To Quit or Not to Quit

Piano lessons. Parents want their children to have them. Children find practicing the bane of their existence. Is the battle worth it?

For our oldest, we decided it definitely was not. She got no enjoyment out of playing . . . ever. We were exposing her to a variety of things, and we wrote this one off as one that did not interest her. And frankly, (sorry JB if you are reading this) of her many, many talents, music is not one of them. I say that with some hesitance. I don’t want to teach her that if she isn’t good at something she should just quit. However, in other things that she’s tried out of her own genuine interest (like ice skating), we did not let her give up just because it got harder.

Then there’s my son. He has responded to music since the day he came home from the hospital. It instantly soothed him. From the time he could talk, he has spontaneously broken into song at any given moment. And he performs an entire self-composed operetta whenever he plays with his Playmobil castle, dragon and knights.

While ultimately he wants to learn how to play the guitar (at 6 he is a Guitar Hero junkie—and yes, video games are a whole other subject), he’s been told he must learn piano first. He tried a lesson, loved it, and impressed the teacher.

Yet, I know the day is not far off that he too will battle us over practicing. I am committed to not letting him quit. Clearly music brings him joy—and sometimes we all have to work at having a little joy.

A few weeks ago, I posted a blog about singing and learning. FPG now has a whole page devoted to music resources.

Hold the Peanuts, Please

After eating less than a ¼ of teaspoon of hummus, my son broke out into large red welts all over his body. Honestly, we did not panic. We were too ignorant to panic at that point. We called the doctor, gave him some Benadryl, and watched the hives disappear as fast as they had come. He was about 16 months at the time.

After some allergy testing, we learned that the culprit had been the sesame in the hummus. We also found out that he was allergic to eggs, peanuts, and tree nuts. And so we began our introduction to the Epipen and the world of food allergies. And that’s when the panic ensued. When tested at age three, his peanut reaction was so large that they marched him around the allergist’s office to show the other doctors and nurses.

I could write forever about our experiences and the emotional roller coaster ride, but we’ll save that for another day. Fortunately, with the help of time, education, and an excellent allergist, we have things as under control as one can. And in the context of the things that many families have to face, I know how lucky we are that we have a healthy, vibrant child.

That said, some of the normal experiences of life have to be undertaken with a bit more thought. Eating at restaurants requires asking a lot of questions, (BTW, Red Robin is amazing at catering to allergic customers.) We take treats to birthday parties as he can’t eat the cake. And travel can present a unique set of problems—everything from will the airline serve peanuts to will the relatives be willing to avoid peanut butter for the week.

Debbie Dubrow has written an excellent and very thorough article in Delicious Baby on the subject—Tips and Advice for Traveling with Severe Food Allergies. She also wrote a separate piece about why she cares about the issue (she does not have children with food allergies). Please read her commentary.

The Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network also posts good travel tips.

What’s your cortisol level?

Here in North Carolina, we have high stakes testing beginning in third grade. If you don’t pass the End of Grade test (EOG), you might not go on to the next grade.

We dread this time in my house. Despite the fact that she is incredibly smart with nothing to worry about, my daughter falls apart the week leading up to and the week of the EOGs. This year, she even created the Evil EOG man. She drew him everywhere and showed him failing kids. Clearly, she’s stressed.

Thankfully, she doesn’t know the kind of stress (from enduring abuse or witnessing violence) that too many kids experience. Stress, that research suggests affects not only a child’s future mental health, but their physical health as well.

According to Dr. Jack Shonkoff, a professor of child health and development at Harvard, the incidence of heart disease, diabetes and cancer increases based on high levels of childhood stress. He said that stress hormones, like cortisol, disrupt a child’s brain development.

He also noted that genetics played a factor. This got me wondering if kids that are programmed to react more intensely to the normal ups and downs of life also are at greater risk. Given the demands many parents and schools place on children, maybe we should be routinely checking cortisol levels in children.

Dr. Shonkoff’s presentation was part of Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Commission hearing investigating how factors outside the health care system - such as education and housing - shape and affect opportunities to lead healthy lives.

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Commission to Build a Healthier America: www.commissiononhealth.org/

News and Observer Article about the hearing: http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/1106522.html

Families Featured by the Commission: http://www.fpg.unc.edu/news/highlight_detail.cfm?ID=784

Also, check out PRMom in the following blogs:

Zooglobble: www.zooglobble.com

Simple Songs: simplesongs.blogs.com/

Bay Kids Museum: www.baykidsmuseum.org/blog/

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Stealing from Barney

Is Barney still on television today? Thankfully, the purple dinosaur was not popular in our house when my kids were younger. Yet, while the show annoyed some parents on oh so many levels, many of us still felt free to steal from it.

You know who you are. When you couldn’t get your kids to start cleaning up, you broke into song, “Clean up. Clean up. Everybody, everywhere. Clean up. Clean up. Everybody do you share.” And like magic nine times out of ten, the kids actually started cleaning up.

If I’d been really smart (and significantly less sleep deprived), I would have noticed the dramatic affect that music could have on behavior. I might have made up some song to get my toddler into his car seat without a major tantrum and meltdown. Or written some lyrics to make teeth brushing not a game of hide-and-seek.

I had the opportunity to talk to a music therapist last week who readily confirmed that music does in fact make transitions and routines easier for children. You can listen to the conversation and hear what she had to say.

First Words

It is with great embarrassment that I confess that my daughter’s first word was “mall.” This was shortly followed by “shoes.” I don’t even want to think about what this must say about me. Ironically, it says little about her.

Anyone who knows my daughter knows that fashion is of no concern to her. Her only rule is comfort—although this has a daily changing definition and frequently does not fit into the norm of what you and I might define as comfort. For example, she takes after my husband and is quite thin. Pants cannot be loose under any circumstances. And when she was in kindergarten it was our morning ritual for her to throw a temper tantrum about her socks. Of course in hindsight I wonder why I just didn’t let her go without them—it only gets so cold in North Carolina in the winter.

But I digress. Yes her first words were shopping centric, but the point is she spoke them pretty early. And she continued to develop language skills at a fairly rapid rate. I’m sure there were many factors that influenced her language development. What I learned recently from researchers here at FPG is that I also was lucky that she was in a quality child care program.

I have always been under the misguided notion that parents could make up for anything academic that might be lacking in a child care environment. Perhaps this was how I made myself feel better since I had to go back to work when she was three months old.

Well I was wrong. This study showed that in every language development measurement used, children in higher quality child care programs significantly outperformed those in lower quality care. The kids in the study all came from two-parent families who had some level of higher education and were of middle income.

So how do you find a quality program? There are lots of resources out there to help guide you. One that I used when looking at childcare programs was an interview sheet I downloaded from BabyCenter. They have an updated version available online. The National Association for the Education of Young Children also is a good resource.

If you want more info about the study, you can read the summary online.

Your husband does that?!

I was recently at an evening work event where a woman said to me, “Your husband agreed to put the kids to bed?”

I’d like to say that I was shocked that anyone would ask such a question, but I’m not. The vast majority of couples I know with children are living an updated version of the 50’s lifestyle. Many mothers are working outside the home while still being almost solely responsible for changing dirty diapers, cooking dinners, giving baths, and putting kids to bed.

Mothers that stay home with their children often have it even worse. Their job doesn’t end at 5 PM. Anyone who spends all day with children knows that as much fun as it can be, it’s also incredibly hard work. Having done both, I can honestly say that I was more exhausted after a day at home than a day at the office.

So what’s going on? Are some moms somehow encouraging this notion that mom must do everything? Are some dads not being expected to share the child-rearing load?

I don’t know the answer, but I do know that kids need more. For example, last year, one of FPG’s studies found that in families with two working parents, fathers had greater impact than mothers on their children’s language development between ages 2 and 3. Researchers videotaped pairs of parents and their 2-year-old children in their homes during playtime. The children whose fathers used more diverse vocabularies had greater language development when they were tested one year later. However, the mothers’ vocabulary did not significantly affect a child’s language skills.

It may seem strange to be writing about the role of fathers the day after Mother’s Day. But perhaps it’s as good as time as any to be reminded that parenting is a full-time job for both moms and dads.

Parental One-Upmanship

They’re innocent enough questions—When did she walk? When did he say his first word? But what we parents really are asking is how does my child measure up? And when our kids seem to do something earlier than other children, we internally gloat that this is a sure sign of future brilliance. Nobody will own up to this. In fact parents with kids who have achieved milestones at an earlier stage will attempt to reassure their “less accomplished” peers that such markers are meaningless.

Well whatever parental one-upmanship these questions may inspire, they do indicate something positive—an awareness of child development. A recent study published in The Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology found that mothers who knew about child development spoke more frequently and complexly to their children. This is important because just as exposing children to books helps develop their interest in reading; talking to children helps develop their language abilities. From a very young age, children are influenced by the manner in which their mothers talk to them.

Talk is so powerful in fact that it can overcome the higher risk for language development delays children from families living in poverty face. The researcher who led the study told me that teaching mothers about child development may be an important way to improve children’s language development and ultimately increase the likelihood of their academic success.

Now I’m wondering does it matter what we talk about. Let’s face it even though they may gurgle back, talking to an infant is a fairly one-sided conversation. When my daughter was a baby, the Bosnian conflict was in full force. I remember my husband and I saying ridiculous things to her in that high baby-friendly voice like “So what do you think about the situation in Kosovo?”

What’s the strangest “conversation” you had with your baby?

Are we all crazy?

My kids do not have genetics on their side. Depression and anxiety run on both sides of the family. Turns out that they might not be alone. More than a quarter of all Americans have a mental disorder at some point in their lives, according to a 2004 study by the World Health Organization.

Hopefully they’ll dodge the bullet (and I’ll stop seeing every temper tantrum as a future psychosis). Of course, it didn’t help to learn that mental health problems aren’t just for adults. Turns out many young children—even preschoolers—suffer. Research suggests that 11-15 percent of children under the age of 18 have a diagnosable mental disorder.

So, how do you know? A new study by a researcher here at FPG tested a simple and inexpensive mental health screening process designed to flag potential signs of more serious problem. It was found to be a valid and reliable instrument for use in preschool screening of children who are at risk of problems of attention behavior, language and emotions that might interfere with their adjustment at school.

The good news is that there are now tools that can identify potential problems at a young age. Knowing these things can be hereditary can be helpful too. We know the signs and when outside attention might be needed. And people are much more willing to talk about mental health problems today than a generation ago.

The research summary is online. The National Scientific Council on the Developing Child also has interesting new data on children’s anxious and fearful behavior.

Hello world!

I admit it. After what What to Expect in the First Year, the only other parenting book I’ve picked up has been From Diapers to Dating (which I highly recommend). My kids are now 9 and 6, and I guess I’ve been winging it. Who has time to wade through it all? Besides, whenever I pick up a parenting book now, I just feel guilty about all of the ways I’ve probably already screwed them up.

So it’s pretty ironic that I now spend my days reading child development research. As public relations director for FPG Child Development Institute, I translate research into something that I hope others will find interesting. Hence the blog–it’s my attempt to take what I’m reading and hearing from researchers and share the highlights. It’s a blend of my experiences raising two children, stories I hear from my friends, and what research might have to do with it all.