Mama, pass the remote

Granted, the middle of the Stanley Cup playoffs is not the ideal time for me to dispute the merits of television.

Let's just say that the regular thundering of Don Cherry from the family room and never getting a crack at the remote - even for a glimpse of Dancing with the Stars - can make a person a mite testy.

Apparently though, my teenage sons are in good company when it comes to over-the-top TV consumption. This week, two studies revealed they're starting young these days. According to the May issue of the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, 40 per cent of babies age three months old watch TV. Can't you just picture legions of the barely-born, strapped into bouncy chairs and pointed at the telly?

Not only that, another study published in the U.S. journal Pediatrics found that 20 per cent of children younger than age three have televisions in their bedrooms. No doubt this is good news for BabyFirstTV, the U.S. satellite channel aimed at infants and slated to be available in Canada this summer.

Experts like the American Academy of Pediatrics discourage television for kids under two, citing the importance of face-to-face interaction and evidence that it increases the risk of attention problems. But they are up against a formidable opponent - companies peddling DVDs with names like Baby Einstein and Brainy Baby, which equate screen time with baby smarts. In other words, they give mom and dad the perfect excuse to use TV as babysitter.

As a parent, I have, on more than one occasion, appreciated the value of tot television. Sometimes it's the only way to a) wash the three days worth of dishes piled in the sink b) run to the bathroom to assist your toilet-training preschooler or c) read the paper for 20 minutes with your cup of tea. Just don't go telling me it's the sure path to Harvard.

As for those developmental experts advising parents to watch TV with their infants or toddlers, what can they be thinking? If you're sitting down with the little ones, why not sing, or read a story, or build a castle out of blocks. The days of being glued to hockey playoffs will come soon enough. Trust me.

Yes. YES! You really can say "No!"

Here's a sign of the times. A parenting book titled No. With a subtitle: "Why Kids of All Ages Need to Hear It and Ways Parents Can Say It."

And proof that we must surely be the most wimpy generation ever to procreate.

Who would have thought that one little mono-syllabic two-letter word could cause adults so much angst that they require a book of instruction to spit it out. But it does, according to the author, U.S. psychologist and parenting expert David Walsh. So he has come up with this generation's version of tough love, a 293-page manual aimed at helping parents wade right in, screw up their resolve, pry open their lips and come right out with it. Not "uh-uh." Not "nope." But No. NO! Or "EN-OH!" as some of us have been known to holler, after the 24th straight plea.

Walsh says our children, raised in a yes culture and provoking too many headlines about bad manners, entitlement and lack of discipline, could use "a heaping helping" of this itty-bitty word. Whether it's the toddler freaking out at the cashier because he wants an Oh Henry, or the adolescent who insists she's entitled to your car keys and the contents of your wallet on a Friday night.

Which reminds me of one of my favourite bits of wisdom passed through the mothering pipeline. It came from a more experienced one, who had grown weary of hearing about my hapless attempts at rationalizing a decision to an infuriated teen.

"No is a complete sentence," she told me. "Sometimes you can just say No. Period."

Now that's revolutionary.

Forget "time out" and make it "tune in"

I have a confession to make. I was always a miserable failure at administering "time out" when my kids were little. Yeah, I know. It's like, the staple of the modern discipline toolbox. How hopeless can a mother be?

But for starters, my wilful (or shall I call them independent-minded?) tots would never stay put in the chosen Time Out location of the moment. (There was no such thing as the Naughty Step back then.) It would have required a lasso and a certain mastery of slip knots.

In those days, none of the parenting books mentioned this particular dilemma. So I just concluded that either a) I was stunningly incompetent (not to mention hopelessly outnumbered) or b) my children were stunningly rotten.

The Time Out thing was marginally more successful when I put them in their rooms for a little "space." But that was destined to backfire on occasions when more than one kid happened to be unfit for human company. Primarily because they shared bedrooms. Which left no choice but to rotate the demons in and out. i.e. prematurely free the preschooler who had been confined for swatting his brother, so that the ornery toddler might have his own privacy to shriek and flail and throw his toys about. The memory still gives me a Tylenol 3 headache.

So when I came upon early childhood educator Joan Almon's answer to the whole exhausting Time Out strategy, I couldn't wait to share it with you.

Her solution: Get rid of Time Out. Convert to "Tune-In."

Instead of banishing kids to some bleak corner or uncomfortable stair, provide a refuge they'll actually want to go to. Make it a place of peace, rather than of punishment. Maybe a cozy armchair with a fuzzy blanket, surrounded by plants or art or stuffed animals. The idea is that the melting-down child will be go there willingly to get centred and "tune in" to themselves.

In an essay in Raffi's recent book Child Honouring, Almon explains how she stumbled on this approach years ago when working with a disturbed child:

I soon learned that to punish her with time-out did more harm than good, yet her behaviour was often out of control, and something was needed. I took a lumpy old armchair, put a beautiful blue cloth on it, and called it our resting chair. When she was in need of calm and peace she would go to the chair and curl up. After a few minutes she was centred again and able to participate with us all.

Almon has sworn by the strategy ever since and says kids love it too.

Sadly, I'll have to wait for grandkids to test it out. In the meantime, let me know if it works for you.

A birthday thankyou note

As expected, you came through with flying colours. Thank you for your comments and many emails answering my earlier questions about the birthday party scene.

Your messages, overwhelmingly, said:

1) Lighten up! Have the party at home. Be creative. Have fun.

2) Down with loot bags. You hate them. But I can't help wondering who's keeping this dreaded practice going then.

3) If the kids are bringing presents, get them involved in deciding what to give and making a card. And if you're host, save time for them to watch the birthday boy or girl open the stuff and show their appreciation.

Look for the story on back-to-basics birthday parties tomorrow in the Star's Shopping section. You'll find some of your ideas on page M5.

And just for laughs, check out Tearfree's recent account of her trials during the birthday party years.

Adventures in orifices

One of my brothers used it as a piggybank, another as a hiding place for the peas he refused to eat for dinner.

We're talking here about noses. Nostrils. Those passageways far too intriguing for little fingers to resist. Perfect places, in the minds of many children, for exploring and storing. Yup. Coins, bits of food, paper, Lego, whatever is the treasure of the moment.

Everyone's got a story. Eyes, ears, mouth or nose. That's why I couldn't resist this one about little William Figueira, the Pickering 2-year-old who shoved the wheels of his little toy car so far up his nasal passages last month that he had to have one of them surgically extracted using $35,000 equipment. Yes, I meant to write three zeros. You wouldn't believe the mini-industry out there created by kids (and adults, I'm afraid) who poke things into their bodily orifices. Removal, it seems, does not always come cheaply.

At least William's mom Kerri has a sense of humour about it. "He's very cute and it's a good thing," she laughed over the phone last week, as she handed her busy boy a sippy cup of juice.

"He has big brown eyes, a little button nose . . . "

Yikes. Watch your choice of words, Mom. You wouldn't want to give him any more ideas.

Care to share your stories? Click on the comments link below.

How do your kids party?

It's a controversial topic I know, but you're up to it. And I would love your feedback for an upcoming newspaper story.

Birthday parties. Don't you already feel the pressure?

By the time my kids had hit Grade 3, they'd done it all on the birthday party circuit, courtesy of the over-the-top party culture that has blossomed in the past 10 or 15 years: rock-climbing, laser tag, indoor playgrounds, bouncy castles, mad scientists, clowns, indoor beach volleyball in February. I'm sorry to report that after a while it was all just so much ho-hum. I guess they had their fill, because they never craved those settings for their own Big Day. And thank God, because multiply by four and it's not exactly in the budget.

A few questions:

1) Do you favour a simple or splashy approach to birthday parties - and why?

2) Do you believe in loot bags? And what has your kid ever kept or actually played with that came in a loot bag?

3) What are the best birthday gifts?

Please post your response by clicking on the comments on the link below or email me.

"There's nothing to do around here!"

It's week two. Are they bored silly yet? Driving you mad?

Maybe it's time for a little Joan Craven. She's an Alberta mother, grandma, former kindergarten teacher and farm girl who has no shortage of ideas for keeping your little livewires busy, inside in the rain, or outside in the sunshine. And we're talking about simple things that yes, we parents should be able to figure out by ourselves. But sometimes we're just too damned tired, frazzled or fed up to think of them.

What's that, you say? Whatever happened to kids figuring it out themselves? As we did? I share your pain. But the truth is, these days they need a push. Need the grownups to get them going. After all, they've been raised in a world where Gameboy and Dora are constantly beckoning, parents are time-pressed, childhood is structured and arranged for them, and too many toys and gadgets have stultified little imaginations.

Grownups need a push too, it seems. How else to account for the fact that every June, the parenting magazines get my teeth grinding with their summertime guides on steps for how to throw balls, fly kites, play tag and build sandcastles. How sad is that?

But back to Craven, whose book What Can I Do Today? is chock full of no-cost activities for kids aged 2 to 7. The book, laid out in kid-friendly format with an idea for each day of the calendar year, costs $17.95 and you can check it out and order it online. (Your sequential-minded orderly child will love the activity-per-day approach while the freewheelers will want to flip through and pick whatever strikes their fancy.)

Ideas range from a variety of memory games to shadow-tracing with sidewalk chalk. Remember how much kids love forts? Just throw a sheet over the kitchen table and get them to add their own furniture and pillows. Obstacle courses, indoor sand tables using cornmeal, rhyme games, window-washing. All ways to kill time involving stuff that's already in the house.

Craven herself says it's not rocket science. Flip through the book and you'll probably find yourself saying, "oh yeah, I remember that" or "why didn't I think of that myself." But that's the whole idea - she hopes her book will be a starting point for stressed parents who often can't think on their feet when the inevitable whine of "there's nothing to do" starts to echo around the house.

As an educator, Craven knows that to grow and develop, kids need to interact with their environment, use their five senses and play, play, play. With their friends or siblings, alone with their imaginations, and sometimes with adults.

"Hopefully, we can get parents and caregivers talking about the simple things you can do with kids rather than the complicated expensive things," she said today over the telephone from North Bay, where she has stopped amid her cross-country tour to meet families and hit kids' bookstores. She's collecting new ideas along the way and posting them regularly on her website.

After overcoming my initial skepticism and perusing the book, I'm decidedly in the mood to lie in the grass and look at cloud shapes or haul out some empty shoeboxes or sculpt my my name out of dried pasta. Sigh. Now, if only she'd come up with a version for teenagers . . .

Raising Canadians - a quiz

It's easy to start instilling Canadiana in the children early. Right after you've heaved a grateful sigh of relief for the publicly-funded health care system that got you through the previous nine months.

So today, let's celebrate the abundance of Canadian-made songs, poetry and stories for babies, toddlers, preschoolers and early readers. In honour of the quiz mania that sweeps this great land every July 1, may I present my own. The topic: best kidstuff.

Can you name the titles and creators that go with some of my favourite snippets below? They are phrases taken from works that, to me, represent the best of the Canadian imagination.

Come back next week for a list of answers. Because if you haven't yet discovered these wonderful works, summer's the ideal time to do so. You won't find better books and music to snuggle up with.

In the meantime, post some lines from your own Canadian favourites using the comments link below.

Here we go:

1)  Lullaby lullaby
     Baby fuss and baby cry
     You'll be sleeping by and by
     Sleepy little baby

2)  He could count forwards and backwards. He could zip zippers and button buttons.

3)  I'm gonna shake, shake, shake my sillies out
     Wiggle my waggles away . . .

4)  Allosaurus, stegosaurus
     Brontosaurus too
     All went off to dinner at the
     Dinosaur zoo;

5)  "Hmmm," he said as his scissors went snip, snip, snip and his needle flew in and out and in and out, "There's just enough material here to make . . . "

6) I love you in the morning and in the afternoon
    I love you in the evening, underneath the moon

7)  And what if . . .
     EVERYTHING was purple
     I mean a WHOLE PURPLE WORLD
     And there was someone just like me
      I mean a purple sort of girl

8)  "I shall never forgive Gilbert Blythe," said Anne firmly. "And Mr. Phillips spelled my name without an e, too. The iron has entered into my soul Diana."

9)  Clang, clang, rattle-bing-bang
     Gonna make my noise all day

10) "I'm Uncle Roy's nephew and I want to go to sea." "Ahh," said the woman, nodding her head. "Come in my little sailor."

11) There were five children, counting the Pollywog, and their names all began with the letter P. Why that should be no one was quite sure but Father said it was done purposely so that it would be easier to divide up the silverware when they all got married.

12)  A mother held her new baby and
       very slowly rocked him back and forth,
       back and forth, back and forth.

13)  My Mom doesn't understand about red.

14) "Take some," said the midnight tow truck driver. "Take as much as you need. You can never get enough red licorice you know. It's good for you and it gives you big muscles."

15)  Old Mister Johnson had troubles of his own
      He had a yellow cat that wouldn't leave his home.

16)  He was two plus two plus two years old.

Your turn.

Happy Canada Day.

The latest baby gear - satellite TV

Some pediatricians south of the border seem to be adopting a "harm reduction" approach when it comes to what American babies are doing for entertainment.

Just look at the reaction to the launch last month of BabyFirstTV, "the nation's first channel for babies." It's a round-the-clock provider of commercial-free shows aimed at those too young to sit up, chew their food or tell anyone to turn the damn thing off.

Yes, it's television aimed at the barely born, and it's available to Americans by satellite for a mere $9.99 a month. A small price for a few hours of peace and quiet, non?

Okay, I exaggerate. Not a few hours - only an hour and 20 minutes. Because according to a new study by the media research group the Kaiser Foundation, that's how much television 61 per cent of babies in the U.S. are watching each day. I kid you not. Though it's unclear whether that includes the CNN reports from war zones and episodes of All My Children that the grownups have on while baby sits on the bouncy chair pretending to be oblivious.

And guess what else? Nineteen per cent of these mites - who likely don't even own their first pair of shoes - already have a TV in their bedroom!

This is very disturbing to the American Academy of Pediatrics, which, while an advocate of breastfeeding, is not at all keen on the boob tube. It's recommendation: No TV for kids under age 2.

But now, some doctors beg to differ. Reality check, they say. If parents are using the TV to keep tots occupied while they throw in the laundry or because they think it will make them smarter, why not at least help them do it in a healthy way? With good clean age-appropriate fare instead of Simpsons reruns and or ex-spouses lunging at each other on Jerry Springer.

FYI, the baby channel isn't available here.

I know what you're thinking, and you're right. Only in America.

Does your baby watch TV?

Time to face that failing grade

When the mark on the report card is less than inspiring and the student in question (as in, my kid) is less than inspired, I usually stick to messages about the big picture. Like: it's all about the trendline buddy. I promise not to get bent out of shape about the mark, as long as you start turning this sucker around.

Well, there's not much disguising the trendline in the latest report card from Active Healthy Kids Canada, which yesterday awarded a big fat D for physical fitness among Canadian kids. There is no trendline. It's just as lousy as last year, which was the first time the advocacy organization launched the annual report. In all fairness, the group does acknowledge that it's hard to expect much change in only one year. But at the same time, while childhood obesity and fitness concerns have been ranking right up there in the headlines with war and terrorism, the organization hasn't found much improvement by any measure.

The report is definitely worth reading, even if you don't have kids. Because it probes so many factors that affect our daily activity levels, from socio-economic status to technology to "playable" neighbourhoods. You can download and read it here.

There's a lot to digest in the 44 pages, and I plan to revisit it in coming weeks. But for now, here are a few questions that we parents can start asking ourselves about the messages we pass along to our kids about fitness. And if they seem like no-brainers, how come I find myself saying "ouch" more than once?

1) Do you model physical activity? i.e. Do you park yourself in a field chair to watch the kids play soccer, or do you at least jog around the field a few times first. And am I the only one who puts driving the kids around to all their activities ahead of my own time to walk or rollerblade or go to the gym?

2) Do you try to make your kids stick to the doctor-recommended daily maximum of two hours a day on screentime - one hour a day for preschoolers? Sounds easy, doesn't it, but according to the report, less than 20 per cent of kids are meeting those guidelines. Think about it. One Harry Potter movie or NHL playoff game will put them well over - before you even get to the MSN. Scary huh?

3) Do you try to make physical activity part of daily living? That means getting the kids to walk, bike or scooter to school or a friend's house, sending them to the store for milk and encouraging them to play outside without adults. Or getting them to rake leaves, shovel snow or carry the groceries. Yeah, I know. Sometimes it's too damn tempting to  forgo the nagging and just do it yourself.

4) If your kids are among the 50 per cent or so involved in structured sports two or three times a week, are you deluding yourself into thinking this is enough physical activity? Ninety minutes a day is the recommended amount. Organized sports tend to feel like a whole lot more than they actually are when you add on the time for getting into uniform and transportation (sometimes across town). But take away that plus all the time they're sitting on the sidelines or the bench when it's someone else's turn to play, and it doesn't add up to nearly as much moving around as you may think.

Life is time-challenged and complicated but the solutions don't have to be. As the report notes, "simple ways of being active need to be better understood and to become valued and ingrained in behaviour."

What do you think? In a culture so obsessed with convenience and technology, what will it take to get people moving again in their daily lives? Are the recommended screentimes realistic for school age kids and teens?