kid is so well-protected that he's never allowed to make a mistake – let alone encounter real failure. Instead, he gets an award or praise for anything he does, even if it isn't award-worthy. And if he does encounter difficulty, he's told to forget such a thing ever happened: just focus on his future-success.
If a project is too hard, he's told to drop it, or else professionals (parents, teachers, tutors, etc.) are called in to fix the child's errors.
But that all means that any time the bubble-wrap kid tries doing something, that plastic coating of perfection starts popping. This kid told he is destined to work wonders starts to feel as though he can't live up to his own hype. And over time, the bubble-wrapped kid becomes afraid to move. Because he's terrified. He just can't bear any more of these little explosions of his self-image.
Kids need to be able to learn on their own. They need to know that they can make a mistake, and the world won't come to an end. Parents who can help a kid when he's in a jam, without depriving him of that growth.
Q. Po, did writing this book cause you to change anything in your approach to raising your own children? I’m sure it caused you to assess many things you do as a father, but is there any one in particular that stands out?
Po Bronson: Our daughter Thia is now 5, and Luke is 8. Yes, the science has affected how I praise Luke, how I handle moments where he’s tempted to lie, how openly we talk about race and ethnic history, and how I approach the development of his cognitive facilities. Overall, I’d say I’m just a lot more honest with him and less manipulative. But far more of the science has simply helped me understand him and provided me insight into what he’s going through; I see him better. That’s the main impact.
All previous attempts and systems to keep our family organized have failed. So now we've looked at cloud computing from both sides now, from up and down, and still somehow have decided to let Google rule our lives.
Our family schedule is now fully integrated on Google calendar, and it's handy, I must say, to quote Ed Grimley.
Our school prompted this move to cloud computing by publishing all events via Google Calendar, and now they magically appear on our schedule. Then Greg loaded in the Bills calendar and U.S. holidays, and I threw in Canadian holidays, too. Don't want to drive to Ikea again only to find stores closed for some random provincial holiday like we did earlier this year.
So here's the concept. You create a Google account, give everyone in the family the login and password, and tell them to put any and all games, parties, events, meetings, dinners, doctor's appointments on Google calendar. Our plan is to have a family meeting every Sunday to go over it. Anything not put on the calendar is not recognized as an officially sanctioned event by parents.
This Sunday was family meeting No. 1, which revealed we had a conflict or two and we sorted it out civilly. Since kids love computers, they are much more reliable about entering events on Google than on our lame paper calendar. So far so good.
There are all kinds of calendars you can import. Since I am in my honeymoon planning phase, I am over-adopting this technology and have just added rather useless applications such as Phases of the Moon and Star Dates to our calendar. Not sure my life will be improved by knowing whether it's Waxing or Waning Gibbous time, but what the heck.
I hope this cloud has a silver lining for this family.
We are the last people I know of with kids in the house who don’t own a gaming system. No Wii, Xbox, PlayStation 1, 2, or 3. Which makes our house a not-so-desirable destination.
If we brought home a system and didn’t put restrictions on its use, at least one of our children would be permanently affixed to the controls. It’s not that we are anti-gaming, we just don’t have the bandwidth to add another device to our house that needs constant rationing and monitoring. And last time I looked, Madden 2010 wasn’t part of any core curriculum or scholarship fund.
So I took a straw poll at a recent dinner party with friends who had boys, all of whom had gaming sytems of one sort or another. I asked the advice of these experts: “Knowing what you know now after buying a Wii, Xbox, or whatever, would you do it again?” Unilateral response – “No! Hold out as long as you can!”
One father is even planning on buying a strongbox to lock the PlayStation controls in because the daily struggle of limiting game-time has become too much.
At our recent annual physical, our doctor gave us some wise advice: the 5-2-1 rule: eat 5 fruits and vegetables a day, spend no more than a total of 2 hours a day on screens (TVs, computers, games, phone texting, combined), and engage in 1 hour of daily physical activity. Sounds sensible … we are probably at 1-2-.5 right now, but at least we have a goal!
Since the 2 hours in this house is already used up on computers, I’m not sure what rationing system we would have to devise to squeeze in gaming. So for now, a gaming system is not in the cards. If the kids want to play a game, they can grab a badminton racket or actual cards, for that matter.
Have any of our readers had good or bad experiences with having these gaming systems in the house?
Every parenting blog in the land is mentioning President Obama's speech that's being shown in many schools today. Turns out it's about working hard, being responsible, etc. I'll leave it to the conspiracy theorists to decode the subliminal socialist messages. (Just kidding, folks.)
With that out of the way, let's move on to a Washington Post article about parents using text messaging to nag their kids.
One parent in the article mentioned that kids seem more receptive to a text from Mom or Dad than they do to live, in-person nagging. Texting reduces the eye-rolling factor, the theory goes.
While it certainly is tempting to depersonalize this parental chore, I think the article brings up a larger issue: How much should parents be micromanaging their kids' lives?
Whether you choose texting, e-mailing, IMing, Facebooking, Twittering, or even real-time conversation, is it your job to remind John and Jane to bring their lunch to school, bring their homework home, arrive home in time for dinner, let you know their whereabouts, etc., etc?
In our house we had a discussion about alarm clocks last night. As in, a 10- and 12-year-old should be able to use said device to wake themselves up in time for school. Mom and Dad are not running a hotel with daily wakeup calls. We also don't make their beds, turns down their beds and leave a mint on the pillow.
Texting is a handy device, but I don't want technology to turn into an umbilical cord. Our job as parents is to raise self-sufficient human beings, not young co-dependents.
The New York Times' Room for Debate blog has a panel considering the pluses and minuses of summer homework.
This has been the subject of debate in our house. Our 11th-grade daughter's summer assignments were very challenging, to the point where I sometimes wondered if more of her time would have been better spent just riding a bicycle or splashing around a pool.
Here are some opinion snippets from the Times panel:
Harris Cooper, psychologist, Duke University: "The long summer vacation disrupts the rhythm of instruction, leads to
forgetting, and requires time be spent reviewing old material when
students return to school in fall. ... My advice? Teachers, you need to be careful about what and how much
summer homework you assign. Summer homework shouldn’t be expected to
overcome a student’s learning deficits; that’s what summer school is
for. Parents, if the assignments are clear and reasonable, support the
teachers."
Nancy Kalish, co-author of "The Case Against Homework": " Schools should rethink summer homework,
and not just because it stresses out kids (and parents). The truth is,
homework doesn’t accomplish what we assume it does. According to a Duke
University review of more than 175 studies, there is little or no correlation between homework and standardized
test scores or long-term achievement in elementary school, and only a
moderate correlation in middle school."
Mark Bauerlein, professor of English at Emory University: "To the general question of whether or not schools should assign
summer homework, the answer is, 'Yes, most assuredly.' ... The reason stems not only from the brain drain of summer and the fog
of texting that enwraps youths during leisure hours. It relates also to
an attitude young people take toward education. In a word, they regard
learning as a classroom thing, that’s all. They tie knowledge to the
syllabus, not to themselves. They read and study to write the paper and
ace the test, not to furnish their minds. Learning is to earn a high
score and good grade, not to form responsible citizens and discerning
consumers."
Denise Pope, lecturer at Stanford University School of Education: "The problem with summer homework is a lack of buy-in from one of the
main constituencies: the students. During the school year, the students
don’t necessarily enjoy doing homework, but they understand it is part
of their daily routine. In the summer, students expect, and often need,
a break from this routine and the daily pressures that usually
accompany it."
It seems to me that summer homework is a good idea to keep the brain cells moving, but like everything else it should be served in moderation.
We’ve been lax in the pick-your-own produce department this year, but squeezed in a trip to Greg’s U-Pick It in Clarence this week to pick blueberries. They are such a rewarding pick, falling into your hands without the need to reach up or stoop. Great product placement, in grocery parlance.
Another reason, in addition to anti-oxidants, why blueberries are the perfect food.
Some blueberries are sweet, others not so much. Just like where we are in life -- at that bittersweet point in our family where we split up and do things in smaller groups instead of piling into the minivan to go on family outings.
We’ve gone from Together We Stand to Divide and Conquer. Now, we sub-divide, optimize, this one goes here, this one there. The good news is that we get fewer complaints.
Past fruit-picking experiences have generated many more grievances from those who would rather not dedicate an afternoon to understanding the food chain. This time, it was just me and my daughter, and she willingly came along, vs. being forced into family fruit picking.
This time of life is taking some getting used to, but has its own rewards. We’re getting to know our kids more as individuals than as a herd. But the speed at which we went from the togetherness of The Waltons to the individualism of Walden caught me by surprise.
Last night I suggested that we all do something as a family and asked the kids to check out Gusto to see what was going on. When I came home from work, they had suggested, “How about if we go out for pizza and you and dad go next door to the Indian restaurant?” We agreed, we much prefer a change of culinary pace to the usual pizza, which is one of the few foods everyone eats in our family.
So I guess it has come to this – separate restaurants!
Subconsciously that’s why we got a dog last summer, sensing the pack was beginning to disperse. At least we have someone who greets us at the door with a wagging tail and will go with us anywhere, any time – probably even for Indian food. And today when I accidentally dropped our newly picked fruit on the floor, we discovered the dog likes blueberries. Who wants to bet that he will be accompanying me next picking season when everyone else has something better to do?
One family tradition we have managed to preserve is our trip to the Erie County Fair. (Formerly America's Fair. Did some other fair win that designation? Did we sell the naming rights to some other country?)
Here is our very amateur home movie about the experience:
