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.

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.

Wonder Fuel: Raising Curious Kids

“The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.”
- Dorothy Parker

“I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.”
- Albert Einstein

From the moment we are born, curiosity fuels our desire to learn about the wider world.

As we grow older, our initial fascination with human faces expands into a fascination with anything and everything. We use our entire body -- each of our senses -- to take in information about the world of wonder we encounter. Our excitement is often palpable. We gasps and wriggle with excitement as we encounters a new and unexpected sensation for the very first time.

Curiosity comes naturally to all human beings. It powers the cycle of learning: our delight in learning something new encourages us to want to learn even more. The easiest way to raise kids who love to learn is to fuel our kids' sense of wonder and curiosity. Here are a few practical things you can do.

Create a loving bond with your child. That bond will give your child the confidence to take the risks that learning entails.

Expose your child to a sensory-rich environment, both at home and in the community. Pay attention to your child’s reaction to the new stimuli she is encountering and ramp it up or tone it down to avoid overwhelming or over-stimulating your child.

Encourage exploration and welcome questions. Allow your child to experience the joy that comes from first-hand discovery (within safe and age-appropriate limits, of course).

Celebrate the different creative paths different people follow. Understand that your child’s attempts to find the answers to her questions may result in her following a different creative path to find the answer than the path that you would take. Delight in that difference.

Raise brave and resilient children (as opposed to children who are so afraid of the world beyond their own bedrooms that they dampen their own sense of curiosity out of self-defense).

Related:

Carol Koechlin and Sandi Zwan. How to Empower Students to Ask Questions and Care About Answers   (.pdf)

Mindstretchers: Curiosity and Wonder

FamilyAnatomy: Make-Believe Play Important to Developing Self-Regulation in Kids

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Back-to-School Parenting: A Roundup of Back-to-School Parenting Resources

‘Tis the season when everyone has back-to-school on the brain, so I figured this was a good time for a paernting resources swap. I've pulled out some of my favorite resources related to kids and back-to-school. If you have other helpful back-to-school parenting resources to share, please post the details in the comments section below. Or blog about them in your blog and post the link below.

How to....

...Be Brave When Your Child Starts Kindergarten

The first day of kindergarten can be pretty tough, whether you’re a parent or a kid. Some parents find it's tougher on them than it is on their kids. The secrets to getting through the early days and weeks as the parent of a kindergartener? Hang tough on that heart-wrenching first day; and remind yourself that you will still have an important role to play in your child's education for many years to come.

...Prevent or Deal with Cyberbullying

A study conducted by Faye Mishna of the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Social Work revealed that 50% of kids in Grades 6 through 12 had been bullied over the Internet. Online bullying has become such a problem for students that the Canadian Federation of Teachers would like to see cyberbullying treated as a crime under the criminal code. Here’s what you do to reduce the odds that your kids will be bullied online and to take steps to stop the bullying if the bullying has already started.

...Give College-Bound Kids Some Helpful Advice About Cooking

Two of my kids headed back to college during the past four days. And they each took that next giant step on the path to total independence: they’ll be cooking for themselves this year, as opposed to relying on a residence meal plan or living with mom and dad.

While I know they’re each quite capable of whipping up the basics, I wanted to inspire them to try new things in the kitchen -- and not to live on heat-and-serve entrees from the frozen food aisle. (Not only is that more expensive than cooking from scratch. It gets pretty boring pretty fast.) So I went looking for an online cooking guide that included healthy, delicious, and easy recipes, as well as some basic tips on food preparation (stocking the kitchen, avoiding food poisoning, etc.)

I was thrilled to come across Good Eats: Quick and Easy Food for Busy College Students, a fabulous cooking guide for time-pressed newbie cooks on a budget by co-authors Suzanne Sonneborn, R.D., L.D, and Cynthia W. Harriman. If there’s a college-bound cook in your family, you’ll want to pass along the link.

...Connect with Other Parents of Boomerang Kids

Sometimes the only thing that helps when you're dealing with a challenging parenting situation is connecting with another parent who truly understands.

Last year, while researching a magazine story about boomerang parenting (parents coping with so-called boomerang kids), Rona Maynard put out a call to parents who might be willing to share their experiences. The stories continued to roll in long past her deadline and an ad hoc support group began to emerge. Some of the more active participants in the discussion are moving the support group to a more permanent home and they want other parents who are dealing with the challenges of sharing their homes with grownup kids (and sometimes grandkids, too) to know that such a group now exists. You can find it at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BoomerangSupport/.

What I Did With My Summer Vacation

September 1st is here, which means it's time to put the best summer ever series to bed. (This is Day 63, if you're still keeping track.)

The summer of 2009 may not be officially behind us for another 21 days, but there's something about the arrival of September that signals that it's time to shift modes.

Those of us who have kids heading back to school in another week (or who have already heeded the call of the school bus or the carpool) are already marching to the beat of the fall routine.

I like the routine and structure of fall, and yet I'm already missing the more improvisational rhythm of summer. I love the spontaneous, unexpected, the unplanned.

My main goal, this summer, was to indulge in the freelance writer's equivalent of a sabbatical (self-funded, of course). I set up a reading and writing program for myself, one that took me boldly where I had not gone before as a writer, but where I will be hanging out on a regular basis from now on. There's no going back once you've sample certain writerly delights, you know.

But before you get the idea that this summer was All About Me: well, reality check time. I'm still very much part of a family. (Status Update: Mom of four; married; many other relatives; etc.)

It was an awesome summer on the kid front. I had the opportunity to watch my four kids thrive and take bold steps of their own. My daughter decided to listen to her inner artist and start studying photography this fall, abandoning the college program that might have put money in the bank, but that would have made her miserable. My oldest son took a journey that demonstrated that he is willing to put heart and soul into going after what he really wants out of life. His passion really shone through as he found a focus – a motivation – to move him to action. My next youngest son demonstrated that he is able to juggle multiple commitments without missing a beat, online or offline. And my youngest son took a giant step from childhood to that in-between stage that will soon lead to the teen years. He can drive a boat, he can build benches and sheds, and he can advocate for himself and others in powerful ways. How far he has come in the past two years. I am so grateful to the people who helped cushion his fall and helped him find his way again.

My husband, who desperately needed some downtime this summer, managed to escape from the office every now and again to spend time at the cottage. He continues to try to cope with the pressures of being an only child caring for aging parents in another city (a complicated situation that won't be easily resolved). Maybe, now that all our kids are doing well at the same time (a major miracle in this family), we'll be able to enjoy more time as a couple this fall. Sure there are my pregnancy book revisions (very tight timeline) , his job (insanely busy at the best of times), and our volunteer commitments (we are both active volunteers in our community), but I have this feeling that we're coming back into our own again. It will be our 23rd wedding anniversary in October – and we've together since I was in Grade 10 and he was in Grade 11 (that was in 1978).

I think I'll make this my goal for fall: to find ways to spend more time with this fellow who gives so much to our family; to try to lighten his load a little; and to let him know in my oh-so-subtle ways (like that blackboard-sized neon pink heart that I drew on the blackboard in his Grade 11 math class one Valentine's Day long ago) that after four kids and all these years, I still want his coffee cup next to mine.

Best Summer Ever: Day 61

August 30
Get Yourself Back on Track Sleep-Wise

Most of us aren’t getting nearly enough sleep -- and we’re paying a hefty price as a result. We’re moody, we can’t concentrate, we’re having more car accidents. We’re even gaining weight because we’re not getting our zzzs—as University of Chicago researchers discovered when they studied the link between sleep deprivation and weight gain.

Starting to think that you should take sleep a little more seriously?

Here are some tips on maximizing your opportunities for sleep. (Of course, if you have a baby, those opportunities can be frustratingly elusive. You may need some additional strategies to help you get some sleep.)

Create a sleep environment that is sleep-enhancing: cool, dark, and quiet.

Reserve your bedroom for sleep and sex. No TVs, laptops, or other electronic gadgets. Otherwise, your brain will be wired to stay awake, not fall asleep.

Stick to a regular sleep and waking schedule. If you sleep in on weekends, you’ll end up suffering the sleep world equivalent of jet lag come Monday morning. (Not a great way to start the week.)

Limit your intake of caffeine after noon, and pass on the nightcap. Both caffeine and alcohol can interfere with a good night’s sleep.

Skip late-night workouts, hefty bedtime snacks, and late night-TV. They're anything but sleep-inducing. The Sandman is more likely to heed your call if you take a warm bath an hour or two before bed, and then listen to some relaxing music or read something that will lull you off to Dreamland.

Related:

University of Maryland: Sleep Hygiene: Helpful Hints to Help You Sleep