Maturity also plays a role. Older students perform better and are much more focused, causing less trouble for teachers. What then happens to the younger students who are “behind” these older students, but are technically on track for kindergarten? The Times aptly describes kindergarten as “the new first grade,” a comment I cannot fully disagree with, having worked with a variety of kindergartners in the New York suburbs and seen some of the homework teachers assigned. Further, such actions will only widen the socio-economic gap in many districts as lower-income families may not be able to afford another year of pre-school or to miss another year of full-time employment. One mother considers this an extra leg-up, and put her daughter in school at 4, despite the fact that she was born just 5 days before the October 1st cut off.

But maturity is more than just academic and can have social and emotional repercussions as well. What about children who will go through puberty before their peers, or have moved onto more mature interests, abandoning their Barbies and tea sets for teenie-bopper CDs and makeup kits? As someone who has actually watched an entire episode of Hannah Montana with a couple of 6 year old girls, I am in still in awe that parents permit their first graders to watch such things, as they encourage the boy-crazed years to come all too soon.

As parents make claims that keeping their child back will help them in the future, all I can wonder is how they can come to make such predictions. Doctors tell parents all the time that their children might be a bit slow starting out and that parents should be concerned; sometimes those kids end up being valedictorian in their graduating class.

What do you think? Will keeping your child back make a huge difference?

It seems that more and more pesticides are becoming part of the problem: linked to growth development, illness, and now proven to be correlated to ADHD, they’re bad. What becomes more problematic, however, is when one considers just how many “kid-friendly” foods are on the Dirty Dozen list, like strawberries, blueberries, and celery. The blogger points out that there is no one formula for ADHD and to avoid food with toxins may not necessarily prevent ADHD all together – studies like this cannot be performed on groups of children since a variety of factors influence ADHD, including genes and exposure to lead and cigarette smoke. Further, exactly how the organophosphates compounds (the pesticide) are linked to the disorder remains unclear, but in a study of 1,139 children, researchers found that the number of children with ADHD rose with higher levels of pesticide breakdown products.

Organophosphates, of which there are 40 kinds used as pesticides in the US, were first developed for chemical warfare. Though organic produce may be out of your budget — and it certainly is out of mine! — it’s best to look for ways to avoid pesticides however you can.

What’s most important is to remember to always wash your produce, regardless of how clean it may look.

For more information on the study, click here.

After completing a three year analysis on what’s being called the “summer slide” of reading skills among school children, researchers at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, have happened upon a significant factor is keeping kids interested in books; let them choose their own reading material.

In a study where 852 first and second graders were allowed to choose from over 600 free books, most participants  did not choose books related to their course materials or age range. In fact, Tara Parker-Pope of the New York Times reports, one of the most popular books was a biography on Britney Spears.  Not exactly Charles Dickens. But when researchers compared reading test results from these children to a control group who did not receive books, they found that the experimental group had significantly better test scores (especially among the poorest children). It would seem then that a book on Brit is better than no book at all.

So rather than picking up every book on your child’s “suggested summer reading list”, it might be worthwhile to let your child choose a book that speaks to his or her interest (even if it is a comic book about a flatulent superhero). Anything that makes reading seem more like fun and less like a chore may contribute to better reading habits and vocabulary later in life.

With that in mind, we at Speakaboos are launching our Summer Reading Program — watch any 10 of our storybook videos, submit an entry form listing what you watched, and we’ll send you an Arthur Celebrity Audiobook CD! Happy reading!

One thing that struck me in the article is this: “[working mothers] displayed greater “maternal sensitivity,” or responsiveness toward their children, than stay-at-home mothers.” That’s incredible, since it’s always the same argument among stay-at-home parents: not being there means your child doesn’t get enough love or attention. Granted, there’s always the issue of finding quality childcare, but at least now mothers can feel less guilty about rushing off to work and know that their child’s development will not be obstructed in any way by their career decisions.

Cheers, working moms!

What does it take to fly with children, to prevent upsetting other travelers on board and avoid any possible situation like that on Qantas? Stewards encourage parents with screaming children to take them in back and give them medication, to put them to sleep, doing whatever they can to make everyone else comfortable. Parents often blog about how it’s unfair for parents to criticize other parents openly, whether in line at the grocery store or on a plane. Sitting on a plane, there is no escape from those dagger eyes, which all parents know too well. It’s not even like you can discipline your child in public the way you would at home; on an airplane, there is no time-out chair, no corner to squat in. It’s probably best to come up with a small set of travel-specific discipline techniques, like taking away toys, refusing rewards like snacks or candies, etc.

New security measures make it incredibly difficult for parents and children alike to fly safely and comfortably; in a world where liquids are restricted to a certain size, I wonder just when markers or other liquid-based toys will also be confiscated. Like any trip, you pack the whole art kit, games, electronics, anything and everything to help your child enjoy his/herself. Further, with airfare increasing ever so frequently, paying for an additional seat is just not cost effective. The question, then, becomes as much about safety as it does about finances. At what point do you just hop in the car and turn it into a good ol’ fashioned road trip?

What do you do to calm your kids when traveling? Is there a trick to keeping your kids relaxed without turning to medication or bribery?

Though I argued once before that parents should stay out of their child’s social media presence and allow them to freely use these sites, I feel I cannot make the same argument for the entire Internet. At a certain point, the birds and the bees of Internet safety are unavoidable. It is up to parents, not teachers or school administrators, to sit down with their children and explain how to safely use the Internet.  Fortunately, modern parents don’t have as much of an excuse as my parents did ten years ago when I started using America Online to chat with my friends or go into chat rooms.  Since neither of my parents worked in offices, they had limited interaction with computers and therefore, couldn’t make heads or tails of what I was doing. Dial-up connection probably protected me best. Today’s parents are familiar with the web and use it themselves, and many most likely have Facebook accounts either for networking or socializing. Though the youth will always have a better understanding of technology, there’s still plenty they will choose to ignore simply because they’re young. Even at 21, I know the feeling of invincibility is a curse inflicted, maybe even wasted, upon the youth.

Most kids don’t want to deal with helicopter parents who hover over them and control what they do. Once the early teen years arrive, they generally want their space and privacy. Blogger Nancy Gibbs for Time online writes, “Most of us were probably less than immaculately honest as teenagers; it’s practically encoded into adolescence that you savor your secrets, dress in disguise, carve out some space for experiments and accidents and all the combustible lab work of becoming who you are.” Secrecy is a part of growing up. The best way to protect your child from harm is just to illustrate the risks involved. In the end, not unlike your own experience, mistakes will only serve as a reminder that parents might actually know what they’re talking about… and you can always say, “I told you so!”

To check out the Time Mag blog click here.

“At Speakaboos, we believe that kids should be exploring the web safely, using it as a means to help their education.  We are delighted to share our videos with the Kideos audience,” says Noelle Milholt, associate publisher for Speakaboos. “We hope they enjoy discovering new songs and stories while revisiting their favorites.”

Every week the Speakaboos will introduce a new video to its Kideos library which currently includes:

1. If You’re Happy and You Know It
2. The Wheels on the Bus
3. Little Bunny Foo Foo
4. Yankee Doodle
5. Head Shoulders Knees and Toes
6. I’m a Little Tea Pot
7. Frere Jacques
8. Oh Susanna
9. The Gingerbread Man
10. I’ve Been Working on the Railroad
11. Little Miss Muffet
12. Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
13. Jack and the Beanstalk
14. The Eency Weency Spider
15. Take Me Out to the Ball Game
16. The Little Red Hen
17. Mary Had a Little Lamb
18. Row Your Boat
19. Baa Baa Black Sheep
20. The Muffin Man

Visit the Speakaboos channel on Kideos today! http://www.kideos.com/Speakaboos

http://www.cisionwire.com/212–media-/speakaboos-launches-channel-on-kideos27797

But for all Sandler’s talk about financial efficiency and parental bliss, she never discusses how the “singletons” actually feel about their familial situation. In fact, Sandler seems to have carefully chosen to interview only parents with very young children, perhaps to avoid giving her audience a child’s perspective on growing up without siblings.

I was raised as an only child (I make the distinction from of saying “I am an only child” because I did have a half-brother, but our sixteen year age gap prevented us from ever growing up together like siblings). I do have a close relationship with my parents. And while my circumstances may have enabled a richer intellectual upbringing (I always did very well academically and was able to graduate from college a year and half early), I’m not sure it was an ideal situation. For the most part I was a very awkward, very lonely little girl. All I wanted was a younger sister – which I begged my parents for every Christmas, but though my parents wanted other children, they’d had me late in life and having more wasn’t a medical option (this was a few years before infertility treatments became popular). Though I now have a healthy and fulfilling social life, I can’t help but wonder whether I would have been more comfortable with myself if I’d had a sibling to pal around with.

To date I’ve never met an only child whose parents chose to stop at one; they’re always a product of circumstance, usually divorce or infertility. For the most part we’re well-adjusted human beings living among the masses, though there are always going to bet the few who are self-centered, aloof, and asocial. Similarly, I’ve never met an only child who didn’t at one point in time long for a sibling. Ours’ is a position of acceptance, not privilege, though it does enable a certain early maturity (while I can’t say my grades had anything to do with my status as an only child, I can say that ability to productively use “alone time” is probably an effect of my upbringing).  Sandler makes some interesting arguments in favor of having one child, but having gone through it myself I don’t think I could do it another child. Intellectual growth and alone time aside, when/if I have children, I want just that – children, not child.

Article Link:  http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2002382,00.html

One thing the article does effectively is announce the fact that having children is NOT a requirement. That said, having kids has switched from the “economic asset” idea that children are here to make parents’ lives easier, whether it be they take over the family farm, run the deli or corner grocer, or just, over all, contribute something. Modern parents must view their children as an investment and be prepared to commit everything to them: time, effort, and above all, finances. In a world where life starts only with a college degree, it’s impossible to kick your kids to the curb at 18 and expect they’ll be great people. I once had a friend whose mother said to her, “You’re supposed to be better than me. That’s how parenting works. I make you a better person than I could ever make myself and I benefit from watching that.” What she said was possibly one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever heard, and also, a mantra that I think my own mother has picked up on as I’ve grown and moved out of the house.

To reference a blog post from a few weeks ago, parenting in the United States is just not easy. The state does little to assist you and doesn’t offer any real guidance on how to be a good parent. It’s no lie that parenting should be easier for those with greater financial means to hire the nannies, housekeepers, and take time off from work to spend time with their budding tots. The article discusses the happiness of Ohioan moms versus French moms; the French seem to really have it all, including a better outlook on parenting, thanks to all the social welfare available to families. If parents can switch off and take time off like they do in Sweden, perhaps it would be better for the whole family. A study in 2004 surveying 909 Texas women found that out of 19 daily activities, childcare ranked #16, with cleaning coming before it…

Perhaps the most poignant and best quote in the whole article is, said by a woman whose parents are immigrants and don’t understand all the “modern” parenting frenzy: “They just think Americans are a little too complicated about everything.” I love America, but these people are right. Maybe it’s time to move away from those self-help books telling you that you shouldn’t let your child sleep for x-amount of time because of x-rationale. Maybe it’s just time that parents have children because they want to make mistakes, grow from them, and produce beautiful little people. Maybe the problem is that as so many people became more and more independent and prosperous that many of them just became selfish.

There is no single image for the perfect parent. It’s important to be prepared for all the ups and downs, curveballs and fastballs, and whatever else that comes your way. A guidebook won’t make you a better mother or father, but realizing that your little family is whatever you want it to be will make the experience better. And besides, it’s supposed to be hard. But isn’t that the fun part?