Category Archives: play

overthinkers anonymous

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Dear www.baby.geek.nz

You are a dear wee website.  You have given me a place to file my thoughts and preserve a gigantic number of links (* or portals to wonderlands of learning and discovery, as I like to think of them).

You’re a bit of a secret, though, which is cool, but there is this thing I love to imagine you doing.  Just quietly.  I love to imagine that you, www.baby.geek.nz, have improbably become a useful launchpad, catapaulting conversations between thinking parents and scattering chat among other assorted family-folk.

In a world gone bonkers, only you manage to somehow bring together a pot pourri of links that is JUST SO MY CUP OF TEA.  Which shouldn’t surprise me, because I posted every darned last one of them.  Beginning with THIS, my very first blog post.  Awww, cute.

I do love you, darling website, and I promise I can change.  Please, baby(geek), just give me a little more time.  I dream of a bright future for us,

love,

Me xx

End scene.

Anyway, I’m obsessing more than usual about these notions of communication and internet and purpose because last week I went to a Social Media 101 training day.   Holla, Enterprise North Canterbury!  Tumeke, Simplify & Amplify!

It’s all very fascinating, and I kinda dig learning about the psychology of marketing, and why people do stuff and how to get them to do the stuff you think they oughta, I am horrified by what my dear late mother would’ve called the Coca-colonisation of the world.  The blatant and aggressive enslavement of populations by corporations too slick and sneaky to be outfoxed.  Really, I think we should all buy less.  Use less.  Do more for ourselves.  

And the whole technology of twitter and facebook and all their chums is flippin amazing.   As a tool, it’s the way to find all the peoples who care about the things.  Nana over here has to do some work … cos I’d love to find some thinking mamas and I think that’s where they are and yet I FEAR the lure of the devices.  Both for myself and for all of us!

Pads and Macs and smart phones and regular (dumb?) phones … OH … behold these amazing ads from China about resisting the phone addiction FOR THE CHILDREN …

… here’s the thing …. I’d love it if we could all get the fact that societies of useful adults – that is, adults who are kind, competent, smart, healthy, capable, or at least not incompetent dicks – those sorts of adults are more likely if they were gifted responsive, warm, calm, loving care while they were babies.  There.  It’s that simple.  I said it.

Not just me.  Heaps of people.  Like Harvard’s Center for the Developing Child.  Heaps.

And you cannot tell me, not even for a second, that the brains of human young will be as effectively nurtured by distracted adults whose faces glow from their device du jour than they will be by an adult available to meet their gaze, respond to their vocalisations, and make up lame songs.

Ladies and gentlegeeks, I think we gotta unplug more.  For ourselves, and sure as the dickens for our babies.

I mean, I’m all for the flow of mindfulness teaching, (at school!  Love it.)  I am generally very Mindful of Mindfulness, but I can’t help but think we wouldn’t need quite so much mindfulness training if we just spent a wee bit less time skittering between devices and leaping between operating systems.

It’s like how we eat tons of fatty food and then obsess about weight loss.  I’m talking about us as a culture, not YOU.  Or ME.  Just all of us, you know?  Truly: if we did like Michael Pollan … “eat food, not too much, mostly plants” and then went for walks and did some yoga then VOILA!  Wellness.

Sorry.  I’m a bit didactic and grouchy tonight.  I’m angsting.

Yeah, I angst about encouraging folks deeper into the digital world and further from the juicy messy deliciousness of real life.  And yet I love the handiness of a magical box that sings the commercials of my youth and finds me amazing recipes and connects me to people I love, all over the world.

What the flip.  Modern life … I need me my online yoga before bed.  Love you, Adriene, my electronic friend!

Irony, she lives.

school holidays in NZ

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Which means action, carnage, joy and chaos.  Delight.  And mess.  So much mess.

Which is all good.  Because there are seasons.  Which leads me straight to the latest yummy Wise Brain newsletter.  It contains a poem by Tara Sophia Mohr which has blown my mind (*please insert your own explosion noise here.  Preferably with puffed out cheeks, in public.)

Here is a download from the great state of Alabama about the Rewards of Early Childhood Investment.  Written by their Chamber of Commerce so bound to overemphasise short term fiscal measures and underestimate longer term wellbeing measures.  Rah de rah.

Soon Mary Gordon, founder of the Roots of Empathy project, will be in New Zealand to talk.  And listen.  I am looking forward to the ensuing think-and-feel-tank and I plan to make soup.

Finally, with thanks to the folks at Exchange Every Day, a link to an article about resilience. I love this.  Hummingbird parenting (way more pretty and organic than helicopters, anyway.)

I have only just met the Wait But Why website. Gordon Bennett!  It’s a portal to joy, discovery, and lost hours.  Have fun, beware.

linkin’ like a maniac

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Kia Ora geeks, friends, and onlookers,

Snow all over the ground at my place.  Winter wonderland, etc.

Let’s get cracking with a variety of juicy links, shall we?

First: our chums from the CBC in Canada have a story here about the fun and beauty of a crocheted playground.  Enjoy!

My three-year-old is currently obsessed with birthing (*specifically, umbilical cords.  She keeps asking for hers back …) and she loves nothing more than to watch this amazing video from TED.  I know I’ve linked to it before, but here it is again.  It’s sensational.  Also from TED – this summary of the ACE study, giving more reason for deliberate care of our youngest.

This is a write up from the Daily Mail in the UK about the summary of Happiness research completed by the Mayo Clinic.  LOVE this.  The 5-3-2 thing is revolutionarily simple and deluxe.  To contrast, here is a summary from Health.com of some of the worst habits for your mental health.

A couple of treasures from Early Childhood Australia now – this one about bringing the benefits of mindfulness to the classroom, and this stunner is from the most excellent Anne Stonehouse about the challenges of documenting learning in ECE.

More from our Australian cousins: a link here to some research confirming that mandatory naps for older children (ie in childcare settings) leads to less nighttime sleep.  Which is just what parents need … (how I long for a sarcastic font!)

This link will lead you to a piece that considers the ways that bullying from peers can be more damaging than abuse from parents, and meanwhile, here is some writing from Scientific American describing how harsh parenting will likely contribute to anxiety.  Sigh.

From the good folks at Hand in Hand Parenting comes this little article about Sharing, here’s an article about the super power that comes from being raised in a bilingual home, and a cautionary tale about the potential damage from cellphones being more intense for children.

From Slate now: a piece about how doing good unto others will bring benefits onto ONESELF.  Bonus!

And FINALLY … the Washington Post bring us the data around how the top few hedge fund managers (*which I’m pretty sure has nothing to do with topiary) earn more than all the kindergarten teachers in the US combined.  We live in crazy, beautiful, messed up times.

quick, before lunch

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Lunchtime is my favourite time.  Hey, it’s Lunchtime!  (a prize for whomever can name that artist …)

Quick: some links.  No snazzy segways or classy intros or even categories.  Just random links … GO:

This is from Scientific American and it’s about how to get more parents to vaccinate their kids.  I have.  This is a link to the American Mindfulness Research Association, and here is some explanation as to why smiling makes us happier and more successful.  Even a faux smile!

This is a YouTube clip about the lovely Tree Change Dolls I shared a while back and this is a blog post about the relentless branding of children’s toys.  Ugh.

Here’s an interview urging rebellion against ‘the gospel of money’ and this article from v. good North & South magazine features the most excellent Rick Hanson who I heard speak a month ago.  Still reeling.  In a good way.   You could also do this wee yoga practice and be happy.  Especially if you smile whilst doing so.

Finally, boycott your biology.  Supress the sociology.  Dance and sing in public!

procrastination for fun and profit!

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Kia Ora and hello!

Before we go any further, the date tells us we are a week from Christmas.  My pal at OHbaby! shared a link to this fab piece, about simplifying the season.  Make like Elsa and Let It GO!  Enjoy.

I am in my office with a brief, hard-fought window of time to be working.  I’m supposed to be banging out a draft for a 1500-worder due soon after the festive craziness.  Ask me how that’s going?  Yeah.  Um.  Not great.

But then ask me how it was at Toddlerific and I will tell you… it was a treat!  An utter treat. We talked – a lot – about stuff like the serve and return nature of child development (HERE is an elegant explanation from the Center for the Developing Child at Harvard) and about temperament research, and goodness of fit.   And many other luscious things!  Such fun.

Here is a link to the most recent newsletter from Brainwave Trust Aotearoa.  Yeah, I wrote the book review in there, but the main reason for sharing is Keryn O’Neill’s excellent analysis of the Perry Preschool Project. You gotta see it.

Meanwhile, did I already post a link to this article about The Last Generation of kids to play outside?   It’s a goodie.  And speaking of play, look how dreamy this crowd are … the Exuberant Animal (good name for a funk band …).

May I end with a shout out to the super smart, warm, wise and uber supportive Pennie Brownlee.  Arohanui xxx

play. work. play. sleep. play. practice. play.

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Photo on 2014-12-09 at 06.07Right ho.  So my newest thang is in this magazine with yet another astronomically lovely bub on the front.  I hope that if you read it you will like it.

Here is another link to an article about play – this is written with someone with WAY more gravitas than I.  This is fantastic.

With December slip-slidin’ away you might enjoy this list of non-toy gift ideas for children … and if you move fast you can still vote for worst toy of the year at CCFC’s annual TOADY awards.

Thursday I will teach a workshop for the first time since I was preggers with Little Girl.  At the Toddlerific conference near Christchurch.  Have planned a preso, but have not even thought through all the logistics inherent in driving vast distances, filling travel forms, sorting real life toddler’s needs ETC because today is my Big Girl’s birthday!  Eleven years I’ve been a mama.

One thing at a time for this geek.

assorted variousness

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Let’s link.

First: a post from Psychology Today about using your brain more effectively (ie being more productive!).  Once again, the moral of the story is Slow Down.  Unplug.  Concentrate.

Similar, and yet so different, is this deluxe post from On Being written by Omid Safi … it might be your new favourite thing.

This is an excellent piece by Scientific American about 10 big additions to our thinking about neuroscience in the past decade.   Enjoy.

OH!  Lovely initiative here … using yoga to change the lives of young women in trouble.  MOre!

Now, take four minutes to check out this promo to a fantastic looking new documentary film called Now Playing.  I long to let rip a rant about the value of play in the lives of children and adults, but my toddler is keeping it all very real by tugging on my arm and beggin me to stop working.

I’m overdue a rant about play, having just written an article for OHbaby! about Play and a foreword for an exciting new book on the subject by my fab colleague Sarah Best

Gotta boogie.  I’ll end with a public service announcement: adopt fist bumps as a replacement for high fives or handshakes and you will reduce the transfer of infection.

constant role changes

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smallest child is RIGHT into dramatic play just now.  We are assigned and reassigned roles all day long as she switches from one character to another, necessitating that we do also.

It leaves me mentally exhausted at day’s end.  As I am NOW.

I’ve got a deadline and a familiar mild creeping anxiety cos I have a writing deadline and no clue when I will knock it off.  It’s one of those topics that is so juicy and vital and I long to do it justice.  Yikes.

So some quick links before sleep …

Here’s a little something about babies and their dissociation … it can look like bubbas who are left to cry are settled but they AIN’T.  They’re just silently hurting.

The lovely Lammily doll is in production and my girls will be getting one for Christmas shshshshhhhhhhhh.

And listen … i am slowly reading this lifechanging book and I long to chat about it with other folks so someone else read it too, please … it just might change the way you think about humanity.  Not even joking.

 

small insight, many links

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It’s winter time in the South Pacific.  A time for toddlers to kick off all their bedclothes and then awaken their mothers with cold cries.  As I tiptoed toward Baby Girl last night I felt for her blindly, unsure what part of her I’d touch.  She swivels and wriggles and changes direction.

As I gently patted the air and eventually her, it occurred to me how the darkness of nighttime parenting is a bit like the blessed mystery of pregnancy – the ultrasound technician who proposes “yes, I think that’s an arm.  Oh, and there’s the baby’s spine”.  Last night this seemed just like the necessary assessment that precedes rearranging the blankies.  “Yes, here’s her wee head.  There’s her feet …”  And I snuggle her back up and shuffle back to bed, willing us both to stay asleep.

Anyway, before I return to that lovely slumber, here are some LINKS.

This is from UNICEF, it’d seem they are getting into the neurodevelopment swing o’ things .   Welcome.

A couple of parenting resources: Radical Parenting, providing tips for parents of adolescents and teens from a kid’s perspective, and I love this from Hand in Hand parenting, about the value of a Good Cry.  I’m sold: boo hoo!

Here is a cool cardboard play space from Australia, an urging to introduce babies to veggies early and often, and a write up of some health research examining gender differences in placenta.

And I just don’t even know what to say about the notion that we are all more stressed at home than at work.   A convo for another time.  Bed beckons (as she always does mmmmm)

next week we go screen free

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profilepicKia Ora geeks.  Getting ready to turn off, here.  Husband is unenthusiastic as can be.  Big Girl is a little better.  Baby Girl will be deceived into thinking TV is broken.  She’s two.

A family’s prep for screen free week is described here, and this is from Psychology Today – some brain benefits of unplugging are included.

Whether you’re into Screen-Free Week or not, I reckon you will DIG these fab resources from the excellent organisation known as TRUCE (Teachers Resisting Unhealthy Children’s Entertainment).

While we’re at it, check out this great news from Brazil, where it is now illegal to market directly to children, and look at this primo follow up on the 1981 LEGO ad.

Finally, the legendary Lillian Katz is still raising consciousness about childrens’ early learning, this time cautioning against attempting to teach children to read too young.