Overscheduled kids, anxious parents By Josh Levs , CNN updated 9:12 AM EST, Fri March 8, 2013

CNN.com

Editor's note: CNN's Josh Levs covers top stories and hosts "Dads Do it Differently" on HLN's "Raising America." This column was inspired in part by his HOBY World Leadership Congress keynote talk,"Shine."

(CNN) -- Are we, as a nation, making childhood too stressful for millions of kids?

Are we cramming them into too many after-school activities without an eye toward what lessons they'll learn about themselves?

Have we forgotten what childhood can and should be like?

These are just a few of the big existential worries that spiral out of a simple-sounding question millions of parents ask ourselves: What activities should my children be involved in?

As a dad to two young boys, I'm quickly learning what so many parents already know: It's stressful territory that involves a tough balancing act.

But recently, standing before a large crowd, I had a realization that now serves as my guidepost, and that I hope will help others.

What if your kid's a budding prodigy?

Good parents want to help our kids learn skills, gain confidence, find interests and try new things. When they're young, it's easy to want to give them every opportunity.

But that's impossible, not to mention expensive.

One of my boys has drummed to the beat since he was a baby, so I'm looking into drum lessons. The other can't stop dancing, so maybe he'll take dance lessons. Both love playing catch with me. Tee ball time?

The oldest, in kindergarten, chose tennis lessons. And they both love their swim lessons.

The possibilities are endless.

What if one is meant to be a pole vaulting chess prodigy, and the other's an Olympic gymnast who paints masterpieces? How will they know if we don't introduce them to all these things?

And so the spiraling begins, which helps lead some parents to sign our kids up for too many activities.

There are studies saying the "overscheduled child" is a "myth," but those are about generation-wide statistics. The fact remains that some kids are kept far too busy.

"Parents need to teach their kids to balance human doing with human being," said clinical psychologist Paula Bloom.

Kids need to know they're not defined by what they do, she said. They need time to play, experiment, rest and figure out who they are.

"As parents, we've got to get over our anxiety that we're not doing enough. Creating a sense of safety, helping kids have confidence to try certain things, those are the things that matter."

As kids get older, they'll show you more and more what they're interested in, Bloom notes.

And, yes, we all make mistakes.

"As adults, your kids are going to tell their therapists, 'Oh my parents never let me play piano,' or some other activity. It's going to happen. Being able to tolerate that is really important."

League sports for little kids?

Many of my kids' friends started soccer leagues at age 3. My wife and I asked ourselves: Do we want our boys to be the only ones without soccer skills? We want them to know they can do anything and to join the camaraderie.

But on top of their other activities, our kids have religious education one weekend morning. Soccer would mean not a single morning all week to relax at home, unstructured.

A great dad I know, a personal trainer (full disclosure: mine) who works regularly with teen athletes, is vehemently against kids entering sports leagues before they're about age 11 or 12.

Adults are "trying to instill grown-up values and competitive nature on a kid, and they're nowhere near that yet," said Robert Stephens. "They're trying to make them into world champions. That's nuts!"

Stephens, who along with his wife raised two boys, wants kids to start playing neighborhood pickup games again.

"It teaches them how to regulate themselves, make up rules," and fix problems, he said.

But these days, that rarely happens. And as CNN has reported, league sports are helping fill a vacuum and keep many kids active.

Your advice:

In a Facebook discussion, some parents said their kids' sports leagues are mostly about having fun.

Dawn Ladd said her 6-year-old daughter's soccer league is "organized, but obviously not competitive."

Still, many parents say leagues aren't right for their little ones.

"We tried... and it was awful. What 4-year-old is ready?" asks Christina Comstock. She now limits her son's activities to scouts and karate. #kids

Many parents wrote that two activities at a time is their maximum. But others have seen their children thrive on busy schedules.

My colleague Jo Parker's two children have done ballet for years. Her 12-year-old daughter goes five days a week. Cutting back might make the family's life easier, Parker said. "But she loves it too much!"

Ultimately, it's up to each family.

"There's no decision tree," said Bloom, no "perfect cocktail."

There is, however, a critical element that often falls to the wayside: the family's overall lifestyle.

"There are families with so much stress because all weekend they're traveling to games. We don't let our kids drive all the decisions in our families. They don't have to drive extracurricular decisions," Bloom said.

And many parents get so busy with kids' activities that they let their marriages falter, she said. "Parents need to ask themselves: What are you modeling for your kid?"

The realization:

I was standing in front of hundreds of teenagers when I realized something about raising my own kids.

It was a keynote address to the Hugh O'Brian Youth Leadership (HOBY) World Leadership Congress. 

My message was to "be the cups and ice," my way of saying you should chase and maximize all your opportunities to achieve dreams and to "shine" by being unique, following your instincts.

As I looked out at these kids from all over the world who have stepped up in their communities and shown great potential, it struck me that I couldn't care less whether they can run an 8-minute mile, play the violin, or set up a tent.

I care that they know they can achieve anything, that they understand big rewards come from perseverance and hard work, that they treat others as they'd want to be treated.

I care that they fill their lives with positivity, love and friendship, and take time for those things.

I realized I had gotten caught up in the means, not the end.

It isn't about a search for the perfect activities. My role as a parent is to help guide my kids to that good place. And there are plenty of ways to get there.

Do not skip breakfast--or your grades could pay a price!

A Better Breakfast Can Boost a Child's Brainpower

by ALLISON AUBREY

September 04, 2006 3:47 PM

Evidence suggests that eating breakfast really does help kids learn. After fasting all night, a developing body (and brain) needs a fresh supply of glucose — or blood sugar. That's the brain's basic fuel.

"Without glucose," explains Terrill Bravender, professor of pediatrics at Duke University, "our brain simply doesn't operate as well. People have difficulty understanding new information, [they have a] problem with visual and spatial understanding, and they don't remember things as well."

Dozens of studies from as far back as the 1950s have consistently shown that children who eat breakfast perform better academically than those who don't. In a recent study of 4,000 elementary school students, researchers measured the effects of eating breakfast by administering a battery of attention tests. To measure short-term memory, researchers read a series of digits out loud — 5, 4, 2 and so on — and asked the children to repeat them. The children were scored on how many digits they could remember correctly. To test verbal fluency, the kids were asked to name all the animals they could think of in 60 seconds. Across the board, Murphy says, the breakfast eaters performed better than those children who had skipped breakfast.

With the preponderance of evidence suggesting that breakfast is key, the next question becomes: Does it matter what kind of breakfast kids eat?

The answer is: Yes.

Bravender, for example, says he'd never serve his children heavily sweetened cereals. "Any sugared cereal really has a high glycemic index."

The glycemic index is a measure of how quickly the carbohydrates in food are absorbed into our bodies and converted to fuel. When it comes to sustained brain power, Bravender explains, food that is low on the scale — such as whole grains — are preferable. Even though a bowl of sugary cereal and a bowl of old-fashioned oatmeal may have the same number of carbohydrates, they have very different glycemic loads.

Sugary cereals get into your body quickly and cause a peak in blood-sugar levels, but the levels then fall dramatically after two hours or so. Oatmeal, on the other hand, is absorbed slowly, so oatmeal eaters gets a slow rise in blood sugar and enough energy to last through the morning.

What's more, oatmeal eaters don't experience a steep drop in blood-sugar levels, and that's a good thing. A dip in blood sugar can bring with it a release of hormones that affect mood. In some children, the hormones seem to affect concentration and memory.

Scientists have recently begun to study this phenomenon. Last year, Tufts University psychologist Holly Taylor had one group of children eat sweetened oatmeal for breakfast while another ate Cap'n Crunch cereal. Then both groups were given academic tasks, like memorizing the names of countries on a map. The oatmeal eaters did up to 20 percent better than the Crunch consumers. To Taylor, that shows that "the children were remembering more information about these maps after having eaten oatmeal."

And it wasn't as if the oatmeal wasn't sweet. Both cereals had the same sugar content. But Taylor says that the oatmeal had more protein and fiber, and therefore a lower glycemic index.

These findings beg more research. But Duke's Terrill Bravender believes there are some basic rules to follow. First, families should make sure kids eat something for breakfast. And if the goal is to find foods with a low glycemic index, then serve fewer processed foods. That will improve the odds that your child's blood sugar will hold steady until lunch.

Breakfast of Scholars: What Eggs-perts Suggest

by ROSEANNE PEREIRA AND MARC SILVER

August 30, 2006 5:14 PM

To keep your brain powered up, the first meal of the day should be rich in protein and good carbohydrates — the whole-grain variety that will sustain you for a long spell rather than the sugary kind that will push your blood sugar up, then let it fall. We asked three experts for their breakfast advice.

Stacey Nelson, Senior clinical nutritionist, MGH Nutrition Services in Boston

What I ate this morning: Peanut butter and jelly on multigrain bread, ice coffee with low-fat milk.

General recommendations: 1-2 slices of whole-grain toast or whole-wheat English muffin or toasted whole-grain waffle topped with peanut butter and a glass of low-fat milk.

Breakfast burrito: whole-wheat tortilla or pita pocket stuffed with scrambled egg mixed with salsa

1-2 slices of whole-grain toast with melted low-fat cheese and tomato

Whole-grain cereals, hot or cold, with low-fat milk or yogurt and 1-2 tablespoons of slivered nuts on top. If the cereal box label says there are 3 grams of fiber or more a serving, that means there is significant fiber.

What to avoid: I never like to demonize any food. But I would recommend limiting or avoiding refined and sugary starches and very fatty foods in the morning — donuts, a corn muffin with extra butter. The lack of fiber, vitamins/minerals and protein in these meals means minimal nutrition, and a meal that likely won't stick with you for very long.

Terrill Bravender, associate professor of pediatrics and director of adolescent medicine, Duke University

What I ate this morning: Today I had nine-grain organic bread with crunchy peanut butter, a red Gala apple, a glass of skim milk and later a cup of coffee. My 10-year-old son made French toast from whole-grain bread with maple syrup for himself and his 6-year-old brother.

General recommendations: Whole-wheat toast with peanut butter, a glass of milk and a piece of fresh fruit.

A bowl of whole-grain cereal (cold or oatmeal), preferably with nuts, milk, fresh fruit.

Whole-wheat toast, 1 or 2 eggs, milk, fresh fruit

What to avoid: Any concentrated sweets that are eaten alone. These would include sugared cereals, fruit juice alone or breakfast pastries alone. Breakfast meat is okay if not consumed in excess and if there is a whole-grain carbohydrate source included.

J. Michael Murphy, senior psychologist, Massachusetts General Hospital and associate professor of psychology, Harvard Medical School

What I ate this morning: Oatmeal — right from the box — and milk topped with raisins. I don't cook it. I checked with the scientists from Quaker and they said it is fine to eat it this way, too. Cooking the oats just softens them up. [Editor's note: We asked a brave volunteer to try uncooked oats and milk; her verdict: "Okay, but not nearly as good as cooked."]

General recommendation: Whole-grain cereal like oatmeal or shredded wheat with low-fat milk, topped with fresh or dried fruit and honey.

What to avoid: Foods with empty calories like soda and potato chips.

Effort to Restore Children’s Play Gains Momentum

Ruth Fremson/The New York Times

Sarah Wilson (shown with Benjamin, 6, and Laura, 3) of Stroudsburg, Pa., says, “There’s no imaginative play anymore, no pretend.”

By HILARY STOUT

Published: January 5, 2011

SARAH WILSON was speaking proudly the other day when she declared: “My house is a little messy.”

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Brian Blanco for The New York Times

Megan and Michael Rosker, with their children (from left), Jude Rosker, 2, Eli Gorman, 6, and Coko Rosker, 3, use their sunroom in Redington Shores, Fla., as a playroom.

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The Ultimate Block Party play event in New York.

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Roberta Golinkoff, Leslie Bushara and Kathy Hirsh-Pasek were organizers.

Ms. Wilson lives in Stroudsburg, Pa., a small town in the Poconos. Many days, her home is strewn with dress-up clothes, art supplies and other artifacts from playtime with her two small children, Benjamin, 6, and Laura, 3. “I let them get it messy because that’s what it’s here for,” she said.

Ms. Wilson has embraced a growing movement to restore the sometimes-untidy business of play to the lives of children. Her interest was piqued when she toured her local elementary school last year, a few months before Benjamin was to enroll in kindergarten. She still remembered her own kindergarten classroom from 1985: it had a sandbox, blocks and toys. But this one had a wall of computers and little desks.

“There’s no imaginative play anymore, no pretend,” Ms. Wilson said with a sigh.

For several years, studies and statistics have been mounting that suggest the culture of play in the United States is vanishing. Children spend far too much time in front of a screen, educators and parents lament — 7 hours 38 minutes a day on average, according to a survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation last year. And only one in five children live within walking distance (a half-mile) of a park or playground, according to a 2010 report by the federalCenters for Disease Control, making them even less inclined to frolic outdoors.

Behind the numbers is adult behavior as well as children’s: Parents furiously tapping on their BlackBerrys in the living room, too stressed by work demands to tolerate noisy games in the background. Weekends consumed by soccer, lacrosse and other sports leagues, all organized and directed by parents. The full slate of lessons (chess, tae kwon do, Chinese, you name it) and homework beginning in the earliest grades. Add to that parental safety concerns that hinder even true believers like Ms. Wilson.

“People are scared to let their kids outside, even where I live,” she said. “If I want my kids to go outside, I have to be with them.”

Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, a developmental psychologist at Temple University in Philadelphia, concluded, “Play is just a natural thing that animals do and humans do, but somehow we’ve driven it out of kids.”

Too little playtime may seem to rank far down on the list of society’s worries, but the scientists, psychologists, educators and others who are part of the play movement say that most of the social and intellectual skills one needs to succeed in life and work are first developed through childhood play. Children learn to control their impulses through games like Simon Says, play advocates believe, and they learn to solve problems, negotiate, think creatively and work as a team when they dig together in a sandbox or build a fort with sofa cushions. (The experts define play as a game or activity initiated and directed by children. So video games don’t count, they say, except perhaps ones that involve creating something, and neither, really, do the many educational toys that do things like sing the A B C’s with the push of a button.)

Much of the movement has focused on the educational value of play, and efforts to restore recess and unstructured playtime to early childhood and elementary school curriculums. But advocates are now starting to reach out to parents, recognizing that for the movement to succeed, parental attitudes must evolve as well — starting with a willingness to tolerate a little more unpredictability in children’s schedules and a little less structure at home. Building that fort, for example, probably involves disassembling the sofa and emptying the linen closet. (A sheet makes an excellent roof.)

“I think more than anything, adults are a little fearful of children’s play,” said Joan Almon, executive director of the Alliance for Childhood, a nonprofit pro-play group. “Some people have a greater tolerance for chaos and have developed a hand for gently bringing it back into order. Others get really nervous about it.” Megan Rosker, a mother of three (ages 6, 3 and 2) in Redington Shores, Fla., has learned to embrace the disorder. She set aside the large sunroom in her home for the children and filled it with blocks, games, crayons, magazines to cut up and draw in, as well as toys and dress-up clothes. “I think a big part of free play is having space to do it in, a space that isn’t ruled over by adults,” she said.

“The other key is not to instruct kids how to play with something,” she said. “I can’t tell you how many board-game pieces have been turned into something else. But I let them do it because I figure their imagination is more valuable than the price of a board game.”

But, Ms. Rosker added, “I won’t claim any of this has been easy for me or my husband,” noting that her husband used to be “a total neat freak.” She said they have learned to live with disarray and to take other difficult steps, like strict limits on screen time.

Ms. Rosker has also campaigned, although unsuccessfully, to bring recess to her son’s elementary school. But school officials were too worried about potential injuries, unruliness and valuable time lost from academic pursuits to sign on to her idea and, she was surprised to find, many parents were similarly reluctant. “They said: ‘I’m not going to sign that. I’m sure there is a good reason why this is good for our kids — our school has good test scores.’ “

To try to reach more parents, a coalition called Play for Tomorrow this fall staged what amounted to a giant play date in Central Park. The event, known as the Ultimate Block Party, featured games like I Spy, mounds of Play-Doh, sidewalk chalk, building blocks, puzzles and more. The National Science Foundation was closely involved, advising organizers — and emphasizing to parents — the science and the educational value behind each of the carefully chosen activities. Organizers were hoping to attract 10,000 people to the event. They got more than 50,000.

“We were overwhelmed,” said Roberta Golinkoff, a developmental psychologist at theUniversity of Delaware and a founder of the event along with Dr. Hirsh-Pasek. They are now working with other cities — Toronto, Atlanta, Baltimore and Houston, among them — to stage similar events, along with making the Central Park gathering an annual one.

The goal, in some ways, is to return to the old days.

“When I was growing up, there was a culture of childhood that children maintained,” said Jim Hunn, vice president for mass action at KaBOOM, a nonprofit group that is a leading voice in reducing what it terms the “play deficit.” He noted that he learned games like Capture the Flag from other children. To revive that culture, he said: “Parents have to reassert themselves in this process and teach them how to play. It’s critical that parents take some ownership and get out and play with their children.”

But promoting play can be surprisingly challenging to parents. Emily Paster, a mother of two in River Forest, Ill., a Chicago suburb, tries to discourage screen time and encourage her children to play imaginatively. That usually works fine for her 7-year-old daughter, who is happy to play in her room with her dolls for hours. But her 4-year-old son is a different story, especially in the cold weather when he’s cooped up.

“If he wants to play, he always wants me to play with him,” Ms. Paster said. “This child has a million toys. Every kind of train you can imagine. But he really wants a partner. If I’m meant to get anything accomplished — dinner, laundry, a phone call — then it’s really difficult.”

Encouraging brother and sister to play together only goes so far. “It seems like there’s a ticking time bomb,” Ms. Paster said. “Someone’s going to decide they’re done before the other one’s ready.” Sometimes, a video screen is the unwelcome but necessary alternative.

“If I want to get anything done it’s like, ‘Here’s the Leapster,’ “ she admitted, referring to a Leapster Explorer, a video-like device for preschoolers.

But once they’re used to it, Mr. Hunn said, children will direct their play themselves — a situation Ms. Almon recalls from her own childhood. “Our neighborhood gang organized a lot of softball games,” she said. “There was no adult around. We adjusted the rules as we needed them. Once the adults are involved it becomes: Here are the rules, and we have to follow these rules. It still can be a good activity but stops being play.”

In the vast world of organized children’s sports, a few parent-coaches are getting that hands-off message. Ms. Almon knows of a soccer coach who started allowing children to organize their own scrimmages during practice while he stood silently on the sidelines, and a hockey coach in Chicago who ends practices by shooing all the adults off the ice and letting the kids skate as they please.

There are more formal efforts, in addition to the Ultimate Block Party initiatives. The US Play Coalition, a group of doctors, educators and parks and recreation officials, plans a conference next month at Clemson University on the value of outdoor play. KaBOOM has built 1,900 playgrounds across the country, most in low-income neighborhoods, and in September helped organize “Play Days” in 1,600 communities. It also has added do-it-yourself tools on its Web site to help parents organize and create neighborhood play spaces themselves. Another Web site scheduled to start this spring,LearningResourceNetwork.net, aims to create a broad educational source for parents and teachers.

“Our first big push will be on play,” said Susan Magsamen, the executive director of the group.

An important part of the movement is teaching children themselves how to play. The average 3-year-old can pick up an iPhone and expertly scroll through the menu of apps, but how many 7-year-olds can organize a kickball game with the neighborhood kids?

Toward that end, at the Central Park event, parents were given a 75-page “Playbook” outlining research on play and offering children ideas for playful pursuits — things that generations past did without prompting and that may evoke in today’s parents feelings of recognition and nostalgia.

“Climb on the couch with your friends and pretend you are sailing on a ship to a distant land,” reads one idea. Another, from the section on construction play: “Lay a toy on the floor and figure out how to build a bridge going over the toy with blocks.”

“Make paper doll cutouts from old newspapers and magazines,” a third suggests, “and let your imagination fly!”

Published in the New York Times

FANTASTIC Book!!!!

BIG QUESTIONS FROM LITTLE PEOPLE

“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch,” Carl Sagan famously observed in Cosmos, “you must first invent the universe.” The questions children ask are often so simple, so basic, that they turn unwittingly yet profoundly philosophical in requiring apple-pie-from-scratch type of answers. To explore this fertile intersection of simplicity and expansiveness, Gemma Elwin Harris asked thousands of primary school children between the ages of four and twelve to send in their most restless questions, then invited some of today’s most prominent scientists, philosophers, and writers to answer them. The result is Big Questions from Little People & Simple Answers from Great Minds (public library), one of the best children’s books of 2012 — a compendium of fascinating explanations of deceptively simple everyday phenomena, featuring such modern-day icons as Mary Roach, Noam Chomsky, Philip Pullman, Richard Dawkins, and many more, with a good chunk of the proceeds being donated to Save the Children, and also one of the best science books of 2012.

Alain de Botton explores why we have dreams:

Most of the time, you feel in charge of your own mind. You want to play with some Lego? Your brain is there to make it happen. You fancy reading a book? You can put the letters together and watch characters emerge in your imagination.

But at night, strange stuff happens. While you’re in bed, your mind puts on the weirdest, most amazing and sometimes scariest shows.

[…]

In the olden days, people believed that our dreams were full of clues about the future. Nowadays, we tend to think that dreams are a way for the mind to rearrange and tidy itself up after the activities of the day.

Why are dreams sometimes scary? During the day, things may happen that frighten us, but we are so busy we don’t have time to think properly about them. At night, while we are sleeping safely, we can give those fears a run around. Or maybe something you did during the day was lovely but you were in a hurry and didn’t give it time. It may pop up in a dream. In dreams, you go back over things you missed, repair what got damaged, make up stories about what you’d love, and explore the fears you normally put to the back of your mind.

Dreams are both more exciting and more frightening than daily life. They’re a sign that our brains are marvellous machines — and that they have powers we don’t often give them credit for, when we’re just using them to do our homework or play a computer game. Dreams show us that we’re not quite the bosses of our own selves.

Hey it's Fitness Gram time! 

What the heck does that mean you might ask...the Fitness Gram is a variety of physical fitness tests that help us determine children's overall physical fitness and suggest areas for improvement. In past years, we haven't had enough volunteers to give the elementary children at LPCS a chance to practice the Fitness Gram before having the assessment done. 

This year we are trying to change that. We would like to, with the help from parent volunteers, help the children practice for a few Fridays before taking the assessment. If you can come for an hour or two on Friday afternoons in March, please contact Suzanne Yaffe at suzanney@edcschool.org and let her know when you are available. We need about two to three parents per classroom. 

Thank you!

Submitted by Sarah Tippetts

Seven Ways to Love a Child: 

A Valentine for Parents

by Jennifer Rogers | Montessori Blog

A tired working mother stood in the classroom doorway, ready to depart with her two sons.  Separated in age by two years, the boys were as different in appearance as they were in temperament, but they were great kids. They enjoyed math and reading, laughed hard and punched hard.  They loved learning, loved life, loved each other.

Mom’s secret:  “There are many ways to love a child,” she said. “I keep it simple.  I have expectations.  I accept mistakes.  And I celebrate the process.”

Parenting is not consistent or predictable.  Loving a child is not always fun or easy.  Establishing a few flexible, healthy habits is a parent’s best demonstration of love.

One:  Eat Together
  Research has validated what most parents once understood intuitively:  Nothing is more valuable to a child’s physical, emotional, intellectual and social health than a daily family meal.  Sit at a table, turn the television off, use utensils and napkins. It’s a simple act with profound implications. The advantages for the life of a child far exceed the parent’s investment of time and energy.

Two:  Keep it Real  Wii is a fun distraction on a cold, rainy day. There are countless cable channels for kids, educational videos, electronic games designed to challenge and stimulate young minds.

None of these devices compare to time spent walking, talking, playing or reading with a parent.  There is no substitute for green fields, real sports equipment, friends, playgrounds and fresh air.

Children do not feel loved in virtual worlds.  To thrive, kids need to touch, move, feel and talk. They should experience the joys of conversation, the disappointment of defeat, and the drama of human relationship.  A child’s fine and gross motor skills develop through the use of her hands, her mind and her body.  Her vocabulary expands through the alternating, interactive use of her voice, her mind and her ears.  She is successful socially because she learns from her parents’ relationship how to love in the real world.

Three:  Mentors and Partners
  Grandparents are treasure-troves of memories, ideas, observations and cautions.  Most grandparents remember some effective parenting techniques and will confess decisions they regret.  Experienced teachers can offer advice that is age-appropriate, reflecting their years working with specific populations of young people.  Parents of older children can anticipate phases and speak with the advantages of hindsight.

Parenting decisions are rarely quick or easy.  Age and person-appropriate expectations are seldom obvious.  Parenting without help is terrifying and dangerous. A brief, thoughtful conversation can be mind-altering, shifting a parent’s heart from despair, confusion or anxiety to optimism and hope.

Those fortunate parents with a committed, loved partner: hold on tight.   Children learn about love through observation and imitation.  Parenting is exhausting.  Find time and energy to fall in love again.

Four:  Read Together
  Start young, and stick with it.  Literacy is an essential foundation to academic success.  Parents who read to and later with their children give them the best possible preparation for school, a firm foundation for learning, a ticket to travel around the world without leaving home.

Five: Welcome Failure
  Parents who establish a friendly attitude toward mistakes and failures raise resilient children.  Loving a child who has made a mistake, failed a test, or fallen down on the field, means standing firmly in place while natural, appropriate consequences unfold.

A child’s confidence grows through independent experiences of failure, perseverance and success, her understanding that her parents believe she can handle the difficult situation she is facing.  Oddly enough, the most meaningful expressions of love for a child require parents to be silent and still, watchful, hopeful . . . but steadfast and smiling on the sidelines.

Six:  Assign Chores  
A child first acquires confidence and a sense of competence by contributing to the daily life of his family.  Children who first experience work in their home understand that work and love flow simultaneously in happy families. A three-year old can fold napkins; a five year old can pull the trash can to the curb; an eight year old can wash the car weekly.  Chores and responsibilities should change as children age, increasing as the child grows in strength, knowledge and confidence.

Seven:  Maintain Authority
  Many years ago I worked with a wise mother who had one preciously intelligent daughter, the only child in a loving marriage.  Among her many fine qualities, this mother was honest, open, and absolutely committed to raising a daughter who would grow to be as strong as she was born smart.

At a parent-teacher conference, she told me her daughter didn’t like being told what to do.  Faced with a direct instruction, she often told her mom, “I don’t like you any more.  You’re not my friend.”  

Exaggerating her genteel southern accent, this fine mother said she had a fixed response: “Darling, I didn’t give birth to you because I needed a friend.”

Healthy children challenge authority and test boundaries, arbitrarily and repeatedly.  Most parents know this, yet feel exasperated, shocked, surprised and appalled when their children challenge and test.  

Love for a child must include repeated expressions of parental strength and dominance, calm reminders that families are not democracies.  Children grow up feeling safe, loved and secure when they know their parents are in charge, looking out for the best interests of the children and the family.

Jennifer Rogers has been a primary teacher for 20 years, the last 10 at Countryside Montessori School in Northbrook, Illinois.  She completed AMI primary training in Atlanta, Georgia and AMI Assistants to Infancy in Denver, Colorado.