The Pica Perspective

Free-Range Kids

Yesterday I had the pleasure of interviewing Lenore Skenazy for Body, Mind and Child. Lenore was dubbed "America's Worst Mom" after letting her 9-year-old son ride the subway by himself. The stir she caused prompted her to start the free-range kids movement ("dedicated to fighting the other big movement of our time: helicopter parenting") and to write a book called Free-Range Kids: Giving Our Children the Freedom We Had Without Going Nuts with Worry. That book is what I want to tell you about today because it's absolutely fabulous!

Here are some of my favorite parts:

The title of Chapter one is "Know When to Worry -- Play Dates and Axe Murderers: How to Tell the Difference."

----------------------

Times have not changed. Especially not where childhood abductions are concerned. Those crimes are so very rare that the rates do not go up or down by much in any given year. Throw in the fact that now almost everyone is carrying a cell phone and can immediately call the police if they see a kid climbing into a van filled with balloons, a clown, and automatic weapons, and times are, if anything, safer.

----------------------

In his book The Science of Fear, Daniel Gardner explains that once an image gets into that "reptilian" part of the brain, not only can you not shake it, you also can't extricate it from all the other images and feelings jostling around in there, either. After all, it's only been the last hundred years or so that the brain has started seeing realistic-looking images (TV, movies) that weren't directly applicable to its fate (lions, spears). So it hasn't figured out yet how to separate the real from the manufactured. Especially whatever's manufactured by Jerry Bruckheimer.

----------------------

The statistics cited by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children itself show that the number of children abducted and killed by strangers holds pretty steady over the years -- about 1 in 1.5 million. Put another way, the chances of any one American child being kidnapped and killed by a stranger are almost infinitesimally small: .00007. Put yet another, even better way, by British author Warwick Cairns, who wrote the book How to Live Dangerously: if you actually wanted your child to be kidnapped and held overnight by a stranger, how long would you have to keep her outside, unattended, for this to be statistically likely to happen?

About seven hundred and fifty thousand years.

----------------------

This excerpt, from the chapter on avoiding experts, had me laughing 'til the tears rolled down my face:

The Potty Training Answer Book asks many of the questions you may or may not have been wondering about, including, "What books and videos should I choose for my child's potty library?"

Her what?

You know -- a how-to library filled with picture books like I Want my Potty, It's Potty Time, and even, I kid you not, What to Expect When You Use the Potty. (Thankfully, not for pregnant women.) The Potty Training Answer Book lists a full twenty books you might want to get your child about the issue.

And six videos.

Is your child studying for an advanced degree in Potty Studies? Has she been invited to present the "Scatalogical Preschooler" lecture at Oxford? I got through a college course on twentieth-century Russian history with less reading. But the Answer Book then suggests some "favorite potty training resources." Because twenty books and six videos are just not enough.

If you're tired of living in fear -- or want to convince yourself that you're not crazy for letting your child play unattended in your backyard -- read this book! And watch for Lenore's interview to go live on BAM Radio!  

Center on Media and Child Health Launches "Ask the Mediatrician"

Here's a press release from the Center on Media and Child Health!:

From cyberbullying and violent video games to social networking and sexting, parents are overwhelmed by the new media environment and how it affects their children. To help parents navigate this new and changing landscape, the Center on Media and Child Health (CMCH) at Children's Hospital Boston is launching Ask the Mediatrician^SM. Pediatrician, former Hollywood filmmaker, parent, and CMCH founder Michael Rich, MD, MPH, will tackle any and all questions parents have related to media and their child's health.

"As with a child's nutritional diet, we need to be cognizant of what media our children are consuming and how it affects them," says Dr. Rich, also an associate professor at Harvard Medical School. "At Ask the Mediatrician, we will provide parents with answers and recommendations rooted in science, not opinion."

Research shows that young people spend more time using media-TV, movies, music, computers, Internet, cell phones, magazines, and video games--than engaging in any other single activity except sleep. The media that children use and create are integral to their growing sense of selves, of the world, and of how they should interact with it. The influence of media has been linked to both negative health outcomes, such as smoking, obesity, sexual risk behaviors, eating disorders, anxiety, and violence, and to positive outcomes, such as positive social behavior, civic participation, tolerance, school readiness, knowledge acquisition, and improved self-image. These media effects are different for any given child.

The child's age, the content, context, and amount of media the child uses, and whether that use is active or critical need to be considered. Parents, teachers and others who work with children are encouraged to submit their questions at AsktheMediatrician.org, where Dr. Rich will prescribe age-appropriate media use recommendations and alternatives. Having conducted research and having built the only comprehensive database of scientific evidence on the effects of media, Dr. Rich and colleagues understand how media influence the physical, mental, and social health of children. This research, both from CMCH (accessible here) and from around the world, will be the basis on which answers and recommendations will be provided.

"We recognize that kids love media and there are positive as well as negative effects on them," adds Dr. Rich. "This new resource will give them the knowledge of how they are affected and provide action steps for parents to take in their own home, consistent with their own families, to help raise happy and healthy kids in the Media Age."

A Balanced Brain Equals a Balanced Person: Somatic Education - Pt. 2

Here's the remainder of the article written by Martha Eddy...

Somatic Education in Schools:

Leaders of pre-K through grade 12 programs are choosing to include somatic approaches in their dance studios, movement classes, music lessons, gymnasiums, and in their academic classrooms. Why? What is a somatic approach? Somatic education teaches children to be self-reflective by paying attention to body cues in themselves and others. This body-mind awareness is taught so that children can feel more comfortable within themselves, and have access to automatic and balanced responses to stresses (and we know that by definition, learning something new is a change of homeostasis -- a stressor). Having greater ease in basic movement coordination then affords children the ease to develop a wider palette of creative choices in any situation. Children become more creative in both their verbal and non-verbal responses. For example, by being concretely self-aware, children make different artistic choices in a dance setting and they tune in better to their friends' physical behavior at recess supporting creative and peaceful conflict resolution. By teaching any concept or skill using somatic awareness (often using movement and games) there is the extra benefit of enjoying the learning process! We learn best when the discovery process is pleasurable. And we all know that having fun helps to relieve the inevitable stressors of growing up.

While supporting the key educational outcomes of enhanced academic, social, creative and motor performance, the somatic approach aims as well to enhance each individual's overall health, the classroom's "spirit," and the school's emotional well-being. Somatic education also teaches new models of educational leadership inclusive of sensitive communication with parents, and with children with unique stories, across the grade levels.

Movement at School:

Movement classes provide children with opportunities to explore their bodies, express themselves rhythmically, and to practice multi-cultural appreciation. Movement therapists know how to integrate body-mind expression into motor skill development in private and group settings. Movement interventions that are steeped in sensory-motor knowledge (i.e., BrainDance, Brain Gym, Interactive Metronome, Relax to Focus, Developmental Movement Therapy and Ways of Seeing) are each assessment and intervention systems that recognize the body-mind connection.

Somatic education and movement centers exist around the country and world. It will be exciting to see how schools continue to infuse somatic awareness into educational strategies as they seek to help children to learn with more bodily self-confidence, so that youngsters may gain skills and knowledge with more ease!

---------------------

Dr. Martha Eddy is the founder/director of the Center for Kinesthetic Education. She has provided her Peaceful Play Programming and Relax to Focus method in both independent and public schools through the Tri-State area. She is a member of the faculty at SUNY, lectures internationally, and provides professional training through her Somatic Movement Therapy Training. She maintains a small private practice as a somatic movement therapist for children and adults as well.

---------------------

Other Resources:

• Dancing Dialogue Center
• JABADAO Centre for Movement Studies
• Moving on Center
• Seattle Creative Art Center for Movement and Dance
• Somatic Studies at The Ohio State University -- School of Education
• Sparkplug Dance: Developmental Movement and Creative Dance
• The Developmental Movement Center

A Balanced Brain Equals a Balanced Person: Somatic Education

This article, written by Martha Eddy, CMA, RSMT, Ed.D, is reprinted here with permission. Part 1 today; part 2 on Friday...

"A fully functioning body creates a fully functioning person. I believe that if children do not go through all neuro-motor development patterns then they do not develop their sensory-motor systems completely.When you have gaps in your sensory processing then you cannot make good 'connections' and your actions are inappropriate (i.e. no belly crawling relates to poor horizontal eye tracking and in turn poor eye convergence which lead sto the inability to see letters properly, making it difficult to read well.) Anne Green Gilbert, Dance Educator and founder of BrainDance.

As Green-Gilbert suggests in the quote above, in order to act at all we first need to sense our world (including ourselves), then to "connect to it," and finally to have the capacity to move in response. Somatic awareness is a key to sensing, feeling (connecting), and acting. The connecting comes when we sense ourselves -- it solidifes our knowledge in our body and that prepares us for action. We sense, we register our experience somatically, and then we can decide what we want. We are more equipped to respond accurately and effectively.

Missing the Sixth Sense

The kinesthetic sense (sometimes referred to as the missing 6th sense) is often overlooked even though it is critical in developing the body-mind connection. When we "read" body language we are doing our own subtle assessments of children's integration through their movement. Movement requires sensing both one's body and where we are in space through the proprioceptive sense (the receptors in our joints and muscles that help us feel ourselves). The vestibular system needs to be functioning well for our balance and timing to be "on." This inner ear mechanism is telling us about our relationship to gravity as well as our speed of stopping and starting. Many children with learning difficulties, especially those with attention issues, are not registering this information.

Since our culture does not routinely train us to use this key to self-regulation it isn't even talked about much, swept under the rug. The good news is that people are demaning a more orderly world -- a world that integrates the "hidden" kinesthetic sense (our inero-receptors - proprioception and vestibular awareness) with the more external receptors of vision, hearing, smell, taste and touch.

This body awareness sense of kineshesia is a key to the body-mind connection. The body-mind connection has a long history in Eastern philosophy as the "yoga craze" is teachiing us. What is not as known is that for over one hundred years Westerners have also been investigating critical body-mind brain-psyche connections thrugh this process called somatic education. This body of knowledge uses movement, sensitive touch and skillful dialogue to support learning and personal authority.

The Brain Connection

Programs making great advances with children also emphasize the neurological underpinnings of movement. Educators and therapists trained in somatic practices are using movement and body awareness for academic learning, stress reduction, classroom management, experiential learning, and one-to-one remedial sesions at different points during the extended school day to address cognitive, emotional and physical delays and  disabilities. Somatic exploration is revealing clues for how to fill in gaps in neuroological development that leads to big strides amongst children with learning challenges, autism, CP, diverse develomental delays,and hyperactivity. Somatic awareness is also practical for youth contending with the development of scoliosis and other postural and coordination problems.

In the classroom setting, somatic education can be used as the foundation for experiential learning -- for example, allowing stdents to learn anatomy through exploring each system of the body physically -- by touching a body part and moving it. This process is central to one somatic discipline, Body Mind Centering, and kids love it! Moving a math concept is also experiential and gives students a chance to learn math using a different "intelligence." Teachhers can guide the process by asking children how it feels to be shaped like a four; to travel on four limbs; to be attached to four friends supporting a progression from number recognition to basic addition. They can take small quick steps (60) and large slow steps (12) around a clock drawn on the ground with colored chalk to feel the rhythmic and spatial difference between how the minute hand moves and how the hour hand moves.

Somatic Education also addresses sensory processing disorders. Occupational Therapists have sensory gyms that are great for helping to stimlat e myriad of sensory experiences. Education also focuses on the neurological perception of sensations (how we interpret our world) and the perceptions role in the "sensory-motor loop." Somatic activities include carefully selected types of touch to help the child respond to sensation with assisted motor responses (actions) using neuro-motor developmental knowledge. Through the use of set developmental movement sequences (e.g., those important building blocks that foster brain development of babies -- rolling, crawling, sitting, creeping, balancing, standing, that later beconme walking, hopping, skipping and leaping) children have another chance to stimlate neurological pathways. We also use open ended movement explorations to challenge children and to meet their unique nerological demands.

In a classroom setting the process of teaching to diverse learning styles is helped by the neuro-motor system of assessment. Teachers see student's uniqueness as well as find commonality by drawing chldren's attention to the fact that every human has a body. Educational experiences can focus on particular body parts to begin with and then address internal physical sensation as well as our bodies' abilities to perceive our environment. It is our body that  leads us to mathematical, analytic, musical, kinesthetic, natural, social and literary modes of inquiry.

Go Outside and Play

I absolutely loved this article at Examiner.com by Sharon Watkins Jones. So, rather than sharing the link only, I've reprinted the whole piece for you below!

What memories are sparked when you think of your childhood summer vacations? Do you reflect fondly on summers you spent surfing the internet, text messaging friends or laughing hysterically at YouTube clips? Did you make the most of hot summer days by virtual hiking and fishing on your Wii or Playstation? Do you remember how much you enjoyed frolicking online with your Sims family and your digital pet Webkinz?  Heck, no…you knew how to go outside and P-L-A-Y.

If you were like me, the best summer vacations EVER required a swimsuit, some neighborhood buddies and a yard sprinkler. 

We said “goodbye” to our mamas around 10:30am and “hello” right before the street lights came on.  

We played tag, hide-and-seek, dodge ball, Mother-May-I and Red Rover and smelled like fresh puppies within the first hour of play.

Lunch was served by the mama whose house we found ourselves nearest around noon.  We ate our smorgasbord of Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, potato chips, red kool-aid, popsicles and big fat pickles on the porch or the swing set without washing hands or using antibacterial gel.  

No child’s allergies were a consideration. If Ray Ray developed a rash or “swoll up,” (yes, I know, bad grammar) we just made fun of his big head and walked him home. We waved to the ambulance as it drove by with Ray Ray and his mama and hoped he could come outside again tomorrow.

We knew better than to run in and out of any house asking for snacks, so we ate mulberries, pomegranates, loquats and figs from neighborhood trees (without washing them!), we sipped honeysuckle nectar and drank water from a hose.  I don’t recall a single case of dysentery among us.

Girls dared to ask to come inside for one or two bathroom breaks during the day. Boys, well…you know how they took care of business.

We were allowed to carry change in our pockets and buy ice cream from a truck without fear of abduction.

Our mamas didn’t check a daily ozone report to decide if it was safe enough for us get some fresh air.

We sported halters, muscle shirts, cut-off jean shorts and Zips (or Keds). 

We ran out of the house before anyone could remember to spray us with bug repellent. We ran through high grass and crouched in tall weeds and were covered in bites from mosquitoes and chiggers but none of us died of bird flu or malaria. 

We wore no sunscreen, sunglasses or floppy hats and displayed our burnt-toast brown skin as badges of honor. You had a jacked-up summer if you didn’t return to school all “mocha-choca-latta-ya-ya” in the fall.

We had good ol’ fashioned, natural fun, all day long, all summer long.

My kids hear legendary stories from their father and me of “the San Antonio spear grass fight of the century,” the “Waco pogo stick incident of 1976” or the shared experience of “running from the big dog,” and are convinced that we had tortured childhoods. They look at the scar on their dad’s eyebrow from tackle football in the front yard and the speckled blemish on my forearm from falling off the handle bars of a friend’s bike (I think I still have gravel in that wound) and wonder how we are living to tell the tales.

Although my children are completely mortified by the dearth of electronic gaming devices in our home, I proudly boast to all who inquire that we have never owned a Playstation, GameCube or Wii. My husband feigns disappointment in our lack of digital entertainment, but gleefully pats his wallet and declares, “I’d buy you kids a Wii, but your mama won’t let me.”  

I gladly take the heat. I am not swayed by their pouty lips, watering eyes or refrains of “that’s not fair!” When my children have friends visiting and the issue of buying video games comes up, I say, “Who needs Wii, when we have we? Now, go outside and play and get out of my face.” 

Science is on my side of the argument. We all know the benefits of physical exercise, but the social, developmental and educational benefits of outside play also abound.

According to Rae Pica, author of A Running Start: How Play, Physical Activity, and Free Time Create a Successful Child, "Outside light triggers the synthesis of vitamin D and stimulates the pineal gland, the part of the brain that helps regulate the biological clock and is vital to the immune system."   In addition, researchers of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign found that contact with nature improved attention spans and self-control in kids, including those diagnosed with ADHD.

Grimy, outdoors play also helps your children stay healthier in the long run. Dr. Mary Ruebush, an immunology specialist, and author of Why Dirt Is Good explains that human immune systems are like computers that need programming.  Through the introduction of new microorganisms to the body, a child’s developing immune system teaches itself to adapt to by manufacturing a memory so his body can respond appropriately to future intruders.

Beyond the technical reasons for outside play, why would anyone deny their children life’s simplest pleasures? Show them how to enjoy the best time they will ever have. 

A simple walk around the block with your kids is a great opportunity to talk to them and find out what they’re thinking about these days. When my husband shoots baskets with our son, or I strike up a game of jacks in the driveway with my daughter, children from the neighborhood magically appear and join in the fun.   One evening a couple of years ago, a game of Red Light/Green Light practically started a block party of children and adults in the street in front of our house.

One of the best times we’ve had at our home involved handily spanking my brother and his wife in a brutal game of badminton.  It was awesome to crush them mercilessly in front of our children and theirs (I've obviously been a Jones too long). Of course, I keep a ready supply of ibuprofen, ice and alcoholic beverages for just such an occasion to soothe my husband’s back, my knees and my brother's ego. 

No excuses allowed.  Don’t just sit there and reminisce about those good old days. Create some good new days. Grab your kids, go outside and play!

Get Silly!

I've witnessed children as young as four years old who are afraid of failing or looking foolish. They're the children who sit on the sidelines during movement and music sessions regardless of how badly they want to join in the fun, who color meticulously (and fearfully) within the lines, and who won't raise their hands in class because they might have the wrong answer.

Being silly is a wonderful antidote to this kind of fear. So play a game of Twister, which invites both silliness and risk taking. See who in the family can make the goofiest face. Make up silly dances. Play a game of Belly Laughs, in which family members or several children lie on their backs and place their head on the belly of the person next to them. The person at one end says "Ha!" The next person says "Ha-ha!" The third says "Ha-ha-ha!" And so on down the line!

There's no one right answer in these kinds of activities, which frees children to express themselves and even take creative risks. As an added benefit, my colleague Jackie Silburg, author of The Learning Power of Laughter, tells me laughter relieves stress, perpetuates feelings of happiness and joy, diminishes pain, and boosts serotonin levels.

Where Does the Fault Lie? - Pt. 2

As I wrote on Tuesday, fear has been a major factor in the transformation of childhood and parenting. But there are other factors as well. Guilt, too, has played a prominent role.

An increase in the divorce rate and the number of single-parent households, along with an increasing number of mothers entering the workforce, fueled reports about the breakdown of the American family and new concerns about the welfare of the young. The notion of “quality time” grew as parents began spending more time at work in the 1980s and ’90s. With both parents absent during the day, they also began seeking more structured activities for children in order to keep them safe and occupied.

And then there's the "too-much-information" factor.

Throughout the 20^th century and into the 21^st, mounting knowledge of child and brain development has contributed to the confusion surrounding a parent’s role. The 1990s, in fact, has been dubbed “the decade of the brain” due to increasing media coverage of early brain development, which sparked significant public interest in the topic. Media sound bites concerning the critical nature of the early years gave the impression that unless parents offered their youngest children “enriched” experiences, they would be failing them. For example, popular press reports on the significant brain development that occurs during the first three years of life led to the false conclusion that, according to Marian Diamond, author of Magic Trees of the Mind, “doors open and close in the brain for certain subjects and skills at specific ages. These have gone on to imply that if a child doesn’t start a foreign language…or a musical instrument by a certain age, then the mind’s door will close and he or she might as well forget trying.” Such assumptions, many of which Dr. Diamond contends were “unnecessarily discouraging,” put tremendous pressure on parents to give their children the best possible start.

It’s not surprising that marketers saw tremendous potential to take advantage of the misconstrued research. They seized upon the opportunity, creating “educational” products purported to give young children a “jumpstart.” One such product, aptly named, was JumpStart Baby, which was for children nine months to two years old and introduced the concept of “lapware,” a new market of software for babies that requires parents to hold their little ones on their laps. According to a SuperKids Educational Software Review, JumpStart Baby is “crucial…in the development of beginning critical thinking skills” and that, “[a]lthough interaction is minimal, it is enough to give the child a sense of control. With adult supervision, Baby can learn to tap lightly on the keyboard keys, or click the mouse when Teddy asks, and experience the result of these actions.” (It doesn’t mention how this is related to critical thinking, but Children’s Software Review cites being good at waiting and following directions – two skills that even preschoolers aren’t yet developmentally ready to handle – as necessary for this software.)

Similar claims were made by other companies as well. The introductory video to the Reader Rabbit line of software told parents that the products can promote development in children’s social, emotional, and physical domains, as well as in literacy and creativity. Other product lines have backed off on their claims of developmental enhancements, but their names, including Brainy Baby and Baby Einstein, need no elaboration to make the point.

The media/marketing influence has been overwhelmingly successful. According to PC Data, a market-research firm, 770,000 copies of infant lapware (a new market of software for babies that requires parents to hold their little ones on their laps) were sold in 1999. In that same year, sales of software labeled as appropriate for preschool children - ages 3 to 6 - totaled $309 million. In 2000, over just a nine-month period, parents and caregivers spent about $11 million on software for babies and toddlers alone.

Although there is research from child development experts, cognitive scientists, linguists, and neuroscientists, as well as policy statements from the American Academy of Pediatrics, contradicting the value of such products, the marketers make every effort to keep that research from the public. In a BAM interview, noted educator David Elkind told me, “Big business has the power to use the media,” smothering the voices of academics and researchers. The result, according to Pamela Paul, in another BAM interview, has been the “professionalization of parenthood,” dictating that the average parent consult a number of professionals, read dozens of books, and buy a barrage of products. The “commercialization of parenting is the industry’s way of stepping in and solving that problem for us – making us feel all the more hapless and vulnerable.”

Listen to what historian Peter Stearns, author of Anxious Parents, has to say about this topic in this week's featured Body, Mind and Child interview.

Where Does the Fault Lie?

Have been doing some interesting reading lately. Looking into the history of childhood and parenting! It's fascinating stuff...

Specifically, I've been trying to find out how we got to this place, where parents are paranoid, competitive, overprotective, and overwhelmed!

Seems there has been a confluence of factors that have brought us here. According to Peter Stearns, in Anxious Parents, while the 19th-century view of children was of innocents who'd grow up just fine unless corrupted by adults, the 20th-century view was of children who were vulnerable, fragile, readily overburdened, and required special handling. Among the reasons for this shift was the decreasing number of children per family, which intensified the "value" of each child. Also, child-rearing manuals began to appear in the U.S. in the 1920s, followed by Parents Magazine, which was intended to "provide answers to parental concerns but also offer standards that might lead parents to feel concerns where none had existed."

And that was just the beginning of an influx of childrearing advice from outside experts, much of which caused parents to question their own knowledge and judgment. In the 1970s there was a sharp increase in the number of childrearing books on the market and where, previously, Dr. Spock's approach had been easygoing and friendly, newer tactics wanred of dire consequences if parenthood were taken for granted.

At the same time, media reports assaulted the public with stories of tragedies befalling the young. Kidnappings were widely publicized, spreading panic over the potential for stranger abductions, leading, in the early 1980s, to the introduction of billboards and milk cartons that displayed the photos of missing children. Parents learned of poisoned Halloween candy and apples containing razor blades in 1982. In 1983, a mother (who was later found to be emotionally unstable) told police that her young son had been molested at the McMartin Preschool in California. The relentless publicity surrounding the story sparked widespread alarm and, consequently, a "witch hunt."

Fear, then, has been a major factor in the transformation of parenting and childhood. According to Steven Mintz, author of Huck's Raft: A History of American Childhood

Over the past quarter-century, the trumpeting of a dire crisis among the young proved to be a highly effective way to gain public attention. Whenever adults sensed that their children were in danger, they responded with passion. Sociologists use the term moral panic to describe the highly exaggerated and misplaced public fears that periodically arise within a society. Eras of ethical conflict and confusion are especially prone to outbreaks of moral panic as particular incidents crystallize generalized anxieties and provoke moral crusades….[P]anics arose from legitimate worries for the safety of the young in a violent and hypersexualized society, but they were also fueled by interest groups that exploit parental fears, well-meaning social service providers, child advocacy groups, national commissions, and government agencies desperate to sustain funding and influence. If panics arise out of a genuine desire to arouse an apathetic public to serious problems, the effect of scare stories is not benign. They frighten parents, intensity generational estrangement, and encourage schools and legislatures to impose regulations to protect young people from themselves.

On Friday I'll review the additional factors of guilt and TMI (too much information). In the meantime, I'd love to hear your take on this trend...

Putting Family First

Yesterday I interviewed Dr. Bill Doherty for Body, Mind and Child. Bill is a board member for Putting Family First and co-author of a book by the same name. So, I've decided to offer up the following post again, which first appeared here last September...

About six years ago, when I was researching my book, Your Active Child (horrible title, but it was the publisher's choice, not mine), I came across an organization called Putting Family First. According to their website, the need for such an organization stemmed from the difficulty individual parents have in prioritizing family life in "a culture that defines good parenting as providing more and doing more for one's children." They explicitly state that they're not an anti-sports movement. However, while they believe sports can provide positive experiences, they consider today's "preoccupation with competition has diminished the rewards of sports" while also diminishing the quality of life for many.

According to a study conducted by the Family Social Science Department at the University of Minnesota, over the last 20 years there's been a 33% decline in families who regularly eat dinner together. Research further shows a 28% decrease in the number of families taking vacations and a 100% decrease in household conversations!

Over the same period structured sports time has doubled. Passive, spectator time -- the kind involved in watching sports -- has risen from 30 minutes a week to over three hours a week. And that doesn't even include time spent watching sports -- or anything else -- on TV!

For all these reasons a group of citizens in Wayzata, Minnesota, founded Putting Family First, a grassroots organization "where family life is an honored and celebrated priority. The democratic theory underlying this work is that families can only be a seedbed for current and future citizens if they achieve a balance between internal bonds and external activities." (It always comes down to balance, doesn't it?)

The organization's "desired future for families" is that:

• Families make family time and family activities a high priority in their decision making.
• Families set conscious limits on the scheduling of outside activities to honor the values they hold about family time.
• Families set limits on television, the Internet, and other electronic media if these are dominating family life inside the home.
• Families seek out ways to participate together in activities that build and serve their communities.
• Schools, faith communities, neighborhoods, and other groups provide families with resources to develop deeper bonds in a fragmenting world.
• Schools, faith communities, neighborhoods, and other groups offer regular intergenerational activities so that whole families can participate.
• Community activity groups of all kinds have explicit working policies that acknowledge, support, and respect families' decisions to make family time a priority.
• Employers have explicit working policies that honor families' time and energy needs.

Sounds good to me!

You've Got the Power

In reading Judith Warner's Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety, I was saddened by her contention that in America motherhood was a lot less fun than it had been in the first few years of her daughter's life in France. Because everyone was "too busy with 'activities,'" she lamented the loss of such simple pleasures as "pushing the stroller somewhere pretty for a walk" and "spending lazy weekend days in the park with another family." As you can see, she's not asking for the moon. Rather, she feels it was these little things that brought joy to the process of parenthood (and, certainly, her daughter's childhood).

As a parent, you have a great deal of power. There's no reason why such simple pleasures can't belong to you and your family. By shifting priorities and determining that racing is no way to run a life, you can ensure there's time for strolls and lazy weekends. Seem like a tall order? I know. But it's really just a matter of starting small. As a parent, you have the power to say no to your child. You can decide to balance family time and downtime with outside activities. You can decide to abide by the recommendation of the National Association of Elementary School Principals, which is that young children participate in only one activity per season, and only if it meets just once or twice a week.

You and other parents can take a stand with organizations that seem determined to interfere with family dinners, Sundays, holidays, and vacations. Once upon a time, children's sporting events and other extracurricular activities were scheduled in consideration of these family times. If enough parents speak up, they will be again. If enough parents refuse to enroll their children in organizations that don't put family first, things will have to change.

When one of my cousin Lisa's sons was 8, he really wanted to play Pop Warner football. But when Lisa found out what the schedule was (it started in August, and the kids would have to practice five days a week, from 4:00 to 8:00; then, once school started, it would be three days a week, from 4 to 7), she decided that balance was more important for him and for her family -- and that dinners and summer vacation took precedence. Her son was disappointed, but it didn't take long for him to get over it. And Lisa knew that if he eventually wanted to play football, he'd be better at it for having waited until his mind and body were ready.

It's helpful to remember that there are more of you than them. There are more families than Pop Warner teams. More parents than coaches. If something matters enough to you and you put your power behind you, change can happen. As an example, a number of moms around the country have made impressive progress in their attempts to restore recess to their children's schools. in one case, two mothers teamed up to collect 750 signatures on a petition requesting that the school board mandate two recesses daily. They also addressed the school board and lobbied school officials. A few months later, the board agreed to extend the school day by 10 minutes to make two recesses possible.

As it states at Putting Family First: "We need a commuity movement because it is difficult for parents to take back family life in a culture that defines good parenting as providing more and doing more for one's children."

But it does take one individual to start a community movement. You could be that person!