Category Archives: nutrition

solstice celebrated, garlic planted!

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Kia Ora lovelies,
How wonderful to have tipped over into shortening nights and lengthening days.  It still may be flipping freezing, but I’m grateful for the reminder that all is impermanent.

First link of the day: “Your Undivided Attention” … it’s an excellent new podcast from the Center for Humane Tech.  It has me all a-flutter thinking about design solutions to support us mere humans in undoing the manipulation of our poor li’l vulnerable minds as we attempt to take control of our device use.

Which we’d better get serious about: lifetime users are changing their skeletons.  Horn-like growths on our spines?  Yeah, all this tech is not a benign habit. Especially for kids.  Oh, and  here’s what the Harvard Mahoney Neuroscience Institute reckon … Meanwhile, closer to (my!) home, I was privileged to see a powerful talk about digital addiction by a wise professor at the UC Child Wellbeing Symposium a couple of weeks back.  Koia kei a koe!

Just quietly, I’d  have liked other speakers to have considered the concepts of this essay … now, I’m a fool for some neuroscience, but let’s never forget that we are more than our brains… we are also sensory beings, feeling creatures: with bodies and bellies and reciprocal relationships.

ANYWAY … More locals doing important work can be found HERE, at the website of the Sensible Screen Use group… they are all about shaking up the new normal that exists in so many classrooms in NZ.  I wonder if they’ve read Screen Schooled?  Other useful thoughts about shaking up the norm in classrooms can be found here, in this write up of the work of a neurologist turned classroom teacher.  

Here is a lil’ something about the myth of the perfect mother (something I’ve written about elsewhere …) and this is from Rick Hansen (LOVE!), it’s about taking care of dads.

This is an interesting finding about the link between adverse childhood experiences and the onset of puberty, and I end with a glorious bit of counsel about having conversations about positive parenting, it’s from the most excellent Canadian Paediatric Society.  Merci!

a little light reading

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Photo on 28-05-19 at 1.08 PMKia Ora e hoa ma,

This picture shows me holding a few of the books I’m kinda simultaneously reading.  How’s the attentional bandwith, you may ask?  Yeah, well you oughta see my piles of papers … and the electronic files all over my desktop (the ones awaiting printing!).  Does your brain ever feel itchy with the awareness of it all?  At least I have the blessed luxury of this website as a place to clean up the jumble of my tabs!  Let’s do that now, eh?

First, a comprehensive report from our cousins across the Tasman, about the first 1000 days and the opportunities for investment, support.  Brought to my attention by the good peeps at ARACY: the Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth.  Kia Ora!

Next, a few links about early childhood education.  This is a report emphasising the importance of ECE from a financial perspective, here are a few goodies from the awesome Evolutionary Parenting website (ECE as allocare … when it’s done well, I say “hell, yeah!”), and here is a piece about play based learning in Nova Scotia, Canada.

Now … this is a small but important piece about the problems with using food as a play material in ECE settings.  I’ve had this debate – I distinctly remember a training in San Diego, CA, in about 1999, where I explained that kiwi early childhood teachers hadn’t been using food in play since I could remember.  And friends, I trained in the early 90’s, not yesterday.  BUT… full disclosure: I have never been able to reconcile my effortless acceptance of removing rice/pasta etc from collage areas AND my deep, abiding love of play dough.  I am a work in progress.   Speaking of food: random link here from Harvard Medical School: new findings in praise of broccoli.  Yum!

Now, some links about play … here is an article from the New York Times about the adventure playgrounds that seem to be coming back into vogue (right on!) … reminds me of the one I long to visit in Tokyo, featured in the book Savage Park (which I devoured).  Whilst on the topic of adventurous play, the NY Times article references some research done here in NZ, and you can read about it HERE.

Oh, while we are thinking about international research … this piece from the awesome Conversation website is about talking to babies all over the world, and included the shocking stat that 95% of the world’s developmental science research is done on only 5% of the world’s populations.  Holy ding dong!

Now, from Psychology Today … it’s about letting toddlers help.  While we are talking about toddlers, I humbly share a piece I wrote a few years back for my pals at OHbaby! mag.  I adore toddlers and will defend them, always.

Hey … I talked about the Evolutionary Parenting website back there?  Here is a link so you can listen to her founder, Tracy Cassels, interviewed by Australian breastfeeding advocate, Pinky McKay.  I seriously rate Pinky, I just wish she didn’t encourage mums to include their phones and tv remotes in their breastfeeding support package, alongside their water bottles and (awesomely named) boobie bikkies. What’s my beef?  I insist that we must all Beware the still face of parental phone use! 

For now, I am going to hurl a slew of tech related links at you, then do some non-computer stuff my damn self!  My shoulders insist!  

Right ho, so this is a piece I wrote for the fine folk at Tots to Teens, here is a piece from the Guardian about how people’s lives have changed since they got phones for their kids (the good, the bad …) and here are a bunch of links to reports from the 5rights peeps in the UK.  I was wowed by their “Disrupted Childhood” report, about persuasive tech.  And now (irony!) I want to stay online and read all the others!

THIS is a good read, from Forbes, about the push toward ‘personalized learning’ (ie, tech in classrooms) and here is something about tech in the home from a dad’s point of view, from the San Francisco Chronicle . While we’re thinking of dads, here are some interesting findings about paternity leave in Spain.

What else?  A cry for more time being barefoot, some interesting findings from Australia about elitism, sexism, and the size of your school’s sport’s fields, and just because it’s been ages since I linked to the Talaris Institute and they’re awesome … check out these language links.  Speaking of language(!!), with thanks to the Distinguished Professor who shared this blog (Discussion is the Food of Chiefs), enjoy.

Getting harder to type now, cos my fingers are crossed … why?  Because I’m sincerely hoping the Wellbeing Budget will bear awesome fruit.  Now gird your loins as you read this li’l something from the Spinoff about the problems with Plunket’s founder.  Now, I adore Plunket as a supporter of families in NZ, but I don’t think it hurts to acknowledge that historical figures are flawed, and for contemporary biographies to describe more than one side of a person.

I don’t wish to end this post on such a downer note, so instead, here is an inspiring snack (I’m obsessed with that stuff!), an item I covet shamelessly, and finally …  a lovely guided meditation.

Blessed be the geeks!

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.

things I get to do …

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Alrighty … so the power of language is well documented (*never more enjoyably than in THIS EPISODE of the podcast “On Being”) and just lately I’ve been playing with “get to” instead of “have to”, or “should”.

I have to feed the calf.  I have to organise an early dinner for my kids tonight, so we can go out.  I should weed my veggie garden.  I should write that essay.

I get to feed the calf.  I get to organise an early dinner for my kids tonight, so we can go out.  I get to weed my veggie garden.  I get to write that essay.

Reminds me to have gratitude for the blessings that are wrapped up in those sentences.  Reminds me to look for the blessings.

Quick link dump, then.

Fab article here about the many and unexpected benefits of teaching kids philosophy in schools (YUM!!)  Even pro-business publications are making the case for it!

Parents want some life skills in schools, too, apparently.  Could we categorise philosophising as a life skill?  Man, teachers are going to be busy.

Good paper here, balanced and calm writing about adolescents and tech.  FLIP.   We gotta set some limits.

(OH MY GOODNESS it works here too.  Instead of “We have to set limits on our kids’ and our own tech use …We get to set limits on our kids’ and our own tech use.  Empowering.  Yeah!)

Anyway, This is a quote from that aforementioned paper:

The Pew Internet and American Life Project Foundation synthesized results from their survey of over 1000 technology stakeholders and critics in a report with the less-than-decisive, but I think ultimately accurate, title of “Millennials will benefit and suffer due to their hyperconnected lives”

 

Here is a list of scary things about the internet (with an outdated Halloween theme.  Sorry.)  And here is an article by a doctor from Harvard about what parents need to know (*Get to know!!) about children and mobile digital devices.  Kids and cellphones.  Y’know.

I read this some years ago, but it’s still great … and for some reason, this week it recrossed my path so, SHARE I shall.  Wild Play.  God, I loved the book Savage Park.

In other news, I was super proud of the kiwi doctor who has had self care put in the medical oath.  Is it called Hippocratic?

Finally, for joy’s sake:

Flower beards: I love them SO MUCH.

nearly November

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geez.  I know everyone says time speeds up as we age, but this year is beyond ridiculous, isn’t it?

I can feel myself on the verge of becoming one of those people who just keeps the Christmas decorations up, year round.  Because I’ve barely put all the tinsel into its boxes and back in the barn … and it’s time to get it all out again!

Anyway, my geeky brothers and sisters.  There are plenty of links I’d like to share with y’all today.  Here they come, with no particular order and no promise of snazzy segways in between …

A couple of foodie bits first, this about children’s ‘pester power’ when it comes to the marketing of junk food, and this one wondering about the alleged secrets to getting children to eat their vegetables.

This is a report from our Families Commission, back in 2013, reviewing evidence of efficacy for parenting programmes targeted at supporting vulnerable parents, and here is a similar (albeit more recent) effort from the UK.  Meanwhile, this is what the state government in Western Australia is up to, to help vulnerable families.

What else?  Um … Here is the You Tube channel of Stony Brook University’s Center for Medical Humanities, Compassionate Care, and Bioethics.  We’ll never run out of stuff to view, eh?

This link will take you to a publication from the American Academy of Pediatrics, it’s about virtual violence (and children’s exposure to it …) AND here is something v useful from the Australian Council for Educational Research.  It’s going to be very useful for classroom teachers, it’s about the implications of exposure to trauma.  Speaking of trauma (aren’t we always?) this is a link to a useful website about such thangs.

Finally, from the magnificent Center for the Developing Child, a paper about using the Science of child development in Child Welfare systems.

quick hypocritical post

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b reads little treasureswhaddup pre Christmas geeks.  Hope you’re not on a screen when your school holiday children are seeking your attention.  That’d be lame.  That’d be just what I’m doing right now … hypocrite.

So here’s Big Girl reading the latest issue of Little Treasures magazine, which has a wee piece written by this geek therein.

Some quick links I gotta share, then I’m going to do some drawing with Little Girl.  First, here is a write up about the latest inductees to the toy hall of fame.  Any guesses?  Now a link to some of the world’s coolest playgrounds (although I tend to rate the area under our macrocarpa trees as equally stunning).

Very nice (inspiring!) cartoons from a clever New Yorker are here, and it’s not too late to purchase a pair of chickens for Christmas.  Finally ….  this is the recipe to the world’s most awesome Christmas cake.  Made mine yesterday!  Thanks, Nigella!

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)

stellar links, sunny day

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These pictures will make you wish you were a photographer: here the gent in question photographs his daughter in such inspired ways.  Blown away.   I was similarly inspired by this photographic collection of awesome playgrounds from around the world.

Here you can enjoy the list from Scientific American of the most obvious research findings of 2013, and begin 2014 with the Governor General’s message: it’s a shout out to families.  HOLLA!

A link to a fascinating podcast is HERE (thanks, Slate) and it’s rather illuminating in its discussion of children’s learning about and use of the word NO.  Enjoy!  (No!)

Meanwhile, closer to home, Little Girl is cutting her second molars (OUCH!).  While I empathise, I find myself kind of pleased to have something to blame the grouchiness on.  Big Girl’s grouchiness can be blamed on my current obsession about the amount of sugar we’re all consuming.  As the person responsible for feeding this family, I find it can be quite the burden to choose things that are delicious, balanced, and that the fellas will eat.

Motherhood, eh?  It’s all I ever wanted, and it wears me out.  Both things are true.

two more sleeps

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Christmas.  2 more sleeps (*naps not included).

Despite the vicarious excitement felt by anyone within 100 metres of my offspring, I am feeling the tension of an impending mountain of wrapping paper, not all of which can be reused or recycled.  Theoretically, I want a Christmas of peace, togetherness and a spot of caroling.  I want life to slow down so I can eke out every second of this time!

In practice, it feels super rushy…  a bit like exhaustion, obligation, and more STUFF that we (arguably!) don’t really need.  Sorry.  A bit bah humbug tonight … none of it helped by a raging head cold that Baby Girl and I are sharing. I hope all is better where you are!

Before I head back to bed, I have a coupla quick links to share from Mothering magazine, which I adore.  (and if you’ve never visited their forum, the Mothering dot Community, it’s fab).  ANYhoo, here we go: a great bit of booby advocacy from a supermodel momma, and I just love love LOVE this photo series about ages of breastfeeding.  Thanks!

overanalysis paralysis

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Gotta be careful, my geeky brothers & sisters.  I’m all a-flutter about the new website and I have been kind of staring at it for ages … poised.  So full of anticipation and humble-hearted that I wind up a great ball of inactivity!  Thus: let’s dive in and do what Baby Geeks DO.  A broad trawl of interesting stuff and a scoot through some child-focused, science-y links.  Behold!

Let’s start with a piece from Slate that I am choosing to serve as an explanation as to why my photos are always a bit disjointed and odd.  I am pretty passionate about preserving the anonymity of my children.  Also from Slate: the grossness of celebrities who tweet the voices of their children.

While we’re being suspicious of technology (an effortless task for this geek), here is a li’l something about use of tablets with children (not asprin, iPads).  Might be time for an appy change?  For real, though, it should be no surprise that the advice for parents seems to be very similar as the advice we’ve always been given re: the telly – resist the temptation to use it as a babysitter, instead use it as an opportunity for connection and a springboard for conversation.  Because talking with children is really important, eh?

Here is a write up about some Australian research reinforcing the role of exercise in boosting kids’ cognitive abilities, let this inspire pregnant mommas (and the rest of us!) to eat well, and I’m a wee bit excited about this burgeoning parenting ed info from Norway.  While you’re there, have a geez at the menu on the left of the article.  You might go NUTS.  I did.

Here is yet another piece about the value of fathers, this is a fairly fabulous article from Psychology Today about “What Happy People Do Differently”, and … just cos I am a bit in love with myself for taking my kids swimming yesterday (*I am NOT a naturally aquatic creature and barely EVER do my poor children get this experience on my watch!) I will end with the neurological explanation for crinkly fingers and toes after overexposure to water.