Is Your Child’s World Too Small? Was Yours?

The fun a child is allowed to have depends on when he was born, according to results of a survey conducted by Slate magazine. When the data from all 6,000 respondents were tallied, the results became clear: your parents had more fun than they let you have and your kids are allowed to do less than you did.

The world of experience has shrunk dramatically over the past 30 years.

Take walking to and from school, for example. People born in the 1940s were allowed (some would say required) to walk to school, starting in the second or third grade. Children born in the 1980s weren’t allowed to walk to school by themselves until fifth grade, and by the 1990s children couldn’t walk to school on their own until they hit middle school.

All sorts of other ordinary activities follow the same trend, like going to the playground alone, being out after dark, using the stove, and using sharp tools. People born in earlier eras were allowed more freedom than children born in later eras, with the greatest difference in the 1990s compared to those born in the 1980s. Adults who are now in their early 20s grew up in a much smaller world than adults who are now in their early 30s, and in a much, much smaller world than their grandparents experienced.

It’s reasonable to assume that the trend continues. Because the survey participants were all adults, the experience of teens and children born since 2000 was not included. But given that a parent in South Carolina was arrested recently for allowing her 9-year-old child to go to the playground alone, it’s fair to guess that the limits put on kids’ activities have grown even greater. What do you allow your kids to do on their own?

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that the world is much more dangerous for children today than it was in the 1960s and it takes a lot of oversight to keep kids safe. But this is flat-out wrong.  While it’s true that child abductions have increased in recent years, this increase is entirely due to kidnappings by non-custodial parents of their own children. While the divorce rate has increased over time, and so the number of disgruntled exes, the rate of kidnappings by strangers has not.

The impression that children are snatched off street corners on a daily basis is supported by today’s constant stream of news updates unheard of before the Internet era. Child abductions seem more common simply because events in remote localities now make the national and social media news. In fact, the jump in parental restrictions between the 1980s and 1990s can be attributed almost entirely to Reagan era panic over child safety. This is the time when Have-You-Seen-Me milk carton messages started, when Reagan declared National Missing Children’s Day, and when playgrounds were shutdown nationwide because of equipment suddenly deemed unsafe, despite years of uneventful play by generations of children.

Children’s shrinking world is a problem for their development and so for our development as a country. As you are well aware by now, we get the brains we need for how we spend our time. Spending time in the house, playing with electronic gadgets or even reading, develops the brain in only one way. Children miss out on opportunities to learn and develop complex skills that make them more capable of handling adult challenges and solving big problems. When we make our kids afraid to go outside, we set the stage for dependency, obesity, and rigid thinking.  And we start our future grandchildren on the path for even duller lives than the ones we’ve given our children.

It’s not your fault. If you were born in the Reagan era, the fault for your own timidity lies in the fear-mongering and over-reaction to danger that was common among grown-ups when you were in your early years. But the solution is your responsibility.

Will you continue the trend and keep your children closer and even more limited than you were as a child? Will you shrink their world to something even smaller than yours? Or will you embrace the rich experiences that only come with freedom to explore and learn?  Here are some first steps:

• Let your child walk to school. If school is within walking distance, great. If it’s not, park a few blocks away – in an area where other kids are walking – and let him walk from there. Walk 15 feet behind him if you must, but let him go.
• Let your child go at the playground. Quit saying “be careful” all the time and let your child figure out what is safe to do. If you have to stand nearby, go ahead. But don’t be obvious about being your child’s spotter.
• Let your child make his own purchases at the store. Don’t count out his money for him and don’t count his change. Stand behind him as if you were the next customer in line and let him manage this for himself.
• Let your child cook something. Yes, the stove gets hot. Yes, knives are sharp. Your kid’s no dummy, she knows this stuff. She’ll be more careful if you’re not hovering over her every move. Be nearby if she needs some help but otherwise get out of her way.
• Let your child play in your yard without being supervised. For goodness sake, isn’t this why you got a house with a yard, so the kids could play in it? Let them go outside, even in the front. 

If your child is old enough to make his own decisions, let him. Widen his world.

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© 2014, Patricia Nan Anderson. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Ask for Dr. Anderson’s book, Parenting: A Field Guide, at your favorite bookstore.

Do You Call Your Teen When He’s Driving?

We all know that talking or texting while driving is a bad thing to do. We know that teens are especially likely to use their phones while behind the wheel. But who are they talking to? You!

A study of 400 teens, aged 15 to 18 from 31 states, reported that more than half of their calls – 53% - were from their mother or father. According to Noelle LaVoie, lead researcher, “Teens said parents expect to be able to reach them, that parents get mad if they don’t answer their phone and they have to tell parents where they are.” Teens also said their parents use their phones while driving and don’t seem to think that calling or texting while driving is a big deal.

Of course, it is a big deal. In 2011 cell phone use was blamed in nearly one-quarter of all fatal crashes involving teen drivers. Cell phones are responsible for an even greater number of non-fatal accidents, accidents that can put your teen in the hospital, raise your insurance rates, or damage your car. Yet a 2013 survey found that 86% of high school juniors and seniors routinely use their cell phones while driving.

You are part of this problem. Here’s what you must do, starting right now.

1.     If you know your child is driving, don’t call her. Just don’t. Wait until you can imagine she’s safely arrived at her destination.

2.     Instead of calling, text your child. Nothing you have to say is so important as keeping your kid’s eyes on the road. You can afford to let your child get back to you when it’s safe to do so.

3.     Make it clear to your child that you do not want her to answer your call or text if she’s driving. In fact, make it clear that she should never answer anyone’s call or text while on the road. Don’t crab at your kid or penalize her for not answering you immediately.

4.     Set a good example. Quit talking on the phone or texting while you drive and stop answering the phone when you’re on the road. If you believe an incoming call is vital, pull over and stop the car.

The notion that a brain can do two things at once has been demonstrated to be false. Instead, brains do one thing at a time, switching attention between competing needs. Teens are not any better at multitasking than adults are. They have not somehow trained their brains to attend to more than one thing at once.

Similarly, the notion that driving is so automatic that there’s lots of brain bandwidth left over for phone use is not true. Certainly while you drive, your brain has time to think of things you should be doing and people you need to talk with. But your brain doesn’t have capacity to actually do those things or launch those conversations. Get where you’re going, then do what you need to do.

Parents have been demonstrated to be a huge part of the problem of teens’ distracted driving. Now it’s time for parents to be a huge part of the solution.

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© 2014, Patricia Nan Anderson. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Ask for Dr. Anderson’s book, Parenting: A Field Guide, at your favorite bookstore.

What Your Teens Think You REALLY Care About

Here’s a quiz. Which of these do you care about most with regards to your middle school or high school child?

-- That they achieve at a high level

-- That they are happy

-- That they care for others

Certainly each of these is important, but you can only pick one. Which one do you want most for your kid right now?

Got your answer? Well, no matter what you chose, here’s what 10,000 teens from 33 different middle and high schools around the U.S. think their parents care about the least: caring for others. Fully 80% of teens think their parents care most about kids’ achievement or kids’ happiness. Only 20% think their parents, first and foremost, want them to be caring people.

In addition, that same 80% of teens mirror what they think their parents want: they also care most about achievement or being happy. Few teens care most about being compassionate and helpful to others.

Harvard researcher Rick Weissbourd believes that parents send mixed messages. They may talk a good game when it comes to community service, volunteering, and participation in religious and charitable efforts but what they really reward are good grades and school honors. What parents bend over backwards to do is ensure their children’s happiness. One student said that his parents permitted him to give up helping out at a local soup kitchen when it cut into his studying. The priorities were clear.

College admissions forms ask about community service and many high school students volunteer in the community in order to have something that is worthy of note from admissions officers. By and large, college admissions, especially to select schools, depends on grades, courses taken, academic honors, and maybe athletic or other extracurricular achievements far more than on evidence a prospective student is a good and caring person.

Despite the emphasis in many schools on character education, being a person of good character often means only that a teen doesn’t have a police record. Parents, schools and colleges alike really don’t pay much attention to caring, compassion, and public service.

If it matters to you that your child grow into a helpful, responsible person – and I hope it does! – then here are some tips for making your interest in raising caring kids more clear to the people that matter – your children themselves.

Encourage participation in all sorts of service. Giving back to the community doesn’t always mean working in a soup kitchen. It can include river cleanup, food drives, helping to tutor kids, working at the animal shelter, or writing letters in support of an issue. There’s no one right way to be involved, so let your child choose.

Encourage participation even in causes you don’t care about or oppose. Maybe your child is passionate about something you could never support yourself. That’s okay. Support the impulse to participate even if you disagree about the issue. When you and your teen discuss his cause, be respectful and try to learn more about it not persuade him to give it up.

Encourage baby steps. Even choosing to be friends with the new kid at school is an expression of care. If your child isn’t interested in organized efforts to make a difference in the world, let her make a difference in little ways, one person at a time.

Give compassion equal time with achievement. Studies have shown that the most successful people are people who have good social skills, show empathy to others, and understand others’ point of view. Being caring is a component of being a happy, sought-after friend and colleague, not just a quality nice to have. It’s not true that nice guys finish last.

Model compassionate service in your own life. One way teens know their parents don’t really value caring behavior is that their parents don’t seem to care about others themselves. Find your own cause and make it a priority. Let your kids see that caring for others and making a difference is important enough that you engage in this too.

One word of caution. To raise a really caring child, it’s important your child get to choose her cause. While having a family cause, one that everyone in the household supports and volunteers in together, seems like a nice idea, it doesn’t do much to inspire compassion in children. Like most other aspects of family and parent opinion, teens are likely to flee from a family cause at the first opportunity and not look back. Instead of imposing a family interest, encourage your teen’s sense of justice and moral outrage at the need he sees around him and let him choose to care.

Choosing to care. It’s important. Make sure your children know it’s important to you.

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© 2014, Patricia Nan Anderson. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Ask for Dr. Anderson’s book, Parenting: A Field Guide, at your favorite bookstore.

Be Careful About Saying "Be Careful!"

We’ve had lots of out-of-town company at our house these past two weeks, with children and aunts and all engaged in lots of activities. The Number One phrase that seemed to come out of people’s mouths the easiest was “Be careful!” That got me to thinking. Is “be careful!” the best thing to say?

Of course our motives are good. We see the potential for injury or breakage and a warning seems in order. But “be careful!” often doesn’t do what we intend. “Be careful!”  - when it does anything at all – seems confusing. That can’t be good.

First of all, “be careful!” isn’t very specific. If there’s a real danger, it makes sense to spell it out. “Be careful with that knife because it’s very sharp” not only gives a warning but tells what action the warning is about and why. But we often don’t say what a child should be careful about. We aren’t very clear.

Second, “be careful!” isn’t very instructive. It tells that there’s danger ahead but not how to avoid it. It would be better to say, “Be careful with that vase. It would be good to hold it with two hands.” This provides a pause in the action that gives a child time to reconsider the possible outcomes but also suggests a way to avoid disaster.

Third, “be careful!” limits a child’s actions. An active child is a learning child but “be careful!” cuts off learning. When our warning makes a child stop and wait for a grownup to do things for her, or makes a child stop and not try at all, then our warning keeps a child, not just safe, but little. Competence and confidence come from doing things. We have to let kids do.

This is the very reason why our “be careful!” often is ignored. Children want to expand their abilities. They are eager to try new things and become more capable today than they were last week. So even though we whine, “be careful!” kids laugh and do things anyway. “Be careful!” when it’s said over and over about even trivial actions loses its punch.

I’ve said that it helps to add to “be careful!” either what a child should be careful about or how to take care with whatever he’s doing. In addition, it helps to ask a child, “what can you do to stay safe?” or “what can you do to keep that safe?”  Asking a child to stop and consider both the danger inherent in an action and what he can do to be proactive in keeping himself or others safe does two good things: it signals our confidence in his ability to be safe and it inspires him to be responsible about planning for safety. Confidence coupled with responsibility is what we really want, isn’t it?

If you find yourself overusing the phrase “be careful!” try being more supportive of your child’s desire to become responsible and confident. See if your child becomes - instead of more reckless - more safe.

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© 2014, Patricia Nan Anderson. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Ask for Dr. Anderson’s book, Parenting: A Field Guide, at your favorite bookstore.

Should You Make Your Child Share?

Being able to share toys and snacks is a key social skill for toddlers and preschoolers. Of course, your child should learn to be polite and friendly. Knowing how to share is important.

But there are times when sharing isn’t appropriate, even though children might be asked to do so.

1.  A child who brings her own toys to the beach or playlot shouldn’t have to share with other children who want what she has.

2.  A child who is playing with one toy among many similar toys shouldn’t have to give up that toy to another child, since that child could pick one of the toys that are free.

3.  A child who is eating a snack should never share that snack with another child. If the snacking child’s parent wants to encouraging sharing, the other child’s parent must be asked first.

These seem to be sensible rules. Yet many parents on the playground seem to have other ideas. I have seen – probably you have seen this too – mothers demand that a child give up a toy to make her own child happy, without regard for the fact that child has the toy brought it from home or that there are many other equally nice toys available. Parents say things like, “It’s our turn now” or “You’ve had that long enough,” as if there were a time limit to play.

But there’s not. So long as there are other play options for other children to enjoy, there’s no reason at all for a child to give up what he’s playing with, on demand. Other children do not have a right to insist on it. Certainly their parents don’t have that right.

It makes a difference if the plaything is the only one of its kind.  If there’s only one baby swing at the playground, don’t hog it the entire morning, but give other parents and babies a chance. If there’s only one plastic shovel in the sandbox, help your child to give it up after a reasonable interval. But if there are many shovels and your child is digging with the only blue one but there are other shovels around, then she should be able to keep on digging without interruption. And without being made to share.

Naturally, if your child brings a toy to the playground and it is so wonderful that everyone wants to play with it so that it’s causing difficulties, the solution is to put that toy away. Remove the source of the problem, as a courtesy to other parents and in recognition that little children have an imperfect understanding of ownership. But even then your child is under no requirement to share.

If your child does decide to share her brought-from-home toy, then she must share it equally. She shouldn’t use the toy as a way to exert power over other children or to discriminate among them. Better to put the toy away and play with it at home than to cause outrage and sadness among other kids.

But usually the problem is with parents. It is they who express outrage and sadness when your child won’t give up a toy and their own child is unhappy. Some parents will give their children anything, even giving their children your own child’s stuff. You do not have to go along with this. Helping your child refuse doesn’t teach your child to be selfish. It teaches your child boundaries and how to stand up for what’s right.

Practice these words and step in if another child or another parent insists your child share what is his: “We brought that from home. It’s ours.” Say this with a smile and don’t back down.

When another child or parent tries to limit your child’s play with a toy when there are other toys available, say, “When we’re done with that, we’ll let you know.” Smile again. Do not give in.

And if you are the “other parent” remember that expecting something to be given up on demand isn’t sharing. It’s bullying. It’s not what you want your child to learn how to do.

© 2014, Patricia Nan Anderson. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Ask for Dr. Anderson’s book, Parenting: A Field Guide, at your favorite bookstore.

Is Your Home Too Clean For Baby?

You know that the whole purpose of vaccinations is to trigger a child’s immune system to generate antibodies to prevent future disease. But dirt and allergens serve the same purpose of building immunity against danger.

This means that the home that’s too clean helps the germs!

A study conducted at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center found that infants exposed to all sorts of icky stuff in the first year of life – pet dander, household bacteria, and even rodent and roach allergens – were actually less likely to later suffer from allergies and asthma than were babies raised in pristine households.

While previous studies have found that inner city kids, exposed to rodents and roaches, have higher levels of The Johns Hopkins study found this surprising bit: exposure to dirty and nastiness in the first year of life is key, no matter when children live. Early exposure actually has a protective effect that is missing if children are first exposed to various bacteria later in childhood.

For example, researchers found that children raised in homes with evident mouse and cat dander and cockroach droppings in the first year of life had lower rates of wheezing at age 3, compared with children not exposed to these allergens soon after birth. Not only that but exposure to all three of these allergens (cat dander, mouse dander, and roach droppings) had the fewest respiratory symptoms of all. In addition, children who grew up in homes with a variety of bacteria were less likely to develop environmental allergies and wheezing at age 3.

Over 40 percent of children who were allergy-free and wheeze-free at age three had grown up in homes rich in a variety of germs. Only 8 percent of three-year-olds with respiratory symptoms had been exposed to household germs in infancy. Children who had no respiratory symptoms at all at age three had grown up in homes with the very highest levels of animal debris and the richest array of bacteria.

What does this mean for you?

·         First, give up trying to keep everything sanitary for baby. Not only will you wear yourself out but you will actually not succeed in keeping your child healthy.

·         Second, if you have pets, keep them. Yes, pets are dirty but the presence of pets in your home protects your baby from becoming allergic later.

·         Third, while you of course will protect your child from food-borne bacteria like salmonella and bacteria like e.coli that are spread through poor diapering and hygiene practices, there’s no need to obsess over keeping clean. Babies get dirty. Let them.

The bottom line is that having a baby doesn’t need to change your usual, half-way decent household duties. Not-so-good is actually good enough, even when there’s an infant around. In fact it’s good enough especially when there’s an infant around!

© 2014, Patricia Nan Anderson. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Ask for Dr. Anderson’s new book, Parenting: A Field Guide, at your favorite bookstore.

Are You Playing the Popularity Game?

Chickens have what’s known as a “pecking order.” There’s a top hen, who picks on the next hen, who picks on the next-most-powerful hen, and so on all the way down the line to the poor hen at the bottom of the ranking, which is picked on – and pecked on – by all the hens of higher rank. Quite often, this lowest hen is pecked unmercifully, even to death. It’s not a good scene and is one of the problems those who keep flocks of chickens worry about.

Chickens and children are not the same. Yet those who keep track of children notice that there’s a pecking order among them too. The “top” child becomes the “most popular” child and all the other children fall into line depending on the favor bestowed upon them by this most popular kid.

There are winners and losers here. But the losers aren’t chickens. They are your children.

Naturally, this is not a good scene. No one wants her son or daughter to be unpopular or left out. But this is where we parents lose our good sense and make things worse. If we buy into this popularity thing, being happy when the “most popular” child invites our own kid over to play and otherwise worrying about our child’s social status, we add to the problem. We become accomplices in what is a dangerous game.

There can only be one winner in the popularity sweepstakes. If – for now, anyway – your own child is the most popular one, she is anxious about keeping her standing. She is likely to become nasty and manipulative of others – threatening to drop friends who don’t do as she says or encouraging others to join her in verbal bullying of other kids. The queen of the heap only stays queen if she can control her subjects. In supporting your most-popular child, you are helping to create a social monster.

There’s only one winner but many losers in the popularity game, and it’s likely your child is one of these. If she’s near the top of the friendship rankings, she may be plotting a coup by spreading rumors about children more popular than she. If your child is nearer the bottom of the friendship rankings, she may be depressed, unhappy, and even unwilling to go to school or play with other kids. Either way, your child is in danger, of becoming mean and nasty or of becoming isolated and discouraged.

To a certain extent, this jockeying for position happens naturally among groups of kids and is fluid enough to be of only passing concern for parents. But when moms and dads actively participate in the popularity game, by keeping track of the social standing of their child and their child’s friends, then there will be trouble ahead. 

1. No matter how much your own popularity mattered to you in school, don’t project your anxiety onto your son or daughter. Don’t live through them or try to fix your own life by manipulating theirs.
2. As much as possible, let your children figure out their own social relationships and settle their own social problems. How will they learn to handle conflict and negotiate solutions if you’re always interfering? Their friends are their business, not yours.
3. Accentuate the positive. Say only nice things about other children and avoid comparing one child’s clothes/toys/vacations/ pets to other children’s. These are kids. Why are you obsessed with them and their stuff?
4. Reject bullying behavior wherever it happens. It’s bullying to call people names, lie about them, uninvite them to your birthday party and threaten rejection just as much as it’s bullying to steal lunch money and hit people. Don’t look the other way when your own child is a verbal bully and support your child when he’s the victim of verbal bullying.
5. Most of all, don’t play into the hands of those who want to rank children by popularity (or intelligence or athletic ability or anything else). Refuse to participate in these conversations. Imagine that others talked about your own rank on the prettiness scale. You wouldn’t like it one bit! 

High school taught a lot of us that popularity matters. Most adults outgrow this delusion. Remember that who is the most popular doesn’t translate in any way to life success. What does translate is feeling supported and appreciated.

That’s what every child needs.

© 2014, Patricia Nan Anderson. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Join Dr. Anderson in an online conference for teachers and parents. Find out more at Quality Conference for Early Childhood Leaders

How Can You Tell If Your Child Care Is Good Enough?

According to Steve Barnett, director of the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University, a majority of low-income four-year-olds are enrolled in preschools and child care centers that are of poor quality. These children already have two strikes against them and mediocre child care may be the final blow. 

Even though it’s “only preschool,” what happens before kindergarten matters. So how can you tell if your child’s preschool or child care center is good enough? What should you look for?

Your child may not have the disadvantages in life that low-income children often have. But quality child care matters for your kids too.

The first thing to look for is that a child is enrolled. According to Barnett, even poor preschool  is better than no preschool. Children who get no preschool start kindergarten already a year behind. This is because what matters in kindergarten is not so much academic ability – things parents may think they’re providing at home –but habits of mind necessary for school. Children who come to school knowing how to work in a group, how to follow complicated directions, how to do school work, and how to pay attention in the midst of distractions, these children are ready to learn. And these are the skills that even the most inadequate preschool develops.

The second thing to look for is a teaching staff that knows how to work with children and enjoys teaching them. A good child care or preschool teacher should know how to develop children’s skills in pre-math and pre-reading. She should know how to guide children’s behavior without squelching their curiosity. She should be respectful of children’s ideas and she’s got to be nice. She has high standards but she knows her job is to help children reach them.

In a preschool run by a school district, teachers should all have a bachelor’s degree and teaching certificate. They will be well-paid and will have access to lots of professional development. If your school district doesn’t offer a preschool program or if your child is ineligible for your district’s program (some are limited to children with low-income and other risk factors), then find the very best preschool or child care center you can with the very best support of its teachers. 

• Ask about a teacher’s preparation. At least some college is better than none.
• Ask if the school closes for professional development days (even though this is an inconvenience for you, it’s something you want). 
• Ask about the number of children per teacher. 
• Ask how long teachers typically stay and how quickly they leave.  
• If you can, watch teachers in action. 

You are looking for the same professionalism that teachers display at your local elementary school. Are teachers proud of what they do or are they always on the lookout for a better job?

Third, find a place where play is center-stage. Play is the medium by which children learn. The Tulsa, Oklahoma public preschool program, showcased as a national model, devotes two hours of unstructured “free” play every day for every child. Sit-down instruction, with children filling in worksheets and memorizing facts, is not a positive thing. It’s just plain inappropriate for young children. In a good preschool or child care center, children are moving around, doing interesting things together, as their teachers observe, guide and ask questions.

Noticing a quality preschool or child care center isn’t difficult – the signs are obvious or can be discovered by asking a few questions. Finding a quality preschool or center may be more difficult. But the results are worth the search.

Your child’s school success is determined in large part by what happens at age three and four. Choose quality for your child.

© 2014, Patricia Nan Anderson. All rights reserved. 

Spanked Kids Misbehave Again in Under 10 Minutes. Why?

If you spank your child you might be convinced that you’re doing it “right.” You might think that spanking is good for a child and not only stops bad behavior but leads to improved behavior over time. A new study confirms that you would be wrong on both counts.

Thirty-three parents who said they spank agreed to be recorded over four to six evenings. Most of the parents were the children’s mothers, and were married, well-educated, white, and worked outside the home. Their children were, on average, a bit younger than four. The recordings captured 41 instances of corporal punishment (spanking, slapping, shoving, shaking, pinching, and so on) that happened mostly while the parent prepared dinner or was bathing the child before bed.

The scientists, led by psychologist George Holden from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, found that these parents spanked in three ways that are especially troubling: they spanked in anger, they spanked quickly instead of as a last resort, and they spanked for minor misbehaviors, not in response to serious problems or dangerous behavior. In addition, parents hit their children repeatedly, instead of giving a single swat.

As you know by now, I do not believe spanking is effective but I understand that many parents do spank. So, if you hit, I invite you to observe your own spanking behavior.

·         Quick to hit? In the study, parents spanked quickly, within half a minute of noticing a problem behavior. If they tried first to redirect children, restate rules, or even send a child into timeout, they didn’t try very long. Often they hit first.

·         Hit for what? In the study parents hit their children for silly things like sucking fingers, eating improperly, and getting out of a chair during dinner. In 90% of the hitting incidents, the trigger behavior was unimportant, even just normal child stuff.

·         In the mood to hit? Recordings revealed that parents were angry before they hit their children. Their children didn’t make them angry; mothers were angry already. Most parents spanked on impulse and emotionally, instead of thoughtfully.

·         Hit how often? Parents in the study hit repeatedly. One mother hit her child 11 times in a row. Another parent spanked a baby only seven months old. Although previous studies (based on parents’ own estimates) determined that parents hit two-year-olds about 18 times a year, this study using actual real-time recordings found that parents hit two-year-olds at a rate of 18 times a week.

·         Hit with what result? Many parents say they spank because it’s the only way to get through to their children. But it didn’t work that way for parents in this study. The recordings reveal that children who were spanked misbehaved again in just 10 minutes.

If you spank, slap, or hit your children, take a long, hard look at that. How effective is corporal punishment, really, in making your life more serene and happy? How better behaved for how long are your children as a result of being hit? How much better do you feel about yourself as a result of being a parent who hits?

Corporal punishment has been associated in other studies with everything from low school success, obesity, bullying behavior and delinquency. If spanking isn’t effective at home anyway, is it worth the risk of derailing your child’s future? I think not.

Please, think before you hit.

© 2014, Patricia Nan Anderson. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Join Dr. Anderson in an online conference for teachers and parents. Find out more at Quality Conference for Early Childhood Leaders.

The Good News/Bad News: There’s No Math Gene

Have you or your child ever said, “I’m just no good at math?” If so, then new research from Norway delivers news that’s both good and bad:

• There’s no such thing as being naturally good at math.
• Practicing math makes one better at math. 

Many of us have believed that math ability is something a person is born with – or not. So it might be hard to believe that this isn’t so. Here is how researchers came to the conclusion that mathematicians aren’t born that way.

Scientists asked 70 Norwegian fifth-graders to complete nine different math tasks. Each task required knowledge of different mathematical operations and different applications of mathematical thinking. If math ability were inborn, individual children would have been equally good (or equally bad) on all nine tasks. But they weren’t. Children were better at tasks they had practiced in school and less successful in other tasks. No one appeared to be “naturally good” at math or “naturally bad.”

This is bad news for those of us who have used the excuse that we’re just not good at math as a reason for not trying very hard. But it’s good news for those of us who would like to do better at math than we are doing right now. Practice does make perfect.

So here are some math tips for parents.

1. Start your child early in thinking mathematically. People who seem “naturally good” at math are people who were surrounded by numbers and opportunities for problem-solving from a young age. Play with math ideas as they come up naturally during play.
2. Start early in supporting your child in mastering math tasks. You might dread helping your child with math homework, but if you start in kindergarten you and your child can learn math together. Don’t imagine your child is “too young” to understand.
3. Accept no excuses. As your child gets older, the math gets more complicated. But your child is smart. She can do this. And you are smart too. Even if you don’t understand her math homework, you can. Learn this stuff together.
4. Don’t let others make excuses either. Your child’s other parent, his grandmother, or even his teacher might hint that he’s just not good at math. They might say he has other wonderful qualities so his lack of math skill isn’t a problem. But of course it is. Math is essential. Don’t let anyone tell you (or tell your child) that it’s okay to be bad at math.

The bad news is we are all responsible for doing the hard work of learning math. The good news is we can be successful if we try.

Help your child to try harder.

© 2013, Patricia Nan Anderson. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Ask for Dr. Anderson’s new book, Parenting: A Field Guide, at your favorite bookstore.