Motherhood Research and Parenting Studies

My in-box is overflowing with research requests related to birth, parenting, and motherhood. If you want to contribute to what is known about any of these subject areas (either by being interviewed by a journalist, offering to be a research participant in a study, submitting an article to a journal, or speaking at a conference), there are certainly opportunities galore. Here's a roundup of the latest requests.

BIRTH EXPERIENCES

The Toronto Star would like to interview new moms about their birth experiences. Did your labour and delivery go as planned? How did you feel about your experience? Contact reporter Francine Kopun at fkopun@thestar.ca by May 10. With your permission, your story may become part of a Living feature in the Star.

CARING FOR A PERSON WITH AN AUTISM SPECTRUM DISORDER (ASD)

The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health is conducting a survey of family needs associated with caring for a person with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD). If you are a family member of an adult or youth with ASD, your participation would be appreciated. The purpose of the survey is to find out about how you and your family handle stresses, how you feel, and what kind of services you use. The survey is confidential. In order to understand families' experiences, family members are asked to complete an online questionnaire. Participation takes approximately 30 minutes. Please call 416-535-8501, ext 7813, or email yona_lunsky@camh.net for more information. To participate, go to www.familyprojects.ca (The Family Study).

BULLYING AND AUTISM SPECTRUM DISORDERS

The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health is conducting an online survey to learn about the experiences of bullying in children and youth with Autism or Asperger Syndrome. They are interested in interviewing parents of children with Autism or Asperger Syndrome. The focus of this project is to better understand the experience of bullying among students with Asperger syndrome and Autism across Canada. The research is being conducted primarily by a doctoral student, Catherine Cappadocia, and researcher, Dr. Jonathan Weiss, from York University. The online survey takes approximately 30 minutes to complete. Any questions or concerns about this project can be directed to Catherine Cappadocia, M.A., Project Coordinator by phone at (647) 283-2585 or by email at catcap@yorku.ca. To participate, go to www.familyprojects.ca (The Family Study).

MOTHERHOOD RESEARCH

The Association for Research on Mothering has been reborn as The Motherhood Initiative for Research and Community Involvement (MIRCI). It is continuing its proud tradition of research into motherhood with an impressive publishing and conference schedule for 2010. If you write or speak about motherhood, you'll want to check out these recent calls for submissions (see partial list below); and to plan to attend MIRCI's upcoming Gala Literary Night Fundraiser on May 21, 2010, from 7 pm to 10:30 pm at Ryerson Oakham House.

° Motherhood and the Economy: The Economics of Mothering (Conference: October 21 to 24, Toronto, Canada): Deadline for Abstract and Bio: August 1, 2010.

° Mothering, Bereavement, Loss, and Grief (journal): Deadline for Submissions: June 1, 2010.

° Mothering: Anthropological Perspectives (anthology): Deadline for Submissions: July 1, 2010.

° Black Motherhoods (anthology): Deadline for Submissions: September 1, 2010.

Dear Lemon Lima: The Short Film - A Review

If your experience of being 12 or 13 was anything like mine, you don't need a film like Dear Lemon Lima to help you to understand what adolescence can be like for a kid who is socially awkward, a loner, and/or a bit of a geek. That time in your own life now represents your own personal benchmark for hell.

If, however, you have nothing but fond memories of the years when you reigned as Queen of the Sleepover Circuit or King of the Street Hockey League – and you can't understand why your 12-year-old is more the reclusive caterpillar than the social butterfly – you may want to watch the short film Dear Lemon Lima with your preteen or teen.

Dear Lemon Lima | Artvoice TV

Available for download on iTunes for $1.99, Dear Lemon Lima is a short film (11:54) about bouncing back after first heartbreak with Mr. Oh-So-Wrong (a 12-year-old who acts like a graduate of a soul-extracting franchise management program) and finding true friendship (with other kids who are marching to the sound of their own drummer).

The movie is funny and charming; and it provides a natural launching pad for conversations about what it's like to be a creative or sensitive person in a sometimes unthinking or unfeeling world: how it takes courage to walk that path, but how much easier that journey becomes once you find a community of like-minded souls to share the journey with.

The world can be a terribly lonely place when you're a square-peg 12 year old stuck in a classroom of round-peg kids: you need to know that there are triangular- and rectangular- and octagonal- and, yes, even square-peg kids waiting to meet you in the land of high school and beyond. You're only 12 for 365 days, after all, even if it feels like it lasts forever.

Note: Don't confuse the short film Dear Lemon Lima (11:54, released 2010, which filmmaker Suzi Yoonessi made as her thesis film while completing Columbia University's Graduate Film program) with the feature film Dear Lemon Lima (87 minutes, 2009, also directed by Yoonessi, but with a different tone and flavor).

Why Sex Education Matters: Interview with the Founder of Scarleteen - Part II in a Series

Think this generation of kids knows everything it needs to know about sex – and then some?

Think again, We may be raising our kids in a culture that's obsessed with sex, but we aren't doing a very good job of teaching them about sex. In fact, according to Heather Corinna, founder of Scarleteen, a website that has been answering teens' questions about sex for the past dozen years, we haven't even managed to equip them with the basic vocabulary.

"We have teens apologizing for not having using the right language, not having the right information about how their bodies work. In what other area of knowledge do we make people feel bad about themselves for not knowing? At Scarleteen, we tell the teens, 'It's everybody else's fault but yours that you don't know.' "

Ignorance is not bliss

An advocate for "inclusive, healthy, and sex-positive sex education," Corinna feels we should be providing teens with the information they need to stay safe and make informed choices. For that to happen, the conversation needs to start while your child is still quite young.

"You don't want your child to end up in sexual situations too early. Ignorance enables that to happen. Silence gives them the message, 'I'm not supposed to talk about it.' It prevents them from talking about it. And it leaves them vulnerable to predatory adults. If you don't know the name for a particular body part, it's pretty hard to tell someone you've been touched there."

I'm okay, you're okay – and so is your family

Talking about gender identity helps children to understand that it's possible for a boy to love another boy – just as it's possible for a girl to love another girl. The world isn't just made up of boy and girl couples.This conversation doesn't just become relevant when kids start dating. It is relevant the moment a young child begins to notice that not all families are the same.

"It's about talking about these kids' families, making these kids visible, Corinna explains. "And sending some implicit messages about who these kids might end up loving."

The consequences of such conversations could be far-reaching.

"It might be possible to decrease how much people are going to get bullied. It might reduce the number of queer kids in junior high who commit suicide."

And about that sex thing....

Talking about sex is not the same thing as promoting sex.

The proposed curriculum encourages abstinence for as long as possible. So does Scarleteen.

But neither resorts to fear- or guilt-mongering in order to achieve that goal. And for good reason, says Corinna.

"Ideally, we want kids to get the idea that sex, at the right time, with the right person, is a good thing. We want them to be empowered and happy, to view sex as pleasurable; not to feel bad, to stumble into horrible relationships, to take unhealthy risks."

That's what I want for my kids. How about you?

Coming in Part III: The Sex Ed Files: A roundup of resources related to the sex ed debate.

No Need to Get Hot and Bothered About the New Sex Ed Curriculum – Part I of II

I don't know about you, but I don't like other people speaking for me when it comes to issues involving my kids. So when I heard that some parents were up in arms about the proposed changes to the sex ed curriculum for Ontario schools, I decided that I needed to research those changes for myself.

Getting my hands on the documents wasn't easy. The moment Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty pulled his initial support for the changes and announced that the curriculum changes were being put on hold, pending further review and consultations with parents, the documents were removed from the Ministry of Education website.

It took a bit of detective work, but I managed to track down a copy of the documents via the I Support Sexual Health Education in Ontario Facebook Group. I then proceeded to pour through the document, page by page,  zeroing in on the most relevant sections (download copy of chart).

This progressive, health-oriented curriculum – which covers so much more than sex education, incidentally – has the potential to change (and even save) kids' lives. If we can convince the government to go ahead with the curriculum as is (as opposed to bowing to pressure to water down the content), our kids will learn some very important lessons, starting at a very early age.

They will learn that every person is worthy of respect. This principle is all-inclusive and it permeates the entire curriculum. It applies to what they learn about body image, about physical fitness, about sexual health, and about healthy relationships. Here's a snippet that sets the tone for the rest of the document:

In an environment based on the principles of inclusive education, all students, parents, and other members of the school community – regardless of ancestry, culture, ethnicity, sex, physical or intellectual ability, race, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, or other similar factors – are welcomed, included, treated fairly, and respected. Diversity is valued, and all members of the school community feel safe, comfortable, and accepted. Every student is supported and inspired to succeed in a culture of high expectations for learning. In an inclusive education system, all students see themselves reflected in the curriculum, their physical surroundings, and the broader environment, so that they can feel engaged in and empowered by their learning experiences. (57)

They will learn that they don't have to tolerate bullying or abuse; and what healthy relationships are all about. They will learn that they don't have to tolerate being bullied because of body size or physical abilities or race or sexual orientation (or because they belong to a family that doesn't conform to the 1950s definition of what a Canadian family should look like: an image that continues to be over-reflected in our media); that they have the right to say no to being touched in any way that makes them feel uncomfortable (and what words to use to describe their body parts so that they can make it clear to adults and peers what body parts are off limits); and that healthy relationships at school, at home, and in the community are every child's right.

"Healthy relationships are based on respect, caring, empathy, trust, and dignity, and thrive in an environment in which diversity is honoured and accepted. Healthy relationships do not tolerate abusive, controlling, violent, harassing, or inappropriate behaviours." (55)

They will be given the information they need to make informed choices about their sexual health. In order to make the decision not to be sexually active until they are ready, kids have to have accurate information about what sex means—what it is.  This generation of kids may sound like they're in the know (based on the snippets of information that they've culled from the Internet or from a supposedly savvy peer), but that doesn't necessarily mean much. A 2006-2007 study conducted by researchers from Planned Parenthood, York University, the University of Toronto, Wilfrid Laurier University, and Toronto Public Health found that Ontario kids are far less informed about sex than we think they are. "Very surprising to us was that many kids were unsure about whether they had had sex or not," one of the study's authors, Sarah Flicker, a professor of environmental studies at York University, told CBC News at the time "And even among those who were unsure, some reported that they had engaged in oral sex, anal sex or vaginal sex."

That study recommended sweeping changes to the way sex education is taught in schools, including kicking off the conversation as early as kindergarten. That's what this curriculum is attempting to do (although starting at the Grade One level): to give our kids the information and self-advocacy skills they need to be informed, stay healthy, and develop loving relationships.

This sounds to me like the recipe for a healthier, happier generation of kids and a much less messed-up world.

I hope that vote-seeking politicians and special interest groups don't mess this up for our kids any more than they already have.

There's far too much at stake for the people in charge to lose sight of what really matters here: the health and well-being of the up-and-coming generation of kids.

Related:

Facebook: I Support Sexual Health Education in Ontario: A Facebook group for supporters of the new sexual health curriculum in Ontario.

NOTE: Stay tuned for Part II. I'll be interviewing Heather Corinna, founder of Scarleteen: Sex Education for the Real World, one of the most popular sex information web sites for teens, about why sex education matters.

Parents Can Change the World: 6 Reasons Why Parents Make Great Activists

So you want to save the planet, fix your country, or rally support to a cause that really matters to you. What you need to move your cause forward is a group of parents who are just as passionate about the cause as you are. Here are six reasons why parents make great activists.

1. Parents have a vested interested in working for change. They want to make the world a better place for their children -- and their children's children. (Grandparents are parents, too, and they have time as well as passion to invest in their volunteer work.)

2. Parents get the job done. "If you want something done, ask a busy person to do it." That's how the old saying goes. And parents are some of the busiest people on the planet. They are pros at squeezing 25 hours of living into a 24 hour day. So be clear about what you're trying to achieve before you recruit parents to your cause. They don't have time for wasted time.

3. Parents have received fabulous on-the-job training for activism simply by being parents. Parents are their children's strongest advocates; and the skills they have developed in advocating for their children's needs within the school system, the health care system, or in the community allow them to advocate for others who may not be able to advocate as effectively for themselves.

4. Parents have staying power. Parenthood is, after all, a marathon event, not a sprint. Parents are used to sticking things through, even when the going gets tough. Very tough. "Why did I sign up for this thing in the first place?" kind of tough. That's why parents are among the most passionate and committed volunteers.

5. Parents have thick skins and that they aren't easily put off by the hairy-eyeball stare. What parent hasn't been told "You're not my friend" (or worse) by a furious three-year-old; or been on the receiving end of the withering stare of a less-than-impressed 15-year-old? Standing firm as a parent isn't the easy thing, but it's the right thing to do. It's excellent preparation for the tough stands anyone working for change may attract (and the hairy-eyeball stares or nasty comments that be or she may attract).

6. Parents are incredibly connected. This generation of parents is wired. They may not always be able to hit the pavement with signs and strollers, or to attend every fund-raising event, but, if they support what you're marching for, they're only a text message away. What's more, being wired allows them to share their passion for your cause with friends and family members -- yet another benefit of working with parents.

Related:

People for Education: People for Education is a parent-led organization working to support public education in Ontario's English, French, and Catholic schools.

Moms Against Climate Change on Facebook: TakeActionOnClimateChange.com is an initiative that gives a voice to parents: the people who care most about protecting the future of our children.

Junction Parents: Clean Air for Clean Lungs: Information about a rally that was held at Queen's Park last year by this local environmental group.

How to Frog-Proof Your Daughter

"Until you value yourself, you'll probably be afraid to go out with a Prince. Subconsciously, you understand that life is a mirror: if you don't feel good about yourself – if you don't like yourself – you'll make choices that reflect that lack of self-worth. You'll see a Frogette in your reflection if you're insecure, and a Princess if you know you deserve a Prince."
- Kaycee Jane, Frog or Prince: The Smart Girl's Guide to Boyfriends

It can be frustrating – even heartbreaking -- to watch your daughter date a frog.

You know she deserves better, but until she figures that out for herself, she's likely to be drawn to the fly-eating guys rather than anyone even remotely resembling a Prince.

But what's a frog-phobic parent to do?

Pick up a copy of Frog or Prince: The Smart Girl's Guide to Boyfriends by Kaycee Jane – a fun, tell-it-like-it-is guide to loving yourself enough to insist on being treated well in relationships. Read the book yourself (to gain insights into what your daughter may be thinking and experiencing so that you'll be better equipped to support her) and then pass the book along to your daughter (in the hope that she'll read it). Then have a heart-to-heart conversation with her about healthy relationships and self-respect. (You can't have one without the other. Really.)

Frog or Prince – which is aimed at young women who are trying to make sense of the often crazy-making world of dating relationships – encourages young women to figure out what they want for themselves in life; and what they are (and aren't) willing to accept in their dating relationships; and then gives them the tools they need to evaluate their relationships in those terms.

Jane includes a series of fictionalized relationship scenarios to illustrate relationships gone – or going – wrong and to demonstrate how women can dig themselves out of relationship ruts by rewriting the scripts that have led to unhappy outcomes (and attracted a steady stream of frogs) in the past.

She also makes the crucial point that you don't have to have a Prince in your life in order to be happy. (Consider the Prince a nice bonus, if, in fact, you want a Prince at all. Being happy with yourself and the life you're creating for yourself is what really counts.)

Kaycee Jane. Frog or Prince: The Smart GIrl's Guide to Boyfriends. Kaycee Jane Enterprises Corp. 2009. Paperback, 230 pages, $29.95. Available from Amazon.ca and other outlets.

Highly recommended. An iPhone app featuring the various relationship analysis tools that Jane has developed would make a perfect companion to the book. If the app were programmed in a way that allowed the user to set his/her own and his/her partner's sex, more youth could benefit from Kaycee Jane's excellent material.

Ann Douglas is the co-author (with her daughter Julie Douglas) of Body Talk: The Straight Facts About Fitness, Nutrition, and Feeling Great About Yourself.

Why I Won't Play Roulette When It Comes to My Kids and This Chat Site

It was a friend on Twitter who tipped me off to the site. He told me that parents needed to know about it.

"I probably don't even want to go there myself," I thought, as I did some preliminary research on the site. But then I reconsidered. After all, if it's out there, our kids already know about it, so we need to have a game-plan for helping them deal with it. With that in mind, I decided to check it out.

I have to be honest: Chatroulette.com is not my kind of thing at all. The site, which was created by a 17-year-old from Moscow, teams up voyeurism and the ability to write off other human beings at first glance (or without even a glance at all). It's not a winning combo in my books. Add to that the fact that some of the reviews of the site that I'd read had left me wondering what I was getting myself into (New York Times tech bits columnist Brad Stone wrote: "Parents, keep your children far, far away.") and you can see that this was more of a should-do rather than a want-to-do assignment.

Connection roulette

As the name of the site implies, Chatroulette is an electronic version of roulette. In this case, you are playing connection roulette. Who you connect with is determined by the site.

Your microphone and webcam turn on the moment you hit the play button (unless you choose deny when the site first asks you for permission to turn your microphone and webcam on). If you want to chat with another user (via text, microphone, and/or webcam), you can do so if you both agree to maintain the connection. If you don't choose to maintain the connection, you just hit next and move on.

Here's a quick snapshot of what started happening once I started hitting that button.

• I spent about 10 minutes on the site at around 1:30 pm ET today. During that time, I made about 100 connections.

• At least half of the other people had their webcam turned off (like I did) so it wasn't possible to determine the other person's age or sex.

• Of the 50 or so people who did appear on camera, about 40 were male, five were female, and five were male-female couples. It was also common for young males to have friends with them.

• Of the 50 people who were visible on camera, one was a male who was masturbating and another was a couple who were having sex. About five of the other males had the webcam aimed at their crotches and/or who were partially undressed.

• The age ranges of the males ranged from early teens through around age 60. The females all appeared to be in their 20s.

• One user had a sign offering to "rate boobs for free." Someone else aimed the webcam at a pile of $50 and $100 bills which appeared to be real. (If sex fails, you can always try to seduce someone with money, I suppose.)

How long would it take a young child or preteen to find themselves in a potentially dangerous situation on this site? Based on my experience, no time at all.

I don't know about you, but I'll be having a talk with my kids tonight about how sites like this have the potential to dehumanize people and cheapen human relationships.

What I won't be doing is pretending that the site doesn't exist. Odds are they already know about it. What's hot with adults tends to be even hotter with preteens and teens, after all. They're the most wired generation ever. Our job as parents is to help them make sense of what they're seeing on the other side of the screen and to help them develop healthy relationships both online and in the real world.

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.

The Downside of High: Documentary Review (Airs Thurs on CBC)

The Art of Parenting

I came close to not watching The Downside of High at all -- close to writing the documentary off as an updated version of the 1950s anti-drug propaganda flick.

I'm glad I decided to tune in because the documentary provides some important information that parents and kids should know.

The Downside of High tells the story of three young people from British Columbia who, along with their doctors, believe that their mental illness (schizophrenia or bipolar disorder) was triggered by marijuana use.

As the documentary points out, scientists are buying into that theory, too. They believe that while most people who light up a joint will enjoy a pleasant buzz, an unfortunate few will be sent into a state of psychosis. And teenagers are at particular risk. (If you use marijuana before the age of 16, you are four times as likely to become schizophrenic.)

Today's super-potent pot may be too blame. THC levels in marijuana have increased dramatically in recent decades. In the 1960s, THC levels averaged 1 to 3 percent. Today, those levels average 18 to 25 percent.

Within the next five to ten years, it may be possible to develop a genetic test identify those kids who should never smoke pot, due to the increased risk of marijuana triggering an episode of psychosis. In the meantime, we can make our teens aware of the factors that increase the risk of such an episode:

History of psychosis

Family history of psychosis

Using other drugs

Difficulty relating to others

Childhood trauma

Living in an urban area

To learn more about this issue, tune into The Downside of High. Better yet, watch it with your kids so that you can talk about what you learn and how they might apply this new information to their lives.

Premiering: Thursday January 28, 2010 at 8 pm on CBC-TV

Repeating: Thursday February 4, 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.

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