Hyper Parents & Coddled Kids: Review of Documentary (Airs on CBC Next Week)

The Art of Parenting

Hyper Parents & Coddled Kids zeroes in on what is commonly referred to as helicopter parenting: the tendency of some parents to hover over their kids. (Did you know that helicopter parents are known as curling parents in Sweden? That's one of the interesting pop culture tidbits that you can pick up while watching this documentary.)

The documentary describes the phenomenon in detail and features interviews with parents, a psychiatrist, and other cultural commentators, including Carl Honore, author of Under Pressure: Rescuing our Children from the Culture of Over-Parenting. Notably absent is Lorene Skenazy, whose book Free Range Kids is widely considered to be the unofficial manifesto of the anti-helicopter parenting movement.

The documentary is at its best when it focuses on the lives of kids who are heading off to university or landing their first job. According to a variety of sources who are interviewed on camera, hardcore helicopter parenting types apparently think nothing of calling up their kids university profs (or the president of the university) to argue about grades; or of making contact with their kids' employers, if junior's performance review hasn't been sufficiently glowing.

The documentary is less convincing when it focuses on the lives of the over-privileged (parents who can afford to drop $4000 on birthday bash for a one year old) or the just-plain-clueless (parents who don't seem to be able to think critically about any product or service that promises to give their kid an advantage over the next family's kid). Very few parents bought into the helicopter parenting phenomenon to this degree, even when the trend was at its peak. Becoming a parent isn't correlated with a sudden increase in wealth or an immediate loss of your critical thinking abilities, after all.

There's also the issue of timeliness. This documentary would have been more timely a few years back, when parents were more inclined to want to micromanage their kids' lives. Since that time, there has been a growing backlash against helicopter parenting. The recession has accelerated this trend by giving parents something else to worry about (finding the money to pay the bills) and reducing the income available to fund that faux-perfect family lifestyle.

Since environmental concerns heightened and the recession hit, parents have been simplifying their lives (including managing the avalanche of parenting advice information that can leave them feeling helicopter-parented by the parenting experts), simplifying their kids lives (allowing lots of time for unstructured outdoor play: an old-fashioned idea that never quite went out of style), and enjoying time as a family (relaxed time for fun, not time that is driven by an agenda). And I can tell you one thing. No one is eager to hop back on board that helicopter anytime soon.

The documentary is worth watching, if only as a reminder of where we've been and how far we've come in rejecting the consumerist parenting style that views parents as manufacturers and kids as products to be paraded before the neighbors and the relatives. They are individuals in their own right: not branch plants belonging to Mom or Dad Inc.

Hyper Parents & Coddled Kids airs at the following times:

Thursday, February 4, 2010 at 9 pm on CBC-TV

Friday, February 5, 2010 at 10 pm ET/PT on CBC News Network.

In Praise of Passion: Passion Makes People Happier: Study

Parenting Lab

Passion Makes People Happier: Study

Passion doesn't just make life easier. It makes life better.

And now that psychologists Robert J Vallerand and Geneviève L. Lavigne of the Université du Québec à Montréal have confirmed that passion makes people happier, we should be teaching our kids about the importance of figuring out what you are passionate about and making your passions part of your daily life.

So how do kids go about finding their passions?

In some cases, it's a matter of pure luck. A child slips on a pair of hockey skates and discovers that they feel as comfortable and natural as a pair of slippers. Or a child grows up with a passion for books and writing and assumes that everyone wants to write a book. (You'll have to guess which kid was me.)

In other cases, it takes some time for an activity or interest to find the kid. Your child may show little enthusiasm for anything you've ever signed him up for until the day he hands you a flyer and asks, "Can you sign me up for this?"

You may be shocked by what this is, having never heard your child mention this in his entire life. That's part of the fun of parenting: that element of surprise.

There's simply no way of predicting which passion will get matched up with which kid.

All you can do is gaze on in wonder and try to puzzle out which part of that choice was nature and which part (if any) was nurture.

It's a game parents have been playing since before we were kids and that they'll be playing long after we're gone.

So how does passion fit into your life? What are you passionate about -- and how do you find time for your passions? Have your kids identified their passions? What do you see as your role in helping them to find/identify their passions?

Passion to Go

According to psychologists Robert J Vallerand and Geneviève L. Lavigne of the Université du Québec à Montréal, remaining passionately engaged in life, via activities, helps us to feel good about ourselves as we age. The effect is particularly pronounced for men, who tend to stagnate and to struggle with self-acceptance and their purpose in life as they age. So if you'd like to be a fun, passionate older man (as opposed to his grumpier counterpart); or you'd like to be involved with this kind of man, you'd be wise to print out a copy of this article about passion, hang it on your refrigerator, and commit to becoming (or remaining) passionate. Life's too short to settle for ho-hum-ness, after all. You might as well ride the passion express the whole way through.

NEW!   You can now find The Mother of All on Facebook.

Five Parenting Predictions for 2010

Most crystal balls haven't kept pace with the pace at which the world is changing, so you have to be feeling brave to try your hand at predictions of any kind these days. I guess that means I'm starting out 2010 in gutsy mode. Here are five parenting predictions, which span the world of parenting and pop culture.

1. Family dinner conversations will become livelier, thanks to Twitter and Facebook.
With family members joining social networking sites where they hone and share their opinions online, dinner conversations can't help but become a little more lively and opinionated. Fortunately, research has shown that discussions around the family dinner table help to make kids smarter.

2. Parents will gravitate to e-books and e-readers as their budgets allow and as parenting e-books become more interactive.
As parenting e-books become more interactive, they'll have more to offer a generation of parents who are used to interacting with text as opposed to digesting it word for word.

3. Even more reality TV shows will focus on families.
Jon and Kate Plus 8 may have faded to black, but Octomom Nadya Suleman will soon be bringing her 14 kids to air, along with Canadian stunt family, the Dunns. This kind of begs the question: what reality TV show format for a family with kids remains to be tapped? Perhaps someone should pitch NASCAR Family, A Baby and a Bakery, or This Family Can Sing. Or maybe not.

4. Parents surfing the web will be subjected to increasing SEO-world vs. real-world parenting disconnect.
The battle for ad dollars and eyeballs can lead to cheesy headlines and bizarro-world stories, even on parenting websites. The net result? It will become increasingly difficult to find a simple answer to a garden-variety parenting question – unless, of course, all the baby sleep questions are asked by readers named Tiger or Britney.

5. The journalism robots will fail miserably as they attempt to play parenting expert.
They're already out there, apparently: -- the journalism robots, that is: harvesting text so that articles can be generated out of loosely related facts without hands-on help from any humans. We can only hope that the journalism robots have legal robot buddies willing to help them out if the parenting advice, as mashed together, happens to short on common sense or missing a safety caveat or two.

TIP

Give yourself a parenting advice timeout. Being bombarded with advice about every aspect of parenting 24/7 can leave us feeling like we'll never learn everything we need to know to do even a half-way decent job as parents. Unplugging gives us time to consider how much we already know and to reach our own conclusions about parenting, without being distracted by all the expert voices competing for attention in our heads.

New Year's Stress Resolutions: Resolving to Become a Less Stressed Out Family in 2010

Resolving to become a less stressed parent - or to have a less stressed out family - in 2010?

You're certainly in good company.

Stress levels in Canada have sky-rocketed since the start of the recession, with 36 percent of Canadians reporting an increase in stress and 28 percent reporting a drop in employment income, according to an annual survey conducted by Desjardin Financial Security. The top three sources of stress, according to survey respondents, were money (30 percent), work (25 percent), and family responsibilities (10 percent).

In 2008, 28% of Canadians between the ages of 35 and 54 reported that most days were extremely or quite a bit stressful. (This is the age range when family and career responsibilities peak, according to Statistics Canada.) Women were more likely than men to report that most days were quite a bit or extremely stressful.

Juggling work and family can be stressful. Families with children may face a particular set of challenges related to work–life balance when one or both parents are working long hours. Families with children are less likely to have both parents working consistently standard schedules (14%) than families without children (21%). Concern about how school-aged kids are faring during the hours after school has become so severe that it's earned its own acronym in recent years: parents' after school stress (PASS). A 2006 study concluded that parental after school stress affects the psychological health of a large number of employed parents of school-aged children.

Are we having fun yet?

Parenting is stressful for dads. A 2006 survey conducted by the American Psychological Association found that 43 percent of fathers feel overwhelmed by the demands they are shouldering at work and at home.

Parenting is also stressful for moms -- and not for the reasons media stereotypes would have you believe. (It's not about the carpools.) A 2006 American Psychological Association survey found that stress is higher for the parent who makes the health care decisions for other family members, including children, and women disproportionately serve that role for their families (73 percent versus 40 percent of men). This also explains why stress levels soar even higher for mothers (and fathers) of children who have special needs.

Being a kid is stressful, too. What stresses kids out may be different from what stresses us out, but they need to know that we care about what's going on in their lives and that we'll help them with their problems, large or small. Having that kind of caring connection to at least one adult means everything to a child; and determines to what extent that child thrives in the world.

Related Resources:

• Canadian Mental Health Association Stress Test: Just how stressed are you? Find out by completing this online quiz.
• Crisis Intervention and Suicide Prevention Centre of British Columbia: Tips on coping with stress.
• MayoClinic.com: Relaxation techniques: Learn ways to reduce your stress
• Health is Cool: Back to School Stress brochure: Available for Download (pdf).

Trouble in Toyland, Short Kids, A School that Could Rock the 21st Century

Newswire

Trouble in Toyland

Innocent companies can get hurt by the backlash that happens following a recall. That's one of the key findings to emerge from a study of the highly publicized 2007 toy recalls. Toy companies who were not affected by the recalls had their sales drop by 25 percent as consumers' confidence in toy products overall spiraled downward. "In this industry, one firm's offence seems to penalize other players," said Mara Lederman, a professor at the Rotman School of Management and one of the study's three co-authors.

Parenting Lab

Short Kids

Parents may worry about kids who are shorter than average, but the experts say the kids are doing just fine. A University of Michigan Health System study found that shorter kids do just as well in terms of popularity, social support, and optimism as their taller peers. It just goes to prove that Randy Newman had it all wrong. 

The Big Idea

School That Could Rock the 21st Century

Students need to master the art of compassion if they're going to be ready to take up the challenges of 21st century citizenship. That means that they should be spending more time acquiring such skills as mindfulness and contemplation (so that they can tune out distractions and focus on what really matters, like meeting the needs of those around them). The current system, which promotes competition rather than cooperation in the classroom, tends to foster inequality and unhappiness. According to Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th dalai lama, who was one of 20 panelists at a recent conference, "Educating World Citizens for the 21st Century," co-sponsored by the American Psychological Association, most people are willing to settle for a definition of education that involves memorizing facts and passing tests, as opposed to contributing to life-long happiness and well-being. "We are social animals," Gyatso told the APA Monitor. "Individuals' happiness depends on the community's happiness."

Parents as Trainers, Kids as Creative Capital? UK Report Worth A Read if You Can Get Beyond the Weird Stuff

Parenting Lab

A new report published by the UK think tank Demos zeroes in on the important role that parents play in teaching kids about culture and creativity. We're the trainers of the next generation of cultural workers.

Perhaps I should mention that Demos is a Progressive Conservative think tank. While a lot of the points they make have a lot of validity, the way they phrase things can get a little creepy. Sometimes they seem to forget that most of us became parents for reasons other than to meet the future staffing needs of employers.

Parents as trainers, kids as cultural capital...and the family as a development site

"Educational and cultural institutions will play their part in aiding the transition to ‘thinking jobs’, but the development of the new skills required for future jobs is also dependent on the home environment," Making of Me study co-authors Jen Lexmond and Shelagh Wright write. "Evidence from developmental psychology tells us that soft skills – creativity, application and social skills – are developed in the earliest years. The family is therefore a key site for creative and cultural development."

But wait! - there are dividends, too!

Initiating the creative and cultural education of their kids also reaps major dividends for the family, the authors note: "Families that engage in creative and cultural learning activities together become more resilient. As an institution, the family becomes more meaningful and adolescents acquire better coping strategies for problems in later life."

The good stuff

When the report gets down to the real nitty-gritty, valuable points are made.

Here's Paul Collard, Chief Executive at Creative and Cultural Education, UK, for example, being quoted on the invisible barriers that keep families away from participating in creative and cultural learning opportunities (and, I would argue, from participating in other types of "free" community programs as well):

"Cost remains the most fundamental barrier to families engaging in creative and cultural learning. Even when opportunities are free of charge, there remains a stubborn suspicion among some families (especially low-income families) that such opportunities will not remain free. Then, added to this suspicion, are a multitude of anticipated risks: the risk not being able to afford it; the risk of added costs (for example, entry to a museum might be free but then what about food, the gift-shop etc?); the risk of being made to feel dependent on someone else; the risk of embarrassment etc. Therefore, there remains a real need for ‘low-risk’ invitations. Ultimately, creative and cultural learning opportunities need to be designed from a family perspective." (p. 18)

You can download a copy of the full report from the Demos website. Bizarre "parents-as-trainers-of-future-workforce" overtones aside, it really is worth checking out.

Extra Votes for Parents, Healthy Body Image, and Fish Art

Newswire

Extra Votes for Parents?

"If [governments] are not ready to stand up proudly and give voice to the rights of children, then they should put into place reforms that magnify the voices that already exist. The most important would be reforming an electoral system that disenfranchises all those younger than 18 by allowing their parents to cast additional votes for each of their children. Maybe only then when they have to actually look their electorate in the eyes will there be sufficient resolve to make child rights the priority that a commitment [the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child] made 20 years ago stated it should be."
- Miles Corak, former research coordinator and lead researcher of the 2005 UNICEF Report Child Poverty in Rich Countries, writing in yesterday's Toronto Star

A Powerful New Anti-Bullying Tool:
Positive Body Image

Reflections of Me: Body Image and Self-Esteem (a preventative educational program designed for use from kindergarten through Grade 8) is one of the tools Ontario teachers are using to combat bullying in the classroom. It is designed to teach children to accept differences in others and to resist harassment and bullying based on body image.

The curriculum – which was developed by the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario (EFTO) – recently won the Canadian Medical Association's Award for Excellence in Health Promotion. It consists of a video, curriculum materials designed for each grade level, and a brochure for parents.

According to the EFTO, parents play a key role in determining how children feel about their bodies and in promoting healthy body image in general. Parents can remind kids that genetics have a lot to do with a person's weight, size, and body type; reinforce the idea that all bodies are acceptable; challenge put-downs related to physical appearance and be a positive role model with regard to body image; encourage kids to tune into their own internal hunger and fullness cues; promote exercise and healthy eating as ways to nurture your body; and celebrate the uniqueness of all people.

Related:

Body Talk: The Straight Facts About Fitness, Nutrition, and Feeling Great About Yourself by Ann Douglas and Julie Douglas

One Fish, Two Fish, Rainbow Fish, Whitefish....

The Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources' Kids' Fish Art Contest is back for its 7th year. Kids in grades 4 through 12 have until December 18th to submit a drawings of one of this year's official fish -- the rainbow fish or the whitefish -- in its natural habitat, along with an essay about habitat protection (see official contest rules for details). The winning design will be used on the 2010 Young Angler's License.

Corner Store Snacks, What We Expect from Teens, Folic Acid and ADHD, Plus More on H1N1

Parenting Lab

The Convenience Store: Maybe a Little Too Convenient?
Purchases made at corner stores contribute a significant number of calories to the diets of children growing up in urban areas, according to researchers at Temple University's Center for Obesity Research and Education in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The researchers discovered that children purchase an average of two food and/or beverage items during each trip to the corner store; and that caloric intake of these items averages 356 calories. The results of this study appear in the November 5, 2009, issue of the medical journal Pediatrics.

Low Expectations May Fuel Teen Misbehavior
If you expect your teen to get into trouble, your teen may very well live up to those expectations. That's the key finding to emerge from a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill study of 250 preteens and their mothers. The researchers, who published their results in the Journal of Research on Adolescence, found that teens are more likely to live up to the expectations that are set for them, whether those expectations are positive or negative.

Low Folate Levels in Pregnancy Tied to ADHD in Offspring 
Here's yet another reason to up your intake of folic acid prior to and during pregnancy: low folate levels during pregnancy are associated with an increased likelihood of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in offspring aged 7 to 9. This new finding, reported in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, supports previous research suggesting that folic acid plays a key role in the development of the nervous system.

Newswire

Concern Over H1N1 Jumps Significantly: Harris/Decima Poll
According to a poll conducted by Harris/Decima between October 29 and November 1, the majority of Canadians are now concerned about H1N1 -- a significant shift since early October. Nationally, 55% of Canadians are now very (20%) or somewhat (35%) concerned about the H1N1 flu virus, up from 36% who were concerned at the start of October. Concern is highest in Ontario and Atlantic Canada and lowest in Quebec and Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

H1N1 Obsessed? Join the Club: How H1N1 Anxiety is Affecting the Lives of Canadian Parents

Every parent I know is H1N1 obsessed right now. And, judging by these newspaper headlines, the parental obsession is pretty much country-wide. Here's a quick snapshot of how H1N1 anxiety is affecting the lives of Canadian parents from coast to coast.

Newswire

The Toronto Star: Got Baby Brain? Your Vaccine Guide, Simply Put
The Toronto Star 's Catherine Porter translates the lingo of Dr. David Butler-Jones, Canada's chief public health officer, into messages a pregnant woman can deal with, without hitting the panic button.

The Globe and Mail: The H1N1 dilemma: Parents Agonize Over Vaccinating Kids Yes? No? Maybe? Yes?
Parental pillow talk across the country is dominated by the pros and cons of vaccinating children against swine flu reportsThe Globe and Mail's Erin Anderssen.

Vancouver Sun.com: Doctors' Offices and Walk-in Clinics Overwhelmed by H1N1 Demands
Doctors’ offices and walk-in clinics in B.C. are being inundated with calls from people demanding the H1N1 vaccine but they don’t have enough doses to meet the demand in the first roll out of the national vaccination program.

Montreal Gazette: Parents flood ERs for H1N1 testing
Authorities at two Montreal hospitals are holding a news conference this morning to address parents' concerns about H1N1 flu.

Halifax Daily News: Influenza Assessment Centre Opens Today at Noon
In Halifax, health authorities are opening an influenza assessment centre to ease congestion and help prevent the spread of flu or other communicable diseases in hospital emergency departments. 

Edmonton Journal: Schools Scramble for Teachers as H1N1 Tightens its Grip
The wave of germs that is keeping a growing number of Edmonton area students at home sick now appears to be thinning the ranks of staff at some schools, the Edmonton Journal reports.

CBC.ca: Nunavut Starts Swine Flu Shots Nov. 1 
The H1N1 shot will be offered to everyone eligible to get it (as opposed to priority groups such as pregnant women and those with chronic conditions), starting November 1. Nunavut expects to "be able to finish its vaccination program ahead of most other provinces and territories," chief medical officer Isaac Sobol told the CBC. 

Related:

Healthzone.ca: Where to Get Your Shots in the GTA
An interactive map that is updated as information changes.

New Scientist: Swine Flu: Eight Myths That Could Endanger Your Life
New Scientist magazine went back and looked at the research -- and found that even some government  agencies are missing the mark on a few key points.

Resource Swap

How is your family dealing with the H1N1 issue? Have you blogged about it? Do you have a useful resource to share? Please comment below so that others who are struggling with this issue can benefit from your insights and experience. Thanks.

From Mean Girls to Perfection Pressures to Baby Names

NEWSWIRE

A roundup of essays, opinion pieces, and/or noteworthy news items about all things parenting.

THE MEAN SCENE

“Girls are not brought up to be assertive. They’re raised to be nice and pretty and have lots of friends. But they themselves recognize meanness as an integral part, even a normal part, of their growing up....It’s what girls do to get by. They need to dress the part and look the part and gather their army of friends around them. Their capital is their friends, their hair, their name-brand clothing – that’s power for them.”
- Nicole Landry, research coordinator with the Department of Community Health and Epidemiology in the Faculty of Medicine, Dalhousie University, and author, The Mean Girl Motive: Negotiating Power and Femininity (Halifax: Fernwood Publishing), quoted in "Survival of the Meanest" by Marilyn Smulders at dalnews.dal.ca.

LITTLE MISS PERFECT

Researchers at Dalhousie University in Halifax have come up with a theory to explain the vicious cycle that can link perfectionism to binge eating. Psychologists Simon Sherry and Peter A. Hall analyzed the daily behaviors of undergraduates and discovered that students who binge eat use the experience of eating to block out overwhelming feelings of loneliness, failure, and sadness. The relief is only temporary, however, as those emotions are replaced with longer-lasting feelings of guilt and shame. Learning to modify goals and expectations to better reflect what's realistic and achievable can reduce the desire to binge eat as a way of coping, leading to a happier and healthier individual, they concluded. The study was published in a recent issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

PARENT LAB

Noteworthy research from the world of parenting.

GREAT NAME, HAPPY LIFE

There's a lot on the line when it comes to naming your baby. A recent study conducted by researchers at Cardiff University has confirmed what kids on the playground have known forever: it's easier to lead a happier life if your parents gave you the gift of a great name.

The researchers also found that people who really, really, really liked their name (like who were totally in love with their name) tended to score highly for self-deception. So if your friend Toaster insists that he absolutely adores his name, you might conclude that the dude protests too much.

The study was published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.

RESOURCE SWAP

Parenting resource swap.

BABY NAMES

Let's continue the chit-chat about baby names by making it the subject of the first Resource Swap.

If you've written a blog post on the subject of baby names and you're particularly proud of it OR you've got some baby naming resources to recommend, email me so that I can include your recommendations in the initial roundup of resources.

If you miss this initial call for posts and resources, don't panic. You can add your links/resources once the post goes live on Thursday. In the world of parenting, deadlines have to be flexible, right?

~ ~ ~

PS: Thanks very much for the comments on Thursday's post. I really appreciate your feedback on the new blog format. I also received some very positive tweets. Those were much appreciated, too. Hope you're all enjoying a fabulous Canadian Thanksgiving holiday weekend with friends/family. Thank you for being part of my blog family year in and year out (and, in the case of many of you, for many years running, from blog to blog). I am very grateful for your loyalty and your friendship.