Sorry I couldn't get the article to link in the text, so there's a weird link at the jump.

Cross-posted at Fussbucket (also can't get the link to work right...)

Sometimes the timeout is a mom's only friend. Gone are the days that many of us would feel comfortable giving our naughty one a swat on the behind, a mouth full of soap, or an admonishment to "Wait until your father gets home!" But according to this article in Slate, we may not be using the technique correctly and might even be reinforcing bad behavior.

Most parents already have a rough working notion of how to use timeouts. When a child does something wrong, you send him off to sit somewhere by himself and do nothing for a set amount of time, like a hockey referee putting a player in the penalty box. Two minutes on a bench for hitting at the playground, five minutes on a stool in the corner for talking back, and so on. Because the timeout seems so simple, most people feel comfortable using it intuitively, guided by assumptions that the punishment should fit the crime, that a timeout gives the child an opportunity to reflect and repent, and that it teaches the child who's in control.

The problem comes when parents use more and longer timeouts. These proportional punishments, such as deciding to leave a child in timeout for only a few minutes for a minor infraction and longer for more egregious behavior, won't help change the behavior that's causing you to give the timeout in the first place, the article says.

Excessive timeouts do more harm than good, making a child irritable and more volatile in his reactions, and more inclined to escape and avoid the adults who punish him. Just as important, parents who punish excessively tend to escalate punishment, increasing the side effects and losing track of the original intent of giving a timeout, which is to improve a child's behavior. The opposite happens, in fact.

article

Cross-posted at Fussbucket

Parents of picky eaters may be tempted to hide veggies in their kids' food, but some experts say this approach to healthy eating may actually backfire. According to this article in the LA Times, the problem is that kids fail to learn good eating habits when the veggies are hidden.

Some nutritionists and public health experts wonder if parents these days are relying too much on the sneak attack. They doubt if kids will ever develop a taste for vegetables in all their leafy glory if they are hidden in smoothies and macaroni and cheese. Some say this well-intentioned sneaking could produce kids less likely -- not more -- to eat greens.

"Children should learn to make healthy choices," says Pat Crawford, co-director of the Center for Weight and Health at UC Berkeley. "It really comes down to whether we are feeding our children for nutrients, or for the potential development of healthy patterns that are lifelong."

Back when I was kid, mothers didn't hide the veggies. But bestselling cookbooks such as Jessica Seinfeld's "Deceptively Delicious" and Missy Chase Lapine's "The Sneaky Chef" suggest kid-friendly recipes with hidden vegetable and fruit purées in such items as pizza and pasta.

The government says kids are supposed to eat 2 1/2 cups of vegetables and 1 1/2 cups of fruit a day. But a 1997 survey of kids' eating habits found most get only about a half-cup each of fruit and vegetables a day.

Cross-posted at Fussbucket

A new study in the Journal of Family Psychology shows that it isn't just babies that moms have to nurture. According to this article in Science Daily, researchers at Ohio State University found that fathers were more involved in the day-to-day care of their infants when they received active encouragement from their wife or partner.

"Mothers can be very encouraging to fathers, and open the gate to their involvement in child care, or be very critical, and close the gate," said Sarah Schoppe-Sullivan, co-author of the study and assistant professor of human development and family science at Ohio State University. "This is the first real evidence that mothers, through their behavior, act as gatekeepers by either fostering or curtailing how much fathers take part in caring for their baby."

The study included 97 couples in the Midwest who were married or cohabiting, and who were expecting a child when the study began, the article says. Before the birth, the couples completed a survey about their beliefs about the roles of fathers in taking care of children.

Then at about four months after the birth, researchers conducted in-home assessments and couples were asked about mothers' gatekeeping behaviors such as how often the mother responded to the father's parenting behaviors with encouragement (for example, telling the father how happy he makes the child) or criticism (for instance, by looking exasperated or rolling her eyes).

Here's my question. Did they also keep a tally of how sleep-deprived the mothers were when they were  rolling their eyes or looking exasperated? Maybe the moms were feeling really pissy because they were so damned tired. Where's their cheerleading squad?

Cross-posted at Fussbucket

A new pill coming out next week will allow parents to treat their child's aches and pains without administering any actual medication. According this article in the NY Times, the chewable placebo pill is made of sugar and will be cherry-flavored. It is called Obecalp, for placebo spelled backward, and will be sold by Jennifer and Dennis Buettner at the PlaceboStore.com. Bottles of 50 tablets will sell for $5.95.

Ms. Buettner, 40, who lives in Severna Park, Md., with her husband, 7-month-old son and 22-month-old twins, envisioned a children’s placebo tablet that would empower parents to do something tangible for minor ills and reduce the unnecessary use of antibiotics and other medicines. “This is designed to have the texture and taste of actual medicine so it will trick kids into thinking that they’re taking something,” Ms. Buettner said. “Then their brain takes over, and they say, ‘Oh, I feel better.’ ”

But some experts question the efficacy and ethics of parents administering placebo pills to their children. “Placebos are unpredictable,” said Dr. Howard Brody, a medical ethicist and family physician at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. “Each and every time you give a placebo you see a dramatic response among some people and no response in others.” He added, “The idea that we can use a placebo as a general treatment method strikes me as inappropriate.”

Cross-posted at Fussbucket

Teenagers who want to scoop ice cream or sell clothing from their favorite store this summer may have a harder time than usual landing a job. This article in the NY Times says that little more than one-third of the 16- to 19-year-olds in the United States are likely to be employed this summer, the smallest share since the government began tracking teenage work in 1948, according to a research paper published by the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston.

As the forces of economic downturn ripple widely across the United States, the job market of 2008 is shaping up as the weakest in more than half a century for teenagers looking for summer work, according to labor economists, government data and companies that hire young people. This deterioration is jeopardizing what many experts consider a crucial beginning stage of working life, one that gives young people experience and confidence along with pocket money.

The article says that retailers, a major source of summer jobs, are grappling with a loss of American spending power, causing some to pull back in hiring. Restaurants, also big employers of teenagers, are adding jobs at a slower pace than in previous summers, said Hudson Riehle, senior vice president for research at the National Restaurant Association in Washington.

Cross-posted at Fussbucket

New software programs enable parents to learn of everything from their child's daily class attendance and homework completion to test scores and overall grades throughout the semester,  according to this article in the NY Times.

Boy am I glad I'm not a kid anymore. What a nightmare. Sorry if you're one of those parents who likes to use these programs, but this seems like an invasion of privacy to me.

The article profiles Nicole Dobbins, a mother of three from  Alpharetta, Ga. who regularly logs on to ParentConnect, and reads updated reports on her children. By the time she sees them after school she already knows what happened because she's been spying on them all day.

When her ninth grader gets home at 6 p.m., there may well be ParentConnect printouts on his bedroom desk with poor grades highlighted in yellow by his mother. She will expect an explanation. He will be braced for a punishment. “He knows I’m going to look at ParentConnect every day and we will address it,” Mrs. Dobbins said.

Apparently there are a bunch of these tracking programs out there with names like Edline, ParentConnect, Pinnacle Internet Viewer and PowerSchool. They are being used by thousands of schools, kindergarten through 12th grade, the article says.

Kindergarten? Huh?

Cross-posted at Fussbucket

If toxic paint wasn't enough of a reason to boycott toys made in China, an article in today's NY Times says that hundreds and maybe thousands of children in China have been sold to work as slave laborers in booming coastal factory cities.

Authorities in southern Guangdong Province, near Hong Kong, said they had already rescued more than 100 children from factories in Dongguan, a huge manufacturing city known for producing and exporting toys, textiles and electronics.  The children, mostly 13 to 15 years old, were often tricked or kidnapped by employment agencies working in an impoverished part of western Sichuan Province, and then sent to factory towns in Guangdong, where they were often forced to work as much as 300 hours a month for little money, according to government officials and accounts from the state-owned media.

The new child labor case “is quite typical,” said Hu Xingdou, a professor of economics and social policy at the Beijing Institute of Technology. “China’s economy is developing at a fascinating speed, but often at the expense of laws, human rights and environmental protection.” Professor Hu also said that sometimes the children were sold by their parents who didn't know of the working conditions.

Cross-posted at Fussbucket

I love this story - this is an issue my friends and I discuss regularly - how safe is the subway for our kids - Sue in Queens

A mother in New York has been making headlines the last few days after leaving her nine-year old son at Bloomingdale's in Manhattan to find his way home armed with a MetroCard, a subway map, twenty bucks, and some quarters to call home in case he got lost.

The mom, Lenore Skenazy who is a columnist for the New York Sun, told the Today show that it's good for kids to exert their independence.

Izzy, who is now 10, nodded in agreement and insisted it was no big deal. He had been nagging his mother for a long time to let him ride home alone, and finally she agreed to let him take the downtown Lexington Avenue subway and then transfer to a crosstown bus to get home from Bloomingdale’s. "I was like, ‘Finally!’ " Izzy said of his reaction when his mom finally caved in to his nagging. "I think that it’s a really easy, simple thing to get home."

The story has sparked both outrage and a wave of nostalgia among New Yorkers who spent their youth traveling independently around the city. These days even parents who live in the suburbs are afraid to let their kids roam free in their family-friendly neighborhoods. This fear, says Skenazy, is overblown.

"It’s safe to go on the subway," Skenazy replied. "It’s safe to be a kid. It’s safe to ride your bike on the streets. We’re like brainwashed because of all the stories we hear that it isn’t safe. But those are the exceptions. That’s why they make it to the news. This is like, ‘Boy boils egg.’ He did something that any 9-year-old could do."

Cross-posted at Fussbucket

One of my favorite things to do is to listen to my four-year old son Sage talk to himself when he's busy doing something. He totally uninhibited, talking about what he's doing or pretending he's hanging out with some of his imaginary friends. Often it happens when he's concentrating, like building train tracks, or coloring, or doing a puzzle.

A new study shows that not only is this chattering pretty damn cute, it's useful. According to this article in Science Daily, parents should encourage pre-schoolers to talk to themselves.

Parents should not worry when their pre-schoolers talk to themselves; in fact, they should encourage it, says Adam Winsler, an associate professor of psychology at George Mason University. His recent study published in Early Childhood Research Quarterly showed that 5-year-olds do better on motor tasks when they talk to themselves out loud (either spontaneously or when told to do so by an adult) than when they are silent.

"Young children often talk to themselves as they go about their daily activities, and parents and teachers shouldn’t think of this as weird or bad," says Winsler. "On the contrary, they should listen to the private speech of kids. It's a fantastic window into the minds of children."

In the study, "'Should I let them talk?': Private speech and task performance among preschool children with and without behavior problems," 78 percent of the children performed either the same or better on the performance task when speaking to themselves than when they were silent, the article says.

Cross-posted at Fussbucket

All's fair on reality television. People swap spouses, get new and improved homes to live in, and compete for titles like "Top Chef!" And now, according to this article in Newsweek, stay-at-home mothers can try out going back to work while the whole nation watches. The show is called "Secret Life of a Soccer Mom."

Umm, I think I'd almost rather be in therapy on television (and if you're an HBO watcher like me, you're seeing this very thing on "In Treatment." Love it.) I'd like to think that people out there would sympathize with a woman who had spent years at home raising children, side-stepping her own career path to wipe noses, give hugs, and sing silly songs. Maybe even root for her to find happiness and balance with kids who were just fine with a little less mommy time. But no.

If the initial reaction to the "Secret Life of a Soccer Mom," (Mondays at 10 p.m. ET) is any indication, TLC has struck one of the rawest nerves of parenting. In the show's March 3 premier Adrian Stark, a mother of three girls in suburban California, decides to go back to work full-time as a high fashion designer after 10 years at home. Stark's daughters are awestruck by the gowns she makes, and when she's offered a job, her physician husband gets teary with joy.

But as soon as the show aired, TLC's online message boards were  with comments from women outraged that Adrian would choose a career over being a stay-at-home mom (SAHM in parent lingo). The posts said the premise of the show is "sick" and Adrian is "selfish."

There were lots of nasty comments including someone saying that going back to work is "child abandonment." What is wrong with these people?

Women have been in the workforce for decades now, but the tension between moms who stay at home and those who, by choice, have jobs outside the home continues to brew. When in mixed company, mothers on both sides of the fence tend to tiptoe around the subject. Totally unvarnished confessions of either boredom or guilt are usually left to gatherings of moms of one's own kind.

Cross-posted at Fussbucket

About a week ago I went to hear a lecture on talking to kids about sex by Amy Lang, a parent educator in Seattle. I really was just tagging along with a friend and hadn't given much thought to the topic since my kids are only four and one-year old.

Well, I got an earful. Here's some of what she said:

We're told we should wait until they ask us. That's not true. It's not their job to know when they're ready. We need to be the ones to initiate the conversation. It's really important to have early, regular, consistent conversations with your kids about sex throughout childhood and adolescence.

How early? Earlier than you might think.

By age five they should know. Up to age five, they're a blank slate. They come to the conversation with curiosity. It's really easy to talk to them about it. It's science, it's biology.

After that, she says they go to school and hear about it from other kids who may or may not have their facts straight.

You tell them that sex is for older people. Sex is for when you are in love. You get to give them facts and information and a big dose of your family values. Hopefully you're in their head by the time they start dealing with this.

Here's some crazy crap for you: According to a new documentary film making its way through politically conservative circles, there's an ominous decline in childbirth rates around the world such that if we all don't start procreating fast, armageddon is surely afoot. The movie is called "Demographic Winter: Decline of the Human Family." This is from the promo web site:

Almost all of the developed countries of the world are now experiencing fertility rates far below replacement levels. Birthrates have fallen so low that even immigration cannot replace declining populations, and this migration is sapping strength from developing countries, the fertility rates for many of which are now falling at a faster pace than did those of the developed countries.

According to the film makers, this decline in human reproduction will lead to failed economies and social mayhem.

Huh? Whatever, I'm not in least bit concerned about this. But I write about it here because of a discussion it raised on this post on Reason Magazine.

The Reason writer wonders if the reason people aren't having more kids is because parenting ain't all that much fun.

Demographic Winter asserts that "every aspect of modernity works against family life and in favor of singleness and small families or voluntary childlessness." And surely they are right. Modern societies offer people many other satisfactions and choices outside of the family. In particular women find that their time becomes more highly valued in occupations outside the home.

In light of this children have become "consumption items to be enjoyed for their own sakes, more akin to sculptures, paintings, or theatre," he says. "But that's just the problem—according to happiness researchers, people don't really enjoy rearing children."