Television for Kids

Photo courtesy of parentadvicenow.com

Well, it's summer, and you know what that means! 

Hours and hours of TV watching! 

I'm anti-TV, and I'm not afraid to say it. There are some very frightening statistics about TV watching. Be sure to click over and take a look, you'll be amazed. But I'll highlight them for you. 

The average child watches 1,680 minutes of television every week (that's 28 hours) and spends only 3.5 minutes per week engaged in meaningful conversation with his or her parents. Read that again. 

I am a very strict parent when it comes to television viewing. We do not watch most shows aimed at kids, including Spongebob, Wizards of Waverly Place, Good Luck Charlie or Shake It Up (if you have tweens, I'm sure you've heard of these). 

Many parents feel these are harmless, entertaining and often cute shows, and as to the second and third points, they are. And while I wouldn't always go so far as to call them harmful, they aren't harmless. Our kid's minds are developing every moment of every day. Just like we feed our children healthy food so their bodies can develop, we have to put good examples of character and behavior in front of them so their minds and character can develop properly.

Young children do not have the discernment that adults have. They don't have the ability to see something on TV and understand it as good or bad. We teach them that. Everything they take in becomes part of their base line - the store of understanding they base their life upon. If you place in front of them role models who are consumed with fashion, boyfriend/girlfriend relationships, avoiding or disrespecting authority, and placing the opinions of their peers over all else, that is what they will strive to become. 


In the words of the American Psychiatric Association, "We have had a long-standing concern with the impact of television on behavior, especially in children."

For me, choosing television for my kids to watch is based on asking some questions about the show. First, and most important - "Do the characters behave in a way I want my kids to behave?" Are they kind and compassionate? Are they hardworking? Do they respect their elders? Do they treat their friends well? Do they do the right thing? 

How do the characters present themselves? Any young girl in mini skirts and heels is not getting top billing with my kids. 

And the question all of us Christians should be asking, "Does this show glorify God? Does it teach me to live a life that honors Christ?"

Isn't that what the Bible commands us? 

"And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise." New Living Translation

Very, very few television shows meet the standards laid forth here. Does that mean a half hour of Nickelodeon is going to turn my kids against God? Well, no. Let's not be dramatic. But I do think it's important to filter what our kids watch, and to balance the influence of TV, movies and music with solid relationships with our kids and examples of good, Godly character.

There are, however, times when that TV comes to good use around here. Like when I want to shower uninterrupted. And there are some really good shows out there. Tomorrow I'll share my top picks for preschoolers, followed by top picks for older kids later this week. 

Something to Think About

If you haven't seen this Kia ad, it's quite the conversation starter. Apparently it wasn't intended for an American audience, although I'm not really sure what to make of that. Americans are prudes? What? Have we seen MTV?

Also this is a very, very important article for every parent or step parent or teacher or auntie or uncle to read. Read it twice. Save it to favorites and send it to your friends. Because your children's innocence is at stake, and you have the power to do something about it. (Note: the article itself is a couple years old, but the facts haven't changed.) Here's another one.

Potty Training Part 2

Photo credit

And now for more on a subject that is very near and dear to my, er, bathroom. If you missed part one, you can find the first four handy tips here. For the rest of you, here is everything else I know about potty training:

5. Give it time. It's ok to decide your kid isn't ready and back off, then pick up again a month or so later, but give it a chance. Don't get frustrated after the first or second day and decide he's just not ready. Give it a good week before going back to full time diapers. It helps if that first week can be spent mostly at home. It's hard to potty train in public and I always just end up throwing a diaper on the kid so we can go to the park or some such thing, which really disrupts the process. 

6. Say the right stuff. Chances are good that if you ask your kid if they want to use the toilet, they're going to say no. Instead of "Won't this be fun? Don't you want to go potty? Are you a big boy (girl)?", try, "This is fun! You're going to use the potty! You're such a big boy (girl)!" They should follow your lead, not the other way around. 

7. Expect accidents. They happen, it's okay! Don't get discouraged or angry with your kid. Learning new skills takes time. 

8. Relax. By the time your kid is in junior high, he'll be using the toilet. Promise. :)

I hope that helps somebody. And if you need to vent and cry about it, feel free to call me. Or leave me a comment. I'm here for you. 

P.S. It's okay to keep the diapers on at night for a while. When you take the leap, it's a good idea to get a few of these mattress liners for the crib or bed. It's also a good idea to layer the bed (mattress liner, sheet, mattress liner, sheet, mattress liner, sheet). That way when there are accidents (and there will be accidents) you can just strip off the top layer, toss it in the laundry room or garage, and climb into a dry bed. 

P.S.S.  You can do it! You can do it! You can do it! 

Potty Training

Photo credit

It seems like everybody I know potty is training right now. Including me. Well, that's not entirely true. I should be potty training right now. I just haven't bitten the bullet and done it. But I will. This week. Probably.

Anyway. I figured I'd just jump right on that bandwagon and tell you how I potty train my kids. Because I've done it 3 times and that makes me an expert. Not. And then this post got really long and I didn't want to overwhelm you with my pottying expertise all in one day (not) so I split it into two potty posts. This is part one. (Duh.)

It seems if you Google "potty training" you'll find a whole mess of websites that are happy to sell you potty training DVDs and CDs and books and toys and sticker charts and special potty chairs that light up sing and say 'hooray' if you 'go'. All that sounds like lots of fun, but I've never had an extra $22 to spend on something my kid is going to pee in. Not that you shouldn't. I just don't think any of that stuff is actually necessary.

Honestly, we've never had a potty chair. I think they're icky. I do not want one more thing in my house to clean. Especially when what I'm cleaning is excrement. No thank you. We did have one of those rings that sits in the grown up chair to make the seat smaller so the kids didn't fall in. That was handy.

Truthfully, I don't really have a method in potty training. Every kid is a little different, I think. My middle child actually trained herself. One day, right after she turned 2, she announced that she was going to use the potty. All by herself. And she did. It was very messy for about a week, and then she got the hang of it. I love that kid. But I'm pretty sure that was a total fluke. I guarantee I had nothing to do with it.

Here's what I do know:

1. Make sure your kid is ready. Here and here are some sites that explain more about that. By the way, your kid is probably ready before you think he is. When our parents were small the average child was potty trained at around 18 months. Now it's like 3 1/2. Why? Disposable diapers were introduced, making diaper changing much easier and moms less compelled to get their kids on the toilet. And then we complicated the whole thing by have Potty Parties and TV shows about it. I'm pretty sure my grandparents didn't show their kids DVDs about potties.

2. Get rid of the diapers. Put that kid in some undies! Yes. it's messy, but diapers are made to keep little bums dry and comfortable. Underwear feels yucky when wet. I like these training pants with these plastic liners to minimize messes. Picking out underwear with favorite characters on them is fun, too.

3. Be consistent. Part of this is training yourself. Set a timer and go potty every 15 minutes to start, increasing the time amount as your kid gets the hang of it.

4. Reward success! We jump up and down and cheer and give lots of hugs and kisses. M&Ms work well, too.

For more intellectually stimulating potty talk, check out part two!

Padded Bikinis for 8 year olds?!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/26/abercrombie-padded-bikini-8-year-olds_n_841026.html

I'm speechless.

Ok, not really.

I'm appalled and aghast and horrified. Not that I should be surprised. Abercrombie has always been known for it's disgusting ad material. (If there aren't any children present, Google "Abercrombie images". This stuff is marketed to kids, folks.) I found this interesting; in one town the police removed their in-store pictures because they violated decency laws. I'm thinking about looking into that here.

Anyway, back to the Huffington Post article. Fantastic video interview with a Dr. Bradley.. he nails it right on the head. I didn't, however, like the commentator's line about "parents trying to keep their daughters forever young". Sounded a little supercilious to me.

See for yourself. What do you think? Would you let your daughter wear that?

Training Littles

"Judah, come here please. Judah! Come here! JOOO DUHHH COME HERE!! Does Mommy need to come over there? Don't make me come and get you!!"

My son is 2. Two is a great age, despite the reported horrors of the 'terrible twos'. In fact, my husband and I love two year olds and find them far easier to deal with than threes.

But there are challenges. Right now one of our tough spots with our 2 year old is getting him to come when we call him. So today we started playing the 'Come Here Game'.

I'll stand a few feet from Judah and say "Judah, come here!" in a sweet voice. He runs to me and gets rewarded with "Yay Judah!!" and a toss up in the air. Then he moves to the other side of the room and we do it again. And again. And again. And again.

Throughout the day I'll keep doing this during different activities. In a week or so we should have him trained to come running any time he hears me call.

A few tips to make this work:

Use the same sing-song voice every time you call your child. Kids are much more attuned to tones than words.

Be consistent. Do this at least 30 times the first day, and continue to reinforce for several days. Do refreshers any time you feel the unwanted behavior returning.

Don't forget the reward! Often our best parenting tricks fail because we forget to follow through.

Why Homeschool, part 2

You can catch up on part 1 here.

When I began homeschooling, I was asked fairly regularly why I had chosen to do so. The answers I gave were probably the same answers you've heard given before: the schools are bad/overcrowded/underfunded, I want my kids to have a Christian education, I want them to have one-on-one attention, I don't like the methods the schools use for academics, I don't want my kids exposed to some of the things public schools would expose them to.

These answers never felt quite right to me, though. I felt as though I was coming up with acceptable excuses for homeschooling, rather than giving the true impetus for keeping my kids at home. Believe me, all those things were true, they just weren't the real reason.

The truth is, many of us choose to homeschool by default. We see that the school system is failing them, or that many of our friends or fellow church-goers are doing it, and we think, 'well, that sounds better than my other option, so I guess we'll try it.' The problem is, we're coming at the issue from the wrong direction. We're making our decision backwards.

What we should be doing is sitting down and figuring out our long-term plan for parenting - what kind of people do we want our children to become? And then, how do we help them get there?

Do you have a mission statement for your children? Do you know how you want them to turn out? Most of us have vague ideas about our kids being 'good' and 'happy', but few of us really know what kind of product we're trying to produce. Imagine a sculptor sitting down with a piece of marble and beginning to chisel. Before he makes a single cut he knows exactly what the finished sculpture will look like. If he were to begin to carve without a specific image in his mind, but only a general idea of the end result, chances are good he'd end up with a mess rather than a masterpiece. And once those cuts have been made, they can't be undone.

We have done a lot of thinking and talking about the type of people we want our kids to become. This doesn't mean we are deciding their careers or how many children they'll have; it's all about their character. We want our children to grow into fully mature, Christ loving people who serve others. We want them to contribute to society. We want them to be caring, to be active, to participate in life. We want them to have a good understanding of the world, and to always be learning, discussing and maturing.

I could go on, but you get the idea. Once you have a solid grasp on the end, you can begin to take steps to get there. The question then becomes, "What is the best way to get my child to that end?"

Only you can answer that question. It's possible public school is the best answer for your family. (We knew a missions-minded family who put their kids in public schools because they saw it as a mission field and wanted their kids to be out sharing the gospel). Maybe private school will put your kids on the right path. Maybe homeschooling is your answer.

The purpose of all this is not to convince you that homeschooling is the best way, it's to encourage you to think, pray and discuss until you find your child's best way. To encourage you to go after your child's education intentionally, not just taking the path of least resistance.

For us, homeschooling has been the answer. I'll discuss more about why we made that choice in part 3.

Boys and Girls are DIFFERENT

This is a subject that is worthy of several posts, and I'll probably get to that later, but I stumbled across an old post on possibly my favorite blog and thought it was worth linking to:

http://heartkeepercommonroom.blogspot.com/2010/03/boys-and-girls-are-different-really.html

If you have boys and girls, you already know that they are inherently different, without anybody telling them they're supposed to be. The Common Room's article talks about why. And it's good stuff.

An excerpt:

  Here are the reasons Sax (a Dr.) suggests they (boys) are having so many problems:

• Video games. These addictive activities disengage boys from the world....

Yes, yes, yes. I've noticed a marked difference in my son's attitude after playing video games.

• Teaching methods. Girls develop intellectually up to two years ahead of boys. Boys in grade school are naturally rambunctious. They need ways to express their native energy. They are being taught to read and write too early. Their mostly female teachers prefer compliant, dutiful girls.

• Prescription drugs. Hyperactive, frustrated boys are increasingly being medicated. This we all know. What Sax claims is that these drugs shrink the motivational centres of the brain and that the effect of this lasts years, well after these kids stop taking their meds. I hadn't heard this before but if it's true, it is truly frightening.
• Endocrine disruptors. Chemicals from plastic bottles, canned food linings and some shampoos mimic natural estrogen, the female hormone. Boys' testosterone levels are half of what they were in their grandfathers' day. Also, their bones are significantly more brittle.

We solve this by only bathing the boys once a week or so. :)

• The devaluation of masculinity. Boys don't know how to become men. They no longer have appropriate rights of passage. Once Father Knows Best was the paternalistic model but now he has been replaced (and mocked) by a dopey Homer Simpson. Sax likes the old virtues of courage and temperance, with a good measure of intelligence.

 If you have boys or are married, I'd spend a good while clicking through the links. There is some very, very good information in there.