Category Archives: doubt

a lover, not a fighter

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Kia ora fam,

I really would like to be allowed to exist for love. Like Aurora.

My training and work and research and life all justify my long held pro-mama, pro-baby, pro-relationships stance.

Relationships and play, y’all. I live to fly the flag for these vital ingredients!

So it’s gutting that so much of my time and energy seem to be required in rebutting and fighting. Ugh, the negativity! But as you know, there’s a baddie trying to pollute our river. In fact, there are multiple short sighted folk seemingly happy to pollute all our waterways! Clean, green NZ? Nope.

Similarly, in my corner of the world (child development, family thriving, etc!) there is junk science published every day and questionable research underway all the time. If I allowed myself, I could stay in a constant state of defence, parrying and sparring from dawn till bedtime, just trying to uphold an infant’s rights.

It’s hard to wrap your arms around a person or a concept while holding a shield to ward off the threats to their wellbeing. But listen, some of what goes on is so very questionable, YOU GOTTA hold the shield. You gotta ask difficult questions.

Like this: how does the fact that babies enjoy one another’s company serve as a justification for guilt-free group care? I’m at a loss for how to parse the ludicrousness of this logic-leap, which is seemingly a cynical justification of an economic system which relies on paid childcare and requires developmentally vulnerable infants to bear the brunt. Sure, babies enjoy each other’s company, that’s cool! This is not surprising, given that we evolved to spend time in groups, and alloparents (ie adults who behave like parents in support of parents, like grandparents & aunties) are a vital part of a thriving community. HOWEVER, the fact that babies like other babies does not mean they are best served by the current dubious ratios, high staff turnover and excessive group sizes that are all too often found in the profit-driven world that early childhood education (childcare) has become.

Or this: the virtual baby at UC, which gives me indigestion. Just … why? Also: how expensive was it to develop this circus of infant disrespect? An infant sized doll would be a much better proxy. In the good old days of sane teacher training, we absolute beginners used to practice nappy changes on dolls, rehearsing respectful routines using lots of language and taking an unhurried approach … I saw that virtual baby in development and LORD I hope it has progressed further than the ghastly nightmare which I saw: a baby who could not respond to song, or touch, or gaze. The virtual baby could not be comforted by any of those biologically appropriate responses, but would only stop crying when laid on the ground and given a virtual rattle to play with. WHAT? And this would help train quality professionals …how? Just because something can be done (like a VR headset for teacher training!) does not mean it should be.

Even this: my latest article for my pals at OHbaby! magazine, which is a cautionary tale about baby tracking apps. Can we be FOR responding to babies’ cues? Not without defending against the latest threat to that, first! Gah!

We need some positivity to end this post, or we will all wind up with a bad case of the blues. OK, so … howzabout the Joy Workout from the NY Times? That’s fun.

And here’s some more fun, thank you Catherine Price. Here is a link to a cool group who are all about “Radical Attention”, here is inspiring (brief!) video about leadership, and this is a glorious collection of links … you will find art and beauty courtesy of the soon-to-cease-to-be Vampire’s Wife (covet! covet!).

What else? Some beautiful art by a talented woman from the San Francisco area named Shannon Knowlton, an excellent summary of recommendations for screen use in schools and ECE, and (from our friends in Ireland) a summary of screen use in children’s presence, more generally.

Speaking of summaries, I am in my office today to begin work on my research summary. I gotta transform a 350+ page document into a 1-2 page lay summary. Like an abstract, but nicer to read! This is not an easy task and I’ll admit to being a bit bamboozled by it.

But needs must, friends, so I will hop to it. Wishing you all blessings, love, joy – and the courage to question and defend, when required!

x x x

June gloom, multiple rooms, and exciting zooms

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What a privilege to share a play with Otis and pals 🙂

Kia ora friends

When I lived in the USA, they used to talk about the weather in terms of June gloom, and I thought “not in North Canterbury, where the winter nights are frosty and the winter days are shiny”. But this last wee patch has been rather gloomy, so much so that I heard a gentleman say, at the recycling centre over the weekend: “this is like England in November!”.

The other reason for the gloom in my heart is a rough 1-2 combo of death-a-versary and new loss. Processing sadness even as trying to support others … not easy. But important stuff often isn’t.

Anyway, I need to do the important work of sharing links on this blog … I will start with a shout out to Canterbury Playcentre and their fine “Babies Can Play” project, which I was lucky enough to gatecrash a couple of weeks back, with my li’l buddy Otis (and thanks to his fam for allowing me to share the above pic).

That thought may segue nicely into sharing this paper, which was thrust into my hands by one of my mentors, and deals with infant voice and subjective experience. YES! Preach. Vital, and all too often absent from the research realm.

Some terrifying links, now – this is from the Guardian, it’s about the role of Instagram and Facebook in child trafficking. Gross. But don’t look away. Stare it down. Likewise, this from the New York Times about how chat rooms within gaming communities are breeding extremist (violent, racist, misogynist) thinkers, and over here is a piece about how You Tube algorithms are tilting gamers toward actual videos of real life shootings. Unacceptable.

Some good news – this from the Washington Post about banning use of phones in schools, this is a topic which has had a bit of attention here, lately, thanks to the work of Paddy Gower, and lest we forget we’ve known about the benefits of removing phones from school for ages – this write up from the Guardian is in response to a report from the London School of Economics from 2015, for flip’s sake. How many distracted children in those intervening years … hmmm?

Here is an English translation of a position paper written by the German Association for Infant Mental Health, it’s about things digital in the lives of babies & families, and this is a press release from Canterbury Uni (whoop, whoop!) about screen use in early childhood. Guess what? Limits are a good idea.

This is from Teen Vogue about the aftershocks for children who have grown up in the public eye in ‘influencer’ families (ew) and this is about legislation in France, designed to curb such weirdness.

Finally, a chuckle for the pottymouthed …thanks, McSweeneys x x

How can this possibly be my first link share of 2023?

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Well, crikey. Blame the workload (helloooooo data collection!), blame the family, heck – blame me if you like. It’s been a long-ass time since I posted, but the good news that accompanies this is that I have a backlog of fascination for you to peruse.

Are you sitting comfortably? Then let’s begin!

First, may I share this super practical piece from Oregon Public Broadcasting about supporting young people’s positive body image through purposeful use of … you got it … smartphones/screens. Because let’s face it – as those behind this lawsuit understand, social media messes with people’s minds, and especially the young fellas. In breaking and yet unsurprising news from Bloomberg, Zuckerberg had been warned about this very thing.

I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again – I volunteer to give that young man a crisp and hearty slap.

Here’s a smart essay about the creepiness of AI, and this is another smart essay, about attention.

I highly recommend this article from the Cut, about the trap that is inherent in giving a child their first phone, and LISTEN! How have we not been following the work of the Institute of Digital Media and Child Development? (Thanks to my colleague at Auckland Uni for the detective work).

Speaking of child development, here’s a wee piece I wrote for OHbaby! a while back, it’s about play and toys and it’s tech free (no surprises there). And here’s what Scientific American assert is the best way to soothe an infant. Hot tip: It has absolutely nothing to do with birthing in a full face of makeup. Ew.

This is an alarming description of the ways that TikTok tracks you across the web, and this is about an increasing number of schools and universities who are banning the platform from their campuses.

I love this, from the Washington Post, about making children peer reviewers for science writing, to ensure its digestibility, and this is pretty interesting … from Stuff, about the rise of for-profit childcare in NZ. Also ew.

Three quick links to end this … all more personal than I usually post here! This is a review to an amazing concert I was lucky enough to attend, here is a piece about George Michael and the injustices of “that” scandal (because I have loved him since I was a literal child) AND I’m super proud of my friends who hosted this gig. For flip’s sake, Tennessee. Stop reinforcing the stereotypes of small mindedness and redneckery, would ya please?

good and bad things

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One good thing is this latest issue of OHbaby! So nice. And within is an article I wrote about parenting styles. Enjoy …

Conversely …let’s just put it out there. On the record:
I FLIPPING HATE DAYLIGHT SAVING. There. Said it.

We just changed our clocks in NZ (“Spring Forward”) and this is faux time. I mean, all time is a bit faux. As my dear, late mama used to say “Time is a societal construct”. Clocks are only a thing cos we say so. And as for changing them, depriving whole communities of circadian goodness…? I’m agin it! NOT A FAN.

I mean – if this is about making those dreamy summer nights longer… guess WHAT! Mother Nature already does that! Our days get longer in summer without any need for tampering by silly people and their dumb timepieces. Even my delight with the “extra” hour of sleep when we ‘fall back’ and put our clocks back to normal time – it’s not worth the price of admission. This springtime grumpiness is REAL, and I blame Daylight Saving. HUMBUG!!!

Right. Rant over.

Now for some links for my geeky brothers’n’sisters! After all, that’s what we do, here 🙂

First up, here is an academic paper which describes a study using the Still Face Paradigm as a mechanism for understanding the impact of technological interruption on mother-baby interaction.

Also tech-related: here is a piece from the Conversation about toddlers’ use of touchscreen technology (*hot tip: use in emergencies only! eg on aeroplanes, or while a parent is receiving medical care!) and this is from the Washington Post, about making a media plan for your family. Bloody good idea, and the basis of my PhD research… what, WHAT?

I’ve been reading/hearing/thinking a lot about TikTok, lately. She’s not your friend, y’all. Here is a piece which highlights the advocacy of Fairplay (formerly the Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood. Loved them then, love them still!!) and YOU GOTTA hear this podcast from our pals at the Center for Humane Tech. It casts a calm and concerned eye over the platform. It’s not all cute dance moves, my darlings. Our poor young people need protection from data harvesting and capitalism, itself!

Another piece from the Conversation, now: about phones in schools (*I know – let’s just DON’T!) and just cos it’s fascinating – enjoy this cognitive biases cheat sheet.

Finally, please enjoy this piece of relatable satire from McSweeney’s, and some exceptionally beautiful Land Art. Let those beautiful images hold you till the pain goes away!

and the year goes March-ing on

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Hello darlings,

Crikey dick. March already. Makes me a bit clammy on the palms, as I have SO MUCH WORK to do, and a finite amount of daily brain power.

In the meantime, I would like to share a slew of links with you.

First, a couple that specifically deal with TikTok (ugh). This is from Wired, and it’s about the company’s desire to host/post longer videos (even though longer videos stress users out). Why would they do that, you ask? To sell more advertising, of course!! Speaking of advertising on TikTok, check out this craziness, about ADHD medication being pitched to youngsters. Again: ugh.

Here is a link to some work from George Washington University, about the peddling of COVID-19 misinformation to parent groups, which reminded me of this from NZ’s Stuff about ‘mumfluencers’ (that word deserves another one: ugh!). ALSO: same but different, this is from Wired about the ways that the internet is failing mums-to-be.

What depressing news can I share with you, next? How about this, from the BBC, about how popular children’s game Roblox has been invaded by pervs (are we surprised?) but LEST WE FORGET, before we go blaming children for being enticed by the online world … kids’ screen habits are very much a reflection of their parents’ habits, and as this piece from the Atlantic reminds us, those parental habits MATTER.

Speaking of kids’ habits … this is a piece from the Newsroom in NZ about screen time, and I’ll invite you to compare and contrast that with an opinion piece from the Washington Post about how social media use is a much more useful yardstick than just ‘screen time’.

I’ll end with three hopeful-ish links … first, from the Guardian, about the value of prioritising in-person intimacy over our smartphones, and THIS from the BBC … it’s about ditching the smartphone … and howzabout this from the Atlantic, encouraging connection to nature.

I mean … we are human mammals. We are part of nature. Jeez. With that in mind, I might rug up against the early-autumn chill and eat lunch outside. Arohanui! x x xx

Zoom – it’s not just for weeping

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kia ora my friends

Yeah, so … about 10 days ago I wept via zoom.

I’d been at an event the previous day, a public talk where I believed the content (which I saw as downplaying the risks accompanying our technological lives) had the potential to do harm to children. I see things as the 5 Rights Foundation see them: Tech’s exploitative relationship with children is a public health issue. Instead of acknowledging this, I heard false reassurances (“sure, play violent video games for hours at a time!), some in opposition to the recommendations of the likes of the World Health Organisation.

The hierarchical nature of pecking orders means that it wasn’t appropriate for me to stand up and yell “BS!”, although that’s what every cell of my body longed to do. For the love of everything that’s holy- ACKNOWLEDGE THE HARMS.

The act of suppressing that desire took a toll on my central nervous system – I was cringing so hard I did myself personal injury. For an hour and a half, I had to do slow, controlled abdominal breaths, the likes of which I would usually do during dental work for mere minutes at a time.

This combination of misinformation and physical suffering (not to mention the stiff whiskey I downed when I got home) left me out of sorts the next day. Not the best space for a productive work day … or, it turns out, a competent showing on zoom.

I wish I knew more about zoom etiquette – clearly I should have bowed out of that meeting. Is it rude if I’m the only one whose camera is turned off? I mean, I know Brené Brown is all the rage, but is the world ready for the “I weep on Zoom” level of vulnerability? Giddy up, y’all. Here I am.

In part, the weeping was because I got lost in comparison, perceiving myself as falling behind the other researchers. But in hindsight, I mostly wept because I longed for these other child-minded people to join me in feeling wounds that accompany the public misrepresentation of children’s needs. Unfortunately, it was hard to communicate any of that while my head was in my hands.

Forgiveness: after at least two good sleeps (my dad’s excellent rule) I was able to forgive myself for the weeping, I could contextualise my reaction and even stand in the power of “I wept because I care so bloody much about children!” – which is not entirely a bad thing, eh?

Anyway, if we can still be friends, I’ll share a few links and move on with my day.

Let’s start with a few Bruce Perry/NMT related links, shall we? First, here is a website called Be Rhythmic, which is a cornucopia of regulation-enhancing delights. THIS is a pdf about the amazing human brain, and check out these exceptional visual synopsis (synopses?) of Dr. Perry’s books.

A few techy links now, cos … y’know. First: check out this work from the University of Auckland, making a link between audible smartphone notifications, parenting style, and kids’ language development. This is an argument against instagram for kids (because … of course). And this is a link to a blog about Britain’s code of conduct for online design as it relates to children. Lo and behold, they call on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child to inform their work: Children have the right to be safe from commercial exploitation (UNCRC Article 32).
Oh, if everyone were to honour that … there sure as heck wouldn’t be talk of Kiddy Insta!!

Here is a bit of info about the 5Rights “twisted playthings’ campaign, which seek to highlight the weirdness of toys that gather data and promote unhelpful ideals … One write up from the Washington Post, one from a site called Shots.net. Commercial exploitation of children? Yup.

I’d also like to draw your attention to the work of Thorn.org, who work to protect children from online sexual exploitation.

What else? This is a good article from Dame about living in an age of too much information (information is not the same thing as knowledge, and knowledge alone ain’t wisdom!!) and I’ll round this post out with some beautiful, playful bead art. ENJOY x x x

on holidaying like you mean it: zozo and zozi, babies!

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Kia Ora New Year newbies and lovely friends. Sitting down at last to share some bits and pieces on the dear ol’ blog.

Like … here I am drinking tea (you can’t tell, but trust me) and enjoying the latest OHbaby! magazine. Yup, happy to have an article in there .. it’s about routines v. go with the flow … what Dan Siegel would call “the river of integration”, but kinda from the baby’s point of view. Anyway, shout out to the visionary new editor Kristina for a great issue, and mad love to outgoing marvel Marianne as she works on nesting with her next baby x xx

Meanwhile: what else? I have been inching an academic article over the finish line for a v. flash journal – I will report back once complete. Like most, we have had a busy time of Christmas and New Year’s malarkey, lots of delicious feasting and loving gifting and a fair bit of grateful hanging out with our friendlies. Have I mentioned lately how grateful I am for New Zealand’s privileged position during this global pandemic? “Go hard, go early” said Jacinda. And so far the borders are holding steady.

We do not take these freedoms for granted – our bi-cultural family hosted a Thanksgiving meal, we had a lovely afternoon of celebrating the groovy mark I got for my Master’s thesis ( as the late Julia Child would say “a party without cake is just a meeting”) and there have been a couple of house parties in there, to boot. Busy, happy, joyful, messy, busy, exhausting, wonderful life.

Meanwhile, here are a few links before I sign off … a refreshingly solutions-focused emphasis to some of the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) stuff, courtesy of NPR. It’s about the stress buffering impact of positive experiences in children’s lives. Speaking of a positive spin on things, here is a gorgeous little cartoony representation of some important behavioural concepts – I first heard this method of framing things from Stuart Ablon, who is quite the business.

Here is a family friendly collection of episodes from the legends at Radiolab, and while we are in a podcast state of mind, behold the latest episode of Your Undivided Attention, which is dazzling. And it references the legendary Fred Rogers. And yes, it is solution focused, with Eli Pariser making such smart analogies between the design of public spaces and online fora. I said fora. Having done a bit of playground design (and having learned at the feet of legendary teachers) I feel like I can dig this metaphor. Oh, and I own this book. Am I a town planner, or just kidding?

More from me later … lots of thinking going on in between trashy novels and domesticity.

Arohanui x x x

PS! Important announcement! In response to my daughter’s scrawling penmanship, I read her “2020” as ‘zozo’, and it occurs to me that this year must be zozi, next year will be zozz, and then I think it’s zoze, and 2024 could be zoza. At a stretch, we could follow that with zozs, zozg, (which, admittedly are a bit lame) but then you round out the decade with zozy, zate (best I could do) and perhaps zozg to finish.

No? Just an idea.

trust the experts, already.

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Kia Ora friends.

So, I’ve overheard a few comments and had enough conversations to make me want to share this notion publicly … it’s about racism, and political correctness, and adapting behaviour. It’s also about white ladies thinking they can decide what racism is, what an appropriate accommodation might be to facilitate goodness for all, or whether it even exists in NZ (*It DOES).

(I’m sure white dudes do it too, but my analogy works best with ladies, so bear with)

To those nice white ladies I say:”Honey. I’m a nice white lady too. And I gotta tell you, you are not the best person to decide when protests have gone on long enough or what is an acceptable level of outrage about issues of race. Here’s the thing: y’know how some blokes will stare at your boobs when they’re talking to you? Hell, some blokes will stare at your boobs even when they’re not talking to you. You know what that’s like? To have dudes just stare at your boobs? “

Yes, yes. The ladies will say. For boob-starers are everyhwere.

Now, if I was to ask many men to assess whether they think women experience frequent boob staring, or if boob-staring is a problem, indeed if an individual friend of theirs is a boob-starer, those men would be likely to downplay or deny the issue. Because THEY ARE NOT THE ONES HAVING THEIR BOOBS STARED AT.

So, my dear white lady, for you to question a person’s experience of racism (or their expression of outrage at the existence of racism) just because you have not tasted the foul effects of that racism yourself, is as idiotic as inviting a man to decide whether boob staring is real, or problematic, or how annoyed women should be by it.

Trust women. Our boobs are frequently stared at. We are the experts here.

Trust people of colour. They experience racism. They are the experts about this.

I’m not trying to be glib or silly, I am truly trying to find an analogy that my people – the nice white ladies – can understand.

While we are trusting the experts in the respective fields, can we have a moment of silence for the death of sanity in the USA? Ay yi yi.

I’ll go back to my Results chapter in a jiff. Very challenging/humbling, as I am not a fluent speaker of Statistics, or a terribly proficient writer of code. Baby steps, snail’s pace.

Meanwhile, a few links to enjoy, if you’re still with me!

This is a wonderful website called “our words matter”, which is a collection of useful ideas and writing about what’s afoot in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Also homegrown, here is the reaction from Sensible Screen Use to the Reboot report I posted a while back.

Looks like Facebook are FINALLY getting served a tiny amount of comeuppance following their years of divisive nonsense. Here is a piece about resignations within the company, and just within the last 24 hours, more and more companies are pulling advertising. About time.

This is a li’l something from Harvard about a silver lining in the pandemic cloud: closer relationships between dads and their kids, which is good news, because elsewhere we have learned that increased parental stress points to less effective safeguards around screen use.

Some satire here, from the good folk at McSweeney’s … all parents of toddlers (past or present) will relate to this. THIS is a link to an article I wrote for OHbaby! about doing more by doing less, and this link to the Plum Village whānau will give you opportunities to join meditation practice with experts, which will help with … everything.

on mites, lice, and COVID-19

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Kia Ora lovelies. What a time to be alive, eh? Lessons a-plenty, as seen here in this bit of deliciousness showcasing the work of the awesome Bagshaws. (And Lyndon Puffin, no less!)

I’ve been putting my faith in Dr Bloomfield and Ms Adern, which was easy when we were on full on lockdown (I heart home) but it’s been a test today … sending kids back to school … YIKES.

Part of the reason for my trepidation is my first hand experience with what happens when one gets too lax, too fast, about controlling a vile outbreak. During lockdown, I had to sort lice from a child’s head and mites in my henhouse. Lemme tell you: you gotta keep your foot on the gas or outbreaks return without regard. Ya hear me, Ministry of Education? Did you SEE this proposed future, laid out by NZ Geographic? We gotta be careful!

Trusting you, Dr Bloomfield. Trusting you …

Some more links now, some COVID resources from Bruce Perry & pals, and this article from Reuters is about the need for green solutions in the rebooting of economies. There is lots we can do as individuals, too … like these inspiring ideas from Retrosuburbia.

Meanwhile, here is a post from Sensible Screen Use which reminds us that all this online education is experimental, this is an important portal to thinking about digital use and wellbeing at the mo, thanks be to the Center for Humane Tech, because let’s not forget: too much tech isn’t great for kids. It’s like the mites: they don’t care if there’s a pandemic on. It’s like the potential for damage to my dear wee liver because of excessive alcohol consumption … it still counts, pandemic or no.

Finally, here is an article from the NY Times which explains how and why Zoom can feel so unsatisfactory.

I mean, thank you Zoom, you’ve been helpful, but y’ain’t face to face. You can’t help it.

OH … by the way … today’s picture shows the latest issue of OHbaby!, which features an article I wrote. It’s about Growing Great Flatmates, and i hope you will enjoy it 😉

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OldTryCovidPosters-01Kia Ora e hoa ma, g’day mates. Here is another lovely image from the talented folk at The Old Try.  Free to download!  If you’ve a printer, put one on your fridge!

We have at-home schooling starting in NZ today – I’ve tried to put some reasonable guardrails in place for my two. Sorry to say, but there are still a great many reasons to be cautious about tech.  I know people are all jazz-hands about online learning, but let’s not forget that kids’ data is still being harvested, that children need our protection from online sexual predation (MORE THAN EVER), or that we learn best hands-on, pen & paper, face to face.  And we gotta get outside to play!

Not to be all Captain Bringdown … just speaking truths that are STILL TRUE.

Here’s some lovely stuff, to counteract the grimness … some beautiful tips from a zen master for staying sane in challenging times are here, and this is a cool little video clip about making it out of lockdown without murdering anyone in one’s bubble. Here are some cool ideas for families from the excellent Sparklers website, and darlings: make space for your grief.

Another tech caution is HERE, in an article I wrote for OHbaby!, and here is a lil’l something from the brilliant Bruce Perry about responses to trauma (which I suspect an unprecedented number of people will be relating to, right now!) and if that all has you feeling a little verklempt try moving your body! Take it away Sam Shorkey!

Or try a little meditation, thank you Adriene 😉

Love y’all x xx take care x x x arohanui x x x