Popular Practices Examined... Part Two(Spanking)

Disclaimer: So this will likely not be a gentle, dont hurt anyone's feelings kind of post (but then again, are any of them?)

While in Maui(a beautiful place with beautiful people), I ran in to some not so beautiful acting locals in a general store. There was a young man with two teenagers and a very young child. I did not even notice the child at first because the others were so boisterous, but then I heard a very hard whack and a child scream and fall into tears. Then I heard another whack and another. I couldn't see the child yet, I just heard his very sad cry that was bringing me to tears as well.

Then the party of four emerged from the aisle towards the cash register. The dad (I use that term loosely), was paying for his goods and telling the store clerk how spoiled his child was, while the child obviously humiliated and in pain was rubbing his bottom and trying hard to hide his face and tears in the pant leg of his father. Apparently though crying is also a capital offense in his family so after telling him to stop crying several times, he raised his hand again to go for another. If this is how this child is treated in public, what happens at home?

I couldn't take it anymore so I jumped in and not so gracefully as I would have liked. I shouted, "Hey, just because you are bigger than him doesn't mean you have the right to hurt him."

Lots of mind your own business comments ensued from the teenagers and father, but the comments that disgusted me the most were:
"This is my child" from the young man and from the store clerk, "he needed it".

So lets start with the first one:
When one decides to place their penis in another woman's vagina, that automatically gives him the right to hit and humiliate any person that happens to unfortunately be the result of that sex. That is interesting determination.
I am sorry, but No. Children are not property. Most people would argue that even pets are not one's property to do as you deem fit.

and the second:
He needed to be physically hurt and humiliated? When has that ever worked to teach anything more than anger, resentment, violence, and revenge? If you don't believe me, you may want to check out the volumes of research on this topic.

I am really not OK with the term spanking at all because I believe that it exists simply to make hitting another person sound acceptable in conversation. Many justify spanking as a form of discipline. Discipline comes from the word disciple which means "to guide". I am having a hard time imagining Jesus guiding others by hitting them. I am trying to envision having any of the people in my life who have been a guiding force hit me. In fact, I have very strained relationships at best with any person who has ever "spanked" me.

While I may attempt to intervene on the behalf of children in a more helping, positive way in the future, I urge you all to step in and stand up for children who are unable to help themselves. I could tell it truly shocked this dad that I even thought his behavior was inappropriate and it probably made no difference at all (especially with the way I handled it), but maybe, just maybe one of those teenagers or that little boy will think twice before hitting their own child one day.

It is time for this practice to end once and for all.


"There never was a time when a major social problem was solved by beating a child. And there never will be such a time... For centuries adults have injured children and have lied about it, and other adults have heard those lies and then merely turned away,"
-Surgeon General Dr. C. Everett Koop, 1989

Schooled... why public school is not for us.

I often tell people when the discussion comes up as to where Elijah will go to school (as if most people have that figured out at 11 months old) that Elijah will not go to public school. I am then usually bombarded with how the schools in their neighborhood have high test scores or that their particular school is amazing. While I have no doubt these claims are accurate, they do not impress me.

I do not see public school as the devil. It definitely serves a purpose and for many children it is a safety net. It was for me. My public school teachers were the reasons I survived my childhood and one of them in particular still serves the role of a mother for me.

So why no public school for my child? Oh, where to begin...

1. The Curriculum. The phrase "Inch deep and a mile wide" seems to fit perfectly and that depth they speak of is not filled with entire accuracies either. If you don't believe me, pick up a history book. On top of that, it is monumentally boring to do ditto sheet after ditto sheet of stuff no matter how old you are, much less when you are 5! I do not want a child who hates learning or even one that tolerates it.

2. Lack of Play. If you are reading my blog, I probably do not need to convince you of the benefit of play in a child's life, how it is the ONLY way they learn anything, or that play is not 15 minute recess on a blacktop twice a day with one ball for 30 kids (if you are lucky). Ok, yes, some schools have more than that and maybe even a few blades of grass.
To get what I am looking for though, take a look at this and this company.

3. Extrinsic Control. Other than a life of love, the one thing I want more than anything for Elijah is to be internally motivated. To do things that matter to him with passion and to do what is right because it matters to him and not because he will get some reward for it or especially because he is afraid of what might happen to him if he does not do it. It is much more difficult to maintain that in a child when eight hours a day is spent in a rewards/punishments based, praise based, grades based system. I will get more into this in another post, but put more simply... I don't want Elijah to have to try to understand why he was demoted to the red card for talking to his friends during spelling.

There are so many other reasons that public school is not for us. These are the most important. And while there are excellent teachers out there who create amazing programs and who certainly make a difference, it is the system that is flawed. It is the politicians that have passed bills that do not allow those wonderful teachers to flourish to the best of their ability. And while things might one day change, the pendulum has swung so far in this direction, I don't see it coming back in my child's lifetime. I just can not let him be a casualty.

Popular Practices Examined... Part One (television)

I have been exposed to a whole new world of popular practices with babies since becoming a mother. While I have spent a lot of years in the field of early childhood, my everyday exposure and philosophies surrounded around the topics crucial to the 2-6 year old age range a majority of the time.

For many years now I have done parenting workshops on various topics, but without a doubt one of the topics I was most passionate about was television viewing and young children. Young children are defined as birth to eight years old by NAEYC.

For those who have not heard me give this workshop before (or many times before:), the research on screen viewing by young children is scary. It is not only about the content which most parents get and attempt to regulate by not showing violent shows, etc... It is also about the medium, the screen itself. The thousands of mega pixels that flash before the eyes of your children to make a picture on the screen, actually affects their brain.

For those who are not familiar with the brain, there are three components (triune brain model) that control different types of functioning.

*There is the Neo-Cortex which is responsible for higher level thinking, language, conscious thought, problem solving, sensory perception, and reasoning. It is part of the mammal brain only and really defines us as human in many ways.

*There is the Limbic System which is responsible for behavior, emotions, long term memory, and olfaction.

and then there is the:
*Reptilian Brain or R-complex which is the basic fight or flight level of the brain responsible for rage, protection, and basic survival mechanisms.

When children watch television, the screen they are viewing places them in the reptilian part of their brain where they are incapable of the the other levels of functioning. Their heart and respiratory rates increase and they are simply taking in input and analyzing it for no more than basic information. Have you ever noticed the blank stare on the faces of people watching TV? Is it any wonder people call it the idiot box?

Now I have heard many people say, "but my child learns so much from educational TV". This is not possible because higher level thought is not possible. They will be able to repeat what they heard, but the actual processing, understanding, and assimilation of that information is not happening.

Now here is the scary part, when your brain is put into reptilian functioning, it does not come out of it from 30 minutes to 3 hours! So if say, your child watch a bit of Sesame Street in the morning just before a visit to the museum or even a play date with her friend, it is likely she will not be able to take in any beneficial input or experiences due to the assault that just happened in the form of big bird.

Don't get me wrong, I think Sesame street, Mister Rogers, Lassie, even some (dare I say) Disney are decent programming, but it is just that... programming your child's brain and with a price to pay that is pretty hefty in my opinion. All of the topics Mister Rogers discusses are much better learned from life and books than from a screen.

I have spent many years spending time with children: some of which watch television, some of whom do not. It is very obvious to me the children who do even a little bit of viewing. You can see it in their creativity, in their imagination, in their play. I can give you examples that would make that reptilian brain spin.

Even the American Academy of Pediatrics says zero television viewing before the age of two which I consider to be a very liberal recommendation. They recognize the importance of infants having facial contact and the importance of language coming firsthand from another human being. As Dr. Sears puts it, "the best toy for a baby is its parent's faces." Still, programs such as babyTV, baby Einstein, and Nogin still exist.

When I was working with preschoolers, I thought TV viewing was only happening as they approached toddler and preschool years and beyond. Maybe the school had parents with a certain philosophical bias against television. However, what I am noticing as I get into the mommy world is that many people of new infants are choosing television, DVD's, and computer viewing for their babies! This really scares me. Actually, it terrifies me! Screen entertainment is a slippery, addictive slope. The more a child watches, the more they want. The more they want, the more advertising they are exposed to, and the more likely the imaginative world of fairies, gnomes, knights, and faraway lands cease to exist.

For those of you who still think you need the electronic babysitter to get anything done around the house, I promise you those shows are working against you. The begging, pleading, and whining for shows, character toys, special foods, and chemical filled bath products are just a stones throw away. Not to mention the fact that your child will be able to entertain themselves less and less.

Sure a baby requires a lot of attention and time, but as they mature, they play for longer and longer periods alone, look at books for longer and longer time frames, and are generally becoming more and more creative and independent. The television is slowing if not stopping that process dead in its tracks.

For more research and info on this topic:

-Endangered Minds: Why Children don't think-- and What We Can Do About It by Jane Healy

-FAILURE TO CONNECT: How Computers Affect Our Children's Minds -- and What We Can Do About It by Jane M. Healy

-Parenting Well in a Media Age: Keeping Our Kids Human by Gloria DeGaetano

-The Plug-In Drug: Television, Computers, and Family Life by Marie Winn

-Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television by Jerry Mander

They will guide us...

I am very lucky to have a huge group of friends to look towards for support in my parenting philosophy because when you group all the things I believe together it equals a way of parenting that is not all that common.
That being said, I (along with most of my friends) have lots of mainstream voices in my head. These voices are people whom I love and appreciate, but whom really do not understand why Josh and I make the decisions we do for Elijah. Some of them do not even try to understand our decisions, yet offer their advice or comments all too frequently.
The area where I am feeling the most pressure lately is in leaving Elijah. As he gets older (yes, he is the ripe old age of 12 months now), the pressure increases. Others want to babysit him or in their words give me time off. I genuinely appreciate this gesture as being a mama is exhausting as we all know, but I am not ready and neither is he.
My neighbor keeps making comments to me that basically amount to the fact that I will never leave him and he is just a big mama's boy. I think even a few months ago these comments affected me more than they do now. The reason is Elijah. He teaches me. Over the many years of watching other parents with their children, watching the ways other parents left their children (some for the first time in my care); I realized that one of the biggest hurdles parents have is trusting their children. I always told myself I would trust my child, that he knows what he needs. I learned this first from the famous Bev Bos and second from seeing it ring true time after time with the children in my care.

Still, once I had a baby so many doubts came back. I had learned enough times and it made sense to me the value in responding to a babies cry, but I doubted myself when Elijah only wanted to nurse to sleep. The fears overtakes you. Won't I make him dependent on nursing to sleep, I thought. And now with leaving him, he is VERY attached to mommy and for a while daddy would never do, but slowly Daddy, Grandma, and even Grandpa are starting to be wonderful "meeters of needs" also. With time, he was ready, ready to trust other people in his life. Of course for the first nine months, he only wanted me. I mean he had spent more of his life inside my body than out. His only food came from me. It made sense. I just needed to see the relationship with his daddy begin to develop and then I was reminded that if I trust him, he will do it when he is ready.
Now, he stays with Daddy while I run errands and while no one else will do when he is tired, hungry, hurt, or scared, one day that will change. I plan to enjoy it while it lasts.
I pledge to continue trusting Elijah when I am not sure, he will guide us.

Respect... it is not just for adults!

In the past few catalogs I have received from this company (I assume simply because I gave birth to a child), I have seen this advertisement for a "ThumbGuard".

It has made me made me laugh, made me angry, and made me cry. Until finally, it made me write.

It makes me laugh because the pure thought of someone paying for this seems so absurd. Can you really imagine having your child walking around with this on their hand? Can you imagine the child or the parent explaining it? It also makes me laugh to think that this company thought this was a good item to carry. Ok...I guess the laughing is not all that genuine.

It makes me angry for all the reasons above and because it is just rude and disrespectful to do something like strap a piece of hard plastic to a child in order to stop them from doing the one thing that brings them the most comfort. Yet, a single dentist can design this and many other doctors can place fear in parents over what could happen to a child's teeth, and parents line up to pay seventy-five whopping dollars to destroy a little piece of their child's spirit.

It makes me cry for all the reasons above, and because I can picture being that child scared, sad, tired, or in this case... humiliated to save her from an overbite. Who is she gonna go to for comfort? The parent who bought this for her? I think not.
For those who are left with the question in their minds of how to stop a thumb sucker then, I say to you:
Therapy is way more expensive than orthodontics.

Wooooo Wooooo

Today, Elijah heard a siren and right after he said, "Wooooo Wooooo." It was so precious. He was communicating with me, and every new opportunity to communicate with my son is a gift. After working with parents for years and teaching communication with children, my own son's first attempts at communicating with me are priceless.

But it also made me a little sad. He was, after all, repeating a sound he hears on at least a daily, if not hourly, basis since he was born. The sound of the great LBC. The place we call home. A 700-square foot condo that we own with absolutely NO outdoor space to call ours. No balcony, no porch, and definitely no yard.

For such a long time, the ideal that I have held for children and childhood and myself has been a meadow full of climbing trees, with a stream running through it. I picture a tree house, a few chickens, and maybe even a goat. I worked hard to create this at the preschool. A tried to create a haven away from the city life, away from even suburban life, for the children to just be.

And now I have my own child and he is growing so fast. To steal some words from Tom Hunter, "What will he remember from the time he was a child?" Where can he play free, run, climb, jump, and explore? Where can he do this without the fear of polluted water? Where can he hear the birds chirp and the grass rustle rather than the sirens blare? Where can he dig without finding cigarette butts and trash? Where can we be outdoors without long car rides?

Of all the things I want for my child, nature is among the most important. Does this mean I sacrifice being close to my friends and family, and those who know me best? Do I sacrifice diversity, progressive thinking, and like-minded people?
I guess time will only tell. The problem is he is growing up now...
Woooooooo Wooooooo

Sensory experiences and Play....

This one is for Susan....

There is never a day that goes by that I am not grateful for the amount of education and experience I had with children and child development before giving birth to my own child. It has served me well and (so far) I am not finding that having my own son has made me abandon any of my previously held beliefs about children and the environments I believe are best for them. If anything, they have gotten STRONGER! And get this, I have even more of them! Oh geez, they just keep coming I tell ya.

So while I am thankful for the knowledge and beliefs I have, being a mom in this situation can be downright lonesome and isolating from time to time. For example, this morning we attended a baby sign language class through our city. I really love the idea of exposing Elijah to another language and since we have no native speakers of any other language in our household and I have taken sign language in the past, this seemed like a good way to do that. But I got to tell you, I should have just bought a book with signs in it to refresh me. This 45 minute class was full of the same old thing I see everywhere when people relate to children. Lots of "yays and good jobs" abounded. While expressive faces on adults can be authentic and natural when talking to babies and children we love, usually what I see in these classes is an exaggerated enthusiasm. People bouncing around like they do on that Barney television show attempting to constantly entertain children with happy faces where everybody is friends and it is never OK to feel like bored for an instant. Can you hear the valley girl accent I am affecting?

For those of you who don't understand why I don't believe saying "Good Job" to children every time they breathe without dying, I will have to save this for another blog, but in the meantime, here is an article to aid you in understanding where I am coming from.

But back to the classes offered for children. I realize this may sound a little like a detached or cold point of view, but so many of these classes are loud, fast paced, and hyper cheerful to the point of being fake. I don't want my child surrounded by that at all. I want him to be a part of authentic people and experiences. This is something (forgive me for those currently enrolled) that Gymboree frankly does not offer. Who said it was developmentally appropriate to hang a baby or toddler from a bar or have them doing a forward roll anyway? I want him to explore his world, but AT HIS OWN PACE. It literally tears my heart out when they hand my child an instrument in music class and then tear it away from him 3 minutes later because the song is over. Children need long periods of uninterrupted free time to explore and without too many restrictions. This is the only way they truly learn anything.

It is lonely when all the people who get you and understand why these things are important have older children who could care less about playing with Elijah. Most(thank goodness for you Jennifer) new moms usually do not understand the way I prefer to play and relate to my son. I can't seem to find any friends or connections in these classes, maybe because I can barely get through the class itself without pulling my hair out.

I have started a class for Elijah for this exact reason. I want an environment where he can touch things as much as he wants, where the adults sit back and observe the child's pace, where songs are sung slowly and at a tone where the children can understand the words and see the actions. I want an environment where the children's voices are heard more than the teachers. I want one where the people in the class are treating their children with as much respect as all human beings deserve. I don't want any child being treated like a doll or much worse, a pet. "Good Rolling, Fido!"

Sensory experiences are important, children need to engage all of the senses to truly learn, but overwhelming a child with sights and sounds causes irritation to their senses. Unfortunately I think many of these classes are attempting to be live television sets. This only causes a dependency for things to be loud and obnoxious in order to grab a child's attention. Maybe their is a vicious cycle here?

Instead give them the gift of true play (play is defined as free choice of an activity) and save your money (these classes are outrageously expensive) and give your child a container with flour and water, I guarantee you their brain and personality will be better off!

Some sensory ideas you can bring into your own home (sorry I took so long to get here Susan): Email me with clarification on any of these.

Cornstarch (Flour)/ Water: Cornstarch cleans up much easier than flour so I usually go this route, but flour is a whole new texture when wet. Plus you can make your own playdough.

Rice/Beans/Pasta with containers: Save all those scoops, plastic containers for use with things like this. Cooked Pasta provides a whole different experience and if you are really ambitious, color the pasta for a rainbow effect. You can add sequins or glitter here too.

Soil/Water: I use organic soil when I work with children. You can add seeds or beans to this with older children and plastic cups for planting.

Shaving Cream: For any child not putting everything in their mouth, squirting some of this on a table with combs and food coloring in spray bottles is awesome!

Plain old water: with animals, cups, funnels, food coloring, basters, any clear item from the kitchen, the possibilities are endless.

Play Sand: There are so many different kinds of sand these days, some mold into shapes with compressing. My favorite is this and this. There are even recipes for the moon sand online.

Flax Seed: OH MY! This is one mom won't want to leave for just the little ones. The seed is so silky smooth I could keep my hands in it all day, after playing with it for a week or so, add warm water and you will not believe how great it feels. Warning: Very difficult clean up :(, but so worth it.

Salt/Ice: I put out ice cubes for sculpting into different designs, add spoon and some salt. You can also freeze food coloring with a little water and paint with the frozen ice cubes.

Flubber: Here is the recipe. I put this out with green strawberry crates and scissors. I make it in much bigger quantities of course.

There are so many other ideas like making your own clay, paint, coffee grounds, fresh cut grass, gelatin molds, etc, etc, etc....

The possibilities are endless. If you are in the neighborhood, come by our playgroup and then I do all the clean up. :)
Happy Playing!