If you want another sign that youth sports (and the parents and coaches that are behind it) have gone completely off the rails, read this truly unsettling article. No doubt that many aspects of youth sports are no longer about children, but rather about deluded and selfish parents and the 'youth sport industrial complex' in which children [...]
An eye-opening article in The New York Times about the high cost of youth sports these days. The biggest news of the article is the poor financial return on investment (e.g., college scholarship, professional or Olympic career) that comes from pouring $$$ into your children's athletic experiences. Plus, the self-serving and corrupt "youth sport industrial [...]
Children love the Earth. They really do hug trees. Kids care in the purest and sweetest way for birds, flowers, plants, and animals. To see children smell a flower, marvel at a bee buzzing around them, and jump with joy at seeing a deer are just a few of the ways that children express their [...]
Developing the capacity for compassion and sharing is a huge challenge for young children. Because they are still in an egocentric stage of development, they lack the awareness of and empathy toward others necessary to see how not sharing impacts those around them. Yet, sharing, as an expression of compassion, is a message that your [...]
Raising compassionate children is no small feat these days. Because of the egocentrism of children's early years combined with the increasingly prevalent messages of selfishness, narcissism, and indifference that popular culture communicates to them, children are not likely to readily learn compassion on their own. This means that you have to make an extra effort to [...]
Think of all of the qualities that you admire most in others and that you would most like to instill in your children. My guess is that compassion is high on your list. Why is that? Perhaps because, like diamonds, compassion is a rare gem in a society in which selfishness and disregard for others are as common as rhinestones. Consider what compassion is. Most fundamentally, it is “not about me.” Compassion involves being aware of and caring about the needs of others. It means wanting to help others who are less fortunate than you. Compassion has so many other wonderful attributes associated with it, for example, benevolence, good will, unselfishness, and empathy, just to name a few. If these qualities were ingredients to be mixed and baked, you would have the recipe for about as fine a person as you could imagine.
An eye-opening article smashing the myth that early specialization in sports gives children a leg up in later athletic success. In fact, the research shows otherwise. Plus, early specialization in a sport results in increased injuries. These findings should be a wake-up call to parents who attempt to rush their children toward specializing in one sport in the [...]
A fascinating article about the impact of handwriting vs. typing on a keyboard. The research seems clear that handwriting has important benefits over keyboarding (yes, it is a verb now!). This despite the fact that increasing numbers of schools have stopped teaching handwriting after second grade and no longer teach cursive writing.
I have two daughters, ages 8 and 6. Overall, they’re pretty good kids, generally kind and mostly cooperative. But like most children their ages, they are often stubborn, frequently resistant, and occasionally disrespectful of my wife and me. I may ask them to put their shoes on so they can leave for school in the [...]