The Pica Perspective

Birth Order

Several years ago a teacher in one of my workshops -- a woman I'd only just met that day -- jokingly but somewhat accusingly said to me, "You're a first-born child, aren't you?" When I questioned why she wanted to know, she at first refused to answer, instead repeating the question. When I finally admitted that I was indeed firstborn, she exclaimed, "I knew it! You're so inflexible!"

Wow. Up until that point it wasn't a word I'd used to describe myself. But with some honest introspection I could see that she was right. I was inflexible! And it turns out it's very much a trait of first-born children.

Since then I've had a fascination with the whole topic of birth order, and lately I've come across it a few times. On Tuesday it was reported that a new study has determined that first-born children get the most attention -- a lot more. According to the article, "...parents spend 30 per cent more quality time -- such as minutes spent on homework, meals, reading time or sports -- with first-borns than with subsequent children between the ages of four and 13....That works out to about 3,000 extra hours of quality time for oldest children, and seems to have an effect that continues throughout the child's life."

Joseph Price, a professor at Brigham Young University, where the study was conducted, says, "They score better on standardized test scores, have higher IQs, are more likely to go to college, have higher incomes later in life and they're less likely to engage in risky behavior."

Yikes.

What do you think? The article I read drew 41 responses from readers before it was closed to comments, and they run the gamut from total agreement to vehement opposition. What's been your experience of birth order, either as a child or as a parent? I'd love to hear.

And, oh, by the way, I've worked very hard on that flexibility thing since the teacher's comment. Now one of my favorite things is to smile when responding to a question about what I'd like to do and say, "I'm flexible!"

Withholding Recess as Punishment

How many of you have children in schools where recess is withheld as punishment -- or as a way to catch up on school- or homework?

Last week I came across an article written by a superintendent in South Dakota. It was called "Recess Restriction Is a Useful Tool that Shall Remain in the Toolbox." (I'd send you there, but if you want to see an article that's more than 7 days old in The Daily Republic, you have to pay for it!) And as you can tell from the title, this guy is in favor of withholding recess when teachers felt it was necessary. He feels it's one of the few resources teachers have when it comes to managing the children, and he made it clear that he believes it works.

I could feel my hair get whiter as I read it! It was another one of those times when I wondered why we have so much excellent research if no one is going to pay attention to it -- particularly the people who should be paying attention, like educators and educational administrators?!

The research is quite clear on the benefits of recess. Studies as far back as 1885 and 1901 and up to the present have shown that individuals (but especially children) produce more when their efforts are distributed (breaks are included) than when concentrated (work is conducted in longer periods). Moreover, Dr. Olga Jarrett and her colleagues conducted a study that determined 15 minutes of recess resulted in the children being 5% more on-task and 9% less fidgety, which translated into 20 minutes saved during the day.

Hello. Is anybody listening?

Even if we didn't have a childhood obesity crisis on our hands (and we most certainly do), recess and the outdoor light would be essential to children's academic success. And since that's so obviously what matters most in our society, it's truly unbelievable that this particular research is being ignored -- or, at the very least, unheeded.

And here's another pertinent bit of information: Experimental studies and anecdotal evidence indicate that the same children tend to miss all or part of recess every day. Translation: The threat of missing recess is an ineffective "tool in the toolbox."

On Thursday I'll be interviewing the CEO of the National PTA for Body, Mind and Child. I'll be talking to her specifically about the PTA's support of recess and PE and want to explore the issue of what happens when parents and teachers don't see eye to eye (e.g., when parents want their children to have recess no matter what and teachers disagree). If there are questions you'd like me to ask -- or if you just want to contribute your thoughts to this conversation -- post your comments here or e-mail me at raepica@movingandlearning.com.

Read Any Good Books Lately?

The coolest thing has begun to happen. Now that Body, Mind and Child is becoming more well known, publishers and authors are contacting me, inquiring as to whether I'd like to receive a review copy of a new book, with the goal of scheduling an interview with the author. As an avid reader, this is a wonderful opportunity. As a person who has spent entirely too much money on books in the past, this is a dream come true! It was only weeks ago that I had to purchase the book of every author I was scheduled to interview!

Since I conduct an interview a week, I'm reading even more than usual lately. (Glad to have the excuse!) So I thought I'd share a bit about some of my favorites.

• Last month I blogged about my interview with Sara Bennett and her book The Case Against Homework: How Homework Is Hurting Children and What Parents Can Do About It. The book certainly merits another mention. Here's copy from the back cover: "What if everything you thought you knew about homework turned out to be wrong? The Case Against Homework draws on the latest educational research to reveal that there is almost no evidence that homework helps elementary school students achieve academic success, and little evidence that it helps older students. Yet the nightly burden takes a serious toll on America's families, robbing children of the sleep, play, and exercise they need and turning learning into drudgery. Now this book gives you the tools and tactics you need to restore balance in your child's life."
• In my January 18th post, I briefly mentioned Susan Linn's Consuming Kids: Protecting Our Children from the Onslaught of Marketing & Advertising. Susan is the director of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, which was the main topic of that blog; and her book is a "shocking and engrossing expose...[that] uncovers the marketing industry's $15 billion yearly effort to cultivate nagging, insatiable, cradle-to-grave consumers. This advertising blitz stifles creativity and exacerbates obesity, eating disorders, violence, sexual precocity, and substance abuse....Consuming Kids is a call to action for anyone who cares about the well-being of children."
• Taking Back Childhood: Helping Your Kids Thrive in a Fast-Paced, Media-Saturated, Violence-Filled World is the first parenting book from early childhood expert Nancy Carlsson-Paige. Due to be released in just over a week, this book is based on Nancy's 30 years of teaching, researching, and writing about young children. And that's actually what I liked best about it; considering that most parents don't have a background in child development theory and research, Nancy brings that perspective to parenting. From the back cover: "Childhood should be a precious time of oasis from the realities of the adult world, yet in today's fast-paced, achievement-obsessed, consumer-driven society, this is increasingly not the case....There are three attributes critical to all children's healthy development...: imaginative play, a feeling of security in today's often frightening world, and strong, meaningful relationships with both adults and other children -- attributes that we, as a society are failing to protect and nurture....Taking Back Childhood reveals practical, hands-on steps parents can take to create a safe, open, and imaginative environment in which kids can relish childhood and flourish as human beings."
• Along completely different lines is Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain by John Ratey, MD. This book is a huge hit with physical education specialists and those of us who have long been proponents of movement. From the back cover: "The latest research shows that for your brain to function at its peak, your body needs to move. In Spark, John J. Ratey, MD, demonstrates exactly how and why physical activity is crucial to the way you think and feel. He explains how aerobic exercise prepares your brain to learn, improves mood and attention, lowers stress and anxiety, helps stave off addiction, controls the sometimes tumultuous effects of hormonal changes, and guards against and even reverses some of the effects of aging on the brain. Find out how exercise can put the spark in your life!" I'll be interviewing Dr. Ratey on Friday, so stay tuned for more information on this topic!

Whether you're a parent or a professional, I'd love to hear what's on your bookshelf -- what's made an impact on you lately and why. Who knows -- I just might decide to interview the author of your favorite book!

Providing Feedback to the Little Ones - Part 2

As promised in Tuesday's blog (March 11th), here are some suggestions for offering feedback in developmentally appropriate ways -- ways that will be most helpful to young children:

• Make one correction at a time. Young children can't absorb multiple pieces of information.
• Use words you're sure a child can understand. "Go a little faster" makes a lot more sense to a preschooler than "Pick up the pace a bit."
• Correct the behavior, not the child. "See if you can try it with all of your toes touching the floor," as opposed to "You're walking wrong."
• A "sandwich" approach helps cushion the criticism. An example of this approach is: "That jump was really high. Make sure you bend your knees a lot when you come down. But you swung your arms to get really high with that jump." You'll notice that the constructive criticism is "sandwiched" between two positive remarks.
• Make your statements in the positive. For example, "Bend your knees a lot when you come down" is preferable to "Don't come down with straight legs." The reasoning has more to do with a child's developmental stage than with promoting self-esteem: young children often fail to hear the "don't" part of an instruction. In the example here, the child will most likely hear the "straight legs" part and do the opposite of what you suggested.
• When possible, use demonstration in combination with your words. The more senses used in the learning process, the more children retain. So if you demonstrate landing with bent knees as you explain it, the child has a better chance of understanding what you mean.
• Don't compare a child with anyone else! This serves no purpose except to create alienation between your child and whoever you're comparing him to.
• Remember, you're also modeling playfulness, and in true play there are no mistakes. That doesn't imply mistakes aren't made. Rather, it means that if a child doesn't get something right the first time, she gets a "do-over" -- but only if she wants one! (Remember do-overs -- and how freeing they can be?) Most likely, she's going to want to accomplish whatever you've shown her, and she will try over and over again -- sometimes while you're watching and sometimes when you're not. But she'll try because she wants to -- not because someone insists she should. (You may be relieved to know that in youth sports the most skilled players are typically those who initiate practice themselves and not those who are externally motivated by parents or coaches.)
• Use neutral, as opposed to judgmental, wording. Education experts say to avoid "moralizing" or judging when providing feedback. For example, a jump isn't "good" or "bad." A jump is either light or heavy, or high or low. If we use the former, we haven't told the child anything helpful. If we use the latter, however, we've provided both vocabulary for what the child did and useful specifics.

Finally, it's been said that coaches should use a four-to-one ratio of positive to negative remarks. That may be so, but I need to make it clear that "positive remarks" does not mean praise, praise, false praise, and more praise. If you really want to help a child improve skills, make sure praise is both deserved and specific. Together with your instructive feedback, your praise should provide information she can use to improve her skills.

Providing Feedback to the Little Ones

It's hard to watch a child -- especially your own child -- do something incorrectly and resist the urge to "fix" it. Often, our solution is to offer constructive criticism, a practice we see as both helpful and harmless. Unfortunately, what we say may be neither.

Young children possess two means of acquiring information about their abilities. The first is through exploration and discovery. A child sees someone else do a forward roll and becomes excited about the possibility that he could do it, too. So in the yard, in the living room, and wherever else he has the chance, he practices this move. The first couple of times, he can't get past the top of his head, so he eventually figures out he should tuck his chin to his chest. That helps, but once he does get over he ends up flat on his back, so he learns to make his whole body rounder. If he wants to do more than one in a row, he finally determines that if he bends his knees, keeps them bent, and finishes with his feet flat on the ground, it's much easier to launch into a second roll. That's self-feedback.

The second way children acquire information about themselves is through feedback from parents and other important adults in their lives. Such feedback is significant to them. They have a strong innate desire to feel competent and a compelling need to please the important adults in their lives. This makes for a powerful one-two punch and means we, as adults, have a responsibility to handle their feelings with care.

Now, you know that I'm not all about inappropriate praise or "giving" children self-esteem; but I feel strongly that constructive criticism has to be doled out in ways that are conducive with what we know about child development. With that in mind, the first thing to realize about constructive criticism is that to children it's just criticism. Furthermore, they don't always understand that our words are related to a behavior (their failure to bend their knees upon landing from a jump, for instance) and not to them as people.

Of course, if your child frequently lands her jumps with straight legs, or walks with her feet rolling in, or throws "like a girl," you're going to want to help her. And if the corrections appear to be something she can't discover on her own -- through self-feedback -- you should help her. You simply want to approach such assistance in the best way possible. So, in Friday's blog, I'll offer plenty of suggestions for how you can do that! Stay tuned...

ABCs vs. Social Skills

Did you know most kindergarten teachers would prefer that children come to them possessing good social skills as opposed to the ability to know their ABCs, shapes, and numbers? It's true. Although parents often consider word and number recognition the most important preparation for school, educators have found that social skills are far more critical to academic success.

In a 2003 article in the journal Child Care Information Exchange, education expert David Elkind cites the ability to work cooperatively with other children, take turns, and stand in line as among the skills necessary to success in formal schooling. Says Elkind: "If a child has these...social abilities, learning the academic skills is much easier than it is without them."

I talked this week with NAEYC executive director Mark Ginsberg about just this topic for Body, Mind and Child. NAEYC, as I mentioned back in November following their annual conference, is the National Association for the Education of Young Children. Founded in 1926, NAEYC, with 100,000 members, is the world's largest organization working on behalf of young children. Membership is open to all individuals who share a desire to serve and act on behalf of the needs and rights of children ages birth to 8.

If you haven't yet been to their website, I highly advise that you pay it a visit. Whether you're a parent or a professional, you'll find resources you can put to use immediately. Also, my interview with Dr. Ginsberg is live on the BAM! site. Listen to what he had to say about children's social/emotional skills and the importance of relationship in their lives.

Television & Children's Bedrooms Don't Mix!

An article by Tara Parker-Pope in today's New York Times certainly caught my attention. It's called "A One-Eyed Invader in the Bedroom," and despite the fact that this stuff is involved in how I make my living, its statistics surprised even me.

Here's one: According to a study of 80 4- to 7-year-olds, having a TV in the bedroom increased a child's viewing time by almost 9 hours a week! Not surprisingly, parents were unaware of just how much time their children were watching TV and seriously underestimated viewing time.

I guess what I found most puzzling was the study's finding that decreased viewing time did not lead to an increase in physical activity levels. That's the bad news, from my perspective. The good news is that children who viewed less snacked less, consuming over 100 fewer calories  per day. Since preschoolers with bedroom TVs are more likely to be overweight, with higher body fat and body mass index, that truly is good news.

Here are some of the results of other studies related to television in children's bedrooms:

• A television in the bedroom has a negative impact on schoolwork, with 70% of the 400 children in a 2005 study scoring "significantly and consistently lower on math, reading and language-arts tests."
• Kindergartners with televisions in their bedroom have more sleep problems.
• Kids ages 12 to 14 with bedroom TVs are more than twice as likely to start smoking!

Bottom line: If children are going to watch TV, it's best for them to do it in common areas, at common times, with other family members.

This week's featured interview on Body, Mind and Child is with Sara Bennett, co-author of The Case Against Homework. I blogged about this topic on February 5th!