Last Day of Kindergarten
This picture is from the first day of Kindergarten, last September. Today is the last day of Kindergarten. Thank you (again) Miss Vaites!
And here are pics from the ceremony:
NES Fifth Grade Egg Drop Project
Today was Nantucket Elementary School’s annual Fifth Grade Egg Drop Day. NFD brings out the ladder truck, which is raised to 105 feet over the asphalt court in the playground, and each 5th grade teacher goes up the ladder and releases the egg-containing apparatuses, one at a time. The resulting splats make for good entertainment.
The rules were simple. Make something small enough to fit in a grocery bag that would protect an egg from its dive. James did not turn to the library, borrow an old Physics text, or even use Google to prepare for the project. Instead, he consulted YouTube. And came up with the idea of using Oobleck.
Oobleck is the fictional green precipitation invented by children’s author Dr. Seuss in the book Bartholomew and the Oobleck. More recently, it has been used to describe non-Newtonian fluid made from Cornstarch and water.
A non-Newtonian fluid is a fluid that varies its viscosity according to the shear stress that it is under. Hold it in your hands and it is a liquid and runs through your fingers like milk. But stab the surface with a spoon and it acts more like a solid and is hard to penetrate. The recipe is simple. Two parts Cornstarch; one part water. In this case, about 24 oz of cornstarch in about 14 oz water. Plus a little green coloring for dramatic effect. He put it in a plastic mailing tube that we found at the office, put the egg in, saw that it laid on top of the mess, and sealed the end pieces with duct tape. And that was that. No real opportunity for a test run. Not at that height.
It survived the fall!
Teach the Kids to Argue
An interesting article about teaching children how to argue or, more specifically, how to be persuasive instead of fighting or throwing a tantrum.
Those of you who don’t have perfect children will find this familiar: Just as I was withdrawing money in a bank lobby, my 5-year-old daughter chose to throw a temper tantrum, screaming and writhing on the floor while a couple of elderly ladies looked on in disgust. (Their children, apparently, had been perfect.) I gave Dorothy a disappointed look and said, “That argument won’t work, sweetheart. It isn’t pathetic enough.”
She blinked a couple of times and picked herself up off the floor, pouting but quiet.
“What did you say to her?” one of the women asked.
I explained that “pathetic” was a term used in rhetoric, the ancient art of argument. I had happened across the subject one rainy day in a library and become instantly obsessed. As a result Dorothy had learned almost from birth that a good persuader doesn’t merely express her own emotions; she manipulates her audience. Me, in other words.
Under my tutelage in the years that followed, Dorothy and her younger brother, George, became keenly, even alarmingly, persuasive. “Well, whatever it was,” the woman said, “it certainly worked.” Sure it did. I’ve worked hard at making my kids good at arguing. Absolutely.
The Study Ball
I found a new object to buy oinline, something that would be an investment in my kid’s future.
The Study Ball gadget is a prison-style ball and chain that you can program to keep track of how much time you spend studying. Once you’ve selected the desired duration, you chain the ball to your ankle and the manacle won’t come off until the schedule study time is up.
Time to Have “The Talk”
Here’s two of my favorite growing up stories, courtesy the previously innocent mind of our eldest son.
Back when he was in kindergarten, he came up to me one day after school and proudly announced that he knew “what the ‘f-word’ is.” I was shocked, needless to say. You could see in his face that he knew this was something special, something he shouldn’t be talking about. To prove his point, he let me know that the f-word has “four letters, right?” Curious where he would take this, I replied, “Okay,” looking around to make sure no one was listening, “tell me what it is.” He put his hand up, also looked around for innocent ears, and whispered to me, “fart.” I said, with some phony shock in voice, “Shhh! Don’t let your mother hear you say that word!” And dropped it. Quickly.
On another occasion, we had some friends over for dinner. They have a couple of slightly older boys. The boys were watching TV as we were sitting around talking after dinner. Without anyone actually paying attention, they had the TV on HBO watching a movie. As can sometimes happen on HBO, a scene in the movie showed a bouncing pair of breasts. To our embarrassment, this happened just as all of the adults were coming in to the family room. Without even a hint of blush of giddiness, our oldest son simply announced, “Hey mom, look, her ‘milk-holders’ are showing.” At this point he had seen his mother nurse one or two other children. There was nothing sexual about this, not in his young innocent mind, it was just strange to him that the actress had set them free without a hungry infant crying for them.
These stories are funny, but they also show that our children are exposed to sexual messages long before they even know what these messages mean. It has come to our attention lately that at the ripe age of 10 (almost 11), these messages are starting to take on real meaning. Girls are suddenly interesting and 5th-grade classmates are talking about who is “going out” with who.
Gulp.
It’s time.
Studies repeatedly show that when parents talk early and often about sex, children are more likely to postpone sexual activity until they are older, and also more likely to use protection once they become sexually active. And the talks, experts say, should not just be about sperm meeting egg, but also about emotions, and consequences and more. Research by the Rand Corporation released in the March issue of the journal Pediatrics last year, lists 22 different topics parents should cover, including “decisions about whether to have sex, consequences of getting pregnant or getting someone pregnant, selection of a birth control method, what it feels like to have sex and protection offered by condoms.”
It’s a hard conversation to have. Hard to know how much focus to give to the science of it, how much of the talk should be about pregnancy and STDs and the scary parts, and how much to focus on the emotions and morality involved. And how do you bring it up?
Planned Parenthood’s site has some helpful tips, including a list of age appropriate conversation starters. A few examples:
YOUNG CHILDREN
- Do you know the names of all your body parts?
- Do you know why girls look different than boys?Your aunt is pregnant. Do you know what that means?
PRETEENS
- People change a lot during puberty. What have you heard about the changes of puberty? How do you feel about going through puberty?
- At what age do you think a person should start dating? Have any of your friends started dating?
- Do you think girls and boys are treated differently? (If yes …) How?
TEENS
- How have you changed in the last two years? What do you like and what do you not like about the changes?
- At what age do you think a person is ready to have sex? How should a person decide?
- At what age do you think a person is ready to be a parent?
And if you don’t feel comfortable just bringing up the subject out of the blue, there are conversation triggers everywhere. Just watch a movie rated PG or above, and there will likely be a moment or two that can serve as a segue. Or better yet, flip through a magazine and let the advertising industry help you out.
In short, we want our kids to live healthy and rewarding lives. Sex is an important part of a healthy and rewarding life. And no place is a more meaningful place to learn about life than home.
Here are some resources to guide your efforts:
Websites
Parents, Family and Friends of Lesbians and Gays
There’s No Place Like Home … for Sex Education
Books
How to Talk with Teens About Love, Relationships, and S-E-X by Amy G. Miron and Charles D. Miron
Sex & Sensibility: The Thinking Parent’s Guide to Talking Sense About Sex by Deborah M. Roffman
Sexuality: Your Sons and Daughters With Intellectual Disabilities by Karin Melberg Schwier and David Hingsburger
Staying Connected to Your Teenager: How to Keep Them Talking to You and How to Hear What They’re Really Saying by Michael Riera
Teaching Children with Down Syndrome about Their Bodies, Boundaries, and Sexuality by Terri Couwenhoven
Why Do They Act That Way?: A Survival Guide to the Adolescent Brain for You and Your Teen by David Walsh
Books written for children
It’s Not the Stork!: A Book About Girls, Boys, Babies, Bodies, Families and Friends by Robie Harris (for ages 4 and up)
It’s Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing up, Sex, and Sexual Health by Robie Harris (for ages 10 and up)
It’s So Amazing!: A Book about Eggs, Sperm, Birth, Babies, and Families by Robie Harris (for ages 7 and up)
What’s the Big Secret?: Talking about Sex with Girls and Boys by Laurie Krasny Brown and Marc Brown (for ages 4-8)
The “What’s Happening to My Body?” Book for Boys: A Growing Up Guide for Parents and Sons by Lynda Madaras and Martin Anderson (for ages 8 to 15)
The “What’s Happening to My Body?” Book for Girls: A Growing Up Guide for Parents and Daughters by Lynda Madaras and Marcia Herman-Giddens (for ages 8 to 15)
Gaiman’s “Blueberry Girl”
Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess’s Blueberry Girl is a beautiful, affirming, inspiring picture book based on a poem that Gaiman wrote for Tash, Tori Amos’s daughter (who is also Gaiman’s god-daughter). The poem is a set of benedictions for girls, wishes for a realistically joyful life where what pain that comes only serves to make the pleasure sweeter. Vess (a well-known fantasy artist) has a distinctive style that gives the book much of its charm.
…Dull days at forty, false friends at fifteen;
Let her have brave days and truth.
Let her go places that we’ve never been;
Trust and delight in her youth.
Ladies of Grace, and Ladies of Favour,
And Ladies of Merciful Night,
This is a prayer for a Blueberry Girl,
Grant her your Clearness of Sight.
Words can be worrisome, people complex;
Motives and manners unclear.
Grant her the wisdom to choose her path right,
Free from unkindness and fear.
Let her tell stories, and dance in the rain,
Somersaults, tumble and run;
Her joys must be high as her sorrows are deep,
Let her grow like a weed in the sun…
Turn Off the TV
National Tune-off Tune-in Week began on April 20th, but since our schools were on Spring Break that week, and it would’ve caused a great deal of parental insanity to have had the kids in the house all day without the Big Box Babysitter, we’re promoting it this week.
According to TurnOffTV.com:
* Number of 30-second commercials seen in a year by an average child: 20,000.
* Number of minutes per week that parents spend in meaningful conversation with their children: 38.5.
* Number of minutes per week that the average child watches television: 1,680.
* Percentage of children ages 6-17 who have TV’s in their bedrooms: 50.
* Percentage of day-care centers that use TV during a typical day: 70.
* Hours per year the average American youth spends in school: 900 hours.
* Hours per year the average American youth watches television: 1,500.
* Percentage of Americans that regularly watch television while eating dinner: 66.
Moves like this are silly in some ways. All or nothing. Really, if 70% of day-cares use a TV, then find a day-care that doesn’t. And if 66% of people watch TV while eating dinner, then, don’t.
Nonetheless, the stats you see above result in shortened attention spans and expanding waistlines, and we need “weeks” like this to heighten our sensitivity to modern diseases as excessive TV. In fact, we should follow this up with National No-High-Fructose-Corn-Syrup Week and National Bike-to-Work Week.
And so, as painful as it will be, our family will follow these recommendations.
Thank Heavens for DVR.
Feeding the Little Ones
Maddux turns four this summer. He’s been our pickiest eater, by far. He would live on a diet of chocolate alone, if we were to let him. And we give in more then we should: chocolate chip pancakes, seemingly healthy chocolate-flavored “nutrition” bars geared towards kids, chocolate soy milk, or an “all natural” chocolate cereal from Trader Joes. Seems like chocolate is a frequently used to get him to compromise and eat something good for him.
What are we doing wrong?
Fussiness seems to be natural part of a child’s development. They distrust anything new. And it is a daily challenge to find something kids will eat. There’s a balance of concerns. On the one hand, obesity is a growing national epidemic, especially among kids. But most parents have an instinctual concern that kids will eat too little and end up with nutritional deficits. Most of us (parents) come from the “Clean Your Plate Before You Get Up From the Table” generation. We feel like it is our job to get the kids to eat, when really it is our job to offer the right foods for mealtime, exposing them to a healthy variety of foods.
According to Harriet Worobey, the director of the Rutgers University Nutritional Sciences Preschool, these are five mistakes that we as parents often make feeding the little ones.
Sending children out of the kitchen. We usually do not involve kids in preparing meals. With hot stoves, sharp knives, and boiling water, the kitchen doesn’t seem like the right place for them. It’s quicker and easier to cook when they’re in the next room and Spongebob is babysitting them. But studies suggest that getting kids involved can make them more interested in trying new foods.
Researchers at Teachers College at Columbia University studied how cooking with a child affects the child’s eating habits. In one study, nearly 600 children from kindergarten to sixth grade took part in a nutrition curriculum intended to get them to eat more vegetables and whole grains. Some children, in addition to having lessons about healthful eating, took part in cooking workshops. The researchers found that children who had cooked their own foods were more likely to eat those foods in the cafeteria, and even ask for seconds, than children who had not had the cooking class.
When children are involved in meal preparation, “they come to at least try the food,” said Isobel Contento, professor of nutrition education at Teachers College and a co-author of the study. “Kids don’t usually like radishes, but we found that if kids cut up radishes and put them in the salad, they love the radishes.”
Pressuring them to take a bite. I am often guilty of this. As an example, last night I made a healthy pizza of whole wheat dough, fresh tomatoes, mozzarella and basil. It was excellent. Maddux likes pizza, but he saw a “piece of salad” (basil) on his slice and refused to eat anything. We have ice cream in the freezer and I, strategically, announced that whomever ate their pizza could have ice cream for dessert. Did it work? Well, it did for the other kids! Not Maddux.
Demanding that a child eat at least one bite, tasting something new, seems reasonable, but it is likely to backfire. Studies show that children react negatively when parents pressure them to eat foods, even if the pressure offers a reward. In one study at Pennsylvania State University, researchers asked children to eat vegetables and drink milk, offering them stickers and television time if they did. Later in the study, the children expressed dislike for the foods they had been rewarded for eating.
“Parents say things like ‘eat your vegetables and you can watch TV,’ but we know that kind of thing doesn’t work either,” said Leann L. Birch, director of Penn State’s childhood obesity research center and a co-author of the study. “In the short run, you might be able to coerce a child to eat, but in the long run, they will be less likely to eat those foods.”
What we should do is put the food on the table and encourage them to try it, but don’t complain if they refuse, and don’t offer praise if they taste it. Just try to frame the event as a normal, daily ritual. Have a “It’s just what we do” kind of attitude and just ask if they want some more and try to stay neutral.
Keep the junk food out of reach. If we buy chips or cookies or a questionable food item like fruit roll-ups, we try to hide them on the top pantry shelf in order to keep the kids from binging on this stuff, or filling up before dinner. This probably leads to two unwanted consequences: the kids longing for these items, and unnecessary head injuries as Maddux climbs from stool, to dog food bin, to lower shelves and falls trying to reach the Oreos.
In another Penn State study, researchers experimented to determine whether forbidden foods were more desirable. Children were seated at tables and given unlimited access to plates of apple or peach cookie bars — two foods the youngsters had rated as “just O.K.” in earlier taste tests. With another group, some bars were served on plates, while some were placed in a clear cookie jar in the middle of the table. The children were told that after 10 minutes, they could snack on cookies from the jar. The researchers found that restricting the cookies had a profound effect: consumption more than tripled compared with when the cookies were served on plates. Other studies show that children whose food is highly restricted at home are far more likely to binge when they have access to forbidden foods.
The lesson is to not buy the foods that we feel like we need to restrict and instead offer healthy snack alternatives and free access to the pantry.
Serving boring food. Trying to eat right myself, I’m likely to prepare some fresh, steamed asparagus, with just a little seasoning only. Tastes great to me, and is obviously very healthy. But when I was a kid? No way. There’s nothing wrong with dressing up fresh vegetables with a little butter, ranch dressing (Jack will eat his shoe laces if we were to serve them with “ranch”) or cheese sauce. The added calories are worth the tradeoff of introducing the new vegetable.
Giving up too soon. Eating preferences change, and often a child’s refusal to eat something at one meal may not be due to taste anyway. It might just be an attitude thing or a power struggle. So we should keep preparing a variety of healthful foods and putting them on the table, even if a child refuses to take a bite. In young children, it may take 10 or more attempts over several months to introduce a food.
Susan B. Roberts, a Tufts University nutritionist and co-author of the book “Feeding Your Child for Lifelong Health,” suggested a “rule of 15” — putting a food on the table at least 15 times to see if a child will accept it. Once a food is accepted, parents should use “food bridges,” finding similarly colored or flavored foods to expand the variety of foods a child will eat. If a child likes pumpkin pie, for instance, try mashed sweet potatoes and then mashed carrots. If a child loves corn, try mixing in a few peas or carrots. Even if a child picks them out, the exposure to the new food is what counts.
“As parents, you’re going to make decisions as to what you want to serve,” Ms. Worobey said. “But then you just have to relax and realize children are different from day to day.”
