Category Archives: parenting education

for the time being

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Ladies and gentlegeeks,
What is UP?

My body craves movement, and caffeine, so I won’t linger at my desk for much longer.  I finished an article this morning (huzzah!) and now I will turn my attention to domesticity.  With an impending (long-awaited!) renovation about to kick off at my place, I’m supplementing my usual household quests with a truckload of packing, cleaning, discarding.  I have been amazed aplenty: by the number of socks under my washing machine, how I really do need more than one rubber scraper, and by the pressure I feel to buy new tea towels.  Which I might, or might not do.  I am the gatekeeper of tea towels!

Now, friends, some links:

FIRST, with a belated shout-out to a beautiful lady geek based in Auckland, here is a link to a Stuart Shanker gig in that fair city.  GO, if you can.  Go.

A couple of links from Australia, now.  This one will tell you all about one of their home-visiting programmes, right@home.  Our parliament were just briefed about this project, and as we know, home visiting is an exceptionally effective way of supporting families.  Something completely different; here is an analysis of the gender imbalances in the top 100 selling children’s books in Australia.  So well done, you wanna see it.

What a conundrum – but finding decent books to share with children is so very worth it, here is an abstract to support that idea!

From the New York Times, now: there will never be an age of artificial intimacy … and this is a stunner of an essay about how we are more than our brains.  I was lucky enough, in the midst of my deepest days of brain science worship, to have mentors reminding me of the interconnectedness of our everything.  I mean, appreciate the neuro-stuff, but also cherish the rest.  Heck, you probably already do.  I just had to relearn that a while back.

Hey, with an ironic wink, here are a couple of brain links.  This is about the benefits of forgetting, and this asks “does living around violence change a child’s brain?” (answer: yes.)

ANYWAY … here is a lovely downloadable calendar for self care September (LOVE!  Thanks, Action for Happiness)  and now that you’ve girded your loins, check out this hideousness from the Washington Post about little kids and their online shopping habits.  Jaysus!  Can I please share another essay?  This one is about how children need to move and play and step away from the screens in order to learn.

Now, where were we?  A cuppa and a brisk walk both sound pretty good about now.  Arohanui x x x

vive la France!

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Salut mes amis,
Kia Ora e hoa ma,
G’day mates,  hey y’all, hello my friends.

The resistance is rumbling.  There have been courageous law changes in France meaning that the children and adolescents there are being given mandated time away from the persuasive design of the tech companies that live in all our cellphones and feed off our attention.

Speaking of which, I enjoyed this trifecta of articles about Yondr, which is a simple and exciting option for creating tech-free oases.  Yes, schools are a perfect place to be phone-free, (may I remind you of this report from the London School of Economics) but also at live shows (we should all be allowed to be one with the music without fear of some meanie uploading our gyrations & undulations without permission!)

Meanwhile, the Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood have sent this open letter to Mark Zuckerberg (if you know him, give him a nudge will you?) the Children’s Screen Time Action Network are continuing to advocate and agitate, which is just as well; because there are multiple layers to the weirdness of tech in kids’ lives, like how our distracted parenting can lead to bonkers patterns of child misbehaviour (and subsequent avoidance … the downward cycle of technoference, just like McDaniel told ya), OR like how our tech habits at bedtime are robbing our children of sleep.  

(ah, Sleep!  I love you so!)

Other stuff: crazy finding reported here by Scientific American, about the likelihood of women with heart problems dying/not dying upon admission to an emergency room depending upon the gender of the doctor on duty that day, HERE is a transcript to a wonderful interview with Ashley Montagu, and this is a link to an article I wrote aaaages ago, for my pals at OHbaby!.  Love y’all!

Finally: new podcast obsession this week … Song Exploder.  All hail Jonathan Van Ness, whose Getting Curious podcast led me there.

Podcasts.  They are amazing.  Put them on the list of things I do quite like about tech.

 

 

BYO sunshine, outrage, action & poetry

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Kia Ora ladies and gentlegeeks,

Warm soup and winter sunshine.  What a joy it is to be alive when you’re fortunate in the birth lottery (yay, NZ in the 70’s!  Yay!  Thanks Papatuanuku!) but jeepers, mate, there is lameness and horror a-plenty.  I was just crapping on to my big brother over coffee a few days back about how if we could just ask all scenarios an overarching question (be the scenario designing a town hall, or prioritising health funding, or creating immigration policy) all would shift.

The question:
What would this mean for babies?

Whatever it is.  Going for a walk.  Approving an irrigation scheme.  Consent processes and elected officials would all have to prove how their decisions impact babies.  Most parents are pretty good at considering how their decisions impact their own babies (“if we stay for dinner, what does that mean for our bedtime routine?”), so we must now all consciously expand to our infuse all our decisions, large and small, with babyhood.

Because if it’s good for babies, it’s good for everyone (friends!  You know why!  Because attachment and neurobiology and human potential.  Because overstimulation and pace and wellbeing.  That’s why!

The only group I can think of who will suffer if we truly prioritise infant wellbeing are those with financial interests in selling nonsense to babies’ families.

And they can stuff off, anyway.

We have a rare opportunity here, because our Prime Minister just gave birth to her first child.  Well done, Jacinda!  And now you get to view decisions large and small through a lens you didn’t even know existed.  None of us knew, till we knew.  Welcome.  Nau mai, haere mai.  Welcome, Baby Neve, to the world.  And welcome, Jacinda, to motherhood.

raise your hand if you’re fed up

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Screen Shot 2018-06-11 at 12.35.10 PMKia Ora my friends.  Here is the image that accompanies the Proceedings of the 2nd International Neurosequential Model Symposium from 2016.  Y’all, I was there!  I presented (and sobbed.)  And guess whose scrappy l’il piece closes out this auspicious document?  Can you even stand it?  Because I’m not sure I can!

Now I need to share some links, before my cranky old bones prohibit any more computer work.  First, get ready for outrage, and then please share it with at least a half-dozen of your pals in education.  This is an article about the way that Google has infiltrated schools and is making loyal clients of children, and praps it’d be a good time to brush up on the ways that a Google search is not a neutral beast.  How many of the children googling away in their classrooms today know this?  How many of their teachers have even considered it?

NOW, then: check this out … from PC Mag, no less, making the case for less tech in classrooms.  It exposes that same notion: that tech in schools is for the benefit of advertisers and companies, not children.  UGH.  And LOOK at the lengths that tech companies will go to, distancing themselves from the idea that they have a part to play in child wellbeing: “Our children’s apps aren’t directed at children.”  PARASITES.   We simply must share the truth about the ways that we (and worse, our kids) are being manipulated!  Love you, Tristan Harris!!

For resources, info, inspiration and community in the fight against such nonsense, please behold the proceedings from the first Children’s Screen Time Action Network conference.  I know, you gotta get online.  Irony is a funny gal.  And ALL HAIL Maryland, who seems to be leading the way in having legislative challenge to the “all-tech, all-the-time” school landscape.

Instead, we gotta emphasise what children need.  They need time with their family (mate, I LOVE this article ….) They need actual humans to read them stories.   They need adults to pay attention to what they actually need!  And they need schools that do more than just market to them.

Meanwhile, we need to spend time offline (quiet time alone, every day!  SWOON!) we need to resist the pace of the on-demand lifestyle, we need a bloody good night’s sleep, and we need community.

An article here from Mothering with a new take on the ACE study, and this is a link to an article I wrote aaaaages ago, for our pals at OHbaby! mag.

a wildly satisfying life!

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What’s up party people?  Kia Ora te whānau!

I have just committed an act which could be described as mildly rebellious OR exceptionally sensible, depending upon yer point of view.  When I could have (should have?) been hitting the books I was, instead, undulating my spine with the exceptional Kelle Rae Oien, who has been in NZ teaching.  How lucky am I!?!  Such joy.  So sweaty!

I adore her language when she expresses her desire for her students to live lives that are wildly satisfying.  Wildly satisfying!  I dig that contrast.  It’s like … passionately content.  Enthusiastically calm.  Playfully satiated.  Wildly satisfying.  Yeah, imma keep that one!

What else?  Just had mother’s day … probably a good time to share this excellent article from Harper’s Bazaar about emotional labour (aka invisible labour, aka mental load, aka kin keeping).  Oh, young women, study before you procreate!  The mental and practical energy that it takes to keep the home fires burning while you’re committing the audacious act of betterment is something that you cannot possibly know, yet.

Casserole, school trip, reference list.  Dishes, flu shots, literature review.  Wha …?

Now, some links.  Let’s clear a few tabs before I do battle with the referencing software.  I know, I know, that is NOT the attitude.  Not doing battle with, playing with!  I’ll play with it…

First … here is an article that freaked me right out.  It’s about the ways that millennial parents are raising their children.  I could weep.  The needs of human infants have not changed, just cos our technology has.  Interesting that the writer acknowledges the longing that “parennials” (millennial parents, apparently) have for simpler times.

Meanwhile, from the Atlantic, another look at the tech habits of parents.  This deserves multiple and repeated reads, cos I tell you what, it’ll take you to some terrifying places.  Like this and this.

And you know the bit that kills me, crazy baby lady that I am?  There is this cyclic thing going on, where new motherhood seems “boring”, and sure enough the literature points to women going online (eg during the intimate act of breastfeeding) because they are bored and seeking distraction.  But by succumbing to the distraction, mothers aren’t practicing SEEING their babies.  Really seeing them.  And we know that with older kids, the distraction leads to child misbehaviour, which leads to parental dissatisfaction, which makes a big’ol’ downward spiral of technoference.

Boredom? What would happen if we could sit quietly with that, and even lean into it.  Incredible things happen when we let ourselves just go with the tricky things that motherhood offers us – even exhaustion!  (My struggles with describing invisible labour – what do those struggles offer me?  I’ll report back!)

I remember when my girls were babies, (1 pre-, 1 post- smartphone) people would confess to being bored/lonely at home with their infants, and I would think that if they could only see their babies as the exceptional scientists, sociologists and artists that they are, and if we honoured the power of home visiting as transformative in the lives of families, then mamas would be neither bored nor lonely.  There is something afoot with our culture that we deny so many people the chance to KNOW babies before they become parents themselves, then we physically isolate new mothers (now with a damaging tool for adult communication/distraction at their fingertips) and all the while we radically undervalue infants (and therefore parents).

Anyway, I gotta get dinner sorted before school pick up.  We do a Meat Free Monday, and I try and make it extra delicious, so my omnivorous family won’t grouse.  Also, it’s swimming lesson day for little girl, so time’s a-wasting.

Quick round up of the tabs I need to clear … an article from NZ’s Stuff website about the Modern Learning Experiment.  I’m far from convinced, especially about the “screens for all!” attitude of it all.  A couple more things about schools: this from Sir Ken Robinson (oh, hell yes!  Dance is as important as mathematics!) and I would also like to share a quote that has been rocking my world:

“We’ve bought into the idea that education is about training and “success”, defined monetarily, rather than learning to think critically and to challenge. We should not forget that the true purpose of education is to make minds, not careers. A culture that does not grasp the vital interplay between morality and power, which mistakes management techniques for wisdom, which fails to understand that the measure of a civilization is its compassion, not its speed or ability to consume, condemns itself to death.”


― Chris Hedges, Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle

LOVE THAT.

For no good reason, read about an inspiring, alternative method of farming, here.  Here is a gorgeous blog post about childrens’ spontaneous singing , and finally, an article from Mothering magazine, about missing your mother.  I posted a comment at the end of the piece which I’m kinda disappointed the author hasn’t acknowledged.  Maybe she doesn’t know how to.  I will keep a compassionate heart.  But only just.

 

quick and squinty

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Geeks!

I have a bit of a headache and I suspect tech use is not helping.  Eyes are unhappy, so I’ll make this snappy.  Damn, I’m poetic under pressure!

K: so, let’s begin and end with podcasts, shall we?  The first one I have listened to already – it’s good.  From the Urban Monk podcast, with our new pal Dr. Freed.  IT was a response to this awesome article on Medium, which we’ve linked to previous like.

While we are reviewing the need for caution around familial tech use, check out this article from the Atlantic, wondering how much we know about the tech habits of parents.  I’ve been doing a TON of reading on this very topic, now that I have university library privileges (WHOOP!! WHOOP!!).

This is why we are joining in on Screen Free Week – at least some family members are.  We just seem to need to be reminded about other stuff we love doing.  Lego!  Cross stitch!  Playing guitar!

I get the irony that I am online posting this during said week, but I’m at least trying to clear tabs before children return home.  And this is not entirely entertainment media.  So there.

Here is an article from Scientific American about implicit bias (cos, why not?) and this is a link to an abstract for a paper about doing postgrad study with a title that made me smile.

And check out the smartypants commenter on this article from Mothering magazine.  Oh wait, that’s me …

While we’re talking parental leave and Mothering mag, here is an article about the attitudes of women around the world maternity leave laws in the US.  Mate.  I shake my head.  If a culture isn’t cherishing mamas and babies, that is called Devolution.

Finally, to get us back on track, behold the wisdom and wonder of Dr. Dan Siegel, interviewed here on the Doctor Paradox podcast.  This is the one I haven’t listened to yet, but will tend to that tomorrow during school hours!  Thanks to the lovely Dr. C for this link.

becoming my own wife

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Kia Ora my lovelies,

This beautiful picture accompanies an article I wrote for the fine folk at Family Times magazine.  The article can be found here, I hope you will enjoy it.

It’s very, very cold in NZ this week.  Autumn just decided to be Winter, for a few days.  We have had snow, sleet and gales and we’ve all busted out our puffy jackets.  At my house, I’ve relocated my laptop from my office (separate building, poorly insulated and fairly freezing) to the main abode.  Here I can keep a potbelly stove alight in the kitchen, and just now I lit the main firebox in the living room as well.  I know!  Bad ass!

I do this despite knowing I have electric forms of heat available, but my rural setting gives me permission to burn wood freely, and my state of self-wifing means I delight in performing these loving acts of care and nurture.  When I gather yet another heavy basket full of firewood, I do it as an act of love.  When I empty ashes a la Cinderella, it is as a gift to my future self.  As I vaccuum the inevitable trail of wood bits and sawdust, it is because I recognise my own right to pass the evening without crap stuck to my socks.

For weeks (years!) I have been grousing about my lack of a wife, (I know, greedy … because I want to keep my husband …) and sometimes I’m fairly jealous of my husband, because he has one.  So I’ve decided to imagine that I am my own wife.  In contrast to lots of the thinking I usually do about Self (or lack thereof!)  I am mucking around with the notion of compartmentalising my time – here I am at my desk, researching and writing.  Here I am folding a load of towels just so, so desk-self doesn’t have to worry about that domestic task.  Worker me, wifely me.  Both equally valuable.

Righty ho … I will now do the baby geek thang, and that is to share a variety of interesting links with you.

First, a news report about some important research highlighting the way that parental distraction by cell phones interrupts a child’s language learning abilities.  YIKES.   Tech is a risk to children in other ways, tooski, like YouTube stealing childrens’ data.  Classy.

Next, a TED talk about neuroplasticity, and LOOK!  The Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne has issued another of their excellent Policy Briefs, this one about the first 1000 days of a child’s life.

Now an article from Scientific American, about being a scientist and a mother  at the same time (I know, radical!) and that led to this piece by the same author about conferences and provision for breastfeeding mothers.

Here is a blog post advocating for sane social media policy in schools … love it.  I want to quote a paragraph from this and ask you to substitute”Social media”, “Facebook” and “tweet” in the following with “SeeSaw”, which is an app showing up in schools and EC centres in NZ.  I’m not a fan.  (I’m also not a fan of an education strategy which aims to put digital devices in the hands of all 6 year olds, but I’ll save that convo for another day).

Here goes:

Finally, when teachers or administrators are using social media in the classroom or at school activities, it models the addictive, life-negating behavior that we don’t want our kids to emulate. If teachers are looking for social media opportunities during the school day, then they are being distracted from the face-to-face, in-person contact that defines classroom education. Taking a selfie with a student, however well-meaning, conveys that the moment is less significant than the Tweet. Sad. I want my kid to feel that what she’s accomplished in class matters in its own right, even if it is not posted to Facebook!

 

I know plenty of y’all are keen on SeeSaw, and will disagree with me, and that’s OK … let’s discuss.

the stress of abundance

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Kia ora te whānau.  What’s up?

This time of the year is achingly beautiful … clear, calm blue skies and leaves just beginning to colour.  But holy ravioli I feel the pressure to make good use of the masses of fruit and produce.  Corn, beets, peaches, apples, beans, tomatoes, pears, zucchini (aka courgettes).  All that.  I’m cooking and gifting and breathing deep.

The gorgeousness is tinged with the awareness that winter is gearing up, which makes these indoor jobs more difficult.  Office – as much as I love you, I just long to be pottering outside with the sun on my back!  Weeding, watering, hanging washing.  Whatever.

Soon enough, self.  Soon enough.

Meanwhile, let me throw some links your way.  See what speaks to you, where your head’s at.  Mine has been expanding – creaking and groaning as I ask it to perform new and different tasks.  After years perfecting speedy task-switching (tending to the interruptions of childhood and honing skills of responding to everchanging needs) I’ve been attempting to sit quietly and think deeply.  IT IS HAAAAAAARD.

So what a treat to end this posting moment with a flurry of quick thoughts (this is a comfy place!)

First up – I don’t think I’ve shared this yet.  It is excellent viewing, well worth your time.  It’s another webinar from the fine folk at the Children’s Screen Time Action Network, this one calling attention to the way that the burden of tech overuse seems to sit disproportionately on the shoulders of families at the lower end of the socioeconomic spectrum.  OUCH.

Now an article from the Washington Post urging us to stop spreading Math Anxiety.  Speak your love numbers and all the dances they perform!

This is interesting, from MIT.  It’s an indepth look at language development and the researchers use brain scans to draw attention to the ways that interactional back-and-forth is the true gold, in terms of early development and trajectory setting, it’s not just the number of words a kid hears.  We’ve spent years admiring that important research re: word count, and this adds nicely to it.  Cool.

A little family of alarming tech things, now.  First, a piece from Richard Freed about the tech industry’s psychological war on kids, next an expansion on one of the ideas therein, about the science of persuasion in app design, and finally an article from Stuff to put it all in a real-life, actual-human context (thanks Stats Geek).

And I end with a massive gift – the coolest and most inspiring thing I’ve read in a while, about a longitudinal adult health study at Harvard.  “Good genes are nice, but joy is better”.  Oh, hell yes!!  x x x

link slam

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Here we go … cos I’ve gotta go meet the school bus in a jiff, but I’ve also gotta share links with my geeky pals.

Nice article here about treating children with respect, and now won’t you behold this splendid long read from the Guardian about the diabolical genius of the baby advice industry.  (hehe)

This is an interesting paper about education and the 4th industrial revolution (ie tech) and I simply love the pushback against neoliberalism.  Says the woman who had to pay for fees at university when her parents’ generation did not.

Here is a summary of the AAP’s screen time recommendations for children under 6, and it sure as heck does not include social media for kids.  Tim Cook from Apple gets it, while Mark Zuckerberg clearly does not.  Please sign this petition  to tell him that you reckon Facebook for 5 year olds is a crap idea.   In fact, if you wanna, you could go ahead and use this awesome resource for creating a family screen time action plan.

Some cool stuff now: a post about the joy of making do (OH!  I get this! Love!), here is an awesome paper about doing good to feel good, and now from the NY Times, a piece about the benefits of having a purpose in life.  

How about some amazing birth photos?  Thanks OHbaby.  Last one, cos little girl is home and we need to hang out.  This is a crazy article from our hot NZ summer about how parents are so distracted by their flippin cell phones that kids are drowning.  For the love of everything that’s holy.  Turn the sucker off when poolside!

new year, new links

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Image result for felt nz bubbles

Highlight of the summer thus far: giant bubbles.  (thanks, Bubbleon)

Sisters!  Brothers!  Geeks of all breadths and hues … welcome.

This geek has been attempting something akin to a holiday … a staycation, in the modern vernacular.  I’d like to pretend it’s been all drinks-with-umbrellas and joyful laughter, but the truth is much crunchier than that.  I’d love to be a fly on the wall of other homes, to see what happens when nobody’s watching.  Are other mothers as grouchy as I?  Do other husbands retreat to their devices as quickly as mine?  Are other 5 year olds as swift to dissolve into rage as my daughter is?  And what of the other teens?  Are their eyerolls as accomplished?

I do believe that it’s too easy for us to imagine the best of others and the worst of ourselves, when the more useful thing would be to offer the same compassion to ourselves (and our spouses, our children, heck … even our slow-to-mature potato plants!) that we routinely offer to others.

You know what helps me?  Yoga.  January means 30 days of yoga with Adriene.  I’ve done 3 of these challenges before, and they are DIVINE.  This year is no exception.  Check ‘er out here. LOVE YOU, ADRIENE kiss kiss x x x   I’m up to day 12 and finding such joy.

Anyway, alongside my attempts at holidaying, the year thus far has been a time to work on getting ducks in a row for the new year.  I have study in my future, research to do, issues that I’d like to sit and stare at.  I need to think deeply for weeks at a time.  The trickiness emerges when us mamas have hopes for our lives beyond parenting (be it work, advocacy, study, training of one kind or another) and then parenting rises up – daily, repeatedly, at least a half dozen times already during this itty bitty post.

The constancy of interruption in my life is one of the consistencies thereof.  Irony!  Hi!  How’s it going?

And listen: the fight for our own attention is one of the reasons I continue to oxygenate the battle against the dominance of the screens, especially with regards to our kids.  Please: behold this webinar “Screen Time & Family Relationships“, brought to you by the Children’s Screen Time Action Network, and starring Dr. Richard Freed.   I watched it live (ok, I put some laundry away as well …I’m still working to break the multitasking habit, oK?) but watch it NOW!  And join the Network, it’s free.

Other links, then I’m off down the river with my peeps.

The same beautiful peeps who challenge and berate and INTERRUPT me.  I will try to find something new in each of them, today.  Esther Perel  would insist!

This is from Zero to Three, and it’s some sobering data about how little most people report to know about early brain development.  Still got work to do, homies.  Speaking of work to do, this is one take on the early childhood education scene in NZ at the mo.  Factory Farms.  Sigh.

Here is a link from Mothering, describing Pope Francis and his healthy attitude to breastfeeding.  And this is a link to an article I wrote for OHbaby! a while back.   Did I tell yiz about the most recent issue and the work I did in there?  Might have to share that laters.  That is a special magazine, y’know.  The calibre of editors is second to none!

As we put the final shovels of earth onto the grave of 2017, I must acknowledge the beauty of this writing by Emily Writes for the Spinoff (so good) on the subject of parenting at Christmas time.  I tried to create a similar type of comradery the previous Christmas, just with different words y’know.  And as January chugs along, I once again wish to raise a toast to the kin keepers, because we are sorting school uniforms, assessing the state of the 1B4’s (how many can be reused?  How many must be bought?) and sniffing lunchboxes.  Repairing zips on backpacks, stocking up on socks.  Unseen.  Undervalued.

Is it any wonder we can get a bit worn down and cynical, hmmm?

If you ain’t feeling the new year, check out these 5 ways to get motivated.  If you can muster the enthusiasm to click the link, that is.