DailyDirt: Good Parenting, Bad Parenting, Is There Really A Big Difference?

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Who can really say what effect parenting has on the development of a child? Presumably, the parents of Ted and David Kaczynski didn't raise their sons in dramatically different ways, but these brothers ultimately live very different lives. It's sometimes difficult to define what a good parent is, and it may seem like it's easier to point out bad parents, but the distinctions may not be as clear-cut as everyone thinks. (Who is qualified to judge, anyway?) Here are just a few links on the topic of raising kids.

• Peter Lanza, Adam Lanza's father, is now talking about his experience with his son before the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. If there's a lesson to be learned from Adam's behavior, it may be that we don't yet know how to predict or find the motives behind these mass murder events. [url]
• For some time now, there's been a trend away from parenting with physical punishment. However, it looks like about 3 out of 4 parents yell/scream/shout at their kids at least once a month (and you gotta wonder what that 4th parent is doing, if not yelling). [url]
• If only parenting were as easy as this infographic makes it look. But maybe if everyone is more aware about what makes kids happy, we'll all be happier somehow. [url]

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Filed Under: adam lanza, child development, parenting, psychology, sandy hook tragedy, ted kaczynski

DailyDirt: Good Parenting

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Raising kids isn't easy. Most parents want their kids to be successful, self-motivated, socially well-adjusted, smart, funny, artistic, good at sports, etc, etc.... But these kinds of parental requirements are enough to drive anyone a bit crazy -- and it's a bit unrealistic to think that parents have that much control over the personality and success of their kids. Still, parents want to try to provide the best opportunities for their children, but before parents out there try out the Tiger Mom method, check out a few of these links.

• Psychologists have found that praising kids by saying, "you worked so hard on that" instead of "you're so good at that" makes for more self-motivated kids when they grow up. The researchers studied kids 1-3yo and followed up with the same kids when they were 7-8yo, and the kids who were encouraged for their efforts were more likely to tackle challenges and believe that their personal abilities could change and be developed. [url]
• A study of 'Tiger Mom' parenting suggests that the kids of these parents get lower grades and feel more alienated from their parents. Being a supportive parent seems to produce kids that are high achievers and at low risk for depression, but there are more than just a handful of parenting styles (eg. Permissive, Authoritative, Authoritarian, Negligent...), and the outcomes are not always well defined. [url]
• Overparenting is a popular parenting style that's based on the good intentions of parents not wanting to see their kids unhappy. But with parenting, "if you can't stand to see your child unhappy, you are in the wrong business." [url]

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Filed Under: children, education, motivation, overparenting, parenting, praise, tiger mom

DailyDirt: Parenting With Technology

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Recently, the LA school district has had some problems with its adoption of iPads into its classrooms. Kids will be kids, and some of them figured out how to use their school-issued iPads for unsanctioned activities like watching movies, playing games and wasting time on Facebook. Clearly, there's a bit of a learning curve for using technology as an educational tool as educators try to figure out how to lock down the devices and keep kids focused on using them solely for school-related work. Many parents with young kids want to encourage their children to use all kinds of technology, but the advice and recommendations from various experts can be a bit conflicting or almost useless. Here are just a few links on kids and screen time.

• According to recent surveys, technology is not at the top of the list of concerns that parents have about their newborn to 8yo kids. Parents who have grown up using technology are flexible in their own adoption of technology as a parenting tool -- and not all of them use iPads as toddler pacifiers/babysitters. [url]
• Some prestigious pre-schools are handing iPads to 18mo kids, but not every parent agrees that barely-potty-trained kids should be interacting with a touchscreen instead of other humans. Also, you don't want to touch that iPad after a kid who's not potty trained has used it. [url]
• Plenty of folks are discussing the effects of screen time on kids. Apparently, some are making a distinction between "active" and "passive" screen time -- but it's still not clear if educational apps are actually educational. [url]

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Filed Under: babysitter, computers, education, ipads, kids, mental development, parenting, pre-school, school, screen time, tools, trend

DailyDirt: Children Are The Future, Engineer Them Well, & Let Them Lead The Way

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

The movie GATTACA came out back in 1997, but the technology to breed better people is just now starting to become more practical. We've been able (through in vitro fertilization) to select a desired baby gender for years, so selecting other traits doesn't seem that far off -- even though gene expression is a pretty complicated process. Here are just a few more projects that could lead to designing our kids' genes with more fine tuning.

• Zhao Bowen heads up a genetic research project at BGI Shenzhen that aims to crack the genetic code for intelligence by sequencing the genes of thousands of intelligent people around the world. The project boldly claims that it could boost the IQ of unborn children by 20 points. [url]
• Genetic research is finding possible links between genetic markers and some forms of autism, suggesting that there could be genetic therapies in the future. Mapping genetic mutations to particular brain traits isn't a simple task, but with more data, brain research has the potential to make significant changes to society. [url]
• Professor Julian Savulescu argues that screening babies for genetic defects is simply responsible parenting. The debate over designer babies is far from over.... [url]

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Filed Under: autism, babies, children, designer babies, dna sequencing, eugenics, gattaca, gene therapy, genetic engineering, intelligence, iq, julian savulescu, parenting, zhao bowen
Companies: bgi shenzhen

DailyDirt: Parenting Tips

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Parents apparently have no idea how to raise children. Parenting is tough, but no worries, there's always the unsolicited advice from family and strangers about what they think is best for children, and there are tons of parenting books available that may or may not help. There's also no shortage of contradictory studies out there that just leave parents utterly confused. Here are just a few recent findings on what's supposedly good or bad for kids. Remember correlation isn't causation, etc, etc.

• Young children need regular bedtimes, otherwise it can have a negative effect on their cognitive development. Kids who had irregular bedtimes at the age of 3 -- a crucial age for mental development -- scored lower on reading, math, and spatial awareness tests. [url]
• Kids with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder can forget about using ADHD drugs to help them do better in school. More and more studies are finding that taking "cognitive enhancers" like Ritalin and Adderall really doesn't make a difference in the long run for kids with ADHD. [url]
• Over-parenting is creating a generation of passive, disconnected, depressed, and anxious kids. These kids fail to find a "sense of self" and can't cope with the real world because their well-meaning but misguided parents have been unnecessarily intervening in their lives, doing everything for them. [url]

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Filed Under: adhd, advice, bedtime, cognitive development, correlation, education, helicopter parents, kids, learning, over-parenting, parenting, test scores

Dad Hires Digital Assassins To Murder His Son (Digitally)

from the awwwwwww dept

While the overwhelming evidence continues to show that video games aren't responsible for turning children or adults into little murder monsters, that doesn't mean there are no negatives to gaming. I don't have children, but I imagine some parents can find it a pain to get their kids to take care of their responsibilities when all they want to do is play games. The question is what do you do about it?

Well, according to one dad in China, you murder the s%@$ out of you kid over and over and over again. Digitally, that is.

Frustrated by his adult son's incessant gaming habit, a man in China reportedly hired a number of in-game master "hitmen" to annihilate his son's avatar over and over again in an attempt to deter him from playing.

Quoting China's Sanqin Daily, Kotaku reports that the fed-up father, identified only as "Mr. Feng," decided to embark on this cyber murder plot as his son seemed incapable of pulling himself away from the computer long enough to find a job.

I have to admit, I love this guy. Your kid likes to play games too much? Hire a bunch of better gamers to make his gaming life a digital nightmare. I imagine if the kid wouldn't stop playing basketball, Dad would get LeBron James on the phone and hire him to shadow the young man and block every shot he attempted.

Regardless, I think we may have to tip our hat to this guy. It would have been quite easy for him to blame the games, call it an addiction, or do any number of things to abdicate his responsibility as a parent. But no, Mr. Feng scrapped some money together and paid people to digitally shoot his son. That is parenting, people.

Filed Under: china, parenting, video games

Should Schools Be Involved In Disciplining Students For Off-Campus Bullying?

from the cyber-or-otherwise dept

The NY Times is running a long article looking at one of the favorite moral panics of the day: cyberbullying. The specific article questions how schools should be dealing with the issue, especially when it comes to activity that takes place entirely off-campus. The article actually focuses a lot of attention on the middle school principal we wrote about a couple months ago who sent a long email to parents telling them to ban all social networking from their kids -- effectively taking the "head in sand" approach to dealing with these issues. To be fair, in this article, that principal comes off as a lot more reasonable, initially telling angry parents that off-campus activity really is outside of the domain of what the school should be involved in.

In reading through the article, though, part of what struck me is that it seems like some parents are simply trying to get the school to act because they're unwilling to act themselves. Take, for example, this exchange towards the beginning of the article:

Punish him, insisted the parents.

"I said, 'This occurred out of school, on a weekend,' " recalled the principal, Tony Orsini. "We can't discipline him."

Had they contacted the boy's family, he asked.

Too awkward, they replied. The fathers coach sports together.

What about the police, Mr. Orsini asked.

A criminal investigation would be protracted, the parents had decided, its outcome uncertain. They wanted immediate action.

In other words, there were plenty of paths that the family could have taken, but they didn't want to actually do anything. They wanted the school to act as parents for the kid because they were unwilling to do so. That's not to say these things don't create difficult situations, but it seems like a weak solution when parents just punt the issue and demand that schools handle it. And, of course, the article also highlights cases where parents also get (reasonably) upset when schools punish their kids for off-campus activity.

It's no secret that kids can and will be mean. And with modern communication technology it's easier for kids to be mean directly more often and in much more public ways. That's a challenge, to be sure, but asking schools to handle those issues doesn't seem like an effective or an efficient solution.

Filed Under: bullying, parenting, schools

Middle School Principal Tells Parents To Ban Facebook And Spy On Text Messages

from the nanny-state dept

A bunch of folks have been submitting this story of a New Jersey middle school principal sending an email to all parents telling them to ban Facebook for their kids and to spy on all of their text messaging habits. Because, apparently, at Benjamin Franklin Middle School, "trust" is not something they want to teach. We see this sort of overreaction to new things all of the time. In the past, school administrators have needlessly freaked out about such things as comic books, dungeons and dragons, walkmen and mp3 players. If the principal, Anthony Orsini, had just sent out a note saying "talk to your kids and pay attention to what they're doing online," it would have been fine. But, instead, he went all out:

It is time for every single member of the BF Community to take a stand! There is absolutely no reason for any middle school student to be a part of a social networking site!

Let me repeat that - there is absolutely, positively no reason for any middle school student to be a part of a social networking site! None....

Actually, there are plenty of reasons why a middle school kid might be a part of a social networking site: it's called communicating with their peers. That doesn't mean parents should let their kids use them entirely freely, but a blanket ban is clear overkill by someone who apparently doesn't understand how these things work.

Please do the following: sit down with your child (and they are just children still) and tell them that they are not allowed to be a member of any social networking site. Today!

Let them know that you will at some point every week be checking their text messages online! You have the ability to do this through your cell phone provider.

Let them know that you will be installing Parental Control Software so you can tell every place they have visited online, and everything they have instant messaged or written to a friend. Don't install it behind their back, but install it!

He goes on to then urge parents to contact the police any time their child gets a message they don't like:

If your son or daughter is attacked through one of these sites or through texting - immediately go to the police! Insist that they investigate every situation. Also, contact the site and report the attack to the site - they have an obligation to suspend accounts or they are liable for what is written.

That last line, saying that the sites are liable is simply not correct, but why let facts get in the way of a good rant.

Orsini then goes on to explain that he's absolutely positive that social networks will be found in studies to be damaging to kids:

It is not hyperbole for me to write that the pain caused by social networking sites is beyond significant - it is psychologically detrimental and we will find out it will have significant long term effects, as well as all the horrible social effects it already creates.

Of course, similar things have been written about every "new" thing that the older generation in society doesn't get -- including the waltz ("we feel it a duty to warn every parent against exposing his daughter to so fatal a contagion"), movies, videos games... and chess ("chess is a mere amusement of a very inferior character, which robs the mind of valuable time that might be devoted to nobler acquirements, while it affords no benefit whatever to the body"). I assume, we can add Orsini's quote to the other quotes about those other things soon.

Basically, it looks like Orsini has fallen prey to yet another moral panic. He claims that it doesn't make sense to teach "responsible" computing, because middle school kids can't handle it. It appears that many kids in his school disagree, and are quoted in the article saying so. Clearly, many kids will abuse social networks and the will bully others. But doing a blanket ban certainly won't work, and is just someone overreacting because he was unable to handle some kids acting poorly. It's an attempt to prevent kids from doing stuff, just so that the administrators might get a little "security" from kids being kids.

Perhaps the principal of the Benjamin Franklin Middle School, should pay attention to Ben Franklin's words:

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Filed Under: facebook, new jersey, parenting, sms
Companies: facebook

Who Needs Parenting When Your ISP Uses The British Film Classification System?

from the protection-from-all-evil-for-just-twenty-pounds-a-month dept

A UK ISP has teamed up with the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) to create a new parental control and filtering system that's based on the same classification system being used by the UK film industry. UK Wireless ISP Tibboh uses internet filter technology created by Netsweeper to classify websites under the BBFC's rating system (U, PG, 12, 15 or 18). Facebook and Twitter are given a "12" rating (only suitable for those over twelve), Blogger and Wordpress sites are given a "15" rating, while major news outlets are given a "U" certificate (suitable for everyone). The idea seems like a fusion of a bunch of ineffective and bad ideas. It's based on Internet filters that, of course, will block some useful content, but which kids will be able to bypass anyway. The filter system adds a new wrinkle by pretending it's possible to assign a valuable age restriction metric to information delivery platforms -- as if your kid couldn't possibly run into something foul via Twitter, in a blog, or in the news. The service provides the illusion of safety to people who'd rather pay twenty Pounds a month than pay attention to what their kids are doing -- or talk to them face to face about smart technology use.

Filed Under: movies, parenting, united kingdom

Parent Makes Gamer Son Promise To Obey Geneva Conventions In Video Game

from the parents-and-video-games dept

While we keep hearing politicians and "child safety" activists complaining about violent video games and their supposed impact on kids, many people push back by noting that it should be up to parents to decide how to handle their kids' association with video games -- and some take the issue seriously. A bunch of folks have been submitting the BoingBoing story of a father whose son wanted to play the popular video game Call of Duty. After learning about the game, and recognizing some advantages to the game -- historical realism, the ability to learn teamwork, etc. -- he decided that he would let his son play, on one condition. While playing the game, his son and his "teammates" had to all obey the rules of the Geneva Convention. In other words, he turned it into an educational opportunity as well. The players now need to read up and understand the Geneva Convention rules -- and then engage by them, thus also avoiding some of the more gratuitous violence. So, there's a creative solution that some politicians and activists would like to have taken out of the hands of parents.

Filed Under: call of duty, geneva conventions, parenting, video games, violence