Really? A ban on balls in the school yard?

Parents are scratching their heads today over the news that one Toronto elementary school has banned balls in the school yard.

Earl Beatty Public School sent a letter home to parents Monday to say that students would no longer be able to kick a soccer ball, toss a football or play any other sort of game that involves a ball.

The letter went on to explain that there have been "serious incidents" during which staff and students were hit. School trustee Sheila Cary-Meagher told the Star that one Earl Beatty parent took a ball to the head and suffered a concussion.

That's unfortunate.

But is an outright ball ban the right approach, especially when we're facing a crisis of inactivity among children? As my colleague Andrea Gordon mentioned in her latest story on children and exercise, childhood obesity has tripled in the last 30 years, and only 7 per cent of kids get the recommended hour of daily exercise.

Sure space is tight in urban school yards like the one at Earl Beatty. I have to be very cafeful to stay out of the line of fire when I pick up my youngest son from his small school yard, so I can appreciate the risk.

But that's the thing about risk. It has to be balanced against reward. And in this case the reward is just the kind of free play and exercise that today's screen-addicted kids need.

What do you think? Are there solutions the administration at Earl Beatty may not have yet explored? Is the answer better supervision in the school yard so there are some grownups to herd the junior kindergarteners out of the way of kids twice their size playing soccer? How about a sign at the yard gate to remind parents to beware of flying objects?

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Our sneak peek at the new Lego Store

When I told my son Cameron, 7, that we would be visiting the new Lego Store in Sherway Gardens the day before the Grand Opening, and that (gasp! Call Children's Aid!) I'd be taking him out of school for this, his response was, "I think I'm going to faint."

As some of you know, my boys are NUTS about Lego. They play with it every day, put Lego on their wish lists for each gift-giving occasion, read Lego magazine, visit Lego.com and count their allowance in anticipation of what they might be able to buy. Cameron even had a Lego-themed birthday party.

So naturally, yesterday's outing blew his mind.

The moment we arrived at the store he clapped eyes on the Star Wars Death Star model - a coveted collector's item - in the shop's gallery window. (You can also get a good look at the impressive Tower Bridge set there.)

"I'm Brandie Weikle" I said to the Lego staffers who showed us around. Cam echoed "and I'm in Lego heaven."

 

One of the highlights was this amazing set-up where fans can assemble their own Lego guys.

 

 Cam had a great time with that. SO many smiles on this outing.

 At the "Master Builder Bar" kids can follow instructions to build Lego models using the bricks in the middle of the table, or play games online, as Cameron is doing here.

Immensely popular with the truly commited Adult Fans of Lego (AFOL), the "Pick-a-Brick" wall offers an ever-changing combination of bricks in various sizes and colours, perfect for creative types inventing their own Lego models.

Speaking of creativity, one of my favourite parts was staring into these display cases to see models put together by talented builders who aren't even Lego staff - just fans happy to share. This theatre, complete with skeleton under the stage, is great...

...as is this circus scene.

As we pulled out of the parking lot after our visit was done, Cameron said "My favourite part was just walking around, seeing what they had and being AMAZED at what they had."

If you haven't had a chance to check out my story on the Lego store opening, you may not know that the grand opening runs Friday from 11-7, and Saturday and Sunday from 10-6. A highlight will be the construction of an eight-foot R2D2 in Sherway Garden's central square.

I also wanted to share that I was helped with this story by Phil Fraboni, an adult fan of Lego who plans to be at the opening on Sunday. Fraboni has been playing with Lego since he was a wee boy. His collecting passion today is Star Wars Lego, of which he was around 50 sets. 

Here he is showing off some of his assembled Star Wars kits. So dedicated is Fraboni to both Lego and Star Wars that this weekend will also see him trooping with the 501st Legion Canadian Garrison in London dressed in Star Wars: The Clone Wars Captain Rex armour.

His mother is a much better Lego mom than I am. She saved all of his sets from childhood INCLUDING THE INSTRUCTIONS! Fraboni plans to put these all together once he has the display space!

You can follow Phil Fraboni on twitter at twitter.com/hamcam.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Push-ups for 7-year-olds?!!

I was pretty flat-chested at 13. At that age I was in a minor panic that I'd NEVER sprout breasts and that I'd continue making walls jealous for years to come.

But I sure didn't care when I was seven.

I've got a lot more to stay about girls and esteem in an upcoming blog post, but a story we have today just begs for comment.

Ever-spotlight-grabbing Abercrombie & Fitch's latest move is to market a padded bikini top to girls 7 to 13.

This follows the company famously selling sexy T-shirts that say "Who needs brains when you have these?"

I hope the group of spunky kids who launched a "girlcott" against the company get a groundswell (no pun intended) of support.

As moms, let's just remove the store from our list of back-to-school shops until they do better.

READ MORE ABOUT THE PADDED BIKINIS HERE.

READ ABOUT MORE THINGS THAT HAVE PARENTS TALKING IN THE MUMMY BUZZ BY ERICA EHM.

 

 

What if 21,000 were attending YOUR kid's party?

We reported today on the British girl whose 15th birthday party nearly became epicly epic.

Rebecca Javeleau created a Facebook event for her party and invited about 15 friends. But she failed to make the event private, and 21,000 RSVP'd.

It's a classic case of "But, Mom, I only invited a few friends and they each invited a few friends." Only the ability of those few friends to reach others is infinite when powered by the click-to-share convenience of social networks.

About as many people said they would come to the teenager's party as live in her hometown, Harpender. That raises questions, not only about how little there is to do in Harpender, but about what role parents should take in monitoring and educating their children in appropriate use of social media, and how to respond when things go wrong.

Rebecca's mother, Tracey Livesy, told the Telegraph that her daughter "would be lucky to get a birthday card from me" and that "I've taken away her computer so she won't make that mistake again."

This prompted a discussion on Twitter with two friends @littlemissmocha and @Mommyality.

Littlemissmocha, a blogger and mom otherwise known as Jen, questioned whether the right approach was to take away the girl's computer. Afterall, teens can always access another computer - at school, at a friend's house. And shouldn't the parent's role be to educate their children about internet privacy?

I agree with Jen. The girl's mom should take the opportunity to show her daughter the privacy settings on Facebook and other websites she uses. If the mom doesn't know herself, she should tap the knowledge of a friend who does.

The girl's party is obviously cancelled. That's a logical consequence. But missing the (forgive me) "teachable moment" by simply removing computer privileges is a mistake.

I'm a firm believer that we're not raising children. We're raising adults. That means it's our job to equip kids with the knowledge they need to survive without us. Part of survival in a modern world is being being tech-savvy enough to protect our privacy online.

Rebecca's mistake was the result of ignorance. My hope would be that, after her mother helps lock down the Facebook profile, she takes her daughter out for cake. Every kid deserves birthday cake.

 

First day of school for a "Grade 2-er"

I wasn't as organized this Labour Day weekend as I like to be, so there was no big back-to-school bash, or ritual chocolate-chip pancake breakfast as in years past.

But my boys seemed content with our low-key lead-in to the new school year. I took each of them on separate outings to the little neighbourhood stationary store, Alister to pick out his first pencil case for Montessori school (he starts next week) and Cameron for some new pencils, sharpener and glue stick to put in his. Alister's Saturday day jaunt ended with a custom cookie from Sweet Flour, and Cameron's Monday trip at Baskin-Robbins. (Obviously this plan wasn't so great for my waistline.)

More important than acquiring this stuff, though, was talking to the boys about the changes ahead. Wee Alister needed to know he's got to say goodbye at the cloakroom door and put on his own indoor shoes, and that the soother will have to say behind (I know, I know, I just haven't had time to help him kick his baby habits). Cameron needed to explain that, "To me, I don't look like a Grade 2-er," and be reassured that he has grown and is indeed tall enough for second grade. And that surely some of his friends will be in his class. And that he'll make new friends from among the others.

Here's how his first day went:

Cameron can't stand to be late. This is him closing his backpack with enough vigor that I couldn't get a clear shot.

Then he explained school supplies to his little brother.

Since Cameron has walked to school with his buddy, Kieran, from across the street, since Junior Kindergarten, we actually now have four of these first-day-of-school shots of the two of them.

It's always a big help to connect with best friends on the playground, "and maybe figure out where we're gonna meet at recess."

 

Then it was time to say goodbyes...

...and head in!

And that was it! Suppose he's old hat at this back-to-school thing.

There's a lot of education news today:

Battle lines drawn on full-day kindergarten

Full-day kindergarten kicks off in Ontario

Forget what you know about good study habits

StatsCan finds 1 in 5 older teens drops out of school

How to talk to kids about back-to-school fears, concerns

Time crunched. What are you going to do about it?

Earlier this week I shared that I'd hit a bit of a parenting wall. Experiencing the "giving fatigue" that so many of us face, I was feeling tired and in need of a little immediate gratification to balance all the one-way street work of raising a family.

As a newly-single parent, some of this stems from not having another adult with whom to share the day. But some of it is just middle-of-the-road parental burn-out.

It was interesting timing given that the very next day The Canadian Index of Wellbeing released findings that 20 per cent of Canadians experience a high level of what they call "time crunch" compared to just 16 per cent in1992. The effects of this time poverty are particularly acute for women, the study found, with 23 per cent of women feeling time pressure compared to 17 per cent of men.

I've got a lot more to say about the causes of our clock-based angst, and will share more on this later. But I hope that, if nothing else, readers took away from the survey results some comfort that they're not alone. There is no failure on your part to weave time-management magic out of your Filofax or Google calendar. There simply aren't enough hours in the day. The only answer is to make choices. Sometimes you can get to all your kids' many extra-curricular activities or all of your PTA meetings. Sometimes you've got to play hooky and lock yourself in the bathroom with a cup of tea (or possibly something stronger).

So on Monday I vowed that I'd do something restorative each day this week. Here's how it's gone so far.

Monday I left the office on time, made something quick for the kids to eat for dinner and practised a bit of benign neglect as they worked out their Lego squabbles on their own (this despite hearing things like "Listen up, cry-eypants," coming from the basement). Later I handed off the kids and found solace with two close friends over a sushi roll and cocktail. Just having someone else make me some dinner lifted me out of a pretty deep funk.

Tuesday I took a walk at lunchtime, failed to get my kids' birthday party invitations because I got distracted by pretty things at the mall and went to BootyCampFitness.

Wednesday I asked my co-parent for an extra day of childcare and hit a movie screening and a media party. Even danced a bit and got a henna tattoo. Silly huh? My kids were kind of impressed.

Thursday. I guess that's today. Well, after work, I'll be getting acupuncture for my chronic shoulder knots (sound familiar?) and then, after dinner with the kids, head to bootcamp again.

I'm grateful that I have someone else to share the load, even if he's not really mine anymore. I know not everyone else has that, certainly not most single mothers. Whatever your circumstances, I hope you can do something to treat yourself well this week, too. Sometimes it just starts with an internal cry of "uncle!" for us to make the psychic leap that things are too much.

It's no admission of defeat. Instead, it's a springboard to a happier existence. And that can only mean happier kids.

Why full-day kindergarten is a good idea

Today Ontario's ministry of education announced that more than 800 schools will have full-day kindergarten by the fall of 2011.

In phase two of the province's new early-learning initiative, more than 200 additional schools will offer the program, on top of the 600 to provide full-day kindergarten this coming school year.

You can find a complete list of the new schools to offer the program in 2011 here.

I've been answering questions on twitter today about why I think this program is great. I'll outline a few of them briefly here:

1) Quality education before the primary grades is a great equalizer. It helps put kids whose parents can't afford top-quality daycare, preschool programs or attentive nannies on the same playing field with those whose can. And it helps level things out between kids raised by single parents juggling two jobs with those from families that can afford to keep one parent at home.

Charles Pascal, co-author of the report upon which the program is modeled, points out that one third of children enter Grade 1 without the necessary skills. Assuring that all children have the same access to a stimulating and nurturing environment for two years before their primary years is the best way to address this.

2) It helps lower the burden of childcare costs on families. Yes, we choose to have children, but our economic system doesn't do much to assist with the cost of raising a flock of future tax payers. Progressive governments do more to support growing families than ours does (Sweden? The Netherlands? Quebec?!), and without their economies crumbling. Some will argue that many single-income households simply go without fancy clothes and vacations to afford to keep one parent at home. But when you're a single parent with only the choice to work or go on welfare, that's simply unfathomable. And even for those who live well, well above the threshold of working poverty, it's not easy to raise a family on one income in a city with an average house price of $446,593. Particularly one where infant child care can run up to $1800 a month, and childcare for the hours outside a "half-day" kindergarten can easily reach $1,000 a month.)

3) "Half-day" kindergarten is not a half-day. It's 2.5 hours. That's not even a terribly long playdate. The logistics of providing childcare for the hours outside of the morning or afternoon program are a nightmare. Who with a job outside of the home can easily dash to the school at 11:30 a.m.? Or to daycare at lunchtime and then to school in the afternoon? There is limited selection among daycares that provide transportation to and from school, and sometimes that leads to "choosing" sub-par, unlicensed care. Busing these tiny kids to and from their daycares is also not an easy thing to carry out, or a fantastically good idea (what if you lose a few?). And where alternating full days are offered instead of half days, it's not only difficult to find childcare that will take your child Tuesday and Thursday of one week and Monday, Wednesday, Friday of the next, but it can be discombobulating for the small child who wakes up each morning and asks where they're going that day.

There's lots more to discuss about the merits of full-day learning. You can read more on our Early Learning page.

So sex ed doesn't help, huh?

Last month Premier Dalton McGuinty found himself facing a firing squad of inflammatory and poorly-informed right wingers who screamed from rooftops that a proposed new sex education curriculum was an affront to morality and religious freedom.

These groups said that the new curriculum was "bordering on criminal" and tantamount to "indoctrination of a special-interest agenda."

In a turn of events terribly discouraging to thinking people, McGuinty ended up agreeing to delay the new curriculum to conduct broad consultations with the public.

I wrote my defense of sex education in this blog and there was a vigorous debate in the comments. Many were supportive, but some insisted that sex education does nothing to help delay sexual activity or prevent teen pregnancy. "Concerned Mom" said:

"I don't think that having this kind of sex education will prevent in any way teens from having babies as you mention or of having sex at all. They will do it or won't anyways mostly depending on the education they have had at home."

A commenter who went by "Upset Mom" said:

"Education does not prevent anything...if it were true then the rate of teen pregnancies would have dropped, and it has not."

Well, actually, it has. And today we have recent proof of that. The Sex Information and Education Council released data that shows teen pregnancy dropped 36.9 per cent between 1996 and 2006. 

Francine Kopun's story "Teen pregnancies plummet in Canada" outlines the details, including that Canada has the lowest teen pregnancy rate among the countries surveyed. The others were the United States, Sweden, England and Wales.

The researchers postulated that access to contraception and higher quality sexual education were the reason behind the drop in unwanted teenage pregnancy by more than one third.

Several commenters shared how lack of access to basic instruction on sexual health and human reproduction negatively impacted their lives:

"Sarah" said:

As someone who grew up in a household where no straightforward information about sexuality was permitted... I can verify that nothing leads to experimentation with sex like absolute ignorance! I didn't want 'how to' information, I wanted 'about' information."

Kenn Chaplin shared this:

"Guess where I stand as a kid who only figured out I was gay when school kids said enough derogatory, descriptive things that bore some resemblance to my innocent feelings, bullied by a head teacher who broke his trust with me and made my first seven years of schooling hell, I was then abused by a much older sexual predator. If there had been more formal talk and less learning important words outside and in illogical order…who knows how much better even just a little sensitively-discussed information would have helped me and others."

Jillian Walker had this interesting perspective:

"I grew up in a household where sex was an open topic of discussion. My girlfriends grew up in households where sex was a taboo subject. Is it a coincidence that those same girlfriends were all having sex by aged 13, and I was almost 18? I don't think so. I believe that if my kids have all of the correct information (including what repercussions may follow, be it a disease, a broken heart, a soiled reputation, a teen pregnancy), they will make informed choices about what they will do, when they will do it, and who they will do it with. I'd rather them make informed choices than make blind choices that they have to pay for later.

"Bravo to you for writing this blog. Cheers to all of those people who support the proposed curriculum changes, and to those who don't...do your research, get informed, and don't come crying to me when you find out your 14-year-old is going to be a parent because you refused to keep a supply of condoms available for them just in case."

Top videos of the week

It's the Friday of a long weekend, a day for which productivity can be best characterized by the fact that the world stopped to play Pac Man on the Google home page this morning.

So just for fun, I'm going to share a few videos that made me smile this week. Some are to watch with the kids. The others are just for you.

BEST CUTE ANIMAL VIDEO

Meet the sloths from Amphibian Avenger on Vimeo.

Because who knew baby sloths were so ugly-cute?

BEST SUMMARY OF A TV SERIES BY A BUNCH OF SCRAGGLY CATS

Because you're never going to find time to watch those other seasons on DVD.

BEST ATTEMPT TO GLAMORIZE PEDESTRIAN ASPECT OF LIFE AS A PARENT

Because you may be trying to convince yourself that the mini-van is the new Jetta.

BEST SHREK FOREVER PRIMER

Because with YouTube, there's no reason not to know the funniest lines before you even leave for the theatre.

In defence of sex ed

All kinds of people are freaking out about the proposed changes to sex education in Ontario.

While I don't yet have the kind of detail on the curriculum that I'd like, I do want to point out where I think some individuals and organization are making inflammatory and incorrect assumptions about the spirit, tone and intention of this sort of education.

We've learned that kids will be discussing homosexuality in Grade 3.

It's 2010. Don't a lot of our kids already have someone in their class who has two moms or two dads? That certainly applies for my son, Cameron. He's in Grade 1. He's known a lovely two-mom family since he was in daycare, and happily accepted an explanation that some people pick as their special person a member of the opposite sex and some people pick someone of their own gender.

For the sake not just of combating homophobia but of normalizing the experiences of school children who have same-sex parents, it's very worthwhile to discuss sexual orientation at an early age. Equally important: Getting the message to kids who may already be sensing some sort of "difference" in themselves compared to others, that they are OK no matter who they have a crush on.

What troubles me is the assumption that talking about sexual orientation is tantamount to recruitment to the gay cause. That's just backward.

Certainly one's religious and cultural values give shape to views on this and other aspects of sexual education. Critics say it is up to families to address sexuality with their children in a way that's in line with the their values.

But here's the thing. They don't.

Or if they do, they're not terribly successful at arming kids with the information they need to prevent pregnancy and the transmission of sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Or to delay sexual activities for which that they don't yet have the maturity to cope.

And that brings me to one of the other contentious points in Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty's proposed new sex ed program: discussion of oral sex as early as Grade 7.

There's a reason why oral sex is being called "the new goodnight kiss." Star reporter Trish Crawford explained how normalized it's become in a story called "Oral sex no longer a big deal, teen girls say."

By Grade 9 one third of Canadian teenagers are having oral sex. That's a fact and remains so whether or not we're too squeamish or scandalized to discuss it. If we want kids to delay this activity instead of engage in it, um, willy nilly, maybe we'd be better off explaining that you can get yucky sores in your mouth - and much worse - if you're not taking proper precautions. Or if you're trading sexual favours with schoolmates like they were Pizza Pockets.

It's important to look at the context in which kids will be hearing about oral sex. According to a story we had last night, Grade 7 kids will be learning about "delaying sexual activity, sexually transmitted infections, pregnancy and STI prevention."

Did you see the first thing? "Delaying sexual activity." The intent here is not to provide some sort of instructional how-to for kids who would otherwise know nothing about sex. It's about getting kids who are already engaged in risky behaviour - or will be soon enough - to be smarter about it.

This subject has prompted some discussion around the office. One colleague mentioned that when she was going to school in Nova Scotia, sex ed didn't start until junior high. "Two of my classmates had babies that year."

A little late, maybe?

More on this subject:

Changes to sex-ed curriculum raise ire of family groups

McGuinty wants sex ed to start in Grade 3

Oral sex no longer a big deal