Playdate Planet Blog Updates

What if Your Child Was Born in the Wrong Body?

2013-04-15 06:56:53

On this week's Parenting With Playdate Planet show, I spoke with Rachel Pepper and Dr. Kellen Bennett about transgender kids. There's been an increasing openess about the phenomenom of children being born a gender that doesn't match with their own sense of self. Despite what some people might say, this is not something that families choose for their kids. In fact, even though society has become more open-minded, being transgender is an extremely difficult life.

I remember when my son was little and in pre-school. His close friends in his class happened to be girls and not infrequently I would arrive to pick him up and would find him happily adorned in a pink dress. I always found it harmless, and actually he looked quite cute in that dress, but I noticed with surprise that my husband's reaction was a bit different. He never said anything to my son about it, but I could tell that it troubled him a bit. When I asked him about it, he told me that during his training to become a child psychiatrist, the kids with gender identification issues were some of his most tormented patients. He knew that our son wasn't transgender, but just the thought of that possibility raised the spectre of the pain he had observed.

I hope that we continue to educate ourselves so that transgender kids can focus on their own journey and making the right choices for themselves without the additional burden of a judgmental and dangerous world.

Can Good Kids Rape?

2013-03-18 16:18:43

On this week's Parenting With Playdate Planet radio show, I talked with Mike Dormitz, founder of the Date Safe Project, about what parents can do to help their children make smart sexual choices. This show is particularly timely given the recent verdict in the Steubenville, Ohio rape trial where two young men were convicted of sexually assaulting a high school girl. There's been a lot of attention on social media to the reporting subsequent to the verdict that focused on the tragic consequences for the convicted defendants who were described as good students with a lot of potential.

I agree with those who find this media coverage of the Stebenville conviction disturbing. The focus should not be on the perpetrators' lost promise, but the damage done to the victim herself and to women and girls at large. We must find a way to reverse the horrific rape statistics in this country. But, in reading various Facebook comments the past few days, I get the sense that people think that the two young men who committed these heinous acts are horrible kids. And that's where I disagree. I don't know these boys, and they might be bad apples, but it's also quite possible that these were nice kids who committed horrible acts. Teenagers' brains are still growing and developing. They are more impulsive and they can make extremely bad choices, especially when bolstered, like these football players were, by false adulation and encouraged by peer pressure. Mike Dormitz, whose mission to address sexual violence was sparked by the rape of his sister, also believes that good kids can commit sexual assault.

I'm not sure that we help the cause by believing that this sort of crime is only committed by somebody else's bad kid. The statistics suggest that this is a much broader problem. 1 out of 6 women will be the victim of rape or attempted rape in their lifetime. 38 percent of female rape victims were raped between the ages of 14 and 17. Girls ages 16 - 19 are 4 times more likely than the general population to be victims of rape, attempted rape, or sexual assault. If we stick our heads in the sand and assume that only bad kids born to bad parents are committing these crimes, this problem will not end. We all need to do a better job educating our boys and girls about sexual decision-making and what constitutes sexual assault. Otherwise, some of us good parents of good boys could end up learning a hard lesson too late.

What to do About Bullying?

2013-03-04 07:45:31

On this week's Parenting With Playdate Planet radio show, I tackled the subject of bullying with expert, J Richard Knapp of Stop-Bullies.com. I put off doing this show for some time because I felt that the subject was getting so much coverage already from the media that perhaps additional discussion wasn't necessary. As I listened to the coverage, however, I realized that it wasn't fully addressing my questions as a parent. There's been extensive talk about bullying as a societal problem, and extensive talk about eradicating bullying, but I haven't found the answers that I was looking for as a parent. What do we do to keep our children safe? How do we avoid raising a bully? When and how should we intervene if we find out our child is a victim?

My children have been fortunate not to have yet faced bullying from peers, but it is my opinion that their middle school teachers have become lax with how they speak to kids and, in fact, on certain occasions, one has bullied my son. In reflecting on this, and after my interview with Jim Knapp, I think that perhaps the most important thing that schools can do to address this issue is to ensure that every administrator, and every teacher, always demonstrates appropriate interactions with students and one another. If teachers are permitted to be disrespectful to their students, they are establishing a culture that values leadership through power rather than leadership by example. If those in charge of a school or a classroom shame students, they are sending the message that it is okay to make a point or elevate oneself at the expense of another. In essence, they are teaching students to bully!

When my son was ridiculed in his classroom by a teacher for no apparent reason, one of his middle school peers had the strength of character to find this conduct reprehensible. After the class ended, she gathered up a few friends for moral support, and this soft-spoken youngster returned to the classroom to tell that teacher she did not think she had spoken to my son appropriately. And she asked that teacher not to do that again. That child is wise beyond her years in recognizing that we cannot be bystanders when others are being treated inappropriately.

What do you think are steps that we can take to turn the tide against bullying?

Parenting Without Losing Your Mind

2013-02-25 09:09:08

In this week's radio show on Parenting With Playdate Planet, I speak with Dr. Heather Wittenberg about being a good enough parent. She gives my listeners lots of practical tips and advice for handling some of the thornier issues of parenting young children, such as sleep, eating, tantrums, travelling, and potty training.

But my absolute favorite part of our conversation was something she said right at the beginning, which is that the research shows that parent and child are hurt, not helped, when a parent strives for perfection. How awesome is that?! We can all breathe a sigh of relief and let go of some of that parental guilt that most of us carry around.

For me, I never really strove for perfection because, frankly, I knew that I couldn't achieve it. I never thought that I could be the perfect parent. I'm not sure whether that comes from an honest self-assessment of my parenting abilities or unfounded insecurity, but there it is. However, I still feel guilty about all the ways I've possibly failed my children.

I know intellectually that we don't have as much impact on our children as we think we do, but guilt is part of my cultural upbringing and hard to shake off! So I'm going to make a conscious effort now to remind myself that imperfect parenting is best for child and parent!

How about you? Do you agree that striving for perfection is not in your child's best interests? Are you able to let go and embrace being a "good enough" parent?

How to Teach Children Life Skills

2013-02-18 07:49:29

On this week's Parenting With Playdate Planet radio show, I talk with social entrepreneur and author Marlaine Cover about teaching chidren life skills. Our children are taught reading, writing, and arithmatic by trained academics. But how are they supposed to learn about being a good citizen, nutrition, balancing a budget, time management, and all the other important life skills that we all need to thrive in society? Unfortunately, these skills were never fully embraced by the traditional academic environment, and they are becoming less and less of a focus as schools race to keep up with the new curriculum standards. Yet, these basic skills remain fundamentally critical. So it falls to us as parents to teach these things to our children.

What do we do if we don't know all of this content? Or, perhaps, we do know how to manage our finances, but we're not sure how to impart this information to our children? Marlaine's answer is to seek out the advice and support of experts in these various fields who are committed to helping parents and children. I think that's a great start, but a lot of us don't have the time or energy to proactively seek out guidance on teaching each important life skill.

I wish that schools did a better job incorporating these skills. Why not teach math through the prism of balancing a budget? Or teach a science unit about the human body and nutrition and have students plan a weekly menu and exercise schedule?

What do you think? How do you make sure your kids are learning the life skills they will need as adults?

What To Do About Gun Violence?

2013-02-04 06:39:05

On this week's Parenting With Playdate Planet radio show, I speak with Kim Russell, National Director of Chapter Outreach and one of the founding members of One Million Moms for Gun Control about what moms can do about gun violence.

Last night, I watched a chorus of children from Sandy Hook Elementary School, accompanied by actress and singer Jennifer Hudson, sing a moving rendition of "America the Beautiful" and marvelled at how they all could still take such pride in a country that they may rightfully believe has not done enough to protect them.

We have a problem with gun violence in this country. The statistics are staggering and put us entirely in a league of our own when it comes to a comparison with other nations. Guns kill African American teenagers in urban areas on a daily basis. And now even families who have chosen what they consider to be safe neighborhoods to raise their children must face the remote, but real, possibility that a disturbed individual with an assault weapon can change their life forever.

We have to do something about this epidemic of violence. I personally believe that we need tighter gun control measures and better education and services for those with mental illness. What has given me hope after the Sandy Hook tragedy is how many people are now getting involved in this conversation. Particularly as moms, we have to speak up and claim our political power. We vote. We matter. No matter where you think the answer lies, communication and engagement is the next stop. The country needs to hear what you think. Let's start by talking here.

The Challenges of Mental Illness

2012-12-17 06:36:24

On this week's Parenting With Playdate Planet radio show, I interviewed my husband and child psychiatrist, David Axelson, to talk about how parents can recognize signs of mental illness in their children and where to turn for help if they do. In the wake of the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting, this topic is unnervingly topical. I was impressed by a courageous blog post on Huffington Post by a mother of a young teenage boy with unpredictable mood swings and violent outbursts. She wrote that Adam Lanza could have been her son. Although she has taken her child to see many doctors and has tried many medications, they have as yet been unable to successfully manage his behavior. No insurer will pay for extended long-term in-patient treatment so when he does get admitted to the hospital, he is discharged within a few days after his violent episode has calmed down. This mother lives with a ticking time bomb despite her best efforts as a parent.

Clearly, we need to revamp our mental health system in this country. Strides have been taken. The Mental Health Parity Act and Obamacare should at least help increase the amount of coverage for mental illness and restrict insurance companies\' ability to deny coverage based on preexisting conditions. But we have a critical shortage of child psychiatrists, laws that often make it difficult for doctors to provide necessary treatment, and a pervasive stigma that deters families from seeking help.

My own journey with parenting a child with mental illness has been a challenging, yet hopeful, one. In second grade, my son began to describe experiencing uncomfortable thoughts that he could not control. It turned out he was suffering from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. For him this disorder did not manifest itself in compulsive hand-washing, but in intrusive and persistent thoughts that he did not like, but could not stop on her own. He began a course of treatment with a child psychiatrist which included taking medication. But the medication worked and he no longer suffers from these disturbing thoughts.

He does however continue to battle anxiety and ADHD. As my husband explains in our interview, mental illnesses often present together so people often struggle with multiple sets of symptoms. We resisted treating his ADHD because he was already being medicated for the OCD, but by the end of fourth grade, he was on the verge of a breakdown at school because he could not tolerate reading and writing and was unable to complete assignments. After he went on stimulant medication, the change was nothing short of miraculous. My son, who had such poor handwriting that he was considered to have a writing disability, was writing clearly and legibly. Although reading was not pleasurable for him, he was able to do it and keep up with all of his work. He is now an 8th grader, an A student who independently manages all of his work load. He still has some social challenges, perhaps as a result of his ADHD or because he lost some critical formative years while we were struggling to diagnose and treat his OCD, but he is friends with all of the boys in his grade and each year improves on his social interactions.

I would urge any of you reading this who are concerned about a child to take your son or daughter to someone for an evaluation. There is no shame in mental illness. A child with ADHD or depression or OCD is no different than a child with diabetes. It is not a reflection of your parenting or his bad behavior. It is a function of brain chemistry. We must get past those outdated and unproductive ways of thinking.

As we approach the holidays, I am frequently invited to attend charitable events. In my city, many of these events seem targeted towards funding the local children's hospital. I love the hospital, my daughter was there recently for a few days with a hand infection, and received wonderful treatment. But my experience showed me how rich in resources the hospital is. The building is beautiful, with multiple play spaces and private rooms for the patient and a parent. In my city, children with mental illness are not hospitalized here; they are in a unit in the psychiatric hospital. That hospital is not bright and friendly, but nobody raises money for a psychiatric hospital.

I hope that we will take a look at our mental health system, and our culture, and decide that we need to speak openly about these illnesses and together try to make a change.

The Funny Truth About Parenting

2013-01-08 15:46:13

On this episode of Parenting With Playdate Planet, I talked with writers, moms, and all around funny gals, Jenna McCarthy and Karen Bergreen about the unspoken truths of parenting. Often when women talk publicly about being moms, you hear lots about "joyful moments" and "immediate bond" and innumerable other hearts and flowers type comments. What you don't typically hear discussed is the exploding diaper, the feeling of being imprisoned in your home, second guessing your choice to become a parent, a spouse who isn't doing his fair share, or who you don't allow to do his fair share, etc. But these and other realities of being a mom are there and I don't think women should feel ashamed or inadequate that they exist.

In fact, what I most dislike in another mom is that smug pretense of perfection. Face it, parenting is not a science. Every child and every parent is different, and what works for one family may not work well for another. The moms that give off that air that they know best, that every parenting choice that they make is the absolute best one, and that their kids will never turn out like those boys from down the street, drive me nuts!

Perhaps it\'s my innate insecurity rearing its ugly head, but in my opinion, that mom is in for a whole lot of future surprises.

What about you? What\\\'s your parenting pet peeve? Do you have a funny parenting moment to share?

Parenting Post Divorce

2013-01-21 12:30:58

When my son was born, the pediatrician told my husband and me that the most important thing we could do for him would be to stay married. Of course, that’s what we all aspire to as couples with children, but it doesn’t always work out. The reality is that 50% of marriages end in divorce, and 40 % of marriages with children.

I’m lucky in that I met my hubby in college and we’ve been together ever since. We have had our share of bumps in the road, but by and large it turns out we are very compatible and share similar views on life and parenting. Not everyone is so fortunate. Because many parents face the real challenge of parenting after divorce, I dedicated a radio show to this important topic. My guest, Melinda Roberts is a child of divorce and ended up divorcing from the father of her children. She is now raising kids in a newly re-married blended household and has written a wonderful book about parenting post-divorce called 42 Rules for Divorcing With Children.

Are you parenting after a split? Do you have any challenges or tips that you would like to share? I would love to hear your thoughts.

To Vaccinate or Not To Vaccinate That Is The Question

2013-01-14 07:32:56

I’ve always been one of those people who value expertise. I don’t want to fly my own airplane or build my own car. I trust my safety to those I believe have greater education and/or abilities than I do. Having said that, I’m not a fool. I would always seek a second opinion before having major surgery, and I wouldn’t get onto a plane if I saw the pilot stumbling drunk down the jet-way. But just as I know that I was a darn good litigator, I recognize that we each have specialized training and talents. As the daughter and wife of physicians, I am particularly aware of the years of schooling and hands-on clinical practice that they received before treating patients.

For that reason, I was surprised when (some years ago) a few moms in my son’s play group revealed that they weren’t vaccinating their then toddlers. Instead, they were looking for kids with chicken pox so they could expose their kids “naturally.” That seemed bizarre to me, but these women were no dummies, so I looked into the issue more carefully. I could find no solid scientific basis to avoid vaccinations. Sure, there were risks, and for certain vaccines, those risks could be serious. But the odds clearly favored vaccination. Even in the area of autism, a condition I found hauntingly scary as a parent, there were no proven links to vaccinations. So I continued to have my kids receive their scheduled shots, much to their displeasure.

I’ve kept an eye on this issue and had the opportunity to have some peripheral involvement with the making of a documentary about the development of the polio vaccine. As part of that process, I read quite a bit about polio and vaccinations in general, and became more convinced that those refusing to vaccinate their children were placing their kids and others at risk.

When Markus Heinze approached me on Linkedin and asked me to read his anti-vaccination book, I told him that I was not a member of his camp. He politely offered to send me the book anyway and I consented. After reading about his journey to find the cause for his daughter’s Type 1 diabetes, I felt sympathetic to him and his family, but nothing in his book changed my opinion about vaccinations. None of the studies that he cited, and some of them were studies only in the loosest of terms, actually showed a causal link between vaccination and diabetes (or any other illness).

And Markus’s book revealed a frightening paranoia that he and many other anti-vaccinaters exhibit towards the Center for Disease Control and physicians in general. They seem to believe that there are thousands of doctors who are intend on supporting pharmaceutical companies, even if that means harming their own patients and families (the pediatricians for my children routinely vaccinate their own kids). To me, that defied credibility.

In addition to being sympathetic to his daughter’s condition, I fully understand Markus’s need to understand how it happened. Before I became pregnant with my son, I endured years of infertility with intermittent miscarriages and an ectopic pregnancy. I was sure that if I devoted enough attention to researching my medical history, I could find the thread that would explain what was wrong with me. I never did. Instead, I have learned over the years that there are a lot of mysteries inherent in life. Some of them we will undoubtedly solve over time, as medical science continues to evolve, but there are likely others that will never become clear. Life isn’t always clear. We don’t know why some people suffer illnesses and tragedy and others do not. We don’t know why Markus’s daughter developed diabetes, like many other unfortunate children. Because his family doesn’t have a history of diabetes does not mean that vaccines caused her illness. It doesn’t mean that the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Center for Disease Control, and the World Health Organization, are all conspiring to make pharmaceutical companies rich by encouraging our children to get harmful vaccines. It means that for now we do not know why his daughter became ill. But our children are still better off vaccinated.

I invited Markus on my radio show to “debate” Stacy Herlihy, a journalist and writer who has recently co-authored a book outlining the scientific validity of vaccinations and debunking the commonly held misconceptions against them. Markus knew my bias, but he gamely agreed. I thought the show would be helpful because it would allow parents on the fence to hear both sides presented directly. I invite you to take a listen and let me know your thoughts.

Since we recorded the show, there’s been lots of debate between Stacy and Markus and their supporters online. I hope we can continue that debate here, in a civil fashion. After hearing Markus’s arguments, I did additional research myself on the vaccination question and I will post the results of that research either as updates to the blog or in the comments as applicable. This is an amazingly important subject and I welcome everyone’s input!

Reading With Your Child

2013-01-01 08:54:25

Well, first of all, happy New Year everyone! We finally have some snow on the ground here in Pittsburgh and it feels like winter. It is an inspiring background to make some New Year resolutions. Usually, I vow to eat better and exercise more and fail miserably at both. So today, in honor of my show this week on Parenting With Playdate Planet about how we can turn children who are reluctant readers into enthusiastic ones, I am resolving to read more with my kids.

Yes, my children are 11 and 13 and perfectly capable of reading on their own. But reading experts say that reading out loud to your children continues to be helpful to the development of comprehension and vocabulary skills long after your kids can read independently. Plus, it is a great time to bond with the kiddos, and my children still really enjoy it, especially at night when they are tired.

Right now, my daughter and I are reading Liar & Spy by Rebecca Stead. She is the author of Newberry Medal winning book, When You Reach Me. My daughter loved that book and so far is enjoying this one. My son and I started reading Pelham One Two Three, which is undoubtedly inappropriately violent and definitely R rated at times. A bad choice by me. I remembered enjoying this book when I first read it, and it is set in the New York subway which I knew Drew would like, but I had forgotten how adult in content the book really is. I am hoping to convince him to switch mid-stream to the first Alex Rider book which I bought on the advice of my radio guest, Melissa Taylor.

Do any of you with tween and teen aged children, still read aloud with them? If so, what are you reading? How often do you have time to read?

Any suggestions for great books for parents to read themselves? Please share!

How Do We Make Our Lives As Parents Easier?

2012-12-10 05:49:57

HI everyone! I have exciting news to share with all of my fellow Playdate Planet parents. I was invited to host a parenting radio talk show which launched on Web Talk Radio in mid October. Parenting with Playdate Planet features interviews with experts from around the globe as I search for answers to some of parenting\'s most difficult questions. So far, I\'ve covered topics as diverse as raising girls, teenage drug use and addiction, how to grow resilient children and manners. This week\'s show is about how we as parents can make our own lives easier and it kicks off the new direction we are taking with our blog as we invite conversation about our weekly radio subject. So CLICK HERE to take a listen and let\'s get talking!

What do you find is your biggest challenge and how do you attempt to make your own life easier?

For me, I find the mental juggling act the most stressful aspect of being a mother. My husband is wonderful. He has taken over all of the cooking (and even most of the grocery shopping!) for the family and is a totally hands-on parent. But I still seem to be the one who carries the mental burden of parenting. By that, I mean I feel responsible for thinking and planning the kids\' activity schedules. I keep track of school necessities and camp sign-ups. I get the birthday party gifts and make sure that the kids get to the dentist, the doctor, and even the hair dresser on occassion. And I find all these mental machinaitons super stressful.

So do I get more organized? Plan out the whole year and write in reminder notes about yearly check-ups and six month teeth cleanings. I think that greater organization would de-stress my life, but so far it hasn\'t happened. Do I somehow crave the stress and adrenaline of almost missing critical deadlines? Or am I just so innately disorganized that I am incapable of reining myself in?

My New Year\'s resolution is to sign up for About One and try to bring some order to my chaos. How about you? What would make your life easier?

Parenting And Technology

2013-01-28 07:51:19

On this week’s radio show, I interview Samantha Kemp-Jackson at http://www.multiplemayhemmamma.com, about the intersection of parenting and technology. The new age of technology invokes fear into the hearts of many of us parents. The nightmare stories of cyber stalking, sexting, video game addictions, are definitely cause for concern. But there is a positive side to technology. Cell phones can help keep us connected to children when there are walking home from school or are ready to be picked up from soccer practice. The Internet allows all of us to access endless information and research any subject we desire. Gaming offers children the option to engage with technology in a hands-on and creative way.

So how do we balance the good and the bad? My take is that you have to stay involved with your kids’ use of technology. If they are playing games on the Internet, make sure you know what games they are playing and with whom. Try to jump in and join them from time to time. If you are going to give your child a cell phone, make sure you are doing it for the right reasons and not because “everyone has one.” Educate your child about the legalities of using a cell phone and the danger of sharing photos and other content. Set limits on screen time, but make them reasonable and flexible depending on what the screen time entails (research for school, educational software, violent shoot ‘em up games, etc.).

My biggest challenge so far is the last one. My thirteen year old son spends a lot of time online and playing computer games. The games are typically benign (he likes driving and flying simulation games) and he enjoys following news stories and political events. He also spends a few afternoons home alone because I’m out driving his sister to gymnastics practice and it’s hard to limit his time long distance. He also doesn’t like going outside when it’s cold and because he gets his homework done quickly he ends up with a lot of free time on his hands. I try to engage him in other activities, but I’m often distracted myself with work and life.

Do you have any suggestions for me? What is your biggest challenge parenting in the digital age?

Why Are We Raising Robots?

2012-07-20 16:11:20

As parents and as a society, we are concerned about making sure that our children are prepared to compete in the new global economy. I get that. We all want our children to find success and happiness. And nobody wants their 40 year old offspring still living in the basement!

But here’s what doesn’t make sense to me. The way that we have responded to this challenge has been to push kids away from play and unstructured free time into academically focused pre-schools, supplemental tutoring programs like Kumon, and absurdly early organized sports teams. We are building our child’s college application resume from the time he can toddle across the floor. This push-down of academics and parent-directed sports and activities may contribute to a child’s earlier understanding of basic reading and math fundamentals and an ability to follow directions. But there’s no evidence that this early skill development provides any academic advantage over time. And we are sacrificing creativity and emotional resilience, two important traits learned best through play, traits that the research clearly shows are hugely important to a child’s future success.

Let’s think about what it means to be competitive in our modern economy. We are no longer a newly industrialized nation looking for competent factory workers who can read and follow instructions, stay focused, and perform the same task multiple times per day. We now have machines that can perform much of these functions. What is building our economy now is entrepreneurism and innovation. And for that we need people with the imagination to see the problems of the future and then solve them, people who are willing to take risks, people who are willing to fail and learn from these failures, and people who are able to function as part of a team.

There’s a great new book out called Imagine: How Creativity Works by Jonah Lehrer. All parents should read this book because it gives insight into the science behind creativity and how businesses are, knowingly or unknowingly, incorporating that science into their work cultures. This is why at 3M, the company that invented masking tape and currently sells more than 55,000 different products, employees are encouraged to take a walk, daydream, or play a game of pinball, as breaks in their day. Similarly, if you walk into one of Google’s office buildings, you’ll be greeted with scooters, ping-pong and pool tables, and other adult toys. And Google, like 3M, encourages its researchers to spend 15% of their day pursuing a speculative new idea. What may seem to be merely a recruiting tool or frivolous perk is actually highly productive. In fact, Google’s Innovation Time Off program has led directly to the development of Gmail and AdSense as well as an estimated 50% or more of new Google products.

At Pixar, when Steve Jobs oversaw the development of the studio building, he scrapped the initial architectural plan for a cost-effective multi-building design. Instead, he wanted a single immense space with a center atrium where the employees would run into each other and interact. To make sure this happened, Jobs moved the mailboxes, meeting rooms, and cafeteria to the atrium. He decided even that was not sufficient to force the kind of mingling he desired, so he placed the only set of bathrooms in the atrium, thus requiring employees to have to walk all the way to the atrium every time they needed to use the restroom. Jobs wanted an atmosphere of interaction and collaboration. He understood that sometimes the best ideas happen when two people unexpectedly run into each other and start a conversation. Pixar’s culture of creative collaboration has made the animation studio immensely successful.

It’s clear that our country’s most successful and innovative companies understand what the science suggests: that creativity is not the product of sustained and constant concentration, but more typically strikes us when our brains most resemble that of a child at play. So why are we cutting out recess, turning pre-school into kindergarten, and signing our children up for specialized tutoring instead of letting them loose to play? Doesn’t anyone else find it ironic that companies are working to instill creativity in their adult employees, while at the same time we are slowly stripping it from our kids?

If we want our children to succeed – Just Let Them Play!

BFFs

2012-07-10 16:30:18

My PlaydatePlanet partner, Meryl, and I have known each other basically forever, but it was in second grade that our BFF status was cemented. My son just finished second grade, so it got me to thinking about his best friends and whether or not those friendships would turn out to be life-long like mine and Meryl’s. He has two best buddies that he met in kindergarten. He’s been in class with them every year since they started elementary school, and last week we were thrilled to find out that they will be together for third grade as well. I consider those two boys and a third boy who my son attends an after-school program with to be his best friends. I don’t have too many memories from growing up that didn’t include Meryl and I’m wondering if Tyler will have the same experience with this group of boys. They are all great kids, so I would love for them to be friends for a long, long time. What do you think? Do you think your kids’ current best friendships will last? Or do their close friends change from year to year? And how about you? Are you still friends with your BFF from second grade?