Ahhh... :)

 

A Year of Parenting... (the fine art of Grant Snider :)

One Perspective: The Opium is Our Children

From More Intelligent Life magazine

If a Roman senator’s opium was his public life, a Viking’s was battle. Our ancestors have been addicted to honour, craved virtue and wealth, been hooked on conquest, on adventure, and on God. But ours is the first civilisation to find its deepest fulfilment in its descendants. Our opium is our children.

We’re all familiar with the results. There is the greater dismay we seem to feel at youth unemployment than at the poverty of pensioners, although some of the most disturbing scenes I’ve witnessed have been in the homes of the elderly. There is the way that older people are expected to give far more to voluntary organisations. We assume that the over-65s will take on almost the entire burden of supporting political parties, for which the young occasionally vote, and of maintaining the churches in which the young like to marry. We accept too easily that the young should not be called upon to carry the burden of sustaining communities because "their lives are too busy".

People who might once have been public figures, deeply invested in their work, are instead busy serving their children. Ours is a culture not of ancestor worship but of descendant worship. Children must sense that nothing an adult does is more important than their own desires. All political questions seem to come down to the interests of "the next generation".

I am reminded of the philosopher who was informed by a lady that the world rested on a turtle. When asked what the turtle rested on, she replied it was "turtles all the way down". Our purpose is our children, whose purpose is their children. And so on. Each generation more important than the one before. Generation after generation, all the way down.

This seems a self-defeating, infinite regression. I’d prefer our opium to be the struggle to create a living civilisation, which might daunt even our descendants. We should seek to emulate previous generations. Our obligation cannot be uniquely to the young, and those yet to be born. It is also to the living, and to the dead.

Have your say What do you think is the opium of the people? Vote in our online poll

Rory Stewart is a British MP and a former soldier who spent two years walking across Asia. He is the co-author of "Can Intervention Work?"

Rock Star

5 ways to raise a grateful child

Your 9-year-old keeps a running -- and growing -- list of toys he has to have. He's up to number 23 this season.

In-The-Moment Fix: "Emphasize that you appreciate there are many things he wants, but let him know it will only be possible to get a few of them," says Robert Brooks, Ph.D., a psychologist at Harvard Medical School and coauthor of Raising a Self-Disciplined Child. That way, you won't make him feel greedy or foolish for compiling a lengthy list, but you will set his expectations.

Another idea: Ask him to make a second list, equal in number to the things he wants to get, of things or actions he is willing to give, suggests Maureen Healy, author of 365 Perfect Things to Say to Your Kids. For example: 1) Clean his room, 2) Help you find a charity that the family can donate to, 3) Pitch in when Dad starts wrapping presents, 4) Make a holiday card. Last, if you're in for belt-tightening this year, let him know.

Be honest, but keep it simple and undramatic so you don't scare him. Instead of saying "Dad might lose his job, so we have to cut back" -- which might make him sure you'll be losing the house next -- say something like "Nothing major is going to change, but we'll have to wait until next year to go on vacation and we have to hold off on getting the new bike you wanted." It's likely your kid will think "Okay, I can live with that," says Lerner.

Long-Term Strategy: Help him understand that gifts are thoughtful gestures, not just a way for him to score materialistic gain, says Lerner. Anytime he receives a present, point out everything the giver put into it. If a classmate makes him a friendship bracelet, for example, say "Oh, wow -- Lucy remembered that you thought these were cool. She picked out colors she knows you like, and it probably took her a whole hour to make. That is so nice."

Do this enough times and he'll get the "quality, not quantity" idea before you know it.

Your 5-year-old grimaces at the stuffed Elmo her aunt gives her and says, "But I wanted a Barbie!

In-The-Moment Fix: "The concept of hiding your own negative feelings to protect someone else's is way too complex for kids five and under," says Lerner. (Older kids get better and better but will still have frequent slipups.) So validate your daughter's feelings without responding critically, says Brooks.

Say "I know you wanted a Barbie, but let's think about all the different ways we can play with Elmo." You can also step in and model the appropriate response -- and defuse the uncomfortable situation -- by exclaiming something like "Wow, that was so thoughtful, wasn't it, Alli? Aunt Karen remembered you needed mittens!" This trick works for all ages: If your older son receives a gift he already owns, for example, say "Oh, cool! That's your favorite game!"

Write a little script for your child to follow when he gets a present, recommends Bette Freedson of the National Association of Social Workers. Come up with a stock line or two together, like "Thank you! I like it a lot!" He can also pick out one thing to specifically compliment ("This blanket feels really soft").

Long-Term Strategy: Before any gift-getting occasion, prepare your child for the possibility that she may not like all her presents, but at the same time, let her know that it's still important to show her appreciation. Remind her that people put effort into trying to find her the best thing. Then devise a special cue between the two of you, suggests Lerner, that reminds her to say thank you. When you see her mouth turning down, you can clap your hands and say "Great present!" to snap her back into good-manners mode.

You can't even take your kid to get socks or light bulbs without him whining for you to buy him something -- seemingly anything. 

In-The-Moment Fix: Before you go on any shopping trip, inform your child that you'll be hitting the mall to, say, buy gifts for his cousins. "Engage him in the process," says Lerner. "Ask him what his cousin Jane likes and which toy you should get her. Get him excited about buying for someone else." At the same time, make it clear that you won't be able to buy anything for him. Then, if your son throws a fit at the store, you can refer back to that conversation, and say something like "I know it's hard to be here when you're not getting anything, but that's the rule. Now, I really need your help finding something for Jane." Let's be honest: That might not be enough to stop his whining. But steel yourself and stay strong. Caving in will only teach him that he will eventually get his way if he complains loud or long enough.

Long-Term Strategy: Your weekends may be errand time, but try to avoid spending all your family moments pushing a shopping cart. That way, your kids won't think acquiring stuff is the leisure-time norm. (Don't get us wrong, though: We know those flattering jeans are sometimes an absolute necessity!) Denver mom Beth Korin says she and her two boys, ages 7 and 9, frequently head to the library, an indoor pool, or a rock-climbing gym instead. "We try to think of things we can do that don't involve hanging out in stores," she says. Prepare kids for these events the same way you would for gifts ("We're going to have a big, delicious meal with all of your favorite foods, and then we're going to play games!"). The idea you want to get across is that having experiences can be just as exciting as accumulating things (if not more).

Your 6-year-old gobbles down the Teddy Grahams that another parent at the playground gives him. But when you prod him to say "Thank you," he won't.

In-The-Moment Fix: It's easy to turn this "teachable moment" into a battle of wills -- one where you're repeating "I didn't hear you say thank you!" to your tantrum-ing child while the person he's supposed to thank is backing away in discomfort. But, explains Lerner, the fact that your son doesn't always say the words likely just means they haven't become a habit for him yet. "And getting into power struggles actually impedes the process," she says. So while you should definitely remind your kids to give thanks, it's best not to make a big deal about it if it doesn't happen.

Long-Term Strategy: Remind yourself to model grateful behavior. When your cookie-muncher goes silent, go ahead and say the necessary "Thank you so much!" for him. (At least until he gets older and can be counted on to follow your cues.) In your own everyday interactions, always offer warm thank-yous and praise to grocery store clerks, gas-station attendants, waiters, teachers -- anyone who's helpful to you or him. You may think your child isn't paying attention to those small moments, but he actually is.

When you say no to a DS that, according to your daughter, "everyone at school" has, she complains that all her BFFs get cooler stuff than she does.

In-The-Moment Fix: Sympathize with her frustration, but remind your daughter that, actually, many people don't have as much as she does. How? Begin a tradition of charity work and donating. Start simple: As young as age 3, children can be encouraged to go through their belongings and pick out items to donate, says Lerner. Every year after that, they can get more involved. Last year, Gabrielle Melchionda of Yarmouth, ME, and her two sons, ages 5 and 9, volunteered to decorate low-income homes for Christmas. "It was so nice to see all of the kids, mine and those who lived there, on their bellies coloring together," she says. "Later, my kids asked things like 'Was that the whole house?' It sparked conversation for months. It was an experience none of us will forget."

Long-Term Strategy: Expose your daughter to people from all walks of life. "We often try to shield our children from those who are less fortunate, but it's important that kids know how lucky they are," says Dale McGowan, a father of three in Atlanta and coauthor of Parenting Beyond Belief. So the next time you see a homeless person, pass a shelter, or read a story in the news about a needy family, he suggests, ask questions -- "Where do you think that man sleeps?" or "Can you imagine what it would be like not to have a home?" -- that get your kids to put themselves in someone else's shoes. (At the same time, assure them that your family will always have a place to call home.) You'll be surprised -- and pleased -- at how often kids are moved to want to help.

Bonus mom advice: Don't diss gifts yourself as long as your little one is around. In fact, make a point of talking about the redeeming qualities of even that hideous necklace from your mother-in-law--how shiny! "You have to model gratitude if you want your child to practice it, too," points out Janette B. Benson, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology at the University of Denver.

CNN

On Wormholes, by Amy Fusselman, courtesy of McSweeney's

Family Practice

OK, folks. I have a really important parenting subject to tackle today, one I haven’t seen addressed much elsewhere in the parenting mags and whatnot, so I hope you are paying attention. And the important subject I am addressing is: wormholes.

You are probably thinking I mean “pinworms,” which is that awful kid sickness where worms come out of your beloved progeny’s bottom. I am not thinking of that.

I am thinking of wormholes, which is what I am calling things like the following. When I was a kid, if you had asked me to show you the art in my bedroom, I would have refrained from pointing to the framed picture on the wall, which was familiar but not interesting to me. I would have showed you the cover of my favorite book about Florence Nightingale, which had an image of Florence in her spotless nurse’s uniform, lifting a lamp in her right hand, tending to a bandaged solider in a row of bandaged soldiers in what looked like a mountain cave where black bears were also lurking. And I would have shown you my art. I had a period where I obsessively drew a female figure in a tight bun wearing a purple 18th century dress and black boots.

I would not have shown you the wormhole, which was located in my closet. By that I mean, it was in the woodgrain of the closet door. It was in the wood-whorl pattern there. Those whorls, so meaningless during the day, took on another dimension in the 8 PM light of my bedroom, and came alive, shimmying and swirling, threatening to leap out of their two dimensional space and swallow me. To look towards those whorls in the half dark of my bedroom was an act of tremendous courage. At night they were as terrible as shrunken heads.

I want to talk to you about this, because I think every kid has some version of this, and adults almost always miss it.

I am reminded of one of my son’s very sweet and wonderful kindergarten friends, who had this habit of coming into school every day, and literally throwing his jacket and back pack in the general direction of his cubby before flying upstairs to his classroom. The child came on the bus, so he had no parent to correct this, and the upshot was that other little boys in his class, often including my son, began to imitate this delightful, early morning, chucking of stuff, and then tearing off, so that the cubby area was always a giant chaotic mess.

Teachers and parents did what you would imagine: insist that the child put his stuff in his cubby properly, march him back down stairs to do so, etc, and that worked fine as long as a grown up did that. But a grown up didn’t always do that. And so months went by and finally it was February, and the piles of coats and missed mittens were getting really annoying, so I finally asked my son, why the heck does Bill do that? Why can’t he put his stuff away nicely?

My son’s reply was straightforward: he thinks there is a monster in the toilet.

The toilet was located six feet from the cubbies.

This makes perfect sense. Why can’t you put your backpack away properly? Because if I stop at my cubby a monster from the toilet will come out and eat me.

Why do you have to sleep in that particular position on your bed?Because if I face the other direction I will have to look at the terrifying, murderous patterns in the cheap woodgrain of my closet.

Oh.

I believe that these sensitivities, particular to childhood, are amazing and wonderful, and I would like, as a start to this column, to invite readers to submit the wormholes of their childhoods, if they have them and remember them, so that we may have a “Wormhole of the Month,” or perhaps, “Wormhole of the Year” award, and in that way, as parents, remember a little bit about the differences in perception of the small creatures in our care.

Please click on my name and submit to me. Thank you.

— “Dr.” Fusselman

Should you have kids?

Funny Parenting

Here's a funny story for dads and kids to enjoy.

An older, tired-looking dog wandered into my yard; I could tell from his collar and well-fed belly that he had a home and was well taken care of.

He calmly came over to me, I gave him a few pats on his head; he then followed me into my house, slowly walked down the hall, curled up in the corner and fell asleep.

An hour later, he went to the door, and I let him out.

The next day he was back, greeted me in my yard, walked inside and resumed his spot in the hall and again slept for about an hour. This continued off and on for several weeks.

Curious I pinned a note to his collar: ' I would like to find out who the owner of this wonderful sweet dog is and ask if you are aware that almost every afternoon your dog comes to my house for a nap.'

The next day he arrived for his nap, with a different note pinned to his collar: 'He lives in a home with 6 children, 2 under the age of 3 - he's trying to catch up on his sleep. Can I come with him tomorrow?'

How Fathers Grew Up ;)

Six months before the birth of his fourth son, Phil Hogan began writing the first-ever fatherhood column for the Observer. He looks back on 21 years of being a dad.

 n a week's time my eldest son, Baxter, will be 21. I'm not sure what his plans are, but then I don't expect to be involved in them these days, at least not in a non-pecuniary way.

In any case he is now safely back at university in Southampton after spending the summer here in "boring" Hertfordshire, eating us out of house and home in between roaring off to festivals and whooping it up in Brighton and London and elsewhere, with the vast diaspora of friends that young people have on their computers these days.

But has he earned the key of the door now that he doesn't need it so often? There are faint signs of him growing up. He did manage to get to Amsterdam and back this year without incident (in contrast to his first trip abroad in 2007 when he rang us from a Greek police cell requesting €200 to pay a "fine" for not leaving his hotel bed as intact as he found it), and I'm delighted that he has worked so hard in his first year at university that he has been invited back for a second. He can cook, in a scattergun kind of way, and can play a number of Johnny Cash songs on the ukulele. When not being a drain on one's emotional and financial resources, he is excellent company. Our youngest two boys are attracted to his natural daring and untameable sense of inappropriate fun, though Ryan – almost 19 and less given to displays of unnecessary jabber – has learnt to regard him with a wary eye.

A few Sundays ago, we all went out to lunch en famille – to mark our last time all together for a while and to raise a glass to our evolving circumstances: Ryan, too, was about to go off (and has now gone) to university, at Warwick; Jackson, 16, has started in the Lower Sixth, and Cameron, 12, is safely into Year 8. Everything is changing.

With the house a little emptier, it seems like the beginning of an end. Not a real end, of course – I didn't get my perma-frown by not realising that fatherhood is a job you can only get out of by going into a care home – but things have assumed a less frenzied rhythm. Having two children at home is easier than four, if not quite as easy as none. Recent holidays with our younger pair have been relaxed to the point of fun. It has always been a slight source of disappointment to my wife that I couldn't "enjoy" the children as much as she does and now, admittedly rather late in the game (and with no disrespect to our eldest two, who should by no means take this personally), I'm beginning to see how that might be possible.

It does help that they are all old enough to make their own fun. Even though I have almost done my first 21 years, I regret never having quite got the hang of being the father I would have ideally wanted for the little chaps. It goes without saying that I love them and cherish them and would happily jump into a lake of burning lava to protect them (though I can't imagine the exact circumstances in which this might be necessary), but watching other dads building sandcastles or Lego spaceships or putting up tents or being the life and soul of children's birthday parties or whipping up excitement on theme park rides, I always felt the sting of inauthenticity in my own paltry efforts.

But what grown man could actually enjoy Lego? Or children's books? I hated Harry Potter. I played Buckaroo through clenched teeth. I'm not one for getting wet or being turned upside down on a rollercoaster. The truth is, I have no inner child – a tragedy, you might say, for a man with so many outer ones.

But I don't think I've been a complete failure. It's not as if I haven't been any fun ever since 1988. I could always manage the more passive activities – encouraging the children to watch football on TV with me or taking them to the cinema, with its reliable promise of a short nap. And never let it be said that any of them has ever gone short of hugs (father-and-son hugging is, of course, the new wrestling).

It's easy to forget, too – with today's lifestyle supplements packed with gurning fathers in striped aprons teaching their tousled kids how to ice cakes – that the male parent has not always been so fully alive to the pleasures of child-rearing.

At least I was up there with the "new" men of 1988, attending antenatal classes and helping to choose a buggy (the new word for pushchair) at Mothercare. We found ourselves bandying terms like "amniocentesis" and "dilation". We learnt that a pregnant woman might dine on liver and Guinness (I'm not sure if this is still the advice of doctors) and worked at the secrets of controlled breathing and lumbar massage. We were given our lists of things to take to the hospital – sandwiches, a drink, a crossword – to help pass the hours while our wives or girlfriends rehearsed the primal groaning that would grow more and more unearthly towards the final push.

Baxter was born after 14 hours of labour followed by a frantic emergency caesarean that forged a lasting sense of what he thinks parents are for – waiting, worrying, cleaning up the mess. I got the first look at him – his mallet head and tuft of hair, his indented jaw where his foot had been, his little crispy-bacon ears – and took him in my arms, wandering up and down the hospital corridor, cooing at him like the happiest fool, until my wife woke up and took over. Walking back home down a deserted Tottenham High Road as that bright October dawn broke seemed just the best thing.

On 26 March 1955 my father delivered me at home with his own bare hands in the time it took (as my mum tells it) for the kettle to boil. He had run down to the public phone box to call the midwife and when he got back he carried my mother upstairs like the hero in a black-and-white film. But this drama was over in seconds. "You popped out straight into his arms," she says. "He was laughing and crying at the same time."

It was 30 years before men were routinely turning up and affecting to "help" at the births of their children. In 1986 a black-and-white poster of a half-naked man holding a newborn child appeared in Athena stores, and went on to sell 5m copies. Men are sensitive too, it seemed to say, though the model hired to take his shirt off for the picture reputedly slept with 3,000 women on the back of it. Couldn't they tell he wasn't real? Did they care?

Not everyone was up to speed with the latest thinking. I remember being jeered at by builders one morning as I hurried along to the childminder's with Baxter in his sling. And it was 1990 before GQ magazine plucked up the courage to ask: "Are You Man Enough to Change a Nappy?" Underneath, it read: "The great challenge for modern man is to get to know his children better." Our time had come, whether we liked it or not.

It is one of the great marvels of evolution, of course, that the worst thing a man can be hard-wired to imagine about parenthood is changing a nappy. In fact, in the annals of known hells, not getting a proper night's sleep for months on end is indescribably worse. Certainly there are moments when you would trade a lifetime of faecal matter up your fingernails for just five minutes in the land of nod.

But even this is missing the point. What no one tells you is that parenthood isn't about babies at all. Well, yes, you have babies, but the moment you start thinking you know babies they're already mutating into something else – into toddlers, three-year-olds, 10-year-olds, teenagers, entire new genres of children that need knowing all over again. I realise that this isn't an exact analogy, but if you imagine your first 10-year-old as bird flu, the second, on reaching that age, might easily materialise as rabies, the third amoebic dysentery, and so on – and here's you thinking you can treat them all with the same old medicine. Who says God has no sense of humour?

It's that realisation, as a father, that you're really just making it up as you go along that runs through the column I started to write for the Observer magazine in the autumn of 1996, a few weeks after my vasectomy and six months before the birth of our fourth son. I remember my editor at the time describing it as "a woman's column written by a man" – though that had ceased to be a novelty by the time I stopped writing it a decade later. By then home and family wasn't exclusively a woman's province, just as going out and drinking yourself insensible was no longer purely a job for a man.

And didn't there come a point in all this when children started to be hailed as fashionable accessories? Women, far from disguising their pregnancies in dungarees or a traditional small marquee, followed such starry exemplars of the day as Demi Moore and Geri Halliwell and the girl who married Liam Gallagher, baring their maternal bumps with shameless pride. New dads – whose new daddism sat oddly with the new laddism of the Loaded generation – watched open-mouthed as David Beckham had the names of his children tattooed into his suntan. Chelsea's John Terry took to raising his son to the heavens – surely the ultimate trophy child – at cup final victories. Smart metropolitan couples loaded their kids in front-facing rucksacks and took them out to restaurants, to swish private views, to the office. How Mediterranean we were – how enlightened and relaxed!

One wonders, had men not been required to take an interest in children, whether we would have seen such a groundswell of kiddie-based enthusiasm – the "What to do with your brood in the hols" spreads, the mother-and-child parking, the baby-changing facilities in the gents, family-friendly pubs, the way the vocabulary and imagery of IVF and adoption and "biological clocks" infiltrated the common consciousness. Paternity leave was deemed crucial to men's new central role in parenting. Aggrieved excluded fathers in Batman costumes scaled public buildings to draw attention to their pain, while elsewhere sperm donors were told they now needed to stand up and be counted. Children became a national anxiety: what they ate, who they talked to online, whether mobile phones and video games were frying their young brains. While feral teens roamed inner-city estates, TV gave us Supernanny and Honey We're Killing the Kids.

I doubt many people bringing up children particularly felt they were riding the zeitgeist. Flicking through those old columns (or rather those old columns collected into one convenient volume to keep with your contraceptives, Parenting Made Difficult – now unaccountably out of print), I was struck by how much of our lives was taken up by dismal rain-swept excursions in the car – to farms, museums, bird sanctuaries, "historic" towns, flower shows, agricultural fairs, the Millennium Dome. But I suppose that's what we did. Driving our small herd round those places was not only a way of escaping the chaos and fatigue of being trapped in the house with four under-nines but it gave us the illusion of being in control. A typical piece begins: "It seems ages since we last made the children despise us by forcing them to do something gratuitously uninteresting…"

And although all that stuff – the outings, the struggles with putting up curtain rails and light fittings, and being hopeless at cracking eggs, and failing to deal with algebra or diarrhoea or Lara Croft – was magnified for comic intent, it still holds a sort of cumulative reality. Notwithstanding the great times we had (and I realise I may have given the impression that there weren't any), bringing up kids – for all its profounder pleasures – can be a hard, wearying business. It's a long haul. But just as those early years often seemed unending, the last few have rather whizzed by. Teenagers bring a more extreme set of challenges, but at least their unreasonable behaviour is functional, in that it hastens the inevitable break and makes their departure an occasion that everyone appreciates must happen. Yes, one chooses family life and finds joy in this warm bosom of one's own making, but (and I hate to get all Charles Darwin here) isn't the point of having babies to provide fresh new adults to man the coalmines and universities? And if, at the end of the process, one is never sure of one's exact part in their accomplishments or otherwise, it seems natural – salutary – to kiss them, say goodbye, good luck and see you when you bring your laundry home at half-term.

Job done. Or very nearly.

I have come to this understanding more easily than my wife, who though our nest is still half full has begun to imagine it empty. Her gaze falls sadly on our 12-year-old, seeing the next six years whizzing by, too. But think of the freedom, I say, mentally dusting off our old priorities involving just the two of us – swanning off to the pub at the drop of a hat, seeing friends, attending art exhibitions, having sex on the stairs. Weekends in Rome or Paris! Yes, says my wife, who has been – and still is – the best mother a child could wish for, even though it has meant sacrificing a life that she might have selflessly devoted to me alone.

Of course I will miss them too. But she senses we are not fully united in this. Perhaps it's a man-woman thing. I put my arm round her (recalling how tearful she was last week, loading Ryan and his baggage and DVDs and guitars and newly bought wok into his student accommodation) and say that everything will be fine. Just quieter. Just different.

Do we really need another parenting book?

Don’t we humans come pre-programmed with all the instinctual knowledge necessary to help our kids become bright, well-adjusted members of society? Ok, I’ll wait for those of you with kids to stop laughing before I continue…

Obviously, there are a lot of times when parents have to admit: I have no idea what I’m doing. That state of mind is “nurture shock.” We just muddle through with a combination of common sense, things we learned (positive and negative) from our own parents, and various other bits of knowledge that we’ve cobbled together.

I know I’ve read a number of parenting books and magazines myself: about teaching kids to read, or how to discipline them, or making a decision about home-schooling. The problem is that if you read enough, you’ll soon realize that basically you’re the one who has to decide which advice to follow, because for any given topic you’ll probably find support on both sides. From the amount of TV they watch to whether thumb-sucking is okay to when and how you should potty-train them, you get a buffet of options on each subject, with entire books devoted to them. It’s often very easy to be convinced by somebody’s anecdotal arguments on something, and then be equally convinced by the opposite side.

What sets NurtureShock apart is the science.

Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman didn’t set out to write a book about parenting, but sort of stumbled across it while researching a story for Time Magazine. They found that, at least when it comes to praising our kids, our instincts appear to be completely wrong. And they wondered: what else have we gotten wrong? Digging deeper, they found piles of scientific studies done about children, and spent three years investigating what really works and what doesn’t. The results are often counterintuitive and (unfortunately) completely opposite of what we do by “instinct.”

I can’t really do the book justice in one article because there’s just so much information. I could throw out some random statistics but it’s really all the research and background that makes it especially convincing for me. Bronson and Merryman hit a lot of critical topics: self-esteem, sleep habits, race, sibling rivalry, gifted kids, self-control, and language acquisition. Each chapter had at least one thing that surprised me; most had several. There are definitely several areas where I’m actively trying to change the way I raise my kids because of this book, and a couple where I’ve finally gotten some real confirmation that I’m doing the right thing.

Just to give you a small taste, I’ll share something from the second chapter, “The Lost Hour.” Worldwide, children are sleeping about an hour less than their counterparts thirty years ago. Bronson and Merryman tie this to poor performance in school, depression, and even obesity. They point out that, according to some scholars, “many hallmark traits of modern adolescence—moodiness, impulsiveness, disengagement—are also symptoms of chronic sleep deprivation.” For younger kids, an hour of sleep can be equivalent to losing two years worth of development. For older kids, lack of sleep can actually make you unable to recall positive memories.

Also, to give you an idea of the evidence backing up Bronson and Merryman’s writing, consider this: the actual text of the book is about 239 pages long. It’s followed by nearly twenty pages of endnotes, and then about forty more pages of references and sources (which are in addition to the many interviews they did). We’re not talking about the latest “science du jour,” as the authors put it. This is solid stuff.

I had only one significant complaint. In a few of the chapters, I felt like I was left unsure about what to do with the information. For example, in “Plays Well With Others,” which addresses bullying and other “antisocial” behavior, Bronson and Merryman show that it’s not just the rejected kids who resort to aggressive behavior—in fact, many of the most popular kids use relational aggression much more often. Teaching kids not to bully is, in fact, detrimental to their social status. But what they don’t say is is whether that’s a bad thing or not. Do I want my kid to have a lot of friends? Or is it preferable to let them be picked on? Is there a third option?

I know this stems from Bronson and Merryman’s desire not to create a “paint-by-numbers” parenting book. They would prefer to present the evidence and then allow us to decide for ourselves on a course of action. But there were a few cases where I wished they had given just a little more explanation or guidance. Most of the chapters were a little less ambiguous about what’s good for kids and what isn’t, but there were a few in which the answers were not so easily defined. Perhaps, then, my complaint isn’t necessarily about the book so much as it is that kids are variable creatures.

Since I started reading NurtureShock, I haven’t been able to shut up about it. I’m planning to pass it along to several parents and teachers, and I’ve been recommending it to my friends who have kids. I help select books at our local library, and I’ll be requesting that they purchase a copy right away. If you have kids or work with kids, you really ought to check this one out.

This is the sort of book that is covered with blurbs like “one of the most important books you will read this year,” “Alarming,” and “I feel like I’ve been smacked between the eyes with a two-by-four…” But now, having read NurtureShock, I’m sold. This is probably the most important book I’ve read this year. I’ll continue to read other books, and I’ll continue to recommend things that I like, but if you only read one thing I review on GeekDad this year, please make it this one. Before I was even through the first two chapters, I already had the urge to call a meeting with our school board to discuss it.

As a footnote, I learned about the publisher, Twelve Books, when I was looking up information on NurtureShock. It’s an interesting company, publishing no more than one book a month and seeking out quality material. They state that their goal is to publish books that “explain our culture; that illuminate, inspire, provoke, and entertain.” It’s admirable (and I’m sure very challenging), and while I haven’t read any of their other offerings yet, I certainly believe NurtureShock achieves that goal. Under full disclosure, Twelve Books sent me a free copy to review, but it was after I contacted them and requested one—if they had turned me down I was considering purchasing a copy anyway. As it is, this is a book I’ll probably buy a couple copies myself to give away.

GeekDad

Website dedicated to the book

Seven not-so-secret secrets for parenting girls

Secret #1: Brand Early
Children are what we say they are. Begin now to take every opportunity to inform your daughter of her strengths. She will view herself as you view her. Send messages of self-confidence and heartiness.

Secret #2: Promote Independence
Encourage your daughter to do for herself and to try new challenges. Continue to send messages of strength. She will grow to learn that she is capable of doing anything.

Secret #3: Promote Thinking
Parents have a responsibility to teach their daughters to think. Ask them questions. By questioning, praising, and probing you will help your daughter sharpen her ideas, refine her thinking, learn to express her opinions, value her intelligence and achieve more.

Secret #4: Promote Learning
No matter what a girl's age it's important to encourage her to learn. Read together about important things. Read about active, hearty females. Read about women inventors, artists, and writers. Read about women in leadership. Read about some great women role models here and here.

Secret #5: Promote Education
Do not allow your daughter the opportunity not to choose education. Frame your conversations with her about her future with expectations of higher education. Teach early that college follows high school. Enough said.

Secret #6: Promote Open Career Options
Show your daughter that females can and do select careers in all fields. Point this out whenever you can. Let your daughter know that she can choose what she wants to do. Encourage math and science fields. Read about women in these fields.

Secret #7: Promote Awareness
Help your daughter become aware of gender bias. Girls need to recognize it in order to respond to it.

Read more in the e-book and in Wojtalik's emails which you can also sign up for when you download the e-book here.

 

A synopsis by Ode Magazine

Why won't feminists admit the pleasure of infants?

 In the six weeks since my baby was born, I seem to have lost all worldly ambition. I can think about September, when I am supposed to go back to work, only with dread. I have a class to teach. I have to start writing again. But the idea of talking about ideas in front of students or typing a coherent sentence (i.e., my normal life) seems totally implausible. Even now, the prospect of writing a few paragraphs about this problem seems almost out of reach. Taking care of the baby—physical, draining, exhilarating—is more like farming: following the rhythms of the earth, getting up at dawn, watching the corn flush in the sunrise. It is not at all like writing.
(...)
People often compare having a new baby to the early days of a love affair, which is true as far as it goes, but one’s physical fixation on, and craving for, a newborn is much stronger and more intense that that. How often in a love affair can you literally find yourself in tears because you were away from a man for three hours?

Read all at Double X

Rule #56: Join Forces With the Monster Under the Bed

Every parent needs an ally, and there’s no better source of unknown evil to a toddler or small child than the monster under the bed.

Use this sinister source to your advantage when trying to sway your child to follow any of your home’s random rules that, truth be told, most children with the brain function of a parsnip wouldn’t bother following anyway.

But that’s not the point.

The point, as we see it in our long-term, tainted-by-Donnie-Darko worldview, is to break your child’s will and foment the beginnings of rampant paranoia that will one day have him scampering up trees like a feral tabby when any sign of danger approaches your home.

Just lay low for now, and if he's still awake after 10, just crawl out and lick his hand or something.

This Ain’t No Monsters Inc. Joy Ride, Kid

The key to using the monster under the bed is to pretend he’s sort of like your old college roommate. You’re close to him. There’s nothing you wouldn’t do for each other, only unlike your college roommate, the monster has it in for your kid.

So, you’ll say things like, “Justin, so…like, I was having a beer with the Monster last night, and he was talking trash about you—like how he wants to rip off your head and toss it to his wolf friends he invited to hang out in our back yard.

But I was like, ‘Monster dude, we’ve known each other a long time, and while I know you want to seriously hurt Justin’s head, he’s actually pretty cool. So what can I do to get you not to feed his head to the wolves that are in our back yard?’”

And, of course, the monster under the bed will request that Justin better damn well learn how to use the potty because it’s getting really old smelling his crappy diapers and, oh, while Justin is into personal development, the monster also would like him to sleep with the lights off and polish the rims on your new Escalade.

See how this can help your life tremendously? Your son shapes up, and you gain an imaginary drinking buddy.

Theres a lot of other great advice on this website: http://www.reallybadparentingadvice.com/

Funny, even if you don't have kids...