On Parenting

How to get your kids to bond with your parents (even if your bond isn't so strong)

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 10:56:21 -0500

I'm traveling this week with my wife, a professional trip that meant that the kids needed to stay home. Fortunately, Grammy is keeping an eye on the girls this week. Earlier in the year, the other grandparents bailed me out by watching the kids when I was on the road. We're not physically close to family, so getting this help takes some logistical juggling, but we can make it work. Not everyone is so lucky. As we were preparing to leave, an old classmate flashed me a wry smile when I told him that my mother-in-law was holding down the fort. He was somewhat estranged from his parents, not in the never-see-them sense, but in the sense that his family rifts had grown so large that he dared not ask his parents to step in. Part of it was a lack of trust, he said, and part of it was

Holiday cheer, the cheap way

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 08:18:35 -0500

Most of us may still be consuming the last reminders of Halloween -- miniature-sized Snickers, itty-bitty bags of Skittles -- during our afternoon (and morning, and evening, and midnight) snacks. But if TV commercials, Friday's release of "Disney's A Christmas Carol" and the recent release of the Toys "R" Us Big Toy Book are any indication, the holiday season is more or less upon us. With its arrival comes this survey conducted by Consumer Reports, which finds that one-third of adults plan to spend less money on holiday gifts this year than they did in 2008. Two-thirds of the 1,000 people questioned also said they intend to trim holiday expenses on a broader scale, including cut backs on travel and decorations. And worst of all -- at least if you're Jerry Seinfeld and you've just received a label maker from Tim Whatley -- is the fact that more grown-ups say

Why I fear the first bra

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 07:00:30 -0500

My oldest has begun to excitedly ask me when I think that she'll get to 5 feet tall (she has a few inches to go yet). She seems to think that breaking the 5-foot barrier marks some sort of milestone on the progression to young adulthood. I have to be honest: It's not hitting 5 feet that worries me. It's all of the other indicators of creeping young adulthood. Among the biggest, to me, is the bra: a cloth marker of the passage from childhood into adolescence. The bra is also tricky for me, because it marks the departure from a stage of her life that I understand relatively well into one that is far more murky. I have no idea when a girl needs to start thinking about adding an undergarment to the usual wardrobe, and I have even less of an idea how to be any assistance in

Babysitting: Is it worth the investment?

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 06:37:58 -0500

My wife and I went out last Friday night (no, we didn't go pumpkin smashing), and our college-aged babysitter let it drop that she was sitting even though the party she had thought was Saturday was actually happening that night. I quickly apologized -- we could have found a replacement -- but the sitter wasn't concerned in the least. "It's OK," she said. "I'll just go when you guys get back. You never stay out late." "You never stay out late." It was a dagger to my middle-aged heart. We could spend hours painting the town red and roll back home at 11 p.m., and our sitter could still pack in a full night of whatever it is that college kids do. I was clearly getting old. What was next? Getting a sitter at 4:30 p.m. to hit the early-bird specials. But after a moment of reflection, I stopped worrying

How do you raise kids who aren't bystanders?

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 07:00:34 -0500

A week ago, a 15-year-old California girl was raped and beaten by several people for 2 hours outside of a high school homecoming dance. The horror of the crime is almost too much for me to take in. In a case like this, no matter how much I think about it, I'm always left with more questions than answers. As the news on the subject evolved, more and more questions are being raised not only about the attackers (at least four have been charged), but about the dozen or so individuals who witnessed the crime and did nothing to stop it. There have been a number of theories thrown about on why so many could stand idly by, all of them plausible, all of them insufficient. I don't have any special insight into the kids who saw what was happening and did nothing, and I have a great deal of

The best parenting items from October that we didn't discuss

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 07:00:36 -0500

Every month, there is plenty of thoughtful stuff that we never get around to discussing, and I wanted to give an overview of some of the more provocative thinking circulating in the parenting press in October: Most research shows that having kids makes you more miserable, but a new study suggests otherwise. (Unless you're single, in which case the kids really do drag you down.) I buy the idea. Yes, I'm frazzled, but I'm not sure I'd have it any other way. The New York Times asks if screaming is the new spanking. Maybe it's just me, but the garden variety outburst of frustration seems to be a whole different class than physical violence. Salon asked whether all the parenting books out there simply have the effect of making parents feel like failures. My take is it's actually pretty hard to really screw up kids, as long as you show

Reflecting on past -- and future -- Cabbage Nights

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 07:00:03 -0500

It was in about eighth grade that the late-October talk in homeroom began to focus on "Cabbage Night," rather than Halloween. Cabbage Night -- known elsewhere as Mischief Night and Devil's Night -- in my hometown was an opportunity for modest rule-breaking and low-level vandalism. Parents were fed cover stories, teens roamed the street aimlessly. At the extreme, pumpkins were smashed, trees were TP-ed, and houses were egged. "I have a gross of eggs ready to go," my deskmate, Aaron, boasted that year. "Do you have any idea how many eggs that is?" "Sure," I said, confident in my math. "It's 144." "At least!" said Aaron, who would later regale me with exaggerated tales of his egg-chucking buddies and their cat-and-mouse games with his parents and the police. Traditionally, Cabbage Night falls on the night before Halloween. This year, it falls on a Friday night, which should make things even

Want to know where the kids are? Ask their Buddy

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 07:00:52 -0500

We live in a dangerous world. We all know this. Many parents probably would go to any lengths to keep their kids safe, or at least to have better tabs on where they are at any given moment. Enter the Little Buddy, a new child-tracking device that moms and dads can place in backpacks, lunch boxes or coat pockets, thereby enabling them to follow their kids' every move, every day. That's right: if giving your children their own cell phones, following them on Twitter and constantly refreshing their Facebook status updates isn't enough, well, now you can essentially bug 'em, turning you into the CIA of your own household. Look, I understand why plenty of people might love the idea of this GPS gadget. It sounds like a foolproof way to keep your kid out of trouble and the clutches of potential kidnappers. That might explain why both the blue

Getting the 'brace face' at a younger age

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 07:01:13 -0500

Halloween came early for me this year. About a month ago, I took my elementary-schooler to the orthodontist, and -- and hour later -- she emerged looking like a tween, her new brackets decked out with green rubber bands. All she needed was a copy of "Twilight" and she would have been indistinguishable from kids at the middle school down the block. My daughter is at the younger range of children who need braces, but there was no doubt that we were going to have to spring for early orthodontia. At her routine dental visit, the dentist noticed that her molars were coming in at an odd angle, preventing the normal emergence of her adult teeth. I showed the x-rays to my father and brother -- both dentists -- and they just laughed. There was no watch-and-wait, they said. She need braces, and it wouldn't be fun. My daughter is

Imprisoned (at home) by the flu

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 07:00:09 -0500

I received the dreaded call from school early last Thursday morning: The big kid had complained of a stomach ache, spiked a fever in the nurse's office, and needed to come home. Odds are, if you haven't received that call yet this year, you will. While my job has certain advantages -- such as a home office -- having a full work schedule and a couch-bound elementary schooler is a major disruption. I'm lucky enough that the work stuff can pretty much take care of itself (though the massive disruptions that H1N1 flu will cause for parents makes a strong case for passing sick leave legislation); the major issue is keeping a child occupied for days on end when they are too much of a public health hazard to leave the house. Here is the list -- by no means comprehensive -- of how we've been toughing it out: Cracking

Anti-TV forces declare victory over Baby Einstein

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 07:25:45 -0500

The anti-TV folks just claimed one heck of a prize: Disney has decided to refund Baby Einstein-buying parents the cost of their DVDs. Though the Baby Einstein refund page doesn't give any context about what drove the decision, the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood claimed victory: The refund offer is a wonderful victory for families and anyone who cares about children. Recent research shows that screen time is not educational for babies. Now parents who purchased Baby Einstein DVDs, mistakenly believing the videos would make their babies smarter, can recoup their money. The opinions espoused on this blog have been pretty clear: Television is not, in general, the best thing to expose your children to, especially the under-2 set, even though it may not actually turn many brains to mush. And older kids could probably do with less tube time. (Heck, with the possible exception of "Project Runway" and "Mad

Will the risk of brain injury dampen your child's gridiron dreams

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 07:00:11 -0500

Youth sports can be brutal. When I was a teen, I went to one of my sister's field hockey games. In the span of five minutes, three members of the opposing team had to be helped off the field after being struck by the hard-as-a-rock field hockey ball. A few minutes later, a fourth player was down on the ground, and a lively debate ensued about whether -- given the shrinking bench and the carnage that had already taken place -- it might be best to call the game. Still, the risk of field hockey looks positively minimal when you compare it to the risk of playing football, which has suddenly become a huge public health concern as evidence mounts that the repeated contact that is part of the game can lead to a kind of brain damage called chronic traumatic encephalopathy that eventually mimics dementia. The risks to pro

When kid costumes go a little too far

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 07:25:04 -0500

Would you really let your third grader knock on the neighbors' doors dressed like this? (Eric Von Lockhart/Lifestyles Halloween Gore via AP) In this last week before Halloween, many of us costume-challenged parents will spend an inordinate amount of mental energy trying to decide how to dress our children for that special night of tricks, treats and too many snack-sized Three Musketeers bars. (Nougat -- blech.) We'll grapple with tough questions like: does it violate Halloween etiquette if my son wears the same puppy costume two years in a row? Is it wrong if my daughter dresses as me for Halloween, I go as her, and we call ourselves Freaky Friday? Is taping a bunch of balloons to my kid and announcing that he's dressed as Balloon Boy inappropriate, lazy or a little of both? (Actually, this might be lazier.) Some of us will crack under the pressure and

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Thu, 22 Oct 2009 07:25:04 -0500

Becoming a master storyteller

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 07:00:21 -0500

Yesterday's discussion on "Where the Wild Things Are" needled on my one of my weak points as a parent: I'm not a very good storyteller. I'm not capable of spinning the kind of scary story that would keep my kids up at night. I can't even keep them very well engaged in the silly tales that I do tell. I am convinced this is a learnable skill. When I was still new at the parenting thing, I ended up -- in a really weird turn of events -- spending one afternoon of an adult-only vacation at a storytelling symposium with a guy named Willy Claflin. Claflin's shtick was simple: He used a series of puppets to tell fractured fairy tales (listen to an example here). His tips for the puppet were interesting -- Claflin suggests just staring at the puppet, because kids will follow your gaze (no need for ventriloquism!)

The fine line between fright and fun

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 07:43:05 -0500

The movie adaptation of "Where the Wild Things Are," has re-opened what I like to think of as the winged-monkey debate, in honor of the creepiest scene in "The Wizard of Oz": At what age is it appropriate to scare the bejeezus out of kids? Because he conceived the source material and actually wrote the book, I want to give the first word to Maurice Sendak, who minced no words with Newsweek: What do you say to parents who think the Wild Things film may be too scary? Sendak: I would tell them to go to hell. That's a question I will not tolerate. Compare that to the more nuanced take of the collection of experts that the New York Times assembled to try to answer the same question. The consensus seemed to be that different sorts of fiction tend to freak out preschoolers, who don't really have a good