4 09, 2012

Raise Children, Not Consumers

By | September 4th, 2012|Categories: Parenting, Popular Culture|Tags: , , , , |0 Comments

Popular culture, few could argue, attempts to manipulate your children’s needs and wants and motivate them to buy food, toys, clothing, electronics, and other products that have no redeeming value, are unhealthy, or send them the wrong messages. Popular culture is big business, to the tune of $1.2 billion a year in advertising in 2010, a double-digit increase over 2009. Research has also shown that children have influence in their family over the food and drink purchases of $100 billion each year, much of it unhealthy. Popular culture wants you to raise consumers, not children! The line between entertainment and advertising is becoming increasingly blurred. For example, The Hub, a television network aimed at children that has a 50 percent ownership stake by the toy manufacturer Hasbro was launched in 2010. Commercials aside, this channel’s programming is basically a direct marketing platform for selling Hasbro toys. Additionally, the recent technological advances have enabled companies that market to children to create “supersystems” around their brands that incorporate 360-degree multimedia universes devoted exclusively to selling their products that include television shows, web sites, YouTube videos, fan clubs, Facebook pages, Twitter feeds, and video games, as well as traditional advertising. As Robert Iger, the President of Walt Disney, comments, “Reaching dramatically and deeply,…” has allowed Disney to, “...enter the hearts and minds of people all over the world.” Do you really want Disney and the like to enter your children’s hearts and minds? I sure don’t.

27 08, 2012

Parenting/Education: Play, not Flashcards, Promote Healthy Academic and Life Development

By | August 27th, 2012|Categories: Education, Parenting|0 Comments

A great read that invalidates the current parenting and educational zeitgeist of rushing children into academics. As the article describes, play, and the life and cognitive skills it teaches, is the best predictor later educational attainment. http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/23/simon-says-dont-use-flashcards/ The lessons to be learned: Put away the iPads and flashcards, fire the tutors, choose preschools and kindergartens [...]

27 08, 2012

Parenting: Parents Must Step Up to the Technology Challenge!

By | August 27th, 2012|Categories: Parenting|0 Comments

It’s hard enough these days for parents to even keep up with all of the latest technological developments. It’s even harder to stay informed of the latest research on the effects of technology on our children. In our already incredibly busy lives, it’s downright exhausting trying to stay abreast of what technology our children are [...]

16 08, 2012

Parenting: Kids 3.0: How to Raise Healthy Kids in a Tech World

By | August 16th, 2012|Categories: Parenting|0 Comments

I chose the metaphor of computer software with its evolving versions because it seemed to be relevant the children’s development in so many ways. Because my ideas about the role of technology in our lives is not only about the meeting of children and technology, but also what seems like their integration, the metaphor seemed [...]

10 08, 2012

Parenting/Education: Make-believe and stories aren’t Just Kid Stuff

By | August 10th, 2012|Categories: Education, Parenting|0 Comments

I read about a book, The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human, by Jonathan Gottschall, that demonstrates the essential role that stories play in child development. Make-believe encourages the development of values, group identity, prosocial behavior,  and social norms. The conclusion: Stories aren't just child's play (or just for children!).

9 08, 2012

Parenting: Who is More Powerful: Technology or Parents?

By | August 9th, 2012|Categories: Parenting|0 Comments

The Power of Technology Technology may be the most powerful force in the world today and, as the noted technology historian Melvin Kranzberg observes in his Six Laws of Technology, “Technology is neither good nor bad—nor is it neutral.” Technology isn’t neutral because it does, clearly, have an impact on our lives. The nature of [...]

1 08, 2012

Parenting/Education: Time to Redefine Success

By | August 1st, 2012|Categories: Education, Parenting|0 Comments

Teach Your Children Well, the new book by Dr. Madeline Levine, looks like a good read. Its premise is very much in line with my own views on the importance of parents defining success and failure in healthy ways for their children rather than relying on our popular culture or education systems to do so.

23 07, 2012

Parenting: Do Parents Replay (or Try to Correct) Their Own Childhoods?

By | July 23rd, 2012|Categories: Parenting|0 Comments

My wife, Sarah, and I have two daughters, ages 7 and 5, and, thankfully, we have very similar philosophies on how we want to raise our girls. This common ground has enabled us to provide a generally united and consistent front in the messages we send and, over all, how we respond to each of [...]

23 07, 2012

Parenting/Education: Thoreau Knew about Raising and Educating Children

By | July 23rd, 2012|Categories: Education, Parenting|0 Comments

"I am struck by the fact that the more slowly trees grow at first, the sounder they are at the core, and I think that the same is true of human beings. We do not wish to see children precocious, making great strides in their early years like sprouts, producing a soft and perishable timber, [...]

28 06, 2012

Parenting: How to Raise Good (and Safe) Kids These Days

By | June 28th, 2012|Categories: Parenting|0 Comments

This is a question that all parents ask themselves…constantly. There are no easy answers and, realistically, there is probably not one single answer. The important thing for parents is to at least ask and try to answer the question for their own family. My wife, Sarah, and I are still early in the game of raising our own two daughters. Though I’m the author of four parenting books and considered a parenting expert, I’m not going to pat myself on the back for my own parenting until our girls have left for college and I have clear evidence that my child-rearing ideas actually work (though, admittedly, even then, it could be my wife’s good genes or just dumb luck if my daughters turn out okay). In the meantime, when I meet parents who have actually gotten the job done and done it well, I like to ask them for some nuggets of wisdom that they believed contributed to raising good and safe kids. I recently ran into a long-time friend and colleague, I’ll call him Steve Barnes (he asked that I not use his family’s real names). Though accomplished professionally beyond pale, he says that his greatest achievement (in collaboration with his wife, Debra) has been raising his two daughters, Eva and Annie. Now in their early 20s, they have achieved a great deal academically to this point (Eva graduated from an Ivy League school and Annie is currently attending the same), but what is notable about them is that they are simply fine young women: intelligent, thoughtful, engaged, and compassionate, just to offer up a few descriptors. Having known them both since they were young, I can attest to the fact that Steve and Debra did more than a few things right. During our recent visit, Steve was kind enough share his nuggets of wisdom with Sarah and me.