Your Parenting Mojo - Respectful, research-based parenting ideas to help kids thrive

"How much can there really be to learn about storytelling?" I thought when I started on this mini-series.   It turns out that there's actually quite a lot to learn, and that family storytelling can be a particularly useful tool for parents. We're all trying to figure out how to transmit our values to our children, and storytelling can be quite an effective way of doing this. Further, storytelling can be a really valuable way to support children in overcoming traumatic experiences - and even to repair relationships after difficult moments like yelling. In this episode we dig into the research on the benefits of family storytelling and look at how to do it effectively.   Questions this episode will answer What exactly is family storytelling and how is it different from just reading books to my kids? We often feel safest when we read books to our kids. It seems like a ‘script’ that saves us from having to fully understand the situation and come up with our own words to describe it. Family storytelling involves sharing narratives about your own family experiences, values, and history. It creates a powerful connection between generations as you transmit important values. It can help children make sense of their place in your family relationships. The episode explores fascinating research about how these personal narratives shape children's identity in ways that storybooks can't match!   How can family storytelling help during difficult times or after traumatic experiences? When difficult emotions arise in our family, it can be tempting to pretend the situation didn’t happen. We hope our kids will just forget about difficult experiences. Instead, children may worry more when they 'can't talk about what happened. Family storytelling is a valuable tool for helping children overcome traumatic experiences. It helps them to make sense of what happened, and repair their family relationships. This can help children build resilience.   Do all families tell stories the same way, or are there cultural differences? There are fascinating cultural differences in how families engage in storytelling! American families often position children as primary narrators (like asking about their day at dinner). Israeli families tend to create more equal narrative participation between adults and children. The episode explores how these cultural storytelling styles impact child development differently. We offer insights into adapting techniques that might work best for your family. How do family stories change as children grow older? Parents tend to share different types of stories as children mature. Parents of younger children tend to tell stories with stronger themes of affiliation and connection. Stories shared with older children often shift toward themes of achievement and striving for success. The podcast unpacks the developmental reasons for this progression. We offer ideas on ways to balance different types of stories. How does the way the story is told affect children? The atmosphere during family storytelling matters a lot. Researchers have studied the factors that create a positive storytelling environment. These include: CourtesyRespectAgreement on story details The episode reveals surprising connections between these communication patterns and children's emotional development. We offer practical guidance for creating storytelling moments that strengthen family bonds. What happens when family stories evolve into "legacies" over generations? Stories can combine over time and generations. Then they become family legacies that shape how family members view themselves and their place in the world. The podcast explores the profound impact these narratives have on children's identity formation and family relationships. We share strategies for creating meaningful family legacies even if you haven't established these yet. How can I start family storytelling if it wasn't part of my own childhood experience? This might be one of the most valuable parts of the episode for many listeners! The episode provides practical, research-backed strategies to create meaningful family narratives. Even if you didn't grow up with family storytelling traditions. You'll learn specific prompts, timing suggestions, and approaches that feel natural rather than forced. What you'll learn in this episode How family storytelling creates stronger emotional bonds between parents and children. Stories can incorporate difficult emotions that we want children to learn how to navigate effectively. They help you build deeper connections that last a lifetime!Why storytelling is a powerful parenting tool for transmitting your family values. It creates meaningful legacies that shape your child's identityThe fascinating differences in stories between families from different cultures, and how these impact child developmentHow 'family formation stories' can boost your child's self-esteem and sense of belongingThe research-backed benefits of using stor

We should protect our children from risks, right? Isn’t that our job as parents? This episode comes mid-way in an extended series on the importance of play for children. The first episode in the series was an interview with Dr. Stuart Brown of the National Institute for Play on the value of play, both for children and for adults. Then we followed with a look at the research on the benefits of outdoor play, followed by an interview with Dr. Scott Sampson who wrote the book How to Raise a Wild Child, which had tons of practical advice for getting kids outside more, as well as getting outside more with your kids. Today we move on to the topic of risky play. We’ll define it, and discuss its benefits and drawbacks, as well as things we as parents can do to encourage more risky play if we decide we want to do that. Because it turns out that insulating our children from risk may not be such a good thing after all.     Other episodes referenced in this show What is the value of play? The benefits of outdoor play How to Raise a Wild Child Free to Learn Grit   References Brackett-Milburn, K., & Harden, J. (2004). How children and their families construct and negotiate risk, safety, and danger. Childhood 11(4), 429-447. Brussoni, M., Brunelle, S., Pike, I., Sandseter, E.B.H., Herrington, S., Turner, H., Belair, S., Logan, L., Fuselli, P., & Ball, D.J. (2015). Can child injury prevention include healthy risk promotion? Injury Prevention 21, 344-347. Brussoni, M., Ishikawa, T., Brunelle, S., & Herrington, S. (2017). Landscapes for play: Effects of an intervention to promote nature-based risky play in early childhood centres. Journal of Environmental Psychology 54, 139-150. Christensen, P., & Mikkelsen, M.R. (2008). Jumping off and being careful: Children’s strategies of risk management in everyday life. Sociology of Health & Illness 30(1), 112-130. Hill, A., & Bundy, A.C. (2012). Reliability and validity of a new instrument to measure tolerance of everyday risk for children. Child: Care, Health, and Development 40(1), 68-76. Leviton, M. (2016, February). The kids are all right: David Lancy questions our assumptions about parenting. The Sun. Retrieved from https://www.thesunmagazine.org/issues/482/the-kids-are-all-right Little, H., Wyver, S., & Gibson, F. (2011). The influence of play context and adult attitudes on young children’s physical risk-taking during outdoor play. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal 19(1), 113-131. Niehues, A.N., Bundy, A., Broom, A., Tranter, P., Ragen, J., & Engelen, L. (2013). Everyday uncertainties: Reframing perceptions of risk in outdoor free play. Journal of Adventure Education & Outdoor Learning 13(3), 223-237. Norton, C., Nixon, J., & Sibert, J.R. (2004). Playground injuries to children. Archives of Disease in Childhood 89(2), 103-108. Plumert, J.M., & Schwebel, D.C. (1997). Social and temperamental influences on children’s overestimation of their physical abilities: Links to accidental injuries. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 67, 317-337. Poultona, R., Menziesb, R.G., Craskec, M.G., Langleyd, J.D., & Silvaa, P.Aa. (1999). Water trauma and swimming experiences up to age 9 and fear of water at age 18: A longitudinal study. Behavior Research and Therapy 37(1), 39-48. Sandseter, E.B.H. (2007). Categorizing risky play – how can we identify risk-taking in children’s play? European Early Childhood Education Research Journal 15(2), 237-252. Sandseter, E.B.H. (2009). Characteristics of risky play. Journal of Adventure Education & Outdoor Learning 9(1), 3-21. Sandseter, E.B.H. (2009). Children’s expressions of exhilaration and fear in risky play. Contemporary issues in early childhood 10(2), 92-106. Sandseter, E.B.H. (2010). “It tickles my tummy!”: Understanding children’s risk-taking in play through reversal theory. Journal of Early Childhood Research 8(1), 67-88. Sandseter, E.B.H. (2011). Children’s risky play from an evolutionary perspective: The anti-phobic effects of thrilling experiences. Evolutionary Psychology 9(2), 257-284. Sandseter, E.B.H., & Sando, O.J. (2016). “We don’t allow children to climb trees”: How a focus on safety affects Norwegian children’s play in early childhood education and care settings. American Journal of Play 8(2), 178-200. Storili, R., & Sandseter, E.B.H. (2015). Preschool teachers perceptions of children’s rough-and-tumble play (R&T) in indoor and outdoor environments. Early Child Development and Care 185(11-12), 1995-2009. Wyver, S., Tranter, P., Naughton, G., Little, H., Sandseter, E.B.H., & Bundy, A. (2010). Ten ways to restrict children’s freedom to play: The problem of surplus safety. Contemporary Issues in Eaerly Childhood 11(3), 263-277.   Other episodes mentioned in this show What is the value of play? The benefits of outdoor play How to Raise a Wild Child Free to Learn Can Growth Mindset live up to the hype? Grit: The unique factor in your c

Growth mindset is everywhere these days. Dr. Carol Dweck’s research showing that a growth mindset can help children to overcome academic struggles is being incorporated to curriculum planning across the U.S. and in many other countries, and school districts in California are even using it to evaluate schools’ performance. I get ads popping up in my Facebook feed every day for a journal that helps children to develop a growth mindset, and judging from the comments those folks selling the journal are doing very nicely for themselves. Which means that the science underlying the idea of growth mindset must be rock solid, right? Well, perhaps you might be surprised (or not, if you’re a regular listener) to know that this actually isn’t the case. The main study on which the entire growth mindset theory is based has never been replicated, which is the gold standard for considering whether an effect that was found in a study is really real. And a variety of subsequent studies supporting the findings of the original one were either so tiny as to be not useful or failed to find any relevant effect (although in some cases they went on to report their findings as if they did…). We’ll tease all this out in the episode, and will discuss whether growth mindset is something worth fostering in your child.     Other shows mentioned in this episode Don’t bother trying to increase your child’s self-esteem Do you punish your child with rewards?   References Adams, J.M. (2014, May 5). Measuring a ‘growth mindset in a new school accountability system. Edsource. Retrieved from https://edsource.org/2014/measuring-a-growth-mindset-in-a-new-school-accountability-system/63557 Bandura, A. (1981). Self-referent thought: A developmental analysis of self-efficacy. In J.H. Flavell & L. Ross (Eds.), Social cognitive development: Frontiers and possible futures. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Baumeister, R.F., Campbell, J.D., Krueger, J.I., & Vohs, K.D. (2003). Does high self-esteem cause better performance, interpersonal success, happiness, or healthier lifestyles? Psychological Science in the Public Interest 4(1), 1-44. Boykin, A.W., Albury, A., Tyler, K.M., Hurley, E.A., Bailey, C.T., & Miller, O.A. (2005). Culture-based perceptions of academic achievement among low-income elementary students. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology 11, 339-50. Briggs, D.C. (1970). Your child’s self-esteem. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Brown, N. (2017, January 14). In which science actually self-corrects, for once. Retrieved from http://steamtraen.blogspot.fr/2017/01/in-which-science-actually-self-corrects.html Burnette, J.L., VanEpps, E.M., O’Boyle, E.H., Pollack, J.M., & Finkel, E.J. (2013). Mind-sets matter: A meta-analytic review of implicit theories and self-regulation. Psychological Bulletin 139(3), 655-701. Chivers, T. (2017, January 14). A mindset “revolution” sweeping Britain’s classes may be based on shaky science. BuzzFeed. Retrieved from https://www.buzzfeed.com/tomchivers/what-is-your-mindset?utm_term=.oo0Razv2n#.ht5JOoZv9 Cimpian, A., Mu, Y., & Erickson, L.C. (2012). Who is good at this game? Linking an activity to a social category undermines children’s achievement. Psychological Science 23(5), 533-541. Claro, S., Paunesku, D., & Dweck, C.S. (2016). Growth mindset tempers the effects of poverty on academic mindset. PNAS 113(31), 8664-8668. Diener, C.I., & Dweck, C.S. (1978). An analysis of learned helplessness: Continuous changes in performance, strategy, and achievement cognitions following failure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 36(5), 451-462. Full article available at http://slatestarcodex.com/Stuff/dw1978_achievement.pdf Duckworth, A.L., & Seligman, M.E.P. (2005). Self-discipline outdoes IQ in predicting academic performance of adolescents. Psychological Science 16, 939-944. Dweck, C.S., Walton, G.M., & Cohen, G.L. (2014). Academic tenacity: Mindsets and skills that promote long-term learning. Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Full report available at https://ed.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/manual/dweck-walton-cohen-2014.pdf Dweck, C.S., & Reppucci, N.D. (1973). Learned helplessness and reinforcement responsibility in children. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 25(1), 109-116. Full article available at http://slatestarcodex.com/Stuff/dweck73_reinforcement.pdf Dweck, C.S. (1975). The role of expectations and attributions in the alleviation of learned helplessness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 31(4), 674-685. Full article available at http://slatestarcodex.com/Stuff/dw1975_attributions.pdf Educuation Week (2016). Mindset in the classroom: A national study of K-12 teachers. Author. Retrieved from https://www.edweek.org/media/ewrc_mindsetintheclassroom_sept2016.pdf Edwards, B. (1989). Drawing on the right side of the brain. New York, NY: Tarcher. (Note: The Amazon reviews say the 1989 edition is better than the more re

We’ve done a couple of episodes on reading by now; episode 3 (which seems so long ago!) asked whether you might have missed the boat on teaching your toddler to read. Of course, we know that you’ve only missed the boat on that if you think that sitting your child in front of a video so they can recite the words they see without really understanding them counts as “reading.” Much more recently in episode 48 we talked with Dr. Laura Froyen about the benefits of shared reading with your child and how to do that according to best practices from the research literature. Those of you who subscribe to my newsletter will recall that I’ve been working on an episode on storytelling for months now. Part of the reason it’s taking so long is that books on storytelling technique say to use original stories wherever possible because the language in them is so much richer, but if you’ve ever read something like an original fairytale you know they can be pretty gory, and even the most harmless ones actually contain some pretty adult themes if you read between the lines. So I wanted to know: what do children really learn from stories? How do they figure out that we want them to learn morals from stories but not that animal characters walk on two legs and wear clothes? How do they generalize that knowledge to the real world? And are there specific types of books that promote learning? Join me in a conversation with Dr. Deena Weisberg of The University of Pennsylvania as she helps us to help our children learn through reading!   Other shows mentioned in this episode 003: Did you miss the boat on teaching your child how to read? 010: Becoming Brilliant 048: The benefits of shared reading   References Cheung, C.S., Monroy, J.A., & Delany, D.E. (2017). Learning-related values in young children’s storybooks: An investigation in the United States, China, and Mexico. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 48(4), 532-541. Ganea, P.A., Ma, L., & DeLoache, J.S. (2011). Young children’s learning and transfer of biological information from picture books to real animals. Child Development 82(5), 1421-1433. Heath, S.B. (1982). What no bedtime story means: Narrative skills at home and school. Language in Society 11(1), 49-76. Hopkins, E.J., & Weisberg, D.S. (2017). The youngest readers’ dilemma: A review of children’s learning from fictional sources. Developmental Review 43, 48-70. Ostrov, J.M., Gentile, D.A., & Mullins, A.D. (2013). Evaluating the effect of educational media exposure on aggression in early childhood. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology 34, 38-44. Read, K., Macauley, M., & Furay, E. (2014). The Seuss boost: Rhyme helps children retain words from shared storybook reading. First Language 34(4), 354-371.   Read Full Transcript   Transcript Jen: [00:38] Hi, this is Jen. Before we start on today’s episode, I just wanted to take a minute to let you know that as part of my research for this episode on what children learn through reading fictional books, I ended up looking at a lot of different kinds of books for children aged roughly between toddlerhood and elementary school, and I compiled them into a list of more than 100 books that you can use to support your children’s learning on a host of subjects related to math, science, empathy, being persistent in the face of failure, multicultural issues, and many other topics as well. If you already subscribed to the show and my website, then you actually already got the list with your newsletter from last week. Unfortunately, subscribing through itunes or other platforms doesn’t count because I don’t get any information from them on how to reach you, so if you don’t already subscribe or if you’re subscribed through another platform, then head on over to YourParentingMojo.com forward slash reading books and sign up on that page and then the report will be emailed right to you. Thanks again for listening and enjoy the interview with Dr Deena Weisberg. Jen: [01:38] Hello and welcome to the Your Parenting Mojo podcast. We’ve done a couple episodes on reading by now. Episode three, which seems so long ago, was one where we asked whether you might have missed the boat on teaching your toddler to read. Of course, we know you’ve only missed the boat on that if you think that sitting your child in front of a video so they can recite the words they see without really understanding them counts as reading much more recently in episode 48, we talked with Dr Laura Frye and about the benefits of shared reading with your child and how to do that according to best practices from the research literature I’ve mentioned to those of you who subscribe to my newsletter that I had been working on an episode related to storytelling for a while as in telling stories without books and also making up stories, but I realized I needed a bridge from where we’ve been to where we want to go. Jen: [02:23] I wanted to know more about what children learn from the stories we

So you listened to episode 58 and you’re convinced of the benefits of outdoor play. But you’re a grown-up. You don’t play outdoors. And you don’t know anything about nature. How can you possibly get started in helping your child to play outdoors more? There are a number of books out there on getting outside with children – some arguably more well-known than this one, but I have to say that Dr. Scott Sampson’s book How to Raise a Wild Child is the BEST book I’ve seen on this topic because it balances just the right amount of information on why it’s important to get outside, with just enough pointers on how to do it, without overwhelming you with hundreds of options to choose between. And it turns out that you don’t need to know a thing at all about The Environment to have a successful outing with children! If you’ve been wishing you could get outdoors more but just don’t know where to start, then this episode – and book! – are for you.   Other shows referenced in this episode 058: What are the benefits of outdoor play?   Dr. Scott Sampson's Book How to raise a wild child - Affiliate link   References Gopnik, A. (2009). The philosophical baby: What children’s minds tell us about truth, love, and the meaning of life. New York, NY: Picador. Sampson, S.D. (2015). How to raise a wild child: The art and science of falling in love with nature. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. (Affiliate link) Young, J., Haas, E., & McGown, E. (2010). Coyote’s guide to connecting with nature. OWLink Media.   Read Full Transcript   Transcript Jen: [00:38] Hello and welcome to the Your Parenting Mojo podcast. For those of you who get my fortnightly newsletter, which you can receive by subscribing to the show YourParentingMojo.com, you know that I have a bit of a penchant for the outdoors. I went on a 10 day backpacking trip across North Cascades National Park in September, and I’m trying to pass on my love of the outdoors to my daughter, most of our newsletters have a photo at the top and pretty often they go out with an image of her sitting in a stream or clambering over boulders or up to her thighs and a pond wearing waders, of course. And so today we’re going to talk with Dr Scott Sampson, the author of how to raise a wild child, the art and science of falling in love with nature, which I have to say is the best book I’ve read on this topic in terms of balancing information about the science of children in nature with a not overwhelming number of actions that parents can take to raise a wild child. Dr Sampson has the honor of being the first paleontologist we’ve interviewed on this show. He earned both his master’s in anthropology and a phd in zoology from the University of Toronto. He’s currently the president and CEO of Science World British Columbia, which is a pretty cool hands on science museum in Vancouver. And if his name sounds familiar to the parents of preschoolers, it’s because he also hosts the PBS kids series dinosaur train. I’m so excited to discuss this topic that’s so close to my heart. Welcome Dr Sampson. Dr. Sampson: [01:56] Thank you very much, Jen. Nice to be honest. Jen: [01:58] All right, so let’s start with the science. You and your book site a raft of studies describing the really profound shift in children’s leisure time. That’s happened over the last 50 years or so. Can you briefly, if possible, summarize 50 years worth of literature and why does it matter that our children don’t spend as much time outside now as they used to? Dr. Sampson: [02:18] Oh, let’s start with the first question and then we’ll go to the second one on the reason why this is important, so I wrote How to Raise a Wild Child because after doing a lot of thinking and research and talking with people, it just became clear to me that there was this dire need to reconnect kids with nature that over a single generation we’d gone from basically a free range childhood to an indoor migration that has limited children’s ability to be outside and the end result of this has been a health crisis for children and the places that they live. That one US surgeon general said not so long ago that this generation of children could be the first to have a life expectancy is shorter than that of their parents. We have these runaway conditions, obesity, attention deficit disorder, diabetes, depression, even conditions like Myopia and not only is the incidents of these conditions increasing, but they’re moving earlier and earlier into childhood and so that’s the health of children and then when you think about sustainability and moving towards, you know, a thriving green future, the reality is why would we ever become sustainable if we don’t care about where we live and why would we care if we never spend any time outside. A screen looks the same in Vancouver or Miami or Timbuktu as anywhere else. Dr. Sampson: [03:42] So we have this need to reconnect kids with nature and bringing back these childhoods that had a lot of gree

This is the second in our extended series of episodes on children’s play. We kicked off last week with a look at the benefits of play in general for children, and now we’re going to take a more specific look at the benefits of outdoor play. Really, if someone could bottle up and sell outdoor play they’d make a killing, because it’s hard to imagine something children can do that benefits them more than this. This episode also tees up our conversation, which will be an interview with Dr. Scott Sampson on his book How To Raise A Wild Child, which gives TONS of practical suggestions for getting outdoors with children.   Other episodes referenced in this show How to scaffold children’s learning to help them succeed Is a Reggio Emilia-inspired preschool right for my child? Understanding the AAP’s new screen time guidelines Raising your child in a digital world   References Anderson, L. W. and Krathwohl, D. R., et al (Eds..) (2001) A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching, and Assessing: A Revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. Allyn & Bacon. Boston, MA: Pearson Education Group Berman, M.G., Jonides, J., & Kaplan, S. (2008). The cognitive benefits of interacting with nature. Psychological Science 19(12), 1207-1212. Brussoni, M., Rebecca, G., Gray, C., Ishikawa, T., & Sandseter, E.B.H. (2015). What is the relationship between risky outdoor play and health in children? A systematic review. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 12(6), 6243-6454. Centers for Disease Control and Prvention (2016). Playground safety. Author. Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/safechild/playground/index.html Capaldi, C.A., Dopko, R.L., & Zelenski, J.M. (2014). The relationship between nature connectedness and happiness: A meta-analysis. Frontiers in Psychology 5, 1-15. Gregory, A. (2017, May 18). Running free in Germany’s outdoor preschools. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/18/t-magazine/germany-forest-kindergarten-outdoor-preschool-waldkitas.html?_r=0 Hung, W. (2013). Problem-based learning: A learning environment for enhancing learning transfer. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education 137(31), 27-38. doi 10.1002/ace.20042 Lund, H.H., Klitbo, T., & Jessen, C. (2005). Playware technology for physically activating play. Artificial Life and Robotics 9(4), 165-174. Mawson, W.B. (2014). Experiencing the ‘wild woods’: The impact of pedagogy on children’s experience of a natural environment. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal 22(4), 513-524. Moss, S. (2012). Natural Childhood. London: The National Trust. Nash, R. (1982). Wilderness and the American Mind (3rd Ed.). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Natural Playgrounds Company (2017). Website. Retrieved from http://www.naturalplaygrounds.com/ Outdoor Foundation (2017). Outdoor Participation Report. Author. Retrieved from https://outdoorindustry.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/2017-Outdoor-Recreation-Participation-Report_FINAL.pdf Otto, S., & Pensini, P. (2017). Nature-based environmental education of children: Environmental knowledge and connectness to nature, together, are related to ecological behavior. Global Environmental Change 47, 88-94. Potvin, P., & Hasni, A. (2014). Interest, motivation, and attitude towards science and technology at K-12 levels: A systematic review of 12 years of educational research. Studies in Science Education 50(1), 85-129. Richardson, M., Cormack, A., McRobert, L., & Underhill, R. (2016). 30 days wild: Development and evaluation of a large-scale nature engagement campaign to improve well-being. PLOS ONE 11(2), 1-13. Roisin, H. (2014, April). The overprotected kid. The Atlantic. Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/04/hey-parents-leave-those-kids-alone/358631/ Scott, J. (2000, July 15). When child’s play is too simple; Experts criticize safety-conscious recreation as boring. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2000/07/15/arts/when-child-s-play-too-simple-experts-criticize-safety-conscious-recreation.html Sloan, C. (2013). Transforming multicultural classrooms through creative place-based learning. Multicultural Education 21(1), 26-32. Retreived from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1045830.pdf Ulset, V., Vitaro, F., Brengden, M., Bekkhus, M., & Borge, A.I.H. (2017). Time spent outdoors during preschool: Links with children’s cognitive and behavioral development. Journal of Environmental Psychology 52, 69-70. Waite, S., Rogers, S., & Evans, J. (2013). Freedom, flow, and fairness: Exploring how children develop socially at school through outdoor play. Journal of Adventure Education and Outdoor Learning 13(3), 255-276. Waller, T., Arlemalm-Hager, E., Sandseter, E.B.H., Lee-Hammond, L., Lekies, K., & Wyver, S. (2017). The SAGE handbook of outdoor play and learning. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. Williams, F. (2017). The nature fix. New York, NY: WW Norton. Wyver, S. (20

Does play really matter? Do children get anything out of it? Or is it just messing around; time that could be better spent preparing our children for success in life? Today we talk with Dr. Stuart Brown, founder of the National Institute for Play, about the benefits of play for both children and – I was surprised to find – adults. This is the first in a series of episodes on play – lots more to come on outdoor play (and how to raise kids who love being outdoors), risky play, and imaginative play.   Dr. Stuart Brown's Book Play: How it shapes the brain, opens the imagination, and invigorates the soul - Affiliate link   References Bjorklund, D.F., & Brown, R.D. (1998). Physical play and cognitive development: Integrating activity, cognition, and education. Child Development, 69, 604-606. Brown, S. (2009). Play: How it shapes the brain, opens the imagination, and invigorates the soul. New York, NY: Penguin. Christakis, D. A., F. J. Zimmerman, and M. Garrison. (2007). Effect of block play on language acquisition and attention in toddlers a pilot randomized controlled trial. Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine,161 (10), 967-971. Csíkszentmihályi, Mihály (1990). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. New York: Harper and Row. Duckworth, A.L. (2016). Grit: The power of passion and perseverance. New York, NY: Scribner. Elkind, D. (2003). Thanks for the memory: The lasting value of true play. Young Children 58(3), 46-51. Lancy, D.F. (2015). The anthropology of childhood: Cherubs, chattel, changelings (2nd Ed.). Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press.   Read Full Transcript Transcript Jen: [00:40] Hello and welcome to the Your Parenting Mojo podcast. We’re kicking off a series of episodes today on the topic of play. Now I hear you wondering: play? There’s enough research about play to be able to do one episode, never mind a series of episodes?! And my response to that would be, Oh yes, there is just you. Wait, so we’re going to kick off today with an overview of the topic and then we’ll delve into various aspects of play with a particular focus on outdoor play because it’s important to me and just sometimes that’s how we pick topics around here. So today we have is our very special guest Dr. Stuart Brown, MD. I first learned of his work when I heard the National Institute for Play mentioned during a show on NPR. I thought to myself, there is a national institute for play. I have to talk to somebody from there, and so Dr. Brown, who’s the founder and director of the National Institute for Play is here to share his research and work. I was fascinated to read his book play, how it shapes the brain, opens the imagination and invigorates the soul because I was expecting it to tell me how important play is to my daughter’s development, but I wasn’t expecting it to tell me how important play is to my own wellbeing as well. So we’ll get into that to welcome Dr. Brown. Dr. Brown: [01:51] Glad to be here Jen. Jen: [01:53] So let’s start with something that seems kind of obvious, but then you think about it a bit and you realize that you’re actually not quite sure what it is. So I’m wondering, can you please define play for us? Dr. Brown: [02:04] Well, it’s very hard to define; it’s a little like love in that play is an experience and it is often prompted by pre-verbal sorts of impulses. But having said that, we always like to think of it as something that is definable, although I think most of us, if we see a puppy or kitty playing in front of us, we know that what they’re doing is play, but it’s voluntary; it’s done for its own sake. It appears purposeless. It takes one out of a sense of time. There is a diminished sense of self importance. You’re just engaged in what you’re doing. It’s fun and pleasurable. It can be interrupted. It’s not driven like addictive or other kinds of activities in general. Like to go back to it and experience it again and it is something that’s deeply instinctively embedded in the humans. So that’s a start anyhow. Jen: [03:11] And I’m wondering if you can talk us through, Scott Eberle, I think is how you say his name. He has a six step process of play that you describe in your book. Can you walk us through those six steps? Dr. Brown: [03:22] I don’t know if I can go through all six steps butt Scott Eberle was the distinguished editor of the American Journal of Play from its start until just recently when he retired and he has established what he considers the elements of play, kind of like the periodic table of elements define the atomic structure. Then he goes from anticipation to poise and describes there’s anticipation, surprise, increased strength, agility, curiosity, and takes these elements, and if I had them listed in front of me. I could read them off, but he has a whole array of gradations that go from, as you anticipate, for example, an experience of play, whether it’s playing a sport or reading a novel that you’re looking forward to. There is that h

I hear a huge crash. It’s my favorite glass vase. I hear “I didn’t mean to hurt it, Mommy! It just fell!” as I run full-pelt from the other end of the house. It was a family heirloom passed down by my grandmother. I’ve asked her not to touch it a hundred times. I am beyond furious. “Please don’t be mad, Mommy. It was an accident.” I clench my teeth. “I’m not mad.” _______________________________________________________   What does my daughter learn from this exchange? How does my own emotional regulation affect what she learns about how to regulate her own emotions? We’ll learn about this in today’s episode. Note that this episode is the second in the ill-fated experimental short episodes – we’ll be back to the regular length hereafter! In case you missed it, the first episode in this series was Three Reasons Not To Say You’re OK.   Taming Your Triggers If you need help with your own big feelings about your child’s behavior, register for the Taming Your Triggers workshop. We’ll help you to: Understand the real causes of your triggered feelings, and begin to heal the hurts that cause themUse new tools like the ones Katie describes to find ways to meet both her and her children’s needsEffectively repair with your children on the fewer instances when you are still triggered   Click the banner to learn more!     Other episodes mentioned in this show How parenting affects child developmentThe impact of divorce on a child’s developmentHow to scaffold children’s learning to help them succeed   References Bariola, E., Hughes, E.K., & Gullone, E. (2012). Relationships between parent and child emotion regulation strategy use: A brief report. Journal of Child and Family Studies 21(3), 443-448. Butler, E.A., Egloff, B., ,Wilhelm, F.H., Smith, N.C., Erickson, E.A., & Gross, J.J. (2003). The social consequences of expressive suppression. Emotion 3(1), 48-67. Christenfeld, B., Gerin, W., Linden, W., Sanders, M., Mathur, J., Deich, J.D., & Pickering, T.G. (1997). Social support effects on cardiovascular reactivity: Is a stranger as effective as a friend? Psychosomatic Medicine 59, 388-398. Cohen, S., & Wills, T.A. (1985). Stress, social support, and the buffering hypothesis. Psychological Bulletin 98(2), 310-357. Gershoff, E.T., & Grogan-Kaylor, A. (2016). Spanking and child outcomes: Old controversies and new meta-analyses. Journal of Family Psychology 30(4), 453-469. Gottman, J.M., & Levenson, R.W. (1992). Marital processes predictive of later dissolation: Behavior, physiology, and health. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 63(2), 221-233. Gross, J.J., & John, O.P. (2003). Individual differences in two emotion regulation processes: Implications for affect, relationships, and well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 85(2), 348-362. Gunzenhauser, C., Faasche, A., Friedlmeier, W.& von Suchodoletz, A. (2014). Face it or hide it: Parental socialization of reappraisal and response suppression. Frontiers in Psychology 4, 992. Kiel, E.J. & Kalomiris, A.E. (2015). Current themes in understanding children’s emotion regulation as developing from within the parent-child relationship. Current Opinions in Psychology 1(3), 11-16. Kopystynska, O, Paschall, K.W., Barnett, M.A., & Curran, M.A. (2017). Patterns of interparental conflict, parenting, and children’s emotional insecurity: A person-centered approach. Journal of Family Psychology 31(7), 922-932. Krantz, D.S., & Manuck, S.B. (1984). Acute psychophysiologic reactivity and risk of cardiovascular disease: A review and methdologic critique. Psychological Bulletin 93(3), 435-464. Lansbury, J. Unruffled Parenting. Author. Retrieved from http://www.janetlansbury.com/2015/08/respectful-parenting-podcasts-janet-lansbury-unruffled/ Laurenceau, J.P., Barrett, L.F., & Pietromonaco, P.R. (1998). Intimacy as an interpersonal process: The importance of self-disclosure, partner disclosure, and perceived partner responsiveness in interpersonal exchanges. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 75(5), 1238-1251. Meeren H.K.M., van Heijnsbergen, C.C.R.J., & de Gelder, B. (2005). Rapid perceptual integration of facial expression and emotional body language. PNAS 102(45), 16518-16523. Pennebaker, J.W. (1989). Confession, inhibition, and disease. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology 22, 211-244. Rutherford, H.J.V., Wallace, N.S., Laurent, H.K., & Mayes, L.C. (2015). Emotion regulation in parenthood. Developmental Review 36, 1-14. Tiedens, L.Z. (2001). Anger and advancement versus sadness and subjugation: The effect of negative emotion expressions on social status conferral. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 80(1), 86-94. Tromssdorff, G., & Heikamp, T. (2013). Socialization of emotions and emotion regulation in cultural context. In S. Barnow & N. Balkir (Eds.), Cultural variations in psychopathology: From research to practice (pp.67-92). Cambridge, MA: Hoegrefe P

Is your child ‘spirited’? Even if they aren’t spirited all the time, do they have spirited moments? You know exactly what to do in those moments, right? No? Well then we have a treat for you today. Dr. Mary Sheedy Kurcinka, author of Raising Your Spirited Child, walks us through the ins and outs of her book on the same topic. Best yet, we do the interview as a consult with a parent, Kathryn, who has read and loved the book, but struggled with implementing the ideas. Warning: we spend quite a bit of time brainstorming very specific problems that Kathryn is having with her daughter. You may not be having exactly the same problem with your child, but the brainstorming method we use is one you can do with a friend – take the approach with you to address your own problems, rather than the specific ideas. Read more about Dr. Mary’s books and other work on her website.   Reference Kurcinka, M.S. (2015). Raising your spirited child (3rd Ed.). New York, NY: William Morrow. (Affiliate link)   Read Full Transcript   Transcript Jen: [00:39] Hello and welcome to the Your Parenting Mojo podcast. I know we’re going to help a lot of parents out today because we are here with Dr. Mary Sheedy Kurcinka, who wrote the book Raising Your Spirited Child, which I know is an absolute classic read for any parent of a spirited child. I read the book because a listener had requested an episode on it and what surprised me about it was that I don’t think my daughter is particularly spirited, but I definitely saw elements of her behavior described in the book and what I took out of that was that probably pretty much any child can have spirited elements of their personality or even just spirited moments. And so both the book and this episode are really for anyone who raises a child and who has ever had a moment where they think, “why won’t he or she just do what I ask.” Jen: [01:26] So Dr. Mary has a bachelor’s in early childhood education, a Master’s in family social science, and a doctorate in education. She has written four books on various aspects of raising children, which have been translated into 23 languages. Her son and daughter are now fully fledged adults and she lives with her husband in Bozeman, Montana. Welcome Dr. Mary. Kathryn: [01:46] Thank you. Jen: [01:48] And so when I mentioned in my fortnightly newsletter, which you can actually receive by subscribing to the show YourParentingMojo.com, that I was looking for a coat interviewer to help me interview Dr Mary and really dig into the ways to apply the wisdom in the book. I received a number of responses, but one really stuck out. Kathryn is based in London and she has a four year old daughter who we’re going to call Jane in this episode and a son who’s a little over a year old and we’re going to call him George. Jen: [02:14] I asked Kathryn to help us with this interview because she’d actually read and love the book, but had been struggling with the application of some of the strategies. She’s tried hard to support her spirited daughter as she grows and develops, but has found a particularly challenged in some areas since the birth of her son. So we’re here today to really get into the book, but also go beyond the book and get the real lowdown on how to implement the strategies in the book when the first attempt has maybe been a little bit less than successful. Welcome Kathryn. Kathryn: [02:41] Thank you. Jen: [02:42] All right. So Kathryn, let’s start with you. I wonder if you could please describe your daughter and how she fits into your family dynamic and I know you’ve read the book so you know that the words that are used to describe spirited children are very important. So what words do you use to describe her and what words do people around you who might not have read the book use? Kathryn: [03:01] So after reading the book, I would say that in particular it was the intense and persistent elements that really struck a chord, but also she’s sensitive, very perceptive, a very high energy introvert, I would say. And just very articulate about what she wants, funny, enthusiastic, that kind of thing. And in terms of other peoples, there’s never been so much the label’s put on her I would find, but it’s just kind of when people talk, when they’d see something happening, you know, as if, oh, so and so that I know that they’re spoiled and oh well people don’t treat me like King Tut, or you know, just, it’s more in people’s tone. And I, I noticed as well since her brother was born that it’s more she falls into a particular persona kind of in contrast as the main older sibling almost. Jen: [03:54] Is that pretty common? Dr. Kurcinka? Dr. Mary: [03:57] As the mean older sibling? Well, certainly one of the things we know about spirited children is their intent. So every emotion is intense, including jealousy, they’re also slow to adapt. So a shift in the family dynamic is certainly going to affect them, but they’re also incredibly perceptive of the stress levels

“I hear parents on the playground all the time saying “You’re OK!” after their child falls over. Often it does make the child stop crying…but doesn’t it invalidate the child’s feelings?” It turns out that this question is related to a skill that psychologists call emotional regulation, and learning how to regulate emotions is one of the most important tasks of childhood. This to-the-point episode is a trial of a shorter form of episode after listeners told me this show is “very dense.” It’s hard to back off the density, but I can back off the length. Let me know (via email or the Contact Me, page – not the comments on this episode because I get inundated with spam) what you think…   Other episodes referenced in this show How parenting affects children’s development How divorce impacts children’s development How to scaffold children’s learning   References Brookshire, B. (2013, May 8). Psychology is WEIRD: Western college students are not the best representatives of human emotion, behavior, and sexuality. Slate. Retrieved from www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2013/05/weird_psychology_social_science_researchers_rely_too_much_on_western_college.html Duncan, L.G., Coatsworth, J.D., & Greenberg, M.T. (2009). A model of mindful parenting: Implications for parent-child relationships and prevention research. Clinical Child & Family Psychology Review 12, 255-270. Keane, S.P., & Calkins, S.D. (2004). Predicting kindergarten peer social status from toddler and preschool problem behavior. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology 32(4), 409-423. Kopystynska, O., Paschall, K.W., Barnett, M.A., & Curran, M.A. (2017). Patterns of interparental conflict, parenting, and children’s emotional insecurity: A person-centered approach. Journal of Family Psychology 31(7), 922-932. Roemer, L., Williston, S.K., & Rollins, L.G. (2015). Mindfulness and emotion regulation. Current Opinion in Psychology 3, 52-57. Rotenberg, K.J., & Eisenberg, N. (1997). Developmental differences in the understanding of and reaction to others’ inhibition of emotional expression. Developmental Psychology 33(3), 526-537. Sasser, T.R., Bierman, K.L., & Heinrichs, B. (2015). Executive functioning and school adjustment: The mediational role of pre-kindergarten learning-related behaviors. Early Childhood Research Quarterly 30(A), 70-79. Swain, J.E., Kim, P., & Ho, S.S. (2011). Neuroendocrinology of parental response to baby-cry. Journal of Neuroendochrinology 23(11), 1036-1041. Trommsdorff, G. (2010). Preschool girls’ distress and mothers’ sensitivity in Japan and Germany. European Journal of Developmental Psychology 7(3), 350-370.   Read Full Transcript Transcript Hello and welcome to the Your Parenting Mojo podcast. While I was still pregnant with my daughter, a friend showed me a video of a toddler falling down a flight of stairs. Once he has tumbled all the way to the bottom he immediately bounces up and announces loudly for anyone who might be around: “I’m OK! I’m OK!” At the time I thought that was pretty cool. Who wouldn’t want a child who can roll with the tumbles of life and be fine with it? I was working on some mental and emotional pregnancy exercises from a book at the time, one of which instructed me to write down my hopes for my yet-unborn daughter. In the beautiful book that I made for her by hand (and that I hope to one day give to her), the third entry on my list of “My hopes for you” was “I hope you’ll be the kind of kid who gets up after a fall and says I’m OK!” Fortunately, through studying for a Master’s in Psychology and through researching podcast episodes for you, my wishes for my daughter, as well as my skills, have evolved – but I’m still learning all the time. Recently, one of my podcast listeners emailed me with a question: “I hear parents on the playground all the time saying “You’re OK!” after their child falls over. Often it does make the child stop crying…but doesn’t it invalidate the child’s feelings?” It turns out that this question is related to a skill that psychologists call emotional regulation, and learning how to regulate emotions is one of the most important tasks of childhood. There are three major ways that children learn about emotional regulation. The first of these is through direct teaching of emotional regulation – for example, by saying things like ‘you’re OK!.’ The second is through parental modeling of emotional regulation, and because I’ve been getting feedback from listeners saying that they LOVE my show but find the content to be very dense, we’re going to try a little experiment here and break these two topics down into two episodes. They’re not actually going to be any less dense than my regular episodes (although I really make no apology for that), but hopefully making them shorter will help them to be a bit more digestible anyway. I’d like you to let me know what you think about this, so do drop me a line at [email protected] with any fe

“HOW DO I GET MY CHILD TO SLEEP THROUGH THE NIGHT?!” is the thinly-veiled message under the surface of many of the emails that I get about sleep. And I don’t blame you. I don’t claim to be a magician in this regard, although I did get incredibly, amazingly lucky – my daughter put in her first eight-hour night at six weeks old, and has regularly slept through the night for longer than I can remember. I’m really genuinely not sure I could parent if things weren’t like this. But today’s episode is about the data, not about anecdata. Zoe in Sydney wrote to me: A hotly debated topic with my friends has been “sleeping through the night.” My daughter never was great at napping and still wakes up once a night, coming into our bed. We have never been able to do controlled crying etc – I would love to know what science says about sleeping through the night! And what is best for your child (vs the parent). My close friend is a breastfeeding counselor and said they are taught that lots of children don’t sleep through until 4 years old! Other mothers I knew were horrified if their child wasn’t sleeping through by 6 months – and the French talk about their children ‘having their nights’ much earlier… As I started researching this topic it became clear that sleep is driven to an incredible extent by cultural preferences. Some (Western) psychologists advocate for letting children Cry It Out, while people in many cultures around the world see putting a child to sleep in their own room (never mind allowing them to cry) as tantamount to child abuse. So: can we get our children to sleep more? Is bed-sharing inherently bad? Does Cry It Out harm the child in some way? Let’s find out!   References Amoabeng, A.O. (2010). The changes and effect of stress hormone cortisol during extreme diet and exercise. Unpublished Master’s thesis. Boston, MA: Boston University. American Academy of Pediatrics (2016). SIDS and other sleep-related infant deaths: Updated 2016 recommendations for a safe infant sleeping environment. Author. Retrieved from http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2016/10/20/peds.2016-2938 Bernier, A., Carlson, S. M., Bordeleau, S., & Carrier, J. (2010). Relations between physiological and cognitive regulatory systems: Infant sleep regulation and subsequent executive functioning. Child Development, 81, 1739–1752. Blampied, N.M. (2013). Functional behavioral analysis of sleep in infants and children. In A. Wolfson & H. Montgomery-Downs (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of infant, child, and adolescent sleep and behavior. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press. Burnham, M.M. (2013). Co-sleeping and self-soothing during infancy. In A. Wolfson & H. Montgomery-Downs (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of infant, child, and adolescent sleep and behavior. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press. Chess, S., & Thomas, A. (1984). Origins and evolution of behavior disorders. New York, NY: Brunner/Mazel. Crncec, R., Matthey, S., & Nemeth, D. (2010). Infant sleep problems and emotional health: A review of two behavioral approaches. Journal of Reproductive and Infant Psychology 28(1), 44-54. Ferber, R. (1985). Solve your child’s sleep problems. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster. France, K.G. (1991). Behavior characteristics and security in sleep-disturbed infants treated with extinction. Journal of Pediatric Psychology 17(4), 467-475. Gaddini, R. (1970. Transitional objects and the process of individuation: A study in three different social groups. Journal of the American Academy of Child Psychiatry 9(2), 347-365. Germo, G.G., Goldberg, W.A., & Keller, M.A. (2009). Learning to sleep through the night: Solution or strain for mothers and young children? Infant Mental Health Journal 30(3), 223-244. Giannotti, F., & Cortesi, F. (2009). Family and cultural influences on sleep development. Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Clinics of North America 18(4), 849-861. Hale, L., Parente, V., & Phillips, G.K. (2013). Social determinants of children’s sleep. In A. Wolfson & H. Montgomery-Downs (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of infant, child, and adolescent sleep and behavior. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press. Healey, D., France, K.G., & Blampied, N.M. (2009). Treating sleep disturbances in infants: What generalizes? Behavioral Interventions 24, 23-41. Hiscock, H., Bayer, J., Gold, L., Hampton, A., Okuomunne, O.C., & Wake, M. (2006). Improving infant sleep and maternal mental health: A cluster randomized trial. Archives of Disease in Childhood 92, 952-958. Hupp, S., & Jewell, J. (2014). Great myths of child development. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons. Jenni, O.G., & O’Connor, B.B. (2005). Children’s sleep: An interplay between culture and biology. Pediatrics 115(1), 204-216. Lushington, K., Pamula, Y., Martin, J., & Kennedy, J.D. (2013). The relationship between sleep and daytime cognitive/behavioral functioning: Infancy and preschool years. In A. Wolfson & H. Montgomery-Downs (Eds.),

In Professor Angela Duckworth’s TED talk, she says of her research: “One characteristic emerged as a significant predictor of success. And it wasn’t social intelligence. It wasn’t good looks, physical health, and it wasn’t IQ. It was grit.” The effusive blurbs on the book cover go even beyond Professor Duckworth’s own dramatic pronouncements: Daniel Gilbert, the author of Stumbling on Happiness, says: “Psychologists have spent decades searching for the secret of success, but Duckworth is the one who has found it…She not only tells us what it is, but how to get it.” Susan Cain, author of Quiet: The power of introverts in a world that can’t stop talking (which we’ve looked at previously in an episode on supporting your introverted child) says: “Impressively fresh and original…Grit scrubs away preconceptions about how far our potential can take us…Buy this, send copies to your friends, and tell the world that there is, in fact, hope. We can all dazzle.” Don’t we all want to dazzle? Don’t we all want our children to dazzle? Is grit the thing that will help them do it? It turns out that Professor Duckworth’s own research says: perhaps not. Listen in to learn how much grit is a good thing, how to help your child be grittier, and why it might not be the factor that assures their success.   Other episodes mentioned in this show How to support your introverted child Why you shouldn’t bother trying to increase your child’s self-esteem   References Crede, M., Tynan, M.C., & Harms, P.D. (2017). Much ado about grit: A meta-analytic synthesis of the grit literature. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 113(3), 492-511. Del Giudice, M. (2014, October 14). Grit trumps talent and IQ: A story every parent (and educator) should read. National Geographic. Retrieved from http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/10/141015-angela-duckworth-success-grit-psychology-self-control-science-nginnovators/ Denby, D. (2016, June 21). The limits of “grit.” The New Yorker. Retrieved from https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-limits-of-grit Duckworth, A.L., Peterson, C., Matthews, M.D., & Kelly, D.R. (2007). Grit: Perseverance and passion for long-term goals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 92(6), 1087-1101. Full article available at https://www.ronaldreaganhs.org/cms/lib7/WI01001304/Centricity/Domain/187/Grit%20JPSP.pdf Duckworth, A.L., & Yeager, D.S. (2015). Measurement matters: Assessing personal qualities other than cognitive abilities for educational purposes. Educational Researcher 44(4), 237-251. Duckworth, A.L. (2016). Grit: The power of passion and perseverance. New York, NY: Scribner. (Affiliate link) Eskreis-Winkler, L., Shulman, E.P., Young, V., Tsukayama, E., Brunwasaser, S.M., & Duckworth, A.L. (2016). Using wise interventions to motivate deliberate practice. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 111(5), 728-744. Farrington, C.A., Roderick, M., Allensworth, E., Nagoka, J., Keyes, T.S., Johnson, D.W., & Beechum, N.O. (2012). Teaching adolescents to become learners: The role of noncognitive factors in shaping school performance: A critical literature review. The University of Chicago Consortium on Chicago School Research. Retrieved from https://consortium.uchicago.edu/sites/default/files/publications/Noncognitive%20Report.pdf Forsyth, D.R., & Kerr, N.A. (1999, August). Are adaptive illusions adaptive? Poster presented at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, Boston, MA. Hannon, B. (2014). Predicting college success: The relative contributions of five social/personality factors, five cognitive/earning factors, and SAT scores. Journal of Educational and Training Studies 2(4), 46-58. Heckman, J.J. (2013). Giving kids a fair chance (A strategy that works). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Kamenetz, A. (2016, May 25). MacArthur ‘genius’ Angela Duckworth responds to a new critique of grit. NPR. Retrieved from http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/05/25/479172868/angela-duckworth-responds-to-a-new-critique-of-grit Kapoor, M.L. (2017, June 27). 12 books expelled from Tucson schools. High Country News. Retrieved from http://www.hcn.org/articles/education-tucsons-mexican-american-studies-ban-goes-back-to-court Kohn, A. (2014). Grit: A skeptical look at the latest educational fad. Author. Retrieved from http://www.alfiekohn.org/article/grit/ No byline. (1998, March 15). Weddings; Jason Duckworth, Angela Lee. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/1998/03/15/style/weddings-jason-duckworth-angela-lee.html Sparks, S.D. (2015, June 2). ‘Nation’s Report Card’ to gather data on grit, mindset. Education Week. Retrieved from http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2015/06/03/nations-report-card-to-gather-data-on.html The Leadership Conference. (2015, May 5). Civil rights groups: “We oppose anti-testing efforts.” Author. Retrieved from https://civilrights.org/civil-rights-groups-we-oppose-anti-testing-efforts/ The Learning Project Elementary Sch

“I don’t want to play with you.” “You’re not my friend.” “We’re playing families. If you want to play, you have to be the dog.” Seems like everyone can remember a time when something like this happened to them as a child, and how much it hurt. Children still say these things to each other – and we see how much it hurts them, too. When researchers ask them, every child can remember a time when they were excluded – yet no child ever reports being the excluder! One of my listeners recommended that I read the book You Can’t Say You Can’t Play, in which the author (who is a teacher) proposes and then introduces a rule that you can’t say “you can’t play.” A few researchers (including Professor Jamie Ostrov, with whom we’ll talk today) have since tested the approach: does it work? If not, what should we do instead? Since most of these situations occur in preschool and school, teacher Caren co-interviews Professor Ostrov with me: we have some great insights for teachers as well as lots of information for parents on how to support both children and teachers in navigating these difficult situations.   Dr. Professor Jamie Ostrov's Book The development of relational aggression - Affiliate link   References Allen, S.S. (2014). Narratives of women who suffered social exclusion in elementary school. Unpublished Ph.D dissertation. Antioch University, Culver City, CA DeVooght, K., Daily, S., Darling-Churchill, K., Temkin, D., Novak, B.A., & VanderVen, K. (2015, August). Bullies in the block area: The early childhood origins of “mean” behavior. Child Trends. Retrieved from https://www.childtrends.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/2015-31BulliesBlockArea.pdf Haney, M., & Bissonnette, V. (2011). Teachers’ perceptions about the use of play to facilitate development and teach prosocial skills. Creative Education 2(1), 41-46. Helgeland, A., & Lund, I. (2016). Children’s voices on bullying in kindergarten. Early Childhood Education Journal 45(1), 133-141. Ostrov, J.M., Gentile, D.A., & Crick, N.R. (2006). Media exposure, aggression and prosocial behavior during early childhood: A longitudinal study. Social Development 15(4), 612-627. Ostrov, J.M, Godleski, S.A., Kamper-DeMarco, K.E., Blakely-McClure, S.J., & Celenza, L. (2015). Replication and extension of the early childhood friendship project: Effects on physical and relational bullying. School Psychology Review 44(4), 445-463. Ostrov, J.M., Murray-Close, D., Godleski, S.A., & Hart, E.J. (2013). Prospective associations between forms and functions of aggression and social and affective processes during early childhood. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 116(1), 19-36. Perry, K.J., & Ostrov, J.M. (2017). Testing a bifactor model of relational and physical aggression in early childhood. Journal of Psychopathology & Behavioral Assessment. Online first. doi 10.1007/s10862-017-9623-9 Swit, C. S., McMaugh, A. L., & Warburton, W. A. (2017). Teacher and parent perceptions of relational and physical aggression during early childhood. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 1-13. DOI: 10.1007/s10826-017-0861-y Werner, N. E., Eaton, A. D., Lyle, K., Tseng, H., & Holst, B. (2014). Maternal social coaching quality interrupts the development of relational aggression during early childhood. Social Development 23, 470-486. doi: 10.1111/sode.12048 Weyns, T., Verschueren, K., Leflot, G., Onghena, P., Wouters, S., & Colpin, H. (2017). The role of teacher behavior in children’s relational aggression development: A five-wave longitudinal study. Journal of School Psychology 64, 17-27. doi: 10.1007/s10826-017-0861-y

“Be a man.” “Boys don’t cry.” “Don’t be a sissy.” Boys hear these things all the time – from parents, from teachers, from friends and peers. What does it do to their emotional lives when they crave close relationships but society tells them to keep emotional distance from others? Join my guest Alan Turkus and me as we quiz Dr. Judy Chu, who lectures on this topic at Stanford and was featured in the (awesome!) documentary The Mask You Live In. This episode is a must-listen if you’re the parent of a boy, and may even help those of you with girls to understand more about why boys and men treat girls and women the way they do. Don’t have a boy? Check out How To Raise A Girl With A Healthy Body Image.   References Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development: Experiments by nature and design. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Chu, J. When boys become boys: Development, relationships, and masculinity. New York, NY: NYU Press. (Affiliate link) Maccoby, E.E. (1990). Gender and relationships: A developmental account. American Psychologist 45(4), 513-520. Miedzian, M. (1991). Boys will be boys: Breaking the link between masculinity and violence. New York, NY: Doubleday. Pollack, W. (1998). Real boys: Rescuing our sons from the myths of boyhood. New York, NY: Random House.   Read Full Transcript   Transcript Jen: [00:40] Hello and welcome to the Your Parenting Mojo podcast. Regular listeners may remember that a few weeks ago, I interviewed Dr Renee Engeln who wrote the book Beauty Sick on the topic of raising girls with a healthy body image. Even though I don’t have a son, I know a lot of you do, so in today’s episode we’re going to talk about some of the challenges associated with raising sons and how we can be better parents to sons, and specifically how fathers can be better parents to sons. So since I am not a father and don’t have a son, I figured I’d better find someone who is both of those things. So today I welcome a co-interviewer, Alan. Alan grew up in New Jersey with a comfortable middle class family whose father was physically present and not physically abusive, but who had what Alan calls embarrassing spasms of anger that came with yelling and throwing things and when he wasn’t angry, he was pretty emotionally absent, so Alan feels as though he didn’t really have a great model for this whole fathering thing, but he wants to parent his own son differently and it started to take some steps in that direction, but he isn’t really sure if it’s enough or what else he should be doing. Welcome Alan. Alan: [01:42] Thank you. Jen: [01:44] And to help Alan and I figure all this out. I’m so excited that we’re joined today by Dr Judy Chu. I first learned of her work on the documentary called The Mask You Live In, which you can rent on Amazon or on Netflix and I would highly encourage you to do that even if you’re the parent of a girl because it really helped me to understand some of the reasons why boys and men treat girls and women the way they do. Dr Chu is featured in that film and when I looked her up, I saw she’d written a book called When Boys Become Boys, which I devoured as soon as I got it, and I knew she was the right person for us to talk with. She also teaches a course on boys psychosocial development at Stanford University. Her work aims to support boys healthy resistance against societal constraints that undermine their connections to themselves and others. Welcome Dr. Chu. Dr. Chu: [02:28] Thank you. It’s a pleasure to be here. Jen: [02:31] So Dr. Chu. I wonder if we could just start sort of in the weeds a little bit here about your research because a lot of the studies that we cover on this show are experimental in nature and that means that some researchers take some children to the lab and maybe they do something to make them uncomfortable and then they give the children a difficult task and see how they respond and then we try and generalize that behavior out to the real world and I’m familiar with the quote from the great psychologist Urie Bronfenbrenner who called this the science of behavior of children in strange situations with strange adults for the briefest possible periods of time, but your research takes such a different approach from that. Can you just tell us a little bit about how you go about studying boys? Dr. Chu: [03:11] Sure. Well, I guess the best way to describe my research is exploratory studies because like you at the time I hadn’t grown up as a boy and I didn’t have a son. And so in a way it was very much like anthropological research where I was going to learn from boys about what it was like for them to grow up as boys amidst, you know, a culture that has specific messages about what it means to be a real boy, quote unquote, or a real man. And I wanted to learn from the boys themselves, you know, what they’re capable of knowing and doing and relationships. So a lot of my methods really involved kind of like ethnographic observations. Just

Folks, this one is personal for me. As someone with an ~ahem~ family history of disordered thinking about body image, it is very, very high on my priority list to get this right with my daughter. Dr. Renee Engeln, author of the book Beauty Sick, helps us sort through issues like: Should I tell my daughter she’s pretty? What should I say when she asks me if she’s pretty? Is teaching our daughters about media literacy – the ability to critique images they see in the media – enough to protect them, or not? …and so much more! I know there’s a lot more to raising a girl than just this issue, and in time I hope to find another expert to discuss how we can raise daughters who aren’t limited by broader societal expectations, but there’s enough on this topic to make it an episode by itself. In the show, we discuss a prompt you can use to write a self-compassionate letter to yourself as a way of recognizing all the amazing things your body can do. Professor Engeln actually sent me two of them; you can find these below. You’ll have to listen to the episode to find out why this picture is here:     Body-Compassion letter (based on Kristin Neff’s exercises available at self-compassion.org): For the next 10 minutes, you will be writing a letter to yourself. The letter should be all about your body, but it should be from the perspective of an unconditionally loving imaginary friend. Think about your body from the perspective of a friend who cares about you. What would your friend want to tell you about your body? If you run out of things to write, re-write what you already have, perhaps with different wording. Think about this imaginary friend who is unconditionally loving, accepting, kind and compassionate. Imagine that this friend can see all the strengths and all the weaknesses of your body, including any aspects of your body that you may view as flawed or imperfect. Reflect upon what this friend would say about your body, knowing that you are loved and accepted with your body exactly as it is, with all your body’s very human imperfections. This friend recognizes the limits of human nature and is kind and forgiving toward you. In his/her great wisdom, this friend understands your life history and the millions of things that have happened in your life to give you the body you have in this moment. Write a letter to yourself, about your body, from the perspective of this imaginary friend. What would this friend say about your body from the perspective of unlimited compassion? How would this friend convey the deep compassion he/she feels for you, especially for the pain you feel if you tend to judge the flaws and imperfections of your body harshly? What would this friend write in order to remind you that you are only human, that all bodies have both strengths and weaknesses? As you write to yourself from the perspective of this imaginary friend, try to infuse your letter with a strong sense of his/her acceptance of your body, caring, and desire for your health and happiness. Above all else, be kind, understanding, and compassionate toward your body.   2. Body Functionality letter: For the next 10 minutes, you will be writing a letter to yourself. The letter should be all about what your body does. Think about all your body does and how it helps you do the things you want to do each day. Focus on everything your body can do for you and write a letter to yourself about that topic. If you run out of things to write, re-write what you already have, perhaps with different wording. Think about all the strengths of your body in terms of everything it can do. What has your body allowed you to do throughout your life? Think about the different parts of your body and how they each play a role in helping you do what you need to do each day.   References Engeln, R. (2017). Beauty Sick: How the cultural obsession with appearance hurts girls and women. New York, NY: HarperCollins. (Affiliate link) Fredrickson, B.L., Roberts, T.A., Noll, S.M., Quinn, D.M., & Twenge, J.M. (1998). That swimsuit becomes you: Sex differences in self-objectification, restrained eating, and math performance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 75(1), 269-284. Neff, K.D. (2011). Self-compassion, self-esteem, and well-being. Social and Personality Psychology Compass 5(1), 1-12. Neff, K.D., & McGehee, P. (2010). Self-compassion and psychological resilience among adolescents and young adults. Self and Identity 9, 225-240.   Read Full Transcript   Transcript Jen: [00:39] Hello and welcome to the Your Parenting Mojo podcast. Today’s episode is going to be a difficult but an important one for me. So you all know that I have a daughter who’s heading towards being three and a half and a while back, we did an episode with Dr. Christia Brown where we talked about how the differences between boys and girls at a young age are almost entirely based on culture and socialization rather than on genetic factors and that’s still tr

Waaaay back in Episode 3, we wondered whether we had missed the boat on teaching our babies to read (didn’t you teach your baby how to read?). We eventually decided that we hadn’t, but given that many parents have a goal of instilling a love of reading into their children, what’s the best way to go about doing that? And what if your child is the kind who wriggles out of your lap at the mere sight of a book? Our second-ever repeat guest, Dr. Laura Froyen, helps us to delve into the research on this topic. We conclude by talking through some of the things parents can do to promote a love of reading, because it turns out it’s not as intuitive as one might think! Dr. Froyen's 11 Ways to Support Your Child in Learning to Read PDF guide.   References Bus, A.G. (2001). Joint caregiver-child storybook reading: A route to literacy development. In S.B. Neuman & D.K. Dickinson Handbook of Early Literacy Research. New York: Guilford. Bus, A.G., van IJzendoorn, M.H., & Pellegrini, A.D. (1995). Joint book reading makes for success in learning to read: A meta-analysis on intergenerational transmission of literacy. Review of Educational Research 65(1), 1-21. Full article available at: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Marinus_Van_IJzendoorn/publication/230853169_Joint_Book_Reading_Makes_for_Success_in_Learning_to_Read_A_Meta-Analysis_on_Intergenerational_Transmission_of_Literacy/links/53f05d6f0cf26b9b7dcdfe58.pdf Burchinal, M., & Forestieri, N. (2011). Development of early literacy: Evidence from major U.S. longitudinal studies. In S.B. Neuman & D.K. Dickinson Handbook of Early Literacy Research (Vol. 3). (85-96). New York: Guilford. Bus, A.G. (2003). Social-emotional requisites for learning to read. In A. van Kleeck, S.A. Stahl, & E.B. Bauer (Eds.), On reading books to children: Parents and teachers (3-15). New York: Guilford. Butterworth, G. (2001). Joint visual attention in infancy. In G. Bremner & A. Fogel (Eds.). Blackwell handbook of infant development. (213-240). Malden, MA: Blackwell. Carlsson-Paige, N., G. Bywater McLaughlin, and J. Wolfsheimer Almon (2015). Reading instruction in kindergarten: Little to gain and much to lose. Available online at: http://www.allianceforchildhood.org/sites/allianceforchildhood.org/files/file/Reading_Instruction_in_Kindergarten.pdf Evans, M.A., & Saint-Aubin, J. (2011). Studying and modifying young children’s visual attention during book reading. In S.B. Neuman & D.K. Dickinson Handbook of Early Literacy Research (Vol. 3). (242-255). New York: Guilford. Fletcher, K.L., & Reese, E. (2005). Picture book reading with young children: A conceptual framework. Developmental Review 25, 64-103. Full article available at: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Kathryn_Fletcher2/publication/223236320_Picture_book_reading_with_young_children_A_conceptual_framework/links/0912f503ce1f9d05ec000000.pdf Landry, S.H., Smith, K.E., Swank, P.R., Zucker, T., Crawford, A.D., & Solari, E.F. (2011). The effects of a responsive parenting intervention on parent-child interactions during shared book reading. Developmental Psychology 48(4), 969-986. Full article available at: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Paul_Swank/publication/51831766_The_Effects_of_a_Responsive_Parenting_Intervention_on_Parent-Child_Interactions_During_Shared_Book_Reading/links/0912f5097cf5ddf41c000000.pdf McBride-Chang, C. (2012). Shared-book reading: There is no downside for parents. In S. Suggate & E. Reese (Eds.), Contemporary debates in childhood education and development (pp.51-58). Abingdon, U.K.: Routeledge. Morow, L.M. (1993). Literacy development in the early years: Helping children read and write (2nd ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Notari-Syverson, A., (2006). Everyday tools of Literacy. In Learning to Read the World: Language and literacy in the first three years (61-78). Washington, D.C.: Zero to Three. Otto, B. (2008). Literacy development in early childhood: Reflective teaching for birth to age eight. Long Grove, IL: Waveland. Phillips, L.M., Norris, S.P., & Anderson, J. (2008). Unlocking the door: Is parents’ reading to children the key to early literacy development? Canadian Psychology 49(2), 82-88. Reese, E. (2012). The tyranny of shared book-reading. In S. Suggate & E. Reese (Eds.), Contemporary debates in childhood education and development (pp.59-68). Abingdon, U.K.: Routeledge. Rosenkotter, S.E., & Wanless, S.B. (2006). Everyday tools of Literacy. In Learning to Read the World: Language and literacy in the first three years (81-100). Washington, D.C.: Zero to Three. Scarborough, H.S. (2001). Connecting early language and literacy to later reading (dis)abilities: Evidence, theory, and practice. In S.B. Neuman & D.K. Dickinson Handbook of Early Literacy Research. (97-110). New York: Guilford. Schickedanz, J.A. (1999). Much more than the ABCs: The early stages of reading and writing. Washington, D.C.: National Association for the Education of Young

Do you have to start teaching a second language from birth? Does it help to get a nanny who speaks a second language? Is there any way your child will retain the language you speak even though you’re currently in a country where another language is dominant? Does learning a second language lead to any developmental advantages beyond just the benefits of learning the language? Several listeners have actually written to me requesting an episode on this topic, and one has been particularly insistent (you know who you are!), so I was very glad to finally find an expert! Dr. Erica Hoff leads the Language Development Lab at Florida Atlantic University and studies language development and bilingualism in children. She gives us the lowdown on the best ways to raise a bilingual child (and doesn’t mince words on how difficult it is) – and also answers my burning question: I’m not planning to teach my daughter a second language at the moment, so am I a terrible parent?   Dr. Erica Hoff's Book Language development - Affiliate link   References Bridges, K., & Hoff, E. (2014). Older sibling influences on the language environment and language development of toddlers in bilingual homes. Applied Psycholinguistics 35, 225-241. Core, C., Hoff, E., Rumiche, R., & Señor, M. (2013) Total and conceptual vocabulary in Spanish-English bilinguals from 22 to 30 months: Implications for assessment. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 56, 1637-1649. Hammer, C.S., Hoff, E., Uchikoshi, Y., Gillanders, C., Castro, D.C., & Sandilos, L.E. (2014). The language and literacy development of young dual language learners: A critical review. Early Childhood Research Quarterly 29, 715-733. Hoff, E., Rumiche, R., Burridge, A., Ribot, K.M., & Welsh, S.N. (2014). Expressive vocabulary development in children from bilingual and monolingual homes: A longitudinal study from two to four years. Early Childhood Research Quarterly 29, 433-444. Hoff, E. & Core, C. (2013) Input and language development in bilingually developing children. Seminars in Speech and Language, 34, 215-226. McCabe, A., Tamis-LeMonda, C., Bornstein, M. H., Cates, C. B., Golinkoff, R., Hirsh-Pasek, K., Hoff, E., Kuchirko, Y., Melzi, G., Mendelsohn, A., Paez, M., Song, L. Wishard Guerra, A. (2013) Multilingual children: Beyond myths and towards best practices. SRCD Social Policy Report. vol 27, No. 4. Retrieved from: https://www.fcd-us.org/multilingual-children-beyond-myths-and-toward-best-practices/ Menjivar, J., & Akhtar, N. (2017). Language experience and preschoolers’ foreign word learning. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 20(3), 642-648. Ramirez, N.F., & Kuhl, P. (2017). Bilingual baby: Foreign language intervention in Madrid’s infant education centers. Mind, Brain, and Education (online first). DOI: 10.1111/mbe.12144 Ribot, K.M., & Hoff, E. (2014). “Como estas?” “I’m good.” Conversational code-switching is related to profiles of expressive and receptive proficiency in Spanish-English bilingual toddlers. International Journal of Behavioral Development 38(4), 333-341.   Read Full Transcript   Transcript Jen: [00:37] Hello and welcome to the Your Parenting Mojo podcast. I’m very excited today to welcome my guest, Dr Erika Hoff, who is Professor and the head of the Language Development Lab at Florida Atlantic University. Several of my listeners have emailed over the last few months and I’ve asked questions about raising bilingual children, but I was having a hard time finding someone with expertise in this area. One listener has been particularly insistent with his questions on this topic; you know who you are. So when a friend of mine forwarded in New York Times article about raising bilingual children that quoted Dr. Hoff, I reached out that very same evening to ask her to be a guest on the show and I was delighted when she wrote back immediately and agreed to speak with us. Dr Hoff obtained her Ph.D from the University of Michigan on the topic of Developmental Psychology with a thesis that focused on the influence of maternal speech on children’s language development. Her Language Development Lab studies, the human abilities and experiences that contribute to language development. Jen: [01:31] Our main focus is a longitudinal study of English monolingual and Spanish English bilingual children from two and a half to 10 years of age and she’s looking for evidence of factors in children’s early language experiences and early language development that predict successful oral language and literacy outcomes. Welcome Dr Hoff. Dr. Hoff: [01:50] Thank you very much. Jen: [01:51] So I guess let’s kind of start down in the weeds here a little bit. I want to ask it a bit of a methodological question because I know a lot of the research on dual language learners is on individuals who are perhaps the children of immigrants and who are learning English as a second language, maybe out of necessity as part of living in an English

When should I start potty training? What books should I read? Can I do it in a day (or a week)? Do I need stickers (for rewards)? Does it have to be stressful? I get these kinds of questions pretty often, and I’d resisted doing an episode on potty training because there are so many books on it already, and everyone has their opinion, and I really didn’t want to wade into it. But ya’ll kept asking and my resolve has finally crumbled, so today we’re going to talk all about what the research says, what the books say, and how there’s essentially no correlation between the books and the research. We’ll review the “do it in a day!” methods and what makes them successful, and we’ll also look at child-led methods. You’ll leave this episode with a clear picture of which is probably going to work best for you, and some concrete tools you can put to work (today, if you need to!) to start what I prefer to call the “toilet learning” process.     Other episodes references in this show 021: Talk Sex Today 009: Do you punish your child with rewards? 020: How do I get my child to do what I want them to do? (Unconditional parenting) 042: Manners   References Au, S. &; Stavinoha, P.L. (2008). Stress-free potty training: A commonsense guide to finding the right approach for your child. New York, NY: AMACOM. Barone, J.G., Jasutkar, N., & Schneider, D. (2009). Later toilet training is associated with urge incontinence in children. Journal of Pediatric Urology 5, 458-461. Benjusuwantep, B., & Ruangdaraganon, N. (2011). Infant toilet training in Thailand: Starting and completion age and factors determining them. Journal of the Medical Association of Thailand 94(12), 1441-1446. Blum, N.J., Taubman, B., & Nemeth, N. (2003). Relationship between age at initiation of toilet training and duration of training: A prospective study. Pediatrics 111(4), 810-814. Butler, J.F. (The toilet training success of parents after reading Toilet Training In Less Than A Day. Behavior Therapy 7, 185-191. Duong, T.H., Jansson, U-B., & Hellstrom, A-L. (2013). Vietnamese mothers’ experiences with potty training procedure for children from birth to 2 years of age. Journal of Pediatric Urology 9, 808-814. Fertleman, C., & Cave, S. (2011). Potty training girls the easy way: A stress-free guide to helping your daughter learn quickly. Philadelphia, PA: Da Capo. Fertleman, C. & Cave, S. (2009). Potty training boys the easy way: Helping your son learn quickly – even if he’s a late starter. Philadelphia, PA: Da Capo. Gerber, M. (2002). Dear parent: Caring for infants with respect (2 nd Ed.). Los Angeles, CA: Resources for Infant Educarers. Glowacki, J. (2015). Oh, crap! Potty training: Everything modern parents need to know to do it once and do it right. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster. Goode, E. (1999, January 12). Two experts do battle over potty training. The New York Times. Retrieved from: http://www.nytimes.com/1999/01/12/us/two-experts- do-battle- over-potty- training.html Gross-Loh, C. (2007). The diaper-free baby: The natural toilet training alternative. New York, NY: William Morrow. Horn, I.B., Brenner, R., Rao, M., & Cheng, T.L. (2006). Beliefs about the appropriate age for initiating toilet training: Are there racial and socioeconomic differences? Journal of Pediatrics 149, 165-168. Kaerts, N., Van Hal, G., Vermandel, A., & Wyndaele, J-J. (2012). Readiness signs used to define the proper moment to start toilet training: A review of the literature. Neurology and Urodynamics 31, 437-440. Kimball, V. (2016). The perils and pitfalls of potty training. Pediatric Annals 45(6), 199-201. Koc, I., Camurdan, A.D., Beyazova, U., Ilhan, M.N., & Sahin, F. (2008). Toilet training in Turkey: The factors that affect timing and duration in different sociocultural groups. Child: Care, Health and Development 34(4), 475-481. Martin, J.A., King, D.R., Maccoby, E.E., & Jacklin, C.N. (1984). Secular trends and individual differences in toilet-training progress. Journal of Pediatric Psychology 9(4), 457-468. Matson, J.L., & Ollendick, T.H. (1977). Issues in toilet training normal children. Behavior Theraly 8, 549-553. Shaikh, N. (2004). Time to get on the potty: Are constipation and toileting refusal causing delayed toilet training? Journal of Pediatrics 145, 12-13. Taubman, B. (1997). Toilet training and toileting refusal for stool only: A prospective study. Pediatrics 99(1), 54-58. Vermadel, A., Van Kamepn, M., Van Gorp, C., & Wyndaele, J-J. (2008). How to toilet train healthy children? A review of the literature. Neurology & Urodynamics 27, 162-166.   Read Full Transcript Transcript Hello and welcome to the Your Parenting Mojo podcast. I had actually resisted doing an episode on today’s topic for quite a while but listeners kept emailing to ask me about it so my resistance has crumbled and today we’re going to talk about potty training. I prefer to call it toilet learning, but we’re going to

Isn’t it kind of a “well, duh?” that parenting affects child development? But do we know how? We know it’s not good to have really big fights in front of the kids, but do spousal quarrels screw them up too? Are there really links between a family’s emotional expressiveness and the child’s later academic performance? How does the marital relationship affect parenting, and how does parenting affect the marital relationship? Today we talk with Dr. Laura Froyen, who has a Ph.D in Human Development and Family Studies and seems almost as obsessed with research on child development issues as I am. You can find much more about her work at www.laurafroyen.com.   References Bascoe, S.M., Davies, P.T., Sturge-Apple, M.L., & Cummings, E.M. (2009). Children’s representations of family relationships, peer information processing, and school adjustment. Developmental Psychology 45(6), 1740-1751. Belsky, J. (1984). The determinants of parenting: A process model. Child Development 55(1), 83-96. Bretherton, I., & Munholland, K. A. (1999). Internal working models in attachment relationships: A construct revisited. In J. Cassidy & P. R. Shaver (Eds.), Handbook of attachment: Theory, research, and clinical applications (pp. 89-111). New York: Guilford Press. Buehler, C., & Gerard, J.M. (2002). Marital conflict, ineffective parenting, and children’s and adolescents’ maladjustment. Journal of Marriage and Family 64(1), 78-92. Davies, P.T., & Cummings, E.M. (1994). Marital conflict and child adjustment: An emotional security hypothesis. Psychological Bulletin 116(3), 387-411. Full article available at https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Edward_Cummings/publication/15390513_Marital_Conflict_and_Child_Adjustment_An_Emotional_Security_Hypothesis/links/0912f507fc3e02ce88000000.pdf Davies, P.T., Winter, M.A., & Cicchetti, D. (2006). The implications of emotional security theory for understanding and treating childhood psychopathology. Developmental Psychopathology 18(3), 707-735. Erel, O., & Burman, B. (1995). Interrelatedness of marital relations and parent-child relations: A meta-analytic review. Psychological Bulletin: 118(1), 108-132. Froyen, L.C., Skibbe, L.E., Bowles, R.P., Blow, A.J., & Gerde, H.K. (2013). Marital satisfaction, family emotional expressiveness, home learning environments, and children’s emergent literacy. Journal of Marriage and Family 75, 42-55. Gottman, J., & Gottman, J.S. (2008). And baby makes three: The six-step plan for preserving marital intimacy and rekindling romance after baby arrives. New York, NY: Harmony. Grych, J.H., & Fincham, F.D. (1993). Children’s appraisals of marital conflict: Initial investigations of the cognitive-contextual framework. Child Development 64(1), 215-230. Hindman, A.H., Miller, A.L., Froyen, L.C., & Skibbe, L.E. (2012). A portrait of family involvement during Head Start: Nature, extent, and predictors. Early Childhood Research Quarterly 27, 654-667. Lapierre, S. (2008). Mothering in the context of domestic violence: The pervasiveness of a deficit model of mothering. Child & Family Social Work 13, 454-463. Sturge-Apple, M.L., , Davies, P.T., & Cummings, E.M. (2006). Hostility and withdrawal in marital conflict: Effects on parental emotional unavailability and inconsistent discipline. Journal of Family Psychology 20(2), 227-238. Tronick, E. (2009). Still face experiment. UMass Boston. Video available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apzXGEbZht0 Vallotton, C. D., Harewood, T., Froyen, L., Brophy-Herb, H., & Ayoub, C. (2016). Child Behavior Problems: Mothers’ and Fathers’ Mental Health Matters Today and Tomorrow. Early Childhood Research Quarterly 37, 81-93. doi: 10.1016/j.ecresq.2016.02.006   Read Full Transcript Transcript Jen: [00:38] Hello and welcome to the your Parenting Mojo podcast. Our guest today is Laura Froyen, who received her Ph.D In Human Development and Family Studies with an emphasis in Couple and Family Therapy from Michigan State University, where her research focused on how marital and family relationships influence parenting and child development. She continued this research as an Assistant Professor of Human Development and Family Studies at the University of Madison, Wisconsin, and while she loved her work as a new professor, she found that she missed working directly with families which had been doing while she was working on her Ph.D. When she was pregnant with her second daughter, Laura had a life-changing car accident, which luckily both she and her daughter came out in one piece, but the experience caused her to reevaluate what she wanted to get out of life and she realized that she really missed working with families. She now offers parent coaching as well as parent support groups in classes. Laura’s academic work focused on the intersection of parenting practices and child development outcomes and she’s here to chat with us about that today. Welcome Laura. Dr. Froyen: [01:36] Hi Jen.

I can’t play any instruments (unless the recorder counts?). I certainly can’t sing. But my daughter really enjoys music, and there are a whole host of studies showing how playing music benefits children’s brain development. So what’s a non-music playing, non-singing parent to do? Dr. Wendell Hanna’s new book, the Children’s Music Studio: A Reggio-Inspired Approach (Affiliate link), give us SO MANY ways to interact with music with our children. I tried one of her ‘provocations’ with my daughter’s daycare class and I was blown away. Give this episode a listen, and be inspired.     Other episodes referenced in this episode 027: Is a Reggio Emilia-inspired preschool right for my child? To hear my interview with math tutor Wes Carroll, go to www.yourhomeschoolingmojo.com, click any of the “sign up” buttons on that page, scroll down to see the curriculum of the course, and look for the interview with Wes which is available as a free preview.   References Allsup, R.E., & Benedict, C. (2008). The problems of band: An inquiry into the future of instrumental music education. Philosophy of Music Education Review 16(2), 156-173. Anvari, S.H., Trainor, L.J., Woodside, J., & Levy, B.A. (2002). Relations among musical skills, phonological processing, and early reading ability in preschool children. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 83, 111-130. Bilhartz, T.D., Bruhn, R.A., & Olson, J.E. (2000). The effect of early music training on child cognitive development. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology 20(4), 616-636. Catterall, J.S., & Rauscher, F.H. (2008). Unpacking the impact of music on intelligence. In W. Gruhn & F. Rauscher, Neurosciences in Music Pedagogy (pp.171-201). Happague, NY: Nova Science Publishers. Hallam, S. (2010). The power of music: Its impact on the intellectual, social and personal development of children and young people. International Journal of Music Education 28(3), 269-289. Hanna, W. (2016). The children’s music studio: A Reggio-inspired approach. New York, NY: Oxford. (Affiliate link) Heuser, F. (2011). Ensemble-based instrumental music instruction: Dead-end tradition or opportunity for socially enlightened teaching. Music Education Research 12(3), 293-305. Kirschner, S., & Tomasello, M. (2010). Joint music making promotes prosocial behavior in 4-year-old children. Evolution and Human Behavior 31, 354-364. Morehouse, P.G. (2013). Toddlers through grade 2: The importance of music making in child development. YC Young Children 68(4), 82-89. Rauscher, F.H. (1993). Music and spatial task performance. Nature 365(6447), 611. Rauscher, F.H., Shaw, G.L., & Ky, K.N. (1995). Listening to Mozart enhances spatial-temporal reasoning: towards a neuropsychological basis. Neuroscience Letters 185, 44-47. Rauscher, F.H., & Zupan, M.A. (2000). Classroom keyboard instruction improves kindergarten children’s spatial-temporal performance: A field experiment. Early Childhood Research Quarterly 15(2), 215-228. Rauscher, F.H. (2003). Can music instruction affect children’s cognitive development? ERIC Digest EDO-PS-03-12. Rauscher, F.H., & Hinton, S.C. (2006). The Mozart effect: Music listening is not music instruction. Educational Psychologist 41(4) 233-238. Schlaug, G., Norton, A., Overy, K., & Winner, E. (2005). Effects of music training on the child’s brain and cognitive development. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1060, 219-230. Scott, S. (2011). Contemplating a constructivist stance for active learning within music education. Arts Education Policy Review 112(4), 191-198. SEGMeasurement (n.d.). Effectiveness of ABC Music & Me on the development of language and literacy skills. Retrieved from: https://media2.kindermusik.com/website/2015/02/ABCMusicMe_ResearchStudy_FullReport.pdf Smithrim, K., & Upitis, R. (2005). Learning through the arts: Lessons of Engagement. Canadian Journal of Education / Revue Canadienne de l’education 28(1/2), 109-127. Standley, J.M., Walforth, D., & Nguyen, J. (2009). Effect of parent/child group music activities on toddler development: A pilot study. Music Therapy Perspectives 27(1), 11-15.   Read Full Transcript   Transcript Jen: [00:38] Hello and welcome to the Your Parenting Mojo podcast. Today I’d like to welcome my guest, Wendell Hanna, who is Professor of Music Education at San Francisco State University. Professor Hanna’s academic background includes a BA from the University of South Florida and a Master’s in music from Yale University in orchestral bassoon performance. After several years of teaching and performing in San Francisco Bay Area orchestras as a freelance musician, Professor Hanna then obtained her public school and teaching credential and taught elementary music in the Oregon public schools. Before obtaining a Ph.D At the University of Oregon. It was there that she shifted our attention to younger children and began researching and working musically with infants, toddlers, a

The topic of today’s episode comes courtesy of my good friend Sarah, who fortunately hasn’t yet had any reason to use this knowledge, but asked me to do an episode on how to help children cope with illness, death, and grief, so she can be ready in case she ever needs it. Dr. Atle Dyregrov joins us from Bergen, Norway. He graduated as a psychologist in 1980 and worked for five years in the Pediatrics department at Haukeland University Hostpital, helping families whose children had died. He also co-founded the Center for Crisis Psychology and served as its general manager for 25 years; he is now its academic director. He has worked particularly extensively with children who have experienced loss and trauma, as well as at the sites of major accidents and disasters both in Norway and abroad, and has written numerous books, book chapters, and research articles on children’s response to death and crises. It turns out that this ended up being a very timely episode for me indeed: you’ll hear in the show that my mum died when I was young. Not even a week after I did this interview, my newly three-year-old daughter was playing with Legos in our living room when she asked – completely out of the blue – “Do you have a mama?” Having done this interview I was well-prepared for a short but straightforward conversation, and was able to shift what would likely have been a very uncomfortable situation for me into something where I felt much more confident in explaining how people’s bodies stop working when they die. Subscribers to my newsletter will recall that we spent last week in Missouri visiting the very same Sarah who requested the episode, and I had given her a summary of the content and told her about my daughter’s question. A couple of days later Sarah and my daughter found a dead bug on a playground and Sarah said “I think it’s dead,” and my daughter responded “Did it’s body stop working?”. Sarah was taken aback…and amused…and was able to answer the question without losing her cool. Listen to this episode – we’re all gonna need it at some point!   Dr. Atle Dyregrov's Book Grief in children: A handbook for adults - Affiliate link   References Abdelnoor, A., & Hollins, S. (2004). The effect of childhood bereavement on secondary school performance. Educational Psychology in Practice 20(1), 43-54. Adams-Greenly, M., & & Moynihan, R.T. (1983). Helping the children of fatally ill parents. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 53(2), 219-229. Ayers, T.S., Wolchik, S.A., Sandler, I.N., Twohey, J.L., Weyer, J.L, Padgett-Jones, D., Weiss, L., Cole, E., & Kriege, G. (2013-2014). The family bereavement program: Description of a theory-based prevention program for parentally-bereaved children and adolescents. Omega 68(4), 293-314. Baker, J.E., Sedney, M.A., & Gross, E. (1992). Psychological tasks for bereaved children. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 62(1), 105-116. Berg. L., Rostila, M., & Hjern, A. (2016). Parental death during childhood and depression in young adults – a national cohort study. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 57(9), 1092-1098. Berg, L., Rostila, M., Saarela, J., & Hjern, A. (2014). Parental death during childhood and subsequent school performance. Pediatrics 133, 682-689. Bugge, K.E., Darbyshire, P., Rokholt, E.G., Haugstvedt, K.T.S., & Helseth, S. (2014). Young children’s grief: Parents’ understanding and coping. Death Studies 38, 36-43. Corr, C.A., & Balk, D.E. (2010). Children’s encounters with death, bereavement, and coping. New York, NY: Springer. Dyregrov, A. (2008). Grief in children: A handbook for adults (2nd Ed.). London, U.K.: Jessica Kingsley. Engarhos, P. (2012). The young child’s understanding of death: Early conversations and experiences with parents and caregivers. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. McGill University. Montreal, Canada. Kristensen, P., Dyregrov, A., Dyregrov, K., & Heir, T. (2016). Media exposure and prolonged grief: A study of bereaved parents and siblings after the 2011 Utoya Island terror attack. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy 8(6), 661-667. Renaud, S-J., Engarhos, P., Schleifer, M., & Talwar, V. (2015). Children’s earliest experiences with death: Circumstances, conversations, explanations, and parental satisfaction. Infant and Child Development 24, 157-174. Yang, S., & Park, S. (2017). A sociocultural approach to children’s perceptions of death and loss. OMEGA. [Epublication ahead of print.] DOI: 10.1177/0030222817693138   Read Full Transcript   Transcript Jen: [00:37] Good morning and welcome to today’s episode of the Your Parenting Mojo podcast. This episode comes to us courtesy of my good friend Sarah, who fortunately hasn’t yet had any reason to use this knowledge, but she asked me to do an episode on how to help children cope with illness, death, and grief, so she can be ready in case she ever needs it. So my guest today is Dr. Atle Dyregrov, who joins us toda

I actually hadn’t realized what a can of worms I was opening when I started the research for today’s episode, which is on the topic of manners and politeness. It began innocently enough – as an English person, for whom manners are pretty important, I started to wonder why my almost three-year-old doesn’t have better manners yet. It turns out that it was a much more difficult subject to research than I’d anticipated, in part because it draws on a variety of disciplines, from child development to linguistics. And at the heart of it, I found myself torn between two different perspectives. The parenting philosophy that underlies the respectful relationship I have with my daughter, which is called Resources for Infant Educarers, or RIE, advocates for the use of modeling to transmit cultural information like manners – if you, the parent, are a polite person, then your child will learn about manners. On the flip side of that is the practice of saying “what do you say?” or something similar when you want your child to say “please” or “thank you,” something that I know a lot of parents do. My general approach has been to model good manners consistently but I do find it drives me bananas when my daughter says “I want a [whatever it is]” without saying “please,” and RIE also says parents should set a limit on behavior when they find it annoying. So I have been trying to walk a fine line between always modeling good manners and requiring a “please” before I acquiesce to a demand, and I wondered whether research could help me to come down on one side or the other of this line and just be sure about what I’m doing. So this episode is going to be about my explorations through the literature on this topic, which are winding and convoluted – actually both the literature and my explorations are winding and convoluted, and by the time we get to the end I hope to sort out how I’m going to instill a sense of politeness in my daughter, and how you might be able to do it for your child as well.   Other episodes referenced in this show 004: How to encourage creativity and artistic ability in children (and symbolic representation) 026: Is my child lying to me? (Hint: yes!) 005: How to “scaffold” children’s learning to help them succeed 034: How do I get my child to do chores? 007: Help! My toddler won’t eat vegetables 031: Parenting beyond pink and blue 006: Wait, is my toddler racist?   References Becker, J.A. (1988). The success of parents’ indirect techniques for teaching their preschoolers pragmatic skills. First Language 8, 173-182. Brown, P., & Levinson, S.C. (1987). Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. De Lucca Freitas, L.B., Pieta, M.A.M., & Tudge, J.R.H. (2011). Beyond Politeness: The expression of gratitude in children and adolescents. Psicologia: Reflexao e Critica 24(4), 757-764. Durlack, J.A., Weissberg, R.P., Dymnicki, A.B., Taylor, R.D., & Schellinger, K.B. (2011). The impact of enhancing student’s social and emotional learning: A meta-analysis of school-based universal interventions. Child Development 82(1), 405-432. Einzig, R. (2015). Model graciousness. Retrieved from: https://visiblechild.wordpress.com/2015/09/02/model-graciousness/ (Also see Robin’s Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/visiblechildinc/) Ervin-Tripp, S., Guo, J., & Lampert, M. (1990). Politeness and persuasion in children’s control acts. Journal of Pragmatics 14, 307-331. Grief, E.B., & Gleason, J.B. (1980). Hi, thanks, and goodbye: More routine information. Language in Society 9(2), 159-166. Ely, R., & Gleason, J.B. (2006). I’m sorry I said that: Apologies in young children’s discourse. Journal of Child Language 33 (599-620). Gleason, J.B., Perlmann, R.Y., Grief, E.B. (1984). What’s the magic word: Learning language through politeness routines. Discourse Processes 7(4), 493-502. Kuykendall, J. (1993). “Please,” “Thank you,” “You’re welcome”: Teacher language can positively impact prosocial development. Day Care and Early Education 21(1), 30-32. Lancy, D.F. (2015). The anthropology of childhood: Cherubs, chattel, changelings (2nd Ed.). Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press. Lansbury, J. (2014, January 16). They’ll grow into it – Trusting children to develop manners, toilet skills, emotional regulation and more. Retrieved from: http://www.janetlansbury.com/2014/01/theyll-grow-into-it-trusting-children-to-develop-manners-toilet-skills-emotional-regulation-and-more/ Lo, A., & Howard, K.M. (2009). Mobilizing respect and politeness in classrooms. Linguistics and Education 20, 211-216. Snow, C.E., & Gleason, J.B. (1990). Developmental perspectives on politeness: Sources of children’s knowledge. Journal of Pragmatics 14, 289-305. Suzuku, M. (2015, October 23). Bowing in Japan: Everything you’ve ever wanted to know about how to bow, and how not to bow, in Japan. Retrieved from: https://www.tofugu.com/japan/bowing-in-japan/   Read Full Transcript

Hot on the heels of our last episode on whether only children really are as bad as their reputation, this week’s episode is for the 80% of families (in the U.S., at least) who have more than one child. How do siblings impact each other’s development? What should we make of the research on how birth order impacts each child? Why the heck do siblings fight so much, and what can we do about it? (Turns out that siblings in non-Western countries actually don’t fight anywhere near as much…) We cover all this and more with my guest, Professor Susan McHale of Penn State University.   Note: Professor McHale mentions a helpful book written by Judy Dunn at the end of the episode but doesn’t specifically name the title; Dunn has actually written a number of books on siblings which can be found here.   References Bjerkedal, T., Kristensen, P., Skjeret, G.A., & Brevik, J.I. (2007). Intelligence test scores and birth order among young Norwegian men (conscripts) analyzed within and between families. Intelligence 35, 503-514. Branje, S.J.T., van Lieshout, C.F.M., van Aken, M.A.G., & Haselager, G.J.T. (2004). Perceived support in sibling relationships and adolescent development. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 45(8), 1385-1396. Dixon, M., Reyes, C.J., Leppert, M.F., & Pappas, L.M. (2008). Personality and birth order in large families. Personality and Individual Differences 44, 119-128. Dunn, J., & Kendrick, C. (1980). The arrival of a sibling: Changes in patterns of interaction between mother and first-born child. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 21, 119-132. Dunn, J. (1995). From one child to two: What to expect, how to cope, and how to enjoy your growing family. New York, NY: Ballantine. Feinberg, M.E., Solmeyer, A.R., Hostetler, M.L., Sakuma K-L, Jones, D., & McHale, S.M. (2012). Siblings are special: Initial test of a new approach for preventing youth behavior problems. Journal of Adolescent Health 53, 166-173. Healey, M.D., & Ellis B.J. (2007). Birth order, conscientiousness, and openness to experience: Tests of the family-niche model of personality using a within-family methodology. Evolution and Human Behavior 28, 55-59. Jensen, A.C., & McHale, S.M. (2015). What makes siblings different? The development of sibling differences in academic achievement and interests. Journal of Family Psychology 29(3), 469-478. Kristensen, P. & Bjerkedal, T. (2007). Explaining the relation between birth order and intelligence. Science (New Series), 316(5832), 1717. Lawson, D.W., & Mace, R. (2008). Sibling configuration and childhood growth in contemporary British Families. International Journal of Epidemiology 37, 1408-1421. McHale, S.M., Bissell, J., & Kim, J-Y. (2009). Sibling relationship, family, and genetic factors in sibling similarity in sexual risk. Journal of Family Psychiatry 23(4), 562-572. McHale, S.M., Updegraff, K.A., Helms-Erikson, H., & Crouter, A.C. (2001). Sibling influences on gender development in middle childhood and early adolescence: A longitudinal study. Developmental Psychology 37(1), 115-125. McHale, S.M., Updegraff, K.A., & Whiteman, S.D. (2012). Sibling relationships and influences in childhood and adolescence. Journal of Marriage and Family 75(5), 913-930. Palhaus, D.L., Wehr, P., & Trapnell, P.D. (2000). Resolving controversy over birth order and personality: By debate or by design? Politics and the Life Sciences 19(2), 177-179. Rohrer, J.M., Egloff, B., & Schmukle, S.C. (2015). Examining the effects of birth order on personality. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 112(46), 14224-14229. Solmeyer, A.R., McHale, S.M., & Crouter, A.C. (2014). Longitudinal associations between sibling relationship qualities and risky behavior across adolescence. Developmental Psychology 50(2), 600-610. Updegraff, K.A., McHale, S.M., Killoren, S.E., & Rodriguez, S.A. (2011). Cultural variations in sibling relationships. In J. Caspi (Ed.), Sibling Development: Implications for Mental Health Practitioners. New York, NY: Springer.   Read Full Transcript Transcript Jen [00:38] Hello and welcome to the Your Parenting Mojo podcast. Regular listeners will recall that this is the second episode in a two part series, which was prompted by a listener emailing me to say that she and her partner don’t want to have another child, but they’re worried about the impacts of not having siblings on their daughter. We looked at that topic last week, but I didn’t think it was fair to the other 80 percent of the families in the country, assuming all of them are listening who have more than one child. So today’s episode is for all of you. I’d like to extend a warm welcome to my guest, Susan McHale, Distinguished Professor of Human Development and Family Ptudies and professor of Demography – among other things – at Penn State University. Research in her lab focuses on family systems, dynamics including youths and parents, family roles, relati

Today’s episode comes to us as a result of a listener named Sylvia who wrote to me saying she and her partner don’t want another child but are worried about the potential impact on their daughter of growing up without siblings. But why would there be a potential impact? Turns out there’s a slew of information in the popular press about how only children grow up with no way to learn social skills, which makes them simply awful to be around. And everybody agrees – from parents of multiples and children who grew up with siblings, to parents of only children and even only children themselves – that only children are more selfish and not as nice to spend time with as children who grew up with siblings. No wonder Sylvia is worried! Personally I don’t have this problem; my own selfishness about not wanting a second child has overridden the issue of growing up without siblings to the extent that I had actually never considered it a potential problem until I received the question. But having pondered it and found that there is some research on it, I decided the time was ripe to find out whether only children really are as awful as popular wisdom says they are and, if so, what I could do about it before it’s too late! Listen up, my friends. Will I be vindicated, or will I throw away that pack of birth control pills before the end of the episode?   References Bohannon, E.W. (1896). A study of peculiar and exceptional children. Pedagogical Seminary 4(1), 3-60. Falbo, T. (2012). Only children: An updated review. The Journal of Individual Psychology 68(1), 38-49. Fenton, N. (1928). The only child. Pedagogical Seminary and Journal of Genetic Psychology 35, 546-556. Mancillas, A. (2006). Challenging the stereotypes about only children: A review of the literature and implications for practice. Journal of Counseling and Development 84(3), 268-275. McKibben, B. (1998). Maybe one. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster. Nachman, P., & Thompson, A. (1997). You and your only child: The joys, myths, and challenges of raising an only child. New York, NY: Skylight. Newman, S. (2001). Parenting an only child: The joys and challenges of raising your one and only. New York, NY: Broadway. Polit, D.F., Nuttall, R.L., & Nuttall, E.V. (1980). The only child grows up: A look at some characteristics of adult only children. Family Relations 29(1), 99-106. Roberts, L., & Blanton, P. (2001). “I always knew mom and dad loved me best”: Experiences of only children. Journal of Individual Psychology 21, 155-160. Sandler, L. (2013). One and only: The freedom of having an only child, and the joy of being one. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster. Simon, R.W. (2008). The joys of parenthood, reconsidered. Contexts 7(2), 40-45.   Read Full Transcript Transcript Hello and welcome to the Your Parenting Mojo podcast. Before we get going with the show today I wanted to take a minute to thank those of you who have been so generous with your time and money over the last couple of weeks. Several of you have been kind enough to offer advice based on your personal expertise that really helped me to figure out the direction for the show, as well as how to reach some more listeners. And a few of you have gone over to yourparentingmojo.com/support to offer either a one-time or an ongoing donation to support the costs involved with running the show. One awesome listener works for Adobe and used a discount code to get a cheap subscription to the editing software that I use and then donated the remaining amount, so I got a year of free access to the editing software – that is certainly a huge help. Another listener sent a cool hundred bucks and when I wrote to say ‘thanks’ (as I do to everyone who sends a donation) she responded (and I do have her permission to share this with you):   You’re welcome…I listen when I can (sporadically)…usually while commuting. I always enjoy it. Honestly, though, the donation was almost entirely for the pleasure of watching my mother-in-law almost pass out when my daughter told her that the carseat buckle was “hurting her vulva.” (I love her, but she’s quite proper and inhibited about some things.) I was able to point to your episode on sex and walk her through the benefits of using accurate anatomical labels. She appeared to get it. (And even if not, she now has something to think about…and I got a good chuckle.).   So whatever it is you get out of the show, I’m glad you’re along with me for the ride. If you feel like contributing then awesome! Thanks so much. And even if you don’t, but you have a question or just want to say ‘hi,’ you can do that at yourparentingmojo.com as well. I love hearing from you all.     Today’s episode is probably one I should have done a long time ago, but it was actually a question from a listener that prompted it. Sylvia wrote to me and said “Hi – I very much enjoy your podcast. I’m wondering if you can do an episode on the importance of siblings (or not). We don’t want

It’s no secret that I do some episodes of the podcast altruistically for you, dear listeners, because I’m not facing the situation that I’m studying – or at least not yet. (Eyebrows were raised in our house when I started researching the impact of divorce on children but luckily for me I don’t need that episode…yet…) But today’s episode is for me, and you guys are just along for the ride. Because, friends, we are in the thick of what I now know to be called “oppositional defiance,” otherwise known as “Noooo! I don’t wanna [insert activity here]”. We’ll discuss why toddlers are defiant, and lots of strategies we can use to deal with that defiance and even head it off at the pass. If your child has ever said “No!” to something you want them to do, this episode is for you! Other episodes mentioned in this show 020: How do I get my child to do what I want them to do? 022: How to talk so little kids will listen (Author interview)   References Dix, T., Stewart, A.D., Gershoff, E.T., & Day, W.T. (2007). Autonomy and children’s reactions to being controlled: Evidence that both compliance and defiance may be positive markers in early development. Child Development 78(4), 1204-1221. Dunn, J., & Munn, P. (1986). Sibling quarrels and maternal intervention: Individual differences in understanding aggression. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 27, 583-595. doi: 10.1111/j.1469-7610.1986.tb00184.x Eyberg, S. M., Nelson, M. M., & Boggs, S. R. (2008). Evidence-based psychosocial treatments for children and adolescents with disruptive behavior. Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, 37, 215-237. doi: 10.1080/15374410701820117 Grolnick, W.S. (2012). The relations among parental power assertion, control, and structure. Human Development 55, 57-64. DOI: 10.1159/000338533 Grusec, J. E. (2012). Socialization and the role of power assertion. Human Development, 55, 52-56. doi: 10.1159/000337963 Kaler, S. R., & Kopp, C. B. (1990). Compliance and comprehension in very young toddlers. Child Development, 61, 1997-2003. doi: 10.2307/1130853 Knowles, S.J. (2014). The effectiveness of mother’s disciplinary reasoning in response to toddler noncompliance (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Oklahoma State University. Full copy available at: https://shareok.org/bitstream/handle/11244/25670/Knowles_okstate_0664D_13688.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y Kuczynski, L. (1984). Socialization goals and mother-child interaction: Strategies for long-term and short-term compliance. Developmental Psychology 20(6), 1061-1073. Langer, E., Blank, A., & Chanowitz, B. (1978). The mindlessness of Ostensibly Thoughtful Action: The Role of “Placebic” Information in Interpersonal Interaction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36(6), 635-642.   Read Full Transcript Transcript Hello and welcome to the Your Parenting Mojo podcast. Now it’s no secret that I do some episodes of the podcast altruistically for you, dear listeners, because I’m not facing the situation that I’m studying – or at least not yet. (Eyebrows were raised in our house when I started researching the impact of divorce on children but luckily for me I don’t need that episode…yet…) But today’s episode is for me, and you guys are just along for the ride. Because, friends, we are in the thick of what I now know to be called “oppositional defiance,” otherwise known as “Noooo! I don’t wanna [insert activity here]”. There’s actually an oppositional defiant disorder that’s described in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, which is more commonly known as the DSM-5, because it’s in its fifth revision. And I should say that the DSM is not infallible and is susceptible to societal trends – homosexuality was defined as a mental disorder in the DSM until 1973. But right now Oppositional Defiant Disorder is in the DSM, and it’s defined as having four of a list of eight symptoms which fall into three major buckets: 1. Angry or irritable mood, 2. Argumentative or defiant behavior, and 3. Vindictiveness. And before you think “wait, I think I fit those characteristics some days” I should point out that it’s the persistence and frequency of these behaviors that should be used to distinguish behavior that is within normal limits from behavior that is symptomatic. For children younger than 5 years, the behavior should occur on most days for a period of at least six months, and for children older than 5 years it should be at least once a week for at least six months. There are additional critieria around whether the behavior is associated with distress in a particular setting or if it impacts negatively on social or educational outcomes. I’ll put the link to the detailed critieria in the references in case you’re worried that your child might meet them, but today we’re going to talk about the non-clinical kind of oppositional defiance that can still be incredibly frustrating to deal with. According to one group of researchers, “few perio

We’re concluding our mini-mini series today on chores – and on paying children to do chores, which leads us to larger conversations about money. If you missed the first part of this then then you might want to go and listen to last week’s interview with Dr. Andrew Coppens, who explores the ways that families in different cultures approach chores and what lessons that can hold for those of us who want to encourage our children to do their chores. Today we’re going to take that conversation to its logical conclusion by talking about money, and what better guest to do that with us than Ron Lieber,who wrote the book The Opposite of Spoiled: Raising Kids who are Grounded, Generous, and Smart About Money (affiliate link). It’s a really practical guide to talking with your children about money – from what information they should have at what age, to what to do with a child who always wants you to buy them something at the store, to what to say when a child wonders why homeless people don’t have enough money.   Other episodes mentioned in this show 021: Talk Sex Today 034: How do I get my child to do chores?   This episode is the first in a series on the intersection of parenting and money. You can find other episodes in this series: 105: How to pass on mental wealth to your child 107: The impact of consumerism on children 112: How to Set up a Play Room 115: Reducing the Impact of Advertising to Children 118: Are You Raising Materialistic Kids?   References Carl Richards’ cartoons for the New York Times Lahey, J. (2016). The gift of failure. New York: Harper. Lieber, R. (2016). The opposite of spoiled. New York: Harper. (Affiliate link) Lythcott-Haimes, J. (2016). How to raise an adult.: Break free of the overparenting trap and prepare your kid for success. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin.   Read Full Transcript Transcript Jen: [00:37] Hello and welcome to the Your Parenting Mojo podcast. Now before we get going with today’s episode, which I’m actually really excited about, I wanted to start with some housekeeping items. Firstly, I wanted to update you on our progress towards the goal that I set a couple of weeks back to double the number of subscribers to the show and I wanted to check back in with you and let you know that I’m about halfway towards my goal. So if you subscribed to the show recently, then thank you. I really appreciate it. And I also wanted to remind you that if you subscribe through iTunes, then I actually can’t count that towards my goal because the subscription on iTunes kind of disappears into a black box. I never hear about it and I have absolutely no idea how many subscribers I have there. So if you enjoy the show and are subscribed through iTunes or if you aren’t subscribed at all, would you mind doing me a huge favor and subscribing through my website at YourParentingMojo.com Jen: [01:26] You’ll also get a free gift for doing it through my website, which is a download of seven relationship based strategies to help your child thrive. So I hope you find that useful. The other thing I wanted to mention is that I’ve been doing some soul searching regarding the show. This is episode 38, which means we’ve been running for about nine months now and I really loved working on it. I completed my masters in psychology focusing on child development several months ago and it’s really not an exaggeration to say that I learn more from producing the average episode for you than I did for the average paper for my degree. I love reading and researching and synthesizing and I really get a kick out of having the show. I also love hearing from you and I’m honored that a number of you have taken the time out of your day to thank me for the work that I do and also to make suggestions for episodes which you know, I take seriously as many of the episodes I run these days are based on those suggestions, but I’m coming to a period in my life where things are about to get kind of busy. Jen: [02:23] I’m working on a master’s in education because when I say I love to learn, I’m really not joking and I still have a full time job and of course I’m a parent and underlying all of this is my desire to shift away from having a full time job and toward being self sufficient so I can homeschool my daughter. So I’m trying to come up with ways to keep doing the podcast, which so many of you seem to find useful and also have it continue to help support my own goals. I’m considering a number of options here. One might be to drop the episode frequency down to every other week instead of every week, and since it takes about 12 hours to research and write an average episode, that really would be quite time saver. I’ve also thought about accepting advertising, but honestly I’d really hate to do that because most of what I advocate is that you have everything you need to effectively parent your child and it would feel really disingenuous to turn around and then try and sell you stuff on the show. Jen: [03:16] I’m als

This episode is on a topic that I find fascinating – the cultural issues that underlie our parenting. I actually think this issue is so important that I covered it in episode 1 of the podcast, which was really the first episode after the introductory one where I gave some information on what the show was going to be about. But recently I read a book called Generation Me (Affiliate link) by Jean Twenge, a Professor of Psychology at San Diego State University, which discusses some of the cultural contexts that have led to the generation of people born since 1970 to develop a certain set of characteristics that sometimes seem very strange to those who were born before us, and may be leading us to raise children who are just a bit too individualistic. In this episode I discuss some of those characteristics and what implications they have for the way we parent our own children, and offer some thoughts on how we can shift that our approach if we decide we want to.   Other episodes referenced in this show: 001: The influence of culture on parenting 020: How do I get my child to do what I want them to do?   References Abeles, V., & Rubenstein, G. (2015). Beyond measure: Rescuing an overscheduled, overtested, underestimated generation. New York: Simon & Schuster. Associated Press (2005, July 22nd). White House footwear fans flip-flop kerfuffle. US News on NBCNews.com. Retrieved from: http://www.nbcnews.com/id/8670164/ns/us_news/t/white-house-footwear-fans-flip-flop-kerfuffle/#.WO_bH_nyvIU Gardner, H. (1991). The unschooled mind: How children think and how schools should teach. New York: Basic Books. Lansbury, J. (2012, May 3). Setting limits with toddlers: The choices they can’t make. Retrieved from: http://www.janetlansbury.com/2012/05/setting-limits-with-toddlers-the-choices-they-cant-make/ McCabe, D.L., Trevino, L.K., & Butterfield, K.D. (2012). Cheating in college: Why students do it and what educators can do about it. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Remley, A. (1998, October). From obedience to independence. Psychology Today, 56-59. Thomas, E. (1997). Social Insecurity. Newsweek. Retrieved from: http://www.newsweek.com/social-insecurity-171878 Trinkaus, J. (1988). Compliance with a school zone speed limit: Another look. Perceptual and motor skills 87, 673-674. Trinkaus, J. (1997). Stop sign compliance: A final look. Perceptual and Motor Skills 85, 217-218. Trinkaus, J. (2006). Honesty when lighting votive candles in church: Another look. Psychological Reports 99, 494-495. Twenge, J. (2014). Generation Me: While today’s young Americans are more confident, assertive, and entitled – and more miserable than ever before. New York, NY: Atria. (Affiliate link)   Read Full Transcript Transcript Hello and welcome to the Your Parenting Mojo podcast. We have an episode coming up today on a topic that I find fascinating – the cultural issues that underlie our parenting. I actually think this issue is so important that I covered it in episode 2 of the podcast, which was really the first episode after the introductory one where I gave some information on what the show was going to be about. But recently I read a book called Generation Me by Jean Twenge, a Professor of Psychology at San Diego State University, which discusses some of the cultural contexts that have led to the generation of people born since 1970 to develop a certain set of characteristics that sometimes seem very strange to those who were born before us. Today I want to discuss some of those characteristics and what implications they have for the way we parent our own children. I should be clear that as Dr. Twenge defines it I am a member of Generation Me – she says Generation Me starts in 1970 and I was born in 1979. I do think that some of the characteristics she defines as being integral to Generation Me apply to me, but I also think that these have become stronger over time and so are more pronounced in people who are younger than me. I should also remind you (in case it isn’t obvious from my rather strange accent) that I was raised in England and not the U.S.. I think that the Generation Me characteristics apply to some extent to people who weren’t raised in the U.S. but they are based on surveys of Americans so Americans are definitely at the core of the Generation Me characteristics. Dr. Twenge doesn’t discuss non-American countries but we can probably assume that English-speaking, Westernized countries exhibit these characteristics to a slightly lesser degree, with “non-Westernized” cultures perhaps looking a bit different, depending on the extent to which American culture has permeated them. I also want to use this episode to poke a little bit at some of the decisions I’ve made as a parent, and think through whether the ways in which I parent are in line with the goals I have for parenting, because reading the book made me realize that I need to be a little more conscious in this regard. So what really charac

This is the second of a short series of episodes on issues related to divorce. The first was our “All Joy and No Fun” episode, where we talked about how parenting today can be the most joyful thing in our lives – even if it isn’t always a whole lot of fun from moment to moment. The series was inspired by a listener who sent me an email saying: “I was divorced when my husband was 2 ½ years old. He is now 5 years old and has a very hard time expressing his feelings. I have an intuitive “gut” feeling that it has to do with the fact that he went from being with me every day (I was a stay at home mom) to suddenly spending 7-10 days away from me and with his father, and also away from me as I set up a career. Do you know of any research on this?” Well, I didn’t, but when I started looking around I realized there’s actually so much of it that it makes sense to break it down into two episodes which is what we’re going to do. So today’s episode focuses very much on the factors leading to divorce and the impact of divorce itself on children, and the final episode in the series will look at how what happens after divorce – things like single parenting, ongoing contact with both parents, ongoing arguments between parents, and remarriages and stepparents impact children.   Other podcast episodes mentioned in this show: 020: How do I get my child to do what I want them to do.   References Amato, P.R. (1999). Children of divorced parents as young adults. In E.M. Hetherington (Ed.)., Coping with divorce, single parenting, and remarriage: A risk and resiliency perspective (p.147-163). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Brody, G.H., & Forehand, R. (1988). Multiple determinants of parenting: Research findings and implications for the divorce process. In E.M. Hetherington & J.D. Arasteh (Eds.). Impact of divorce, single parenting, and stepparenting on children. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Deater-Deckard, K., & Dunn, J. (1999). Multiple risks and adjustment in young children growing up in different family settings: A British community study of stepparent, single mother, and nondivorced families. In E.M. Hetherington (Ed.)., Coping with divorce, single parenting, and remarriage: A risk and resiliency perspective (p.47-64). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Emery, R.E. (1988). Mediation and the settlement of divorce disputes. In E.M. Hetherington & J.D. Arasteh (Eds.). Impact of divorce, single parenting, and stepparenting on children. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Forehand, R., Long, N., & Brody, G. (1988). Divorce and marital conflict: Relationship to adolescent competence and adjustment in early adolescence. In E.M. Hetherington & J.D. Arasteh (Eds.). Impact of divorce, single parenting, and stepparenting on children. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Hetherington, E.M. (1989). Coping with family transitions: Winners, losers, and survivors. Child Development 60(1), 1-14. Hetherington, E.M. (1999). Should we stay together for the sake of the children? In E.M. Hetherington (Ed.)., Coping with divorce, single parenting, and remarriage: A risk and resiliency perspective (p.93-116). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Grall, T.S. (2009). Custodial mothers and fathers and their child support: 2007. U.S. Census Bureau. Retrieved from: https://www.census.gov/prod/2009pubs/p60-237.pdf Miller, C.C. (2014, December 2). The divorce surge is over, but the myth lives on. The New York Times. Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/02/upshot/the-divorce-surge-is-over-but-the-myth-lives-on.html?_r=0 Twaite, J.A., Silitsky, D., & Luchow, A.K. (1988). Children of divorce: Adjustment, parental conflict, custody, remarriage, and recommendations for clinicians. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson. Wolfinger, N.H. (2005). Understanding the divorce cycle: The children of divorce in their own marriages. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press.   Read Full Transcript Transcript Hello and welcome to the Your Parenting Mojo podcast. Today’s episode is another that comes to us via a question from a listener, and it’s the second in our three-part series on how the adult relationships in a family affect the child. We kicked off a couple of weeks back with an episode called All Joy and No Fun, which is about the book of the same name and discusses how parenting today can seem very joyful when you look at it as a whole thing, but if you ask yourself during an average moment with your toddler or preschooler whether you’re having fun, I think many parents might say ‘no.’ And I don’t mean to suggest that having all joy and no fun is a leading cause of divorce but it could certainly be a contributing factor, and that’s our topic for today. The listener who sent me an email said “I was divorced when my husband was 2 ½ years old. He is now 5 years old and has a very hard time expressing his feelings. I have an intuitive “gut” feeling that it has to do with the fact that he went from being with me every day (I was a stay at ho

Today’s episode is about a book I read way before I started the podcast, called All Joy and No Fun (Affiliate link) by Jennifer Senior. I actually got a question from a listener recently asking me whether there’s any research on whether and how her divorce might have impacted her son’s development. It turns out that there is, and quite a lot – so I decided to make a series out of it. We’ll have one episode on how divorce impacts children, and a second on single parenting and step families, and we’ll open the whole lot up with this one on All Joy and No Fun, which is basically about the idea that if you ask a parent what is their greatest joy they will invariably say “my kids,” but if you ask them moment-by-moment if they’re having fun with their children then unfortunately the answer is pretty often “no.” I know that a lot of factors can lead to divorce but surely “all joy and no fun” is among them, so it sort of seemed like it fit with the other two topics. Since I first read the book several months ago I’ve had a chance to think about it a bit, so I’ll start as usual with the research and will end with some ideas on how we can change our approach so we can have “some joy and some fun too.”   References Campos B., Graesch, A.P., Repetti, R., Bradbury, T., & Ochs, E. (2009). Opportunity for interaction? A naturalistic observation study of dual-earner families after work and school. Journal of Family Psychology 23(6), 798-807. DOI: 10.1037/a0015824 Cherry, K. (2016). What is flow? Retrieved from: https://www.verywell.com/what-is-flow-2794768 Cowan, C.P. & Cowan, P.A. (1995). Interventions to ease the transition to parenthood: Why they are needed and what they can do. Family Relations: Journal of Applied Family & Child Studies 44, 412-423. Csikszentmihalyi, M., Abuhamdeh, S., & Nakamura, J. (2005). Flow. In A. Elliot (Ed.), A Handbook of Competence and Motivation. (pp. 598-698). New York: The Guilford Press. Doss, B.D., Rhoades, G.K., Stanley, S.M., & Markman, H.J. (2009). The effect of the transition to parenthood on relationship quality: An 8-year prospective study. Journal of Personality and Social Psychiatry 96(3), 601-619. DOI: 10.1037/a0013969 LeMasters, E.E. (1957). Parenthood as crisis. Marriage and Family Living 19(4), 352-355. Mitchell, T.R., Thompson, L. .Peterson, E., & Cronk, R. (1997). Temporal adjustments in the evaluation of events: The “Rosy View.” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 33(4), 421-428. Nakamura, J., & Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2001). Dlow theory and research. In C.R. Snyder, E. Wright, & S.J. Lopez (Eds.), Handbook of Positive Psychology. (pp. 195-206). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rossi, A.S. (1968). Transition to parenthood. Journal of Marriage and Family 30(1), 26-39. Senior, J. (2014). All joy and no fun: The paradox of modern parenthood. New York: HarperCollins. (Affiliate link)   Read Full Transcript Transcript Hello, and welcome to the Your Parenting Mojo Podcast. Before we get going today, I’d like to ask you for a favor. I’ve been doing some reading about goal setting lately and I’ve read that if you set a goal you should both tell other people about it and ask for help in achieving it, so I’d like to do that today. I’ve set a goal for myself to double the number of subscribers I have to this podcast – subscribing doesn’t cost anything at all; it just means that new episodes show up in your podcast feed when they’re released on a weekly basis, so you don’t have to remember to go and look for them. Weekly podcasts on science-based parenting advice delivered straight to your feed? What could be better? The trick here is that if you subscribe through iTunes, I’m afraid I can’t count that as meeting my goal – iTunes never actually tells podcasters that a person has subscribed or how many subscribers I might have in iTunes at any given time. Let’s just say it’s yet another way that iTunes doesn’t help podcasters out. So to count toward my goal, new subscribers have to go to my website at YourParentingMojo.com, enter your email address in the box at the top, and hit ‘subscribe’ – you actually get a gift for doing it that way too, which is a package of seven relationship-based strategies to support your child’s development – and maybe make life a bit easier for you. So if you haven’t yet subscribed to the show on my website I’d be grateful if you wouldn’t mind doing that, and if you have already subscribed then would you consider telling a friend (or perhaps many friends) about the show? I’ll let you know when I reach my goal – thanks so much for your support! Now on to today’s episode, which is about a book I read way before I started the podcast, called All Joy and No Fun by Jennifer Senior. I actually got a question from a listener recently asking me whether there’s any research on whether and how her divorce might have impacted her son’s development. It turns out that there is, and quite a lot – so I decided to make a mini-se

We have a pretty cool mini-mini-series launching today. I’ve been seeing a lot of those “chores your child could be doing” articles showing up in my social media feeds lately, and I was thinking about those as well about how children in other cultures seem to be MUCH more willing to help out with work around the house. I’m not saying we want to train our children to be slave laborers, but why is it that children in Western cultures really don’t seem to do chores unless they’re paid to do them? We’re going to hold off on the “getting paid” part for now, and we’ll talk about that very soon with my guest Ron Lieber, the Money columnist of the New York Times who wrote a book called The Opposite of Spoiled. But today we’re going to discuss the chores part with Andrew Coppens, who is an Assistant Professor of Education in Learning Sciences at the University of New Hampshire. If you’ve ever asked your child to do a task in the home only to have them say “No,” then get comfy and listen up, because I have a feeling that our conversation is going to surprise you and give you some new tools for your toolbox.   References: Coppens, A.D., & Acala, L. (2015). Supporting children’s initiative: Appreciating family contributions or paying children for chores. Advances in Child Development and Behavior 49, 91-112. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/bs.acdb.2015.10.002 Coppens, A.D., Acala, L., Rogoff, B., & Mejia-Arauz, R. (2016). Children’s contributions in family work: Two cultural paradigms. In S. Punch, R.M. Vanderbeck, & T. Skelton (Eds.), Families, intergenerationality, and per group relations: Geographies of children and young people (Vol 5). New York, NY: Springer. LIFE Center (2005). “The LIFE Center’s Lifelong and Lifewide Diagram.” Retrieved from: http://life-slc.org/about/citationdetails.html   Read Full Transcript Transcript Jen: [00:37] Hello and welcome to the Your Parenting Mojo podcast. We have a pretty cool mini mini series launching today. I’ve been seeing a lot of those Chores Your Child Should Be Doing articles showing up in my social media feeds lately and I was thinking about those as well as some of the ethnographic research that we’ve discussed on previous episodes of the podcast where I’ve read about six year olds cooking for a group of adults who were on a trip for a week and willingly helping to care for younger siblings and cleaning up around the house without being asked and as I often do when these kinds of things come up, I started to wonder why don’t our children cook meals at age six and willingly help to care for younger siblings and clean up around the house without being asked? I’m not saying that we want to train our children to be slave laborers, but why is it that children in western cultures really don’t seem to do chores unless they’re paid to do them? Jen: [01:29] So we’re going to hold off on the getting paid part for now and we’ll talk about that very soon with my guest, Ron Lieber, who’s the money columnist of the New York Times and wrote a book called The Opposite of Spoiled. But today we’re going to discuss the chores part with Andrew Coppens, who is an Assistant Professor of Education and learning sciences at the University of New Hampshire. Dr Coppens’ work examines how children from a number of cultural communities learn to help collaborate and how they get motivated to learn and the everyday activities of their families and communities. He’s focused on cultural practices regarding children’s everyday family contributions. What kids think about helping out and mothers ways of getting there. Children involved. If you ever asked your child to do a task in the home, only to have them say no, then get comfy and listen up because I have a feeling that our conversation is going to surprise you and also give you some new tools for your toolbox. Welcome Dr Coppens! Dr. Coppens: [02:21] Thanks. It’s really nice to speak with you. Jen: [02:22] All right, so let’s start by defining chores. What kind of work constitutes chores in your research? Dr. Coppens: [02:29] So, uh, I think we make one what seems to be a critical distinction and that seems to give us a window into a lot of cultural differences regarding how voluntarily kids do chores. And that distinction is between what we refer to as family household work, which is activities like helping with cooking a meal where other people are involved and where the benefits of doing that chore are shared across a number of people and we make that distinction be doing those kinds of activities and we call self-care chores, so things regarding my stuff, so making my bed or my mess, you know, some toys that I left out and where people tend to work in self-care chores a little bit more individually. So there’s a lot of different kinds of work around the house, but those two types tend to focus on those two types, tends to be pretty instructive. Jen: [03:21] Okay. So it’s the idea of taking care of yourself as in things like b

Well this took a bit longer than I’d planned… WAY BACK in episode 11 I did Part 1 of a two-part series on tantrums, and was expecting to release the second episode in short order. Then I got inundated with interviews from awesome guests, which I always wanted to release as soon as I could after I spoke with them, and months have gone by without releasing that second episode.   Episode 11 provided a lot of background information on tantrums: a seminal study in 1931 really forms the basis for all the research on tantrums that has been done since then, so we went through it in some depth to understand what those researchers found – I was surprised that so much of the information was still relevant to parents today.   This episode considers the more recent literature – of which there actually isn’t a huge amount – to help us understand what’s going on during a tantrum, how to deal with them once they start, and how to potentially head them off before they even fully develop (don’t we all want that?!).   If you know you want to show up differently for your child but you don’t know how (or you know how and you still can’t do it!), the Taming Your Triggers workshop will help.   Click the banner to learn more!     References Denham, S.A., & Burton, R. (2003). Social and emotional prevention and intervention programming for preschoolers. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum. Green, J.A., Whitney, P.G., & Potegal, M. (2011). Screaming, yelling, whining, and crying: Categorical and intensity differences in vocal expressions of anger and sadness in children’s tantrums. Emotion 11(5), 1124-1133. DOI: 10.1037/a0024173 Levine, L.J. (1995). Young children’s understanding of the causes of anger and sadness. Child Development 66(2), 697-709. LeVine, R., & LeVine, S. (2016). Do parents matter? Why Japanese babies sleep soundly, Mexican siblings don’t fight, and American families should just relax. New York: Public Affairs. Lieberman, M.D., Eisenberger, N.E., Crockett, M.J., Tom, S.M., Pfeifer, J.H., & Way, B.M. (2007). Putting feelings into words: Affect labeling disrupts amygdala activity in response to affective stimuli. Psychological Science 18(5), 421-428. Parens, H. (1987). Aggression in our children: Coping with it constructively. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson. Potegal, M., & Davidson, R.J. (1997). Young children’s post tantrum affiliation with their parents. Aggressive Behavior 23, 329-341. Potegal, M., & Davidson, R.J. (2003). Temper tantrums in young children: 1. Behavioral composition. Development and Behavioral Pediatrics 24(3), 140-147. Potegal, M., Kosorok, M.R., & Davidson, R.J. (2003). Temper tantrums in young children: 1. Tantrum duration and temporal organization. Development and Behavioral Pediatrics 24(3), 148-154.

Professor Peter Gray was primarily interested in the motivations and emotions of animals before his son Scott started struggling in school, at which point Professor Gray’s interests shifted to developing our understanding of self-directed learning and how play helps us to learn. He has extensively studied the learning that occurs at the Sudbury Valley School in Sudbury Valley, MA – where children are free to associate with whomever they like, don’t have to take any classes at all, and yet go on college and to satisfying lives as adults. How can this possibly be? We’ll find out.   Reference Gray, P (2013). Free to learn: Why unleashing the instinct to play will make our children happier, more self-reliant, and better students for life. New York, NY: Basic Books. (Affiliate link) Also see Professor Gray’s extensive posts on learning and education on the Psychology Today blog.   Read Full Transcript   Transcript Jen: [00:00:39] Hello and welcome to the Your Parenting Mojo podcast. Before we get going with our awesome guest Professor Peter Gray, who’s going to talk with us about self-directed learning, I wanted to let you know that if what Peter says resonates with you, then I’m on the verge of launching a course to help parents decide whether homeschooling might be right for their family. I first started to think about homeschooling after I realized that I’d been doing everything I could to help my job to pursue learning for its own sake and engage in self-directed learning. But the more I read about school, the more I realized that at schooled, there really is no such thing as self-directed learning. Children learn what they’re told to learn when they’re told to learn it because that’s just how schools work. I mentioned in the episode on Betsy DeVos that I actually wrote my master’s thesis on what motivates children to learn in the absence of being told to do it and I was shocked to find that the system used in schools is pretty much the opposite of one that would really nurture children’s own love of learning. Jen: [00:01:36] I did a lot of reading about learning and also about homeschooling and I developed the course because I realized that nobody had really collected all that information up in one place in a way that helps parents to understand the universe of information that needs to be considered to make this decision and also to support them through that process. Right now I’m recruiting people who’d be interested in helping me to pilot test the course. You get full access to all the research I’ve done on homeschooling based on over 50 books and 150 scientific research papers as well as interviews with more than 20 families who are already homeschooling and seven experts in the field. If you’d like to learn more, then please drop me an email at [email protected] And I’ll send you some information about it with no obligation to sign up. The cost to participate in the pilot will be $99, which will be half the cost of the course once it’s released to the general public and all I’d ask you to do in exchange is to share your honest thoughts of how the course worked for you, so please let me know if you’re interested. Again, that email address is [email protected]. Jen: [00:02:35] Now, let’s get going with our interview. Today we’re joined by Peter Gray, who is a research professor of psychology at Boston College. Professor Gray was primarily interested in the motivations and emotions of animals before his son Scott started struggling in school, at which point professor Gray interest shifted to developing and understanding of self directed and how play helps us to learn. Professor Gray is the author of a textbook on general psychology that’s now in its seventh edition, as well as the book Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Better, Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life. Welcome Professor Gray. Dr. Gray: [00:03:17] I’m glad to be here. Jen: [00:03:19] Thank you. So let’s start with kind of a thorny question. Why, why do we have schools? I went to school and I think you went to school and in many ways it seems like it’s just something that is part of our lives. How did we get to this point? Dr. Gray: [00:03:34] Yeah, that’s exactly right. It is part of our lives. It’s been part of our parents’ lives most, most for most of us, our grandparents; some of us, our great grandparents all went to school. It’s really, you know, schools as we know them today first appeared really in the late 17th century during the Protestant reformation, the Protestant reformers believed that it was very important for children to learn how to read so they could read the Bible. They believed that it was important for every human being to read the Bible for themselves. And so teaching reading was part of it, and in fact, the Bible or some primer version of the Bible was sort of the text that children learn from, but beyond teaching reading, at least

Today I join forces with Malaika Dower of the How to Get Away with Parenting podcast to interview Dr. Christia Brown, who is a Professor of Developmental and Social Psychology at the University of Kentucky, where she studies the development of gender identity and children’s experience of gender discrimination. Dr. Brown’s book, Parenting Beyond Pink and Blue (Affiliate link), helps parents to really understand the scientific research around gender differences in children, which is a harder task than with some other topics because there’s just a lot of bad research out there on this one. I ask about theories of gender development while Malaika keeps us grounded with questions about how this stuff works in the real world, and we both resolve to shift our behavior toward our daughters just a little bit. Related Episodes Interview with Yarrow Dunham on how social groups form Interview with Kang Lee on children’s lying (yep – your kid does it too!)   References Brown, C.S. (2014). Parenting beyond pink and blue. Berkeley, CA: Ten Speed Press. (Affiliate link) Taylor, M.G., Rhodes, M., & Gelman, S.A. (2009). Boys will be boys and cows will be cows: Children’s essentialist reasoning about gender categories and animal species. Child Development 80(2), 461-481. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2009.01272.x   Read Full Transcript Transcript Jen: 00:30 Hello and welcome to Your Parenting Mojo. We have a pretty cool show lined up for you today. So those of you who are subscribed to my podcasts by my website at YourParentingMojo.com might've seen a notification go out just before the holiday, letting you know that had been interviewed by Malaika Dower, who is the host of the podcast, How to Get Away with Parenting. And as a side note, I'll say that Malaika is interested in a lot of the same issues as I am. So you should go and check out her show and if you're the parent of a child of color then you should pause this show and go and check out her show at howtogetawaywithparenting.com right now because there are very few podcasts for this audience and hers is a really good one. So right after we recorded our episode, Malaika texted me and said, did you ever think about doing an episode on gender-neutral parenting? Does it even make a difference if I put barrettes in my daughter's hair and put her in pink dresses or if she only wears pants and I always say "yes, our neighbor is writing down his riding down the street" on her bike rather than "he or she is riding her bike." So like I always do, I looked around to see who's doing really good work on the subject by which I mean work that is actually based on the outcomes of real scientific research and not a study saying that girl babies hear about one decibel better than boy babies for very high pitch noises and that this is enough justification for gender segregated classrooms where we never let the noise get too loud in the girls classroom and I wish that I was kidding you about that, but I'm really not. So when I read the book, Parenting Beyond Pink and Blue and I found that it critically examines the relevant scientific literature on this subject, much like we do here on the show, I knew that I had to ask the author to talk with us. Dr. Christia Brown is professor of development and social psychology at the University of Kentucky where she studies the development of gender identity and children's experience of gender discrimination among other topics. Dr. Brown received her Ph.D from the University of Texas at Austin where her research focused on how and why children form gender and race stereotypes and how they understand gender discrimination. As I mentioned, Dr Brown's book is called Parenting Beyond Pink and Blue: How to Raise your Kids Free of Gender Stereotypes. Welcome Dr Brown, and also welcome to Malaika Dower, who's going to be our co-interviewer today. Malaika: 02:36 Hi! Dr. Brown: 02:36 Thank you. Jen: 02:37 All right, so let's start with the big question. Jen: 02:41 Is there a genetic difference between the brains of very young boys and girls? Can you talk us through that a little bit please? Dr. Brown: 02:47 I can. I mean there are, I mean obviously there are genetic differences between boys and girls, is that when you start to really look at brain differences, there aren't very many and there definitely aren't many when you look at young children. So yes, there are some differences between adults. The problem is they've had an entire lifetime of different experiences and there's lots of evidence that all those experiences shape the brain in very concrete structural ways. So when you're talking about what are these of biological differences early in life, there are very, very few and there's far more differences between individual boys and individual girls then between boys and girls as a group. Jen: 03:31 Wow. Uh, okay. So you said two really big things there. Firstly, that the experiences that we have in our lives physically shape our brains, so tha

I’ve thought about doing this episode for a while but I sat on it for a few weeks because it’s still in motion. But now Betsy DeVos is confirmed as Secretary of Education I wanted to offer some thoughts on her work on educational issues, charter schools, as well as on the topic of schools more broadly. Spoiler alert: I graduated from my Master’s program! And I wrote my thesis on what motivates children to learn in the absence of a formal curriculum, so we also talk a bit about whether schools as we know them, and specifically curriculum-based learning, is the best way to serve our children’s learning.   References Achieve (2015, May 14). New report highlights large gaps between state test results and 2013 NAEP results. Retrieved from: http://achieve.org/new-report-highlights-large-gaps-between-state-test-results-and-2013-naep-results Angrist, J.D., Cohides, S.R., Dynarski, S.M., Pathak, P.A., & Walters, C.D. (2013). Charter schools and the road to college readiness: The effects on college preparation, attendance, and choice. Full report available at: http://www.tbf.org/~/media/TBFOrg/Files/Reports/Charters%20and%20College%20Readiness%202013.pdf Bitfulco, R., & Ladd, H.F. (2006). The impacts of charter schools on student achievement: Evidence from North Carolina. Education Finance and Policy 1(1), 50-90. Full article available at: http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/edfp.2006.1.1.50 Bruni, F. (2015, May 30). The education assassins. The New York Times. Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/31/opinion/sunday/frank-bruni-department-of-education-assassins.html?_r=1 Camera, L. (2016, May 17). More than 60 years after Brown v. Board of Education, discrimination still exists. Retrieved from: https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-05-17/after-brown-v-board-of-education-school-segregation-still-exists Camera, L. (2017, February 17). DeVos: I’d be fine ditching the education department. Retrieved from: https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2017-02-17/betsy-devos-id-be-fine-if-we-could-ditch-the-education-department Center for Research on Education Outcomes (2015). Urban charter school study report on 41 regions. Full report available at: https://urbancharters.stanford.edu/download/Urban%20Charter%20School%20Study%20Report%20on%2041%20Regions.pdf Doyle, W. (2016, February 18). How Finland broke every rule – and created a top school system. Heching Report. Retrieved from: http://hechingerreport.org/how-finland-broke-every-rule-and-created-a-top-school-system/ Gill, B.P. (2016). The effect of charter schools on students in traditional public schools: A review of the evidence. Education Next. Retrieved from: http://educationnext.org/the-effect-of-charter-schools-on-students-in-traditional-public-schools-a-review-of-the-evidence/ Gleason, P., Clark, M., Tuttle, C.C., Dwoyer, E., & Silverberg, M. (2010). The evaluation of charter school impacts. Full report available at: https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pubs/20104029/pdf/20104029.pdf Goldman, J.A. (1981). Social participation of preschool children in same- versus mixed-age groups. Child Development 32, 644-650. Gray, P. (2013). Free to learn: Why unleashing the instinct to play will make our children happier, more self-reliant, and better students for life. New York: Basic. Greenberg, D. (1995). Free at last: The Sudbury Valley school. Sudbury, MA: Sudbury Valley School Press. The passage I cited in the episode is freely available here: http://sudburyschool.com/content/free-last Mack, J. (2012). Weighing the pros and cons of charter schools (Julie Mack blog). Mlive. Retrieved from: http://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2012/01/comparing_charters_and_regular.html National Association of Colleges and Employers (2015). Job outlook 2016: Attributes employers want to see on new college graduates’ resumes. Retrieved from: http://www.naceweb.org/s11182015/employers-look-for-in-new-hires.aspx Preble, L. (n.d.). Classroom overcrowding: It’s not just a numbers game. Teachhub. Retrieved from: http://www.teachhub.com/classroom-overcrowding Prothero, A. (2016, December 8). Trump’s education secretary nominee’s school choice record in Michigan. Retrieved from: http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/charterschoice/2016/12/trump_education_secretary_betsy_devos_school_choice_record_michigan.html?r=1922064904 Selbe, N. (2016, April 29). The states ranked by test scores. Startclass. Retrieved from: http://public-schools.startclass.com/stories/13054/states-ranked-test-scores#12-Michigan Suggate, S.P. 2012. “Watering the garden before the rainstorm: The case of early reading.” Edited by Sebastian Suggate and Elaine Reese. Contemporary debates in child development and education. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, Taylor & Francis. pp. 181-190. The Education Trust – Midwest. Accountability for all: 2016; The broken promise of Michigan’s charter sector. Retrieved from: http://midwest.edtrust.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2013/10/The-Education-Trust-Midwest_Accountabilit

This episode comes to us by way of a suggestion from my friend Jess, who told me she had joined an outing with some children in her three-year-old son’s preschool class. She said some of the slightly older children were running around playing that their hands were guns and shooting at each other, and the teachers were pretty much just ignoring it, which really shocked her. So I thought to myself “I bet some smart person has done some research on this” and so I went out and found us just such a smart person to talk with. Diane E. Levin, Ph.D. is Professor of Education at Wheelock College in Boston, Massachusetts where she has been training early childhood professionals for over twenty-five years. She teaches courses on play, violence prevention, action research. Her book, The War Play Dilemma, provides a theoretical view of why children engage in war play and how parents and teachers can support the development that occurs when children engage in this kind of play – and do it in a way that doesn’t make us feel queasy.   Dr. Diane E. Levin's Book The war play dilemma: What every parent and teacher needs to know - Affiliate link   References Dunn, J. & Hughes, C. (2001). “I got some swords and you’re dead!”: Violent fantasy, antisocial behavior, friendship, and moral sensibility in young children. Child Development 72(2), 491-505. Fehr, K.K. & Russ, S.W. (2013). Aggression in pretend play and aggressive behavior in the classroom. Early Education and Development 24, 332-345. DOI: 10.1080/10409289.2012.675549 Ferguson, C.J. (2007). Evidence for publication bias in video game violence effects literature: A meta-analytic review. Aggression & Violent Behavior 57, 348-364. Hart, J.L., & Tannock, M.T. (2013). Young children’s play fighting and use of war toys. Encyclopedia on Early Childhood Development. Retrieved from: http://www.child-encyclopedia.com/play/according-experts/young-childrens-play-fighting-and-use-war-toys Holland, P. (203). We don’t play with guns here: War, weapon and superhero play in the early years. Maidenhead, UK: Open University Press Levin, D.E. & Carlsson-Paige, N. (2006). The war play dilemma: What every parent and teacher needs to know (2nd Ed.). New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Lober R., Lacourse, E., & Homimsh, D.L. (2005). Homicide, violence, and developmental trajectories. In R.E. Tremblay, W.W. Hartup, & J. Archer (Eds.), Developmental origins of aggression. New York, NY: Guilford Press. Teachers Resisting Unhealthy Children’s Entertainment (n.d.). Website. http://www.truceteachers.org   Read Full Transcript Transcript Jen: [00:30] Hello and welcome to today’s episode of Your Parenting Mojo, which is called The War Play Dilemma. This episode comes to us by way of a suggestion from my friend Jess, who had told me that she had joined an outing with some children in her three year old son’s preschool class and she said that some of the slightly older children were running around and playing, that their hands were guns and shooting each other and the teachers were pretty much just ignoring it, which really shocked her. Jen: [00:54] So I thought to myself, I bet some smart person has done some research on this. And I went out and found us just such a smart person to talk with today. So Diane Levin, Ph.D Is Professor of Education at Wheelock College in Boston, Massachusetts, where she’s been training early childhood professionals for over 25 years. She teaches courses on play violence prevention and action research and her book, The War Play Dilemma, provides a theoretical view of why children engage in war play and how parents and teachers can support the development that occurs when children engage in this kind of play and also do it in a way that doesn’t make us feel queasy. Professor Levin has a BS in child development from Cornell University, an M.S. In special education from Wheelock College and an interdisciplinary Ph.D in Sociology of Education and Child Development from Tufts University. Welcome, Professor Levin. Dr. Levin: [01:42] Hello. It’s a pleasure to be with you and being able to talk about this issue. Jen: [01:46] So let’s set the stage here. So war games aren’t found in all cultures, but they are found in many, both today and also historically. And I read in your book that archeologists have found the remnants of what might have been toys used for war play by the ancient Egyptians. So I’m wondering if kids had been playing at war for ever, apparently, why the sudden concern what’s changed recently? Dr. Levin: [02:07] Well, I think there’s always been some concerns from parents who were thinking that they didn’t want their boys to be aggressive, didn’t want them to focus on violence, wanted them to grow up and be humane citizens. But I, I think one of the things that’s happened in our culture in the last say 30 or 40 years as media has become a bigger and bigger force in children’s lives, in as marketing of toys has become a bi

This episode is part of a series on understanding the intersection of race, privilege, and parenting. Click here to view all the items in this series. How social groups are formed has profound implications for what we teach our children about our culture. Professor Yarrow Dunham of Yale University tells us how we all group people in our heads according to criteria that we think are important – in many cases it’s a valuable tool that allows us to focus our mental energy. But when we look at ideas like race and gender, we see that we tend to classify people into these groups based on criteria that may not actually be useful at all. This episode will shed further light on Episode 6, “Wait, is my toddler racist?” and will lay the groundwork for us to study groupings based on gender in an upcoming episode. References Baron, A.S. & Dunham, Y. (2015). Representing “Us” and “Them”: Building blocks of intergroup cognition. Journal of Cognition and Development 16(5), 780-801. DOI: 10.1080/15248372.2014.1000459 Baron, A.S., Dunham, Y., Banaji, M., & Carey, S. (2014). Constraints on the acquisition of social category concepts. Journal of Cognition and Development 15(2), 238-268. DOI: 10.1080/15248372.2012.742902 Dunham, Y., Baron, A.S., & Carey, S. (2011). Consequences of “minimal” group affiliations in children. Child Development 82(3), 793-811. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2011.01577.x Dunham, Y., Chen, E.E., & Banaji, M.R. (2013). Two signatures of implicit intergroup attitudes: Developmental invariance and early enculturation. Psychological Science Online First. DOI: 10.1177/0956797612463081 Dunham, Y., Stepanova, E.V., Dotsch, R., & Todorov, A. (2015). The development of race-based perceptual categorization: Skin color dominates early category judgments. Developmental Science 18(3), 469-483. DOI: 10.1111/desc.12228 Rhodes, M., Leslie, S-J, Saunders, K., Dunham, Y., & Cimpian, A. (In Press). How does social essentialism affect the development of inter-group relations? Developmental Science. Retrieved from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/306482087_How_does_social_essentialism_affect_the_development_of_inter-group_relations Richter, N., Over, H., & Dunham, Y. (2016). The effects of minimal group membership on young preschoolers’ social preferences, estimates of similarity, and behavioral attribution. Collabra 2(1), p.1-8. DOI: : 10.1525/collabra.44   [accordion] [accordion-item title="Click here to read the full transcript"]   Transcript Jen: [00:30] Hello and welcome to the Your Parenting Mojo podcast. We’ve already talked quite a bit about the development of racism on Your Parenting Mojo and if you missed it, you might want to go back to episode six, which was called Wait, Is My Toddler Racist, and in that episode we talked about some of the unconscious psychological processes that are at work in all of us that can lead our children to develop racist attitudes and we learned that some of the concepts we might hold to be true if we hadn’t specifically learned about them – things like the fact that children just don’t notice racial differences unless they’re pointed out and the children won’t become racist if they aren’t explicitly taught to be – really aren’t true at all. Today I’m joined by an expert in social group formation who’s going to help us to understand how social groups form and specifically how we formulate our ideas about racial groups and will give us some practical tools we can use in our attempts to raise children who aren’t racist. Yarrow Dunham is Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at Yale University. He received his doctorate in education and also his masters from Harvard University and his BA from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Professor Dunham leads the Social Cognitive Development Lab at Yale where he and his colleagues look for answers to questions about how and why we affiliate with social groups, how we evaluate those groups, and how the concept of fairness develops in children and how all of this varies across cultures. Welcome Professor Dunham. Dr. Dunham: [01:49] Thank you. Great to be here. Jen: [01:50] All right, so let’s dive in. Can you tell us what is psychological essentialism and why it’s so important to our work? Dr. Dunham: [01:58] So psychological essentialism is the view that differences between people are based in deep internal property is probably the easiest way to think about them. In the modern view is something like genes, so what makes to people different or two groups of people different is that something inside of them is different and a key part of this idea is we think those differences are there in that essence is there, even if we can’t see it, so that creates situation in which I can get it wrong about what group. You’re right, I can think you’re in one group based on say the way you look, but I can find out something. Say something about your essence, something about your genes or maybe yo

This episode is the final in our mini-series that I hope will help you to think through the options you might have for your child’s preschool. In previous episodes we looked at Waldorf and Montessori approaches to early childhood education; today we examine the Reggio Emilia-based approach with Suzanne Axelsson, who studied it for her Master’s degree in early childhood education and is well-respected in the Reggio field. She helps us to understand how the “concept of the child” impacts how we see the child and support their learning, and what are the “hundred languages of children”… Suzanne Axelsson's Book The original learning approach: Weaving together playing, learning, and teaching in early childhood - Affiliate link References Bodrova, E., & Leong, D.J. (2006). Tools of the mind: The Vygotskian approach to early childhood education (2nd Ed.). New York, NY: Pearson. Edwards, C., Gandini, L., & Forman, G. (Eds.). (2012). The hundred languages of children: The Reggio Emilia experience in transformation.   Read Full Transcript Transcript Jen: [00:27] Hello and welcome to today’s episode of Your Parenting Mojo, which is called Is a Reggio Emilia Preschool Right for My Child. So this is the third in our mini series about different approaches to preschool education and today’s episode is going to be a little bit odd for me because I actually know a fair bit about the Reggio Emilia approach to early childhood education, but I went out and found us a real expert to talk with and I’m going to pretend like I don’t know very much so that we can ask the kinds of questions that people here are new to Reggio Emilia might ask. Our guest today, Suzanne Axleson received her master’s degree in early childhood education at Sheffield University in England, where she specialized in Reggio Emilia language and communication and documentation as a tool to aid memory and deepen children’s learning. She has 20 years of experience teaching in a variety of early years settings including traditional Swedish preschool and Montessori. Suzanne recently worked at Filosofiska, which I hope I’m pronouncing correctly, Sweden’s first preschool with a philosophical profile where she developed an approach to use philosophy as a pedagogic tool for young children, but she recently decided to spend some time collecting her thoughts in preparation for writing a book on how to use listening to improve pedagogical outcomes. Welcome, Suzanne. Suzanne: [01:39] Thank you. Jen: [01:40] Thanks so much for joining us today. I wonder if you could tell us about how you first learned about the Reggio Emilia approach to early childhood education and what about it spoke to you? Suzanne: [01:49] It was round about 2007 when I was working in a preschool and there were teachers talking about that this is a new approach to this preschool should take and we looked into it so we realized this was something we were going to do and so I looked more into it and realized it spoke to me because it’s more or less what I’ve been doing all the time. It was about observing the children and listening to the children and making sure that the learning was happening appropriately for them. So it felt like a natural contraction of how I was working as an educator but to deepen that, to learn more about it. Jen: [02:27] Okay, and what specific elements of the practice were you referring to there? Suzanne: [02:32] When working with projects the children will find something of interest and then you will go into their interest and deepen their understanding of this by if for example, it was dinosaurs, it would not just be looking at everything that was dinosaurs and learning facts about dinosaurs. Why was it they were interested in dinosaurs and quite often it was finding out more about their fears and finding out more about how they themselves build things or created things or drew things and interacted with what was scary or it was different depending on the group of children, so dinosaurs was never – I’ve done it many different times, but he’s never been exactly the same. Jen: [03:13] Hm. And is never exactly the same because the children are never exactly the same. Right? Suzanne: [03:18] They all have their different approaches. Some children have been – they’ve wanted to be paleontologists, so they wanted to go and pretend that we’re finding fossils and it’s all been about the bones and connected to the bones in their own body, so it was like an exploration of their own body through the dinosaur bones while others, It’s been definitely the fear. There’s something was those big scary teeth was what was fascinating them. There were more of the fear exploration during that time. Jen: [03:45] Okay. Suzanne: [03:46] It’s always been an interesting way to… It gives us the opportunity to look at, to, to discover what children are learning, but they give me a new perspective on the same thing. So I never go and see dinosaurs and exactly the same way. Jen: [03:59] Mm. Yea

Your kids don’t lie, right? And if they did, you’d be able to tell, right? News flash: they do. And you probably can’t. Dr. Kang Lee – who is one of the world’s experts in lying – tells us why children lie, how we can (try to) reduce the incidence of lying, and how we should handle it when we catch our children in a lie. And here’s the one story that Dr. Lee says can help to prevent your child from lying…   Dr. Kang Lee's Book Children and lying: A century of scientific research - Affiliate link Reference Dr. Lee’s TED talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/kang_lee_can_you_really_tell_if_a_kid_is_lying   Read Full Transcript Transcript Jen: [00:30] Welcome to today’s episode of Your Parenting Mojo, which is called My Child is Lying to Me! I became interested in this topic after I researched the episode on symbolic representation in art, which relies on the child’s understanding of what I know might be different from what she knows and that turns out that that concept is also important in lying because if I’m a toddler and as far as I know what’s in your head is the same as what’s in my head, why would I bother lying to you? And so I also started to wonder about the connections between lying and joking. After my one year old started telling me jokes: she would point to a pig and say “ats cow” and I’d say “really?” And she’d say “no.” So lying is a really pervasive human behavior, but I’m wondering how do children learn how to lie and why do they do it and is there anything we can do to encourage them to be more truthful more often. So let’s dive right into that topic in a conversation with Dr Kang Lee, who’s a University Distinguished Professor at the University of Toronto, Dr Lee received his B.S. and M.A. from Hangzhou University in China and his Ph.D from the University of New Brunswick in Canada. Dr Lee has been studying lying for a really long time, but we hope he’s going to tell us the truth today because we need the help. Welcome Dr Lee. Thanks for joining us. Dr. Lee: [01:44] Hi. Thanks for inviting me to be part of your program. Jen: [01:48] Alright, so let’s start at the beginning. What are some of the reasons that people lie and do all people lie? Dr. Lee: [01:54] So as far as I can tell, among the kids we have seen, we have seen possibly over 10,000 kids from all ages as young as two years of age, all the way up to 16, 17 years of age. The majority of them would lie in various kinds of situations. The first kind of like kids tell, tend to be motivated by self protection and typically what happens is when they have done something wrong, they haven’t done something I’m not supposed to do and then they have to cover that up and that’s one of the most frequent kind of lies kids tell. And the one of the earliest kind of lies kids tell. Jen: [02:37] Okay. And so I’m just thinking through what are the logical consequences of what you just said, if, if I try and set up my home so that there are fewer things that my child is not supposed to do so that I put things out of reach that she’s not supposed to play with. And you know, kids get into stuff and sometimes things happen, but am I reducing the possibility that my two year old is going to lie to me if I…no. We have our video on and you’re shaking your head. Dr. Lee: [03:08] You know, the kids, the jobs of a child is to learn the various rules of our society. We actually have a lot of rules. You know, you should do this, you should do not do that. But you know, during the learning process, you know, the child does not always listen to you and they say do not touch this. It’s not going to be good. And then, but the child sometimes it has this problem we call a deficit in inhibitory control because they are learning to control their behaviors, but they are not quite there yet. That the brain is not matured to a point that, that the way wherever you tell a child not to do the immediately do not do it. It’s not going to happen. So then the child would do something even for adults and say don’t do this. Dr. Lee: [03:54] And the adults also find it difficult to not do certain things that you tell them not to do. So because of this struggle, sometimes the kids would violate the rules, violate the things you know, you set out for kids, and then what they’re going to do. So because kids, they do not have political power, they do not have the physical power. So one of the things that they can turn to really is to, using their mind, their ability to use the language. So they discover very quickly, as soon as they learn how to speak basically, and they say, Oh yes, you know, if I just simply move the lips of my mouth, I actually can get mom to believe that I have not done something that I’m not supposed to do. And that actually happens around two and two and half years of age. Jen: [04:47] Okay. So, okay, so this starts really early then I’m thinking about, you know, why, why do people lie in general? And it seems as though there are a lot of reasons and we typ

This episode is the second in our mini-series on making decisions about preschools, which I know is on the minds of a lot of parents of young children at this time of year. Today we speak with Beverly Amico, the Director of Advancement at the Association of Waldorf Schools of North America. Beverly helps us to understand the philosophy behind a Waldorf approach to early childhood education as well as answer those all-important questions like “Can I send my child to a Waldorf preschool even if s/he has plastic toys and watches TV?”. Here’s the link to the Essentials in Education blog that Beverly mentions in the episode, and here is the official website for her organization, the Association of Waldorf Schools of North America.   References Association of Waldorf Schools of North America (2015). Waldorf Education. Retrieved from: https://waldorfeducation.org/ Edmunds, F. (2004). An introduction to Steiner education. Forest Row, UK: Sophia Books Howard, S. (n.d.). Essentials of Waldorf early childhood education. Retrieved from: http://www.waldorfearlychildhood.org/uploads/Howard%20Article.pdf Petrash, J. (2002). Understanding Waldorf education: Teaching from the inside out. Beltsville, MD: Gryphon House Steiner, R. (1995). The spirit of the Waldorf school. Hudson, NY: Anthroposophic Press Steiner, R. (2001). The renewal of education. Great Barrington, MA: Anthroposophic Press Steiner, R. (2003). What is Waldorf education? Great Barrington, MA: SteinerBooks Waldorf Early Childhood Association of America (2017). WECAN. Retrieved from: http://www.waldorfearlychildhood.org/   Read Full Transcript Transcript Jen: [00:30] Hello and welcome to today’s episode of the Your Parenting Mojo podcast, which is called Is a Waldorf Preschool Right for my Child? Regular listeners might recall that we are doing a little mini series at the moment, examining the different approaches to preschool to try and help parents make a decision about which type of school might be right for their child. We’ve already covered Montessori, so if you miss that one, you might take it once to go back and take a listen. And today we’ll talk with Beverly Amico, who is the Executive Director of Advancement at the Association of Waldorf Schools of North America. Prior to this role, she was the head of school for three K through 12 Waldorf schools in Bethesda, Maryland; Boulder, Colorado, and Santa Fe, New Mexico, and was a life sciences teacher as well. She also sits on the board of the Council for American private education, which advocates for sound educational policy. Beverly received her bachelor’s degree in K through 12 health education from Penn State University. Welcome, Beverly. Beverly: [01:22] Thank you. It’s a privilege to be here. Jen: [01:24] Thank you. So I’ve read that it’s really difficult to define the distinguishing features of a Waldorf education. Every book that I picked up said, well, we can’t really put our arms around what it is. I wonder if you could start out instead by imagining a Waldorf preschool classroom in your mind and walking us through that. What does the room look like and what are the children doing and how do they move through their day? Beverly: [01:46] Certainly, certainly. There were I think four words that often come to mind when you’re describing a Waldorf early childhood classroom and which will hopefully help your visitor, your listeners to be able to picture it. But first is simplicity. You’ll walk into a classroom and the surrounding environment has very few distractions. Children really don’t need much noise around them to explore and to hold their attention. Beverly: [02:16] The second I’d like to use is the word goodness. Even the way the gestures of the teacher, the kind words, the soft speech, the calming rhythm, and children feel like they’re coming into a place and they feel nurtured. And then beauty, and you don’t necessarily expect this when you walk into an early childhood classroom, but the classrooms are really beautiful. There ae flowers and wooden toys and beautiful artwork on the walls and real elements of nature and that that just is, is good and healthy for all human beings to be surrounded by beauty. And then the last one, which is perhaps kind of the keystone of a welder for early childhood is this idea of wonder. It’s a place students can enter into and explorer and spark their imagination. I think even as an adult, if you’ve ever walked into an early childhood classroom, you immediately feel kind of nurtured and calm and cared for, for it’s really a very joyful place. Jen: [03:16] That sounds really cool. So what are the children spend their day doing in a Waldorf Preschool? Beverly: [03:22] Absolutely. Well, so every Waldorf school is different. They’re all independent. While we’re an association, each is different. So we do have some Waldorf early childhood classrooms that are even forest kindergartens or outdoor farm kindergartens. But traditionally our classes…There’s pl

We talked a while ago about sharing, and how you can understand the developmental processes that your child needs to go through before s/he truly understands what it means to share. One of the inputs to sharing behavior is an understanding of what is fair, and Drs. Peter Blake and Katie McAuliffe talk us through what we know about what children understand about fairness. This episode will help you to understand how much of the idea of fairness is naturally culturally transmitted to children and what you can do to encourage a sense of fairness in your child, which is important for their own social well-being and for the benefit of our society – this has implications for ideas like the development of perceptions about race and gender that we’ll be talking more about in upcoming episodes.   References Blake, P.R., Corbit, J., Callaghan, T.C., & Warneken, F. (2016). Give as I give: Adult influence on children’s giving in two cultures. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 152, 149-160. DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2016.07.010 Blake, P.R., McAuliffe, K., Corbit, J., Callaghan, T.C., Barry, O, Bowie, A., Kleutsch, L., Kramer, K.L., Ross, E., Vongsachang, H., Wrangham, R., & Warneken, F. (2015). The ontogeny of fairness in seven societies. Nature 528, 258-261. DOI:10.1038/nature15703 Blake, P.R., Rand, D.G., Tingley, D., & Warneken, F. (2015). The shadow of the future promotes cooperation in a repeated prisoner’s dilemma for children. Scientific Reports 5, Article number 14559. DOI: 10.1038/srep14559 Blake, P.R., & McAuliffe, K. (2011). “I had so much it didn’t seem fair”: Eight-year-olds reject two forms of inequity. Cognition 120, 215-224. DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2011.04.006 Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development: Experiments by nature and design. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Chernyak, N., & Kushnir, T. (2013). Giving preschoolers choice increases sharing behavior. Psychological Science 24, 1971-1979. Jordan, J.J., McAuliffe, K., & Warneken, F. (2014). Development of in-group favoritism in children’s third-party punishment of selfishness. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 111(35), 12710-12715. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1402280111 McAuliffe, K., Blake, P.R., Steinbeis, N., & Warneken, F. (2017). The developmental foundations of human fairness. Nature (Human Behavior) 1 (Article 00042), 1-9. McAuliffe, K., Jordan, J.J., & Warneken, F. (2015). Costly third-party punishment in young children. Cognition 134, 1-10. DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2014.08.013 Schmuckler, M.A. (2001). What is ecological validity? A dimensional analysis. Infancy 2(4), 419-436. Full article available at: http://utsc.utoronto.ca/~marksch/Schmuckler%202001.pdf   Read Full Transcript Transcript Jen: [00:30] Hello and welcome to today’s episode of Your Parenting Mojo, which is called What Do Children Understand About Fairness? And I have two very special guests with me to discuss this topic. Dr Peter Blake earned has doctorate in education at Harvard University and is currently an Assistant Professor at Boston University’s Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences. His research focuses on three important foundations of human life, cooperation, fairness and ownership, and so he asks questions in his research like when should you share and when should you compete for resources? Is equal always fair or can you sometimes keep more for yourself? And how do you know when a toy is owned and what does that mean? Right now he’s working on extending projects, the different cultures, so we can better understand whether children in all cultures develop in similar ways at similar times and what cultural variables influence that development. Welcome Dr Blake. Dr. Blake: [01:21] Thank you. Jen: [01:22] And Dr. Katie McAuliffe is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at Boston College, which I just learned as different from Boston University. She two studies, the development and evolution of cooperation in humans with a special focus on how children acquire and enforced fairness norms. She’s made the rounds of Harvard, Yale, and Cambridge, and her educational career. I think the only one she’s missing is Oxford. Welcome Dr McAuliffe. Dr. McAuliffe: [01:44] Hi; nice to be here. Thanks. Jen: [01:45] Thank you so much for being here. So let’s start with a question that seems really simple, but I’m guessing there’s probably more to it than, than maybe I might imagine. Can you tell us what fairness is? Dr. Blake: [01:56] Yeah, that’s, that’s the big question and it is a very complicated answer. So fairness is a, is a very complex concept, particularly for adults and we know that equal is not always fair, but equality does provide a kind of starting point for us to understand how children figure out what is fair and what is not. So we tend to focus our research in a couple of ways. One way is that we focus on the allocation of resources which has also been called distributi

It’s that time of year: daycare and preschool tours start ramping up and parents have to try to figure out which is the right option for their child. And many parents are overwhelmed by the options. Montessori? Waldorf? Reggio Emilia? How are they different? Will my child be messed up if I pick the wrong one? This episode is the first in a mini-series to help us think through the questions you might have as you explore the options that are available in your community. Today we’re going to learn about Dr. Maria Montessori’s approach to early childhood education and what it’s like to have a child in a Montessori preschool with Mary Ellen Kordas, the President of the Board of Directors at the American Montessori Society.   References Gray, P. (2011). The special value of children’s age-mixed play. American Journal of Play 3(4), 500-522. Full article available at: http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ985544.pdf Isaacs, B. (2012). Understanding the Montessori approach: Early years education in practice. New York, NY: Routledge. Lillard, A.S. (2005). Montessori: The science behind the genius. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Lillard, P.P. (1996). Montessori today: A comprehensive approach to education from birth to adulthood. New York, NY: Schocken. Louv, V. (2008). Last child in the woods: Saving our children from nature-deficit disorder. New York, NY: Algonquin. Montessori, M. (1971). The Montessori Elementary Material (Trans. A. Livingston). Cambridge, MA: Robert Bentley, Inc. Wentworth, R.A.L. (1999). Montessori for the new millennium. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.   Read Full Transcript Transcript Jen: [00:05] Hello and welcome to today’s episode of Your Parenting Mojo, which is called Is a Montessori Preschool Right for my child? I sort of skipped the whole preschool touring and decision making thing. It turned out we had a nanny at the time and I had planned to actually to work with her friend the somewhat long term, but she decided to work with a family with a younger child. So we found ourselves rather abruptly in need of care and I’d been doing a lot of research on the Reggio Emilia approach to early childhood education at the time. And we were actually lucky enough to find a daycare that had space for her on short notice. And so we just kind of went with that. But I know a lot of parents are able to plan ahead and spend a bit more time choosing between the different options that might be available to them. And so to help with that process, I wanted to do a little mini series of episodes where we learn about some of the options that might be available in your community and today we’re going to learn about Dr Maria Montessori’s approach to early childhood education and what it’s like to have a child in a Montessori Preschool with Mary Ellen Cordis. Mary Ellen is the incoming President of the Board of Directors of the American Montessori Society and has over 40 years of experience as the head of a Montessori school in the San Francisco Bay Area, and as an advocacy champion of Montessori. Mary Ellen’s school was the first accredited Montessori school in the state. Welcome Mary Ellen. Mary Ellen: [01:43] Thank you very much. It’s wonderful to be here. Jen: [01:45] Thank you. So I wonder if you could first start off and tell us a little bit about how you learned about Montessori and what about it called to you and how you went through that process of becoming a leader in the Montessori movement. Mary Ellen: [01:56] If I’d only had you in my life, I may not have had to do all the research that I did, but this is exactly how I got involved is I had a three year old and I was looking around for what type of program I might enroll him in. Although I had come from the Midwest and preschool wasn’t that popular. People went to kindergarten and then they went to elementary school and that was pretty much how it was. So when a neighbor came around and said to me, I’m going to send Kathy, my son’s best friend, to the Montessori school. I said, what’s a Montessori school? And that began this journey. So the school had just opened. There were six children. My son was now going to be one of them and I fell in love. I found what really I thought was exactly what children needed. I was working with abused and neglected children at the time, and so I walked into a place where children were honored and respected and treated well and it just made my heart sing, so that was really my beginning. Jen: [03:02] Wow, that’s awesome. And so you’ve been at this for awhile now and I understand that there’s probably not one single Montessori experience, but I wonder for those of us who haven’t been to a Montessori school, can you kind of walk us through in your mind what it’s like to be in a Montessori classroom? What does the room look like? What are the children doing and how do they move through their day? Mary Ellen: [03:24] Sure, absolutely. Because it’s what drew me when I saw them in action. So first let

Have you read the now-classic book How to Talk so Kids will Listen and Listen so Kids will Talk? Ever wished there was a version that would help you with younger children who perhaps aren’t quite ready for a detailed problem-solving session? Well now there is! Adele Faber is a co-author of the original book; Adele’s daughter Joanna and Joanna’s childhood friend Julie King have teamed up to write the new version of How to Talk so LITTLE Kids Will Listen, packed with examples of how real parents have used the information they’ve now been teaching for over 30 years. Join me for a chat with Julie King as we work to understand the power of acknowledging children’s feelings and some practical tools to help engage your younger children to cooperate with you. Update 5/10/17: An eagle-eyed listener noticed that Julie mentioned her 10-year-old son wanting to sit on the front seat of her car, while the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that children 12 and under should sit in the back seat. Julie was recounting an episode that happened long before there were CDC recommendations on where children should sit in the car, so please don’t take this as an ‘OK’ to put your 12-and-under child in the front seat. Thanks!   Reference Faber, J. & King, J. (2017). How to talk so little kids will listen. New York: Scribner. (Affiliate link)   Read Full Transcript Transcript Jen: [00:21] Welcome to the Your Parenting Mojo podcast. I’d like to welcome my guest today, Julie King, who is one half of the writing duo behind the new book, How to Talk so Little Kids Will Listen, and if that title sounds familiar, it’s because it’s part of what seems to have become a family of books around the classic How to Talk so Kids Will Listen and Listen so Kids will Talk by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish. Julie has been educating and supporting parents and professionals since 1995 and in addition to her work with individual parents and couples, she also leads How to Talk workshops and gives parent education presentations to schools, nonprofits, and parent groups. Julie received her AB from Princeton University and a JD from Yale Law School. She lives in the San Francisco Bay area and is the mother of three. Welcome Julie. Julie: [01:13] Thank you. Jen: [01:14] It actually does feel a little odd to welcome you when we’re in your own home. Julie was kind enough to invite me to her home today to have this conversation. So thanks so much for taking the time. Julie: [01:23] Oh my pleasure. Jen: [01:24] So I wonder if you can tell me a little bit about the genesis of this book because it kind of runs in the family a bit, right? Julie: [01:30] Okay. So to tell you the whole story, I have to go back in time to when I was six months old. Jen: [01:37] This is going to be a long story! Julie: [01:38] I’m not going to go through all the details, I promise, but when my parents moved into the house that they still live in when I was born, right before I was born and my mother didn’t know very many people in the neighborhood. I was six months old. She was looking out the kitchen window and she saw another mom with two little kids the same age as me and my brother and she invited that woman in. That was Adele favor and the two of them became very good friends. Joanna. Joanna was the baby and her brother Carl was the older boy and she and I went to nursery school together. Adele took these, what they call Child Guidance Workshops with Haim Ginott and used to call my mother daily and discuss what she was learning and they would talk about what they were going to try on Joanna and her older brother and her younger brother and me and my older brother and younger sister. Jen: [02:27] So you were a Guinea pig for the original book? Julie: [02:30] That’s right. I was a Guinea pig. Um, so she and I became very good friends. We went to school from nursery school all the way through high school together. And um, I was aware that her mother was writing these books as a teenager. I remember going to her house and seeing her mother and Elaime Mazlish writing on yellow legal pads on the kitchen table by hand, and in the eighties when the one of the books came out or was coming out. I got to copy edit the book and I think I found a coma out of place and I felt very proud of my contribution, but I never actually expected to be doing anything with the work until I had my own child and he was in preschool at the San Francisco JCC and they were looking for a more than one time event for parents. They used to bring people in to speak, but they wanted to do something that would be ongoing and I at the time was studying group facilitation and group development and of course I knew this material very well, having grown up with it. So I volunteered to lead a group which was originally scheduled as an eight week group and halfway through everybody said, well, we need another eight weeks to really learn this. At which point I panicked because I wasn’t

I was scrolling down my Facebook feed recently when I saw a post in a parenting group saying “My two year-old daughter seems to have a “special relationship” with her rocking horse. Is she masturbating?” And I thought to myself “Whoa, two year-olds masturbate? I gotta do an episode on this!” So I looked around to see who is writing about this and I found Saleema Noon, who has a Master degree in sexual health education, and who co-wrote the recent book Talk Sex Today (Affiliate link), which is chock-full of information on how to talk with children of all ages about sex. There are lots of resources available on Saleema’s website to help with these kinds of conversations, including a ‘what kids need to know and when’ list, a selection of books (for you and for your child), and other helpful tips and links.   Additional Recommended Resource: Outspoken Sex Ed     References Note: Books that Saleema recommends during the podcast are linked directly to Amazon via affiliate links. Albert, B (2004). With one voice 2004: America’s adults and teens sound off about teen pregnancy. The National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy. Retrieved from: https://thenationalcampaign.org/sites/default/files/resource-primary-download/wov_2004.pdf Brown, L.K., & Brown, M. (2000). What’s the big secret? Talking about sex with girls and boys. New York: Little, Brown. CBS Miami (2014, May 6). Broward school board approves sex ed overhaul. Retrieved from: http://miami.cbslocal.com/2014/05/06/broward-school-board-to-vote-on-new-sex-ed-policy/ Chicago Department of Public Health (2013, June). Sexual education policy in Illinois and Chicago. Retrieved from: https://www.cityofchicago.org/content/dam/city/depts/cdph/CDPH/HCPolicyBriefJune2013.pdf Guttmacher Institute (2016, November 1). Sex and HIV Education: State laws and policies. Retrieved from: https://www.guttmacher.org/state-policy/explore/sex-and-hiv-education Mayle, P. & Robins, A. (2000). Where did I come from? New York, NY: Lyle Stuart. Noon, S. & Hickling, M. (2016). Talk Sex Today: What kids need to know and how adults can teach them. Kelowna, BC: Wood Lake Publishing Scarry, R. (2008). This is me. New York, NY: Sterling. Schalet, A.T. (2011). Beyond abstinence and risk: A new paradigm for adolescent sexual health. Women’s Health Issues 21(3), S5-S7. Full article available at: http://www.whijournal.com/article/S1049-3867%2811%2900008-9/fulltext Silverberg, C, & Smyth, F. (2013). What makes a baby. New York, NY: Triangle Square. UNESCO 2009: International technical guidance on sexuality Education: An evidence-informed approach for schools, teachers, and health educators. Retrieved from: http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0018/001832/183281e.pdf Utah Administrative Code (2016, November 1). Rule R277-474. School instruction and human sexuality. Retrieved from: http://www.rules.utah.gov/publicat/code/r277/r277-474.htm#T3   Read Full Transcript Transcript Jen: [00:30] Hello and welcome to Your Parenting Mojo. We have a fabulous guest lined up today and we’re going to talk about sex. No, not sex for you. I assume you probably figured that part out already by now, especially since you’re listening to a podcast for parents, but about your children and sex. So I was scrolling down my Facebook feed recently when I saw a post in a parenting group saying my two year old daughter seems to have a “special relationship,”with her rocking horse is she masturbating? And I thought to myself, Whoa, two year olds masturbate. I got to do an episode on this. So I looked around to see who’s writing about this and I found Saleema Noon, who has a master’s degree in Sexual Health Education and has been teaching the fields of sexual health, assertiveness, internet safety, healthy relationships and body image for a decade now. She co-wrote the recent books talk sex today, what kids need to know and how adults can teach them, which is absolutely chock full of information on how to talk with children of all ages about sex. And the book is so awesome that I knew I had to invite her on the show to help us understand what we should consider discussing with our toddlers and preschoolers about sex and sexuality and why we should do this as well. Welcome Saleema. Saleema: [01:36] Hi. Thanks for having me. Jen: [01:38] So can you tell us a bit about why you think we should start talking even with really young children about sexuality? What’s our overall goal here? Why are we doing this? Saleema: [01:46] Well, the goal is to keep our kids educated and therefore protected and safe. I tell parents that there are three main reasons why we need start talking to our children early about sexual health and they all have to do with protection and prevention. The first one is that young children are easiest to teach because they haven’t learned yet that sexual health is still a taboo subject in our society. So for example, when we explained to even young children how babies are made or what t

Parenting is tough, huh? Sometimes it feels like we spend a lot of our time asking our daughter to do things…and asking again…and finding a more creative way to ask. We’re going to get some great advice on this next week from Julie King, co-author of the new book How to Talk so Little Kids will Listen – but for this week I want to set the stage and think about why we should bother with all of this. Why not just force our kids to do what we want them to do? And, is it possible to raise obedient kids who can also think for themselves? Reference Baldwin, A.L. (1948). Socialization and the parent-child relationship. Child Development 19, 127-136. Retrieved from: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1125710 Baumrind, D. (1978). Parental disciplinary patterns and social competence in children. Youth Society 9(3), 239-267. DOI: 10.1177/0044118X7800900302 Collins, W.A. (Ed.) (1984). Development during middle childhood: The years from six to twelve. Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press. Full book available as a pdf at: http://www.nap.edu/catalog/56.html Crockenberg, S.C., & Litman, C. (1990). Autonomy as competence in 2-year-olds: Maternal correlates of child defiance, compliance, and self-assertion. Developmental Psychology 26(6), 961-971. DOI: 0.1037/0012-1649.26.6.961 Hare, A.L., Szwedo, D.E., Schad, M.M., & Allen, J.P. (2014). Undermining adolescent autonomy with parents and peers: The enduring implications of psychologically controlling parenting. Journal of Research on Adolesence 24(4), 739-752. DOI: 10.1111/jora.12167 Lamborn, S.D., Mounts, N.S., Steinberg, L., & Dornbusch, S.M. (1991). Patterns of competence and adjustment among adolescents from authoritative, authoritarian, indulgent, and neglectful families. Child Development 62, 1049-1065. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.1991.tb01588.x Lansbury, J. (2014). Setting limits with respect: What it sounds like. Retrieved from: http://www.janetlansbury.com/2014/04/setting-limits-with-respect-what-it-sounds-like-podcast/ Kochanska, G. (1997). Mutually responsive orientation between mothers and their young children: Implications for early socialization. Child Development 68(1), 94-112. 10.1111/j.1467-8624.1997.tb01928.x Kochanska, G. (2013). Promoting toddlers’ positive social-emotional outcomes in low-income families: A play-based experimental study. Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology 42(5), 700-712. DOI: 10.1080/15374416.2013.782815 Kochanska, G., Kim, S., & Boldt, L.J. (2015). (Positive) power to the child: The role of children’s willing stance toward parents in developmental cascades from toddler age to early preadolescence. Developmental Psychopathology 27(4pt.1), 987-1005. DOI: 10.1017/S0954579415000644 Kohn, A. (2005). Unconditional parenting: Moving from rewards and punishments to love and reason. New York: Atria. Parpal, M., & Maccoby, E.E. (1985). Maternal responsiveness and subsequent child compliance. Child Development 56, 1326-1334. DOI: 10.2307/1130247 Spera, C. (2005). A review of the relationship among parenting practices, parenting styles, and adolescent school achievement. Educational Psychology 17(2), 125-146. DOI: 10.1007/s10648-005-3950-1   Read Full Transcript Transcript This episode actually grew out of an assignment for my master’s program. I’m in the middle of a class on child psychology, which is really at the heart of the curriculum for the masters in psychology with a focus on child development. We were presented with a case study for a child called Jeremiah whose mother was at the end of her rope in dealing with him because he basically refused to cooperate with her. He was having problems in school as well and I was tasked with writing a guide for his mother that that would help her to address some of his challenges. I’ve been reading two books that helped me with this assignment – the first is Unconditional Parenting by Alfie Kohn, who also wrote the book Punished by Rewards that was the basis of the episode on not saying “Good Job.” The blurb on the back of Unconditional Parenting starts out “Most parenting guides begin with the question “How can we get kids to do what they’re told?” and then proceed to offer various techniques for controlling them. In this truly groundbreaking book, nationally respected educator Alfie Kohn begins instead by asking “What do kids need – and how can we meet those needs?” What follows from that question are ideas for working with children rather than doing things to them.” I read Unconditional Parenting a while ago and have been looking for an excuse to delve into the research behind it so this seemed to be about as good of an offer as I was going to get. But I have on my nightstand at the moment the provocatively-titled book “Do Parents Matter?” which is sort of like David Lancy’s book The Anthropology of Childhood that I’ve quoted many times on this show except that the authors actually lived in the communities and did a lot of the research themselves that the book cit

  Did your child receive a digital device as a gift over the holidays? Have you been able to prise it out of his/her hands yet? Regular listeners might recall that we did an episode recently called “Really, how bad is screen time for my child?” where we went into the American Academy of Pediatrics’ guidelines on screen time for very young children, so if you haven’t listened to that one yet you might want to go and do it before you listen to this episode, because this one really builds on that one. Yes, we know we’re not supposed to give our babies under 18 months old access to screens. But at some point our children are going to start using screens – and we as parents need tools to manage that process, whether we’ve limited screens until now or whether we’ve been using them as a bit of a crutch. (If you’re in a third category of parents who is totally happy with the amount and type of screen time your children are getting and feel confident about managing this in the future then click along to the next episode, because there’s nothing for you here!) So all of this is what today’s guest is going to help us to figure out. Dr Kristy Goodwin is one of Australia’s leading digital parenting experts (and mum who also has to deal with her kids’ techno-tantrums!). She’s the author of the brand new book Raising Your Child in a Digital World (Affiliate link). Dr Kristy arms parents, educators and health professionals with research-based information about what today’s young, digital kids really need to thrive online and offline. Kristy takes the guesswork and guilt out of raising kids in the digital age by arming parents and educators with facts, not fears about how screens are impacting on children’s health, wellbeing and development.   References Brewer, J. (2016). Digital Nutrition (website/blog). Retrieved from: http://www.digitalnutrition.com.au/blog Christakis, D., Zimmerman, F.J., DiGuiseppe, D.L., & McCarty, C.A. (2004). Early television exposure and subsequent attentional problems in children. Pediatrics 113(4), 708-713. Common Sense Media website: www.commonsensemedia.org (Also check your app store for their app) Goodwin, K. (2016). Raising your child in a digital world: What you need to know!. Warriewood, NSW: Finch. (Affiliate link) Kindertown website: http://www.kindertown.com/ (Also check your app store for their app)   Read Full Transcript Transcript Jen: [00:30] Hello and welcome to today’s episode of Your Parenting Mojo, which is called Raising Your Child in a Digital World. Now, regular listeners might recall that we did an episode recently called really how bad his screen time for my child and we went into the American Academy of Pediatrics’ guidelines on screen time for very young children. So if you haven’t listened to that one already, you might want to go back and do that before you listen to this episode because this one really builds on that one. So we all know that we’re not supposed to give her a babies under 18 months old access to screens, but at some point our children are going to start using screens and we as parents need tools to manage that process, whether we have limited screens until now or whether we’ve been using them as a bit of a crutch. Jen: [01:10] And l say that if you find yourself in a third category of parents who’s totally happy with the amount and type of screen time that your children are getting and you feel confident about managing this in the future, then you should just click along to the next episode because there’s nothing for you here, but for the rest of us who are still trying to figure all this out that’s what today’s guest is going to help us do. So Dr. Kristy Goodwin is one of Australia’s leading digital parenting experts and she’s also a mom who has to deal with her kids techno tantrums. She’s the author of the brand new book, Raising Your Child in a Digital World, and Dr Christie arms parents, educators, and health professionals with research based information about what today’s young digital kids really need to thrive online and offline. Christy takes the guesswork and guilt out of raising kids in the digital age by arming parents and educators with facts and not fears about how screens are impacting children’s health, wellbeing, and development. Welcome Dr. Goodwin, thanks so much for joining us. Dr. Goodwin: [02:05] My pleasure. It’s great to be here. Jen: [02:08] So your book outlines seven building blocks for young children’s development. Can you tell us a little bit about what those are? Dr. Goodwin: [02:15] Sure. So I draw on the neuroscience and the developmental science research and they have consistently identified that children have basic, unchanging developmental needs or priorities. And it doesn’t matter where the children were born in 2012 or whether they were born in 1950. Their developmental needs are fairly, pretty consistently the same. So I identified the seven basic developmental needs or as I refer to in the book as

  Someone in a parenting group on Facebook suggested I do an episode on The Spiritual Child, by Dr. Lisa Miller. My first thought was that it didn’t really sound like my cup of tea but I was willing to read it and at least see what it had to say. I was surprised by the book’s thesis that spirituality can play a critical role in a child’s and adolescent’s development. But I was astounded that her thesis was actually backed up by scientific research. I invited Dr. Miller to be on the show and she initially agreed – but during my preparation I found that the science supporting spirituality doesn’t seem to be quite as clear-cut as the book says it is. I invited Dr. Miller again for a respectful discussion of the issues but I didn’t hear back from her. In this episode I describe the book’s major claims, and assess where the science seems to support these and where it doesn’t. I conclude with some practices you can use to deepen your child’s spiritual connection, if you decide that this is the right approach for your family. Note: I mainly focused on the research related to child development in this article, but as I was about to publish this episode I found an article claiming that the science behind some of Dr. Miller’s other assertions might not be so solid either. I didn’t read all of those studies (because they’re not directly related to child development, and it took me a lot of hours to find and read just the ones that were), but the author’s conclusions very much mirror my own. References Benson, P.L., Roehlkepartain, E.C., & Scales, P.C. (2012). Spiritual development during childhood and adolescence. In L. Miller (Ed.). The Oxford handbook of psychology and spirituality. New York: Oxford. Berry, D. (2005). Methodological pitfalls in the study of religiosity and spirituality. Western Journal of Nursing Research 27(5), 628-647. DOI: 10.1177/0193945905275519 Boytas, C.J. (2012). Spiritual development during childhood and adolescence. In L. Miller (Ed.). The Oxford handbook of psychology and spirituality. New York: Oxford. Button, T.M.M., Stallings, M.C., Rhee, S.H., Corley, R.P., & Hewitt, J.K. (2011). The etiology of stability and change in religious values and religious attendance. Behavioral Genetics 41(2), 201-210. DOI: 10.1007/s10519-010-9388-3 Cloninger, C.R., Svrakic, D.M., & Przybeck, T.R. (1993). A psychobiological model of temperament and character. Archives of General Psychiatry 50(12), 975-990. DOI: 10.1001/archpsyc.1993.01820240059008 Gallup. (2016). Religion. Survey retrieved from (and updated annually at): http://www.gallup.com/poll/1690/religion.aspx Kendler, K.S., Gardner, C.O., & Prescott, C.A. (1997). Religion, psychopathology, and substance use and abuse: a multimeasure, genetic-epidemiologic study. American Journal of Psychiatry 154, 322-329. Full article available at: http://medicina.fm.usp.br/cedem/simposio/Religion,%20Psychopathology,%20and%20Substance%20Use%20and%20Abuse.pdf Kendler, K.S., Gardner, C.O., & Prescott, C.A. (1999). Clarifying the relationship between religiosity and psychiatric illness: The impact of covariates and the specificity of buffering effects. Twin Research 2, 137-144. DOI: 10.1375/twin.2.2.137 Kidwell, J.S., Dunham, R.M., Bacho, R.A., Pastorino, E., & Portes, P.R. (1995). Adolescent identity exploration: A test of Erikson’s theory of transitional crisis. Adolescence 30(120), 785-793. Koenig, L.B., McGue, M., & Iacono, W.G. (2008). Stability and change in religiousness during emerging adulthood. Developmental Psychology 44(2), 532-543. DOI: 10.1037/0012-1649.44.2.532 Mahoney, A. & Tarakeshwar, N. (2005). Religion’s role in marriage and parenting in daily life and during family crises. In R.F. Paloutzain & C.L. Park (Eds.), Handbook of the psychology of religion and spirituality (p.177-198). New York: The Guilford Press. Chapter available online at: http://psychologyofreligion99.blogspot.com/2013/07/religions-role-in-marriage-and.html Miller, L., Warner, V., Wickramaratne, P., & Weissman, M. (1997). Religiosity and depression: Ten-year follow-up of depressed mothers and offspring. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 36(10), 1416-1425. Full article available at: http://highriskdepression.org/files/1997C.pdf Miller, L., Davies, M., & Greenwald, S. (2000). Religiosity and substance use and abuse among adolescents in the National Comorbidity Survey. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 39(9), 1190-1197. DOI: 10.1097/00004583-200009000-00020 Miller, L., & Gur, M. (2002). Religiousness and sexual responsibility in adolescent girls. Journal of Adolescent Health 31, 401-406. DOI: 10.1016/S1054-139X(02)00403-2 Miller, L., Wickramarante, P., Gameroff, M.J., Sage, M., Tenke, C.E., & Weissman, M.M. (2012). Religiosity and major depression in adults at high risk: A ten-year prospective study. American Journal of Psychiatry 169(1), 89-94. DOI: 10.1176/appi.aj

  Self-Esteem When I first started researching this episode I thought it would be a bit of a slam-dunk. Self-esteem is a good thing, right? I was really surprised to find that there’s little evidence that self-esteem helps children to do better in school, or even be happier, so there’s a good deal of disagreement among psychologists about whether encouraging self-esteem is necessarily a good thing. This episode digs into these issues to understand (as much as scientists currently can) the benefits of self-esteem – and what qualities parents might want to encourage in their children in place of self-esteem to enable better outcomes. It also touches on our self-esteem as parents – because don’t we all want to think that our child is just a little bit special, so we know we’re good parents?   Jump to highlights 00:31 Introduction of episode 01:45 What research says about self-esteem 03:41 Stages on how children develop self-esteem 06:01 3 Conditions that children experience social success when outside the family 10:06 The link between violence and self-esteem 13:23 The link between self-esteem and school performance 16:04 Role of self-esteem in interpersonal relationships 18:17 What conclusion can parents make in this episode 23:46 Self-compassion affects self-esteem   References Bachman, J.G. & O’Malley, P.M. (1986). Self-concepts, self-esteem, and educational experiences: The frog pond revisited (again). Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 50, 35-46. Baumeister, R.F., Campbell, J.D., Krueger, J.I., & Vohs, K.D. (2003). Does high self-esteem cause better performance, interpersonal success, happiness, or healthier lifestyles? Psychological Science in the Public Interest 4(1), 1-44. DOI: 10.1111/1529-1006.01431 Beggan, J.K. (1992). On the social nature of nonsocial perception: The mere ownership effect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 62(2), 229-237. DOI: 10.1037/0022-3514.62.2.229 Bretherton, I. (1992). The origins of attachment theory: John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth. Developmental Psychology 28(5), 759-775. Retrieved from: http://cmapspublic2.ihmc.us/rid=1LQX400NM-RBVKH9-1KL6/the%20origins%20of%20attachment%20theory%20john%20bowlby%20and_mary_ainsworth.pdf Brummelman, E., Thomaes, S., Orobio de Castro, B., Overbeek, G., & Bushman, B.J. (2014). “That’s not just beautiful – that’s incredibly beautiful!”: The adverse impact of inflated praise on children with low self-esteem. Psychological Science Online, 1-8. DOI: 10.1177/0956797613514251 California State Department of Education (1990). Toward a state of esteem: The final report of the California task force to promote self-esteem and personal and social responsibility. Full report available at: http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED321170.pdf Coleman, P.K. & Karraker, K.H. (1997). Self-efficacy and parenting quality: Findings and future applications. Developmental Review 18, 47-85. DOI: 10.1006/drev.1997.0448 Cvencek, D., Greenwald, A.G., & Meltzoff, A.N. (2016). Implicit measures for preschool children confirm self-esteem’s role in maintaining a balanced identity. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 62, 50-57. DOI: 10.1016/j.jesp.2015.09.015 Dweck, C. (2007). Mindset: The new psychology of success. New York: Ballantine. Forsyth, D.R., & Kerr, N.A. (1999, August). Are adaptive illusions adaptive? Poster presented at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, Boston, MA. Guindon, M.H. (2010). Self-esteem across the lifespan. New York: Routledge. Harter, S. (1993). Causes and consequences of low self-esteem in children and adolescents. In R.F. Baumeister (Ed.), Self-esteem: The puzzle of low self-regard. New York: Plenum. James, W. (1983). The principles of psychology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. (Original work published 1890) Joslin, K.R. (1994). Positive parenting from A to Z. New York: Ballantine. Kutob, R.M., Senf, J.H., Crago, M., & Shisslak, C.M. (2010). Concurrent and longitudinal predictors of self-esteem in elementary and middle school girls. Journal of School Health 80(5), 240-248. DOI: 10.1111/j.1746-1561.2010.00496.x Mruk, C.J. (2006). Self-esteem, research, theory, and practice (3rd Ed.). New York: Springer. Neff, K.D. (2011). Self-compassion, self-esteem, and well-being. Social and Personality Psychology Compass 5(1), 1-12. DOI: 10.1111/j.1751-9004.2010.00330.x Neff, K.D., & McGehee, P. (2010). Self-compassion and psychological resilience among adolescents and young adults. Self and Identity 9, 225-240. DOI: 10.1080/15298860902979307 Vohs, K.D., Bardone, A.M., Joiner, T.E., Abramson, L.Y., & Heatherton, T.F. (1999). Perfectionism, perceived weight status, and self-esteem interact to predict bulimic symptoms: A model of bulimic symptom development. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 108, 695-700. DOI: 10.1037/0021-843X.108.4.695   Read Full Transcript Transcript Hello and welcome to the Your Parenting Mojo podcast – today’s episode is about s

Have you ever wondered why your child acts up? Is it because they really want to annoy you or because they’re trying to tell you something?   In this conversation Dr. Claudia Gold helps us to understand that what we call ADHD – an extreme example of a child’s “acting up” – is not a known biological process but rather a collection of behaviors that often go together. We might call them “symptoms,” but they aren’t symptoms in the way that a cough is a symptom of pneumonia.   Instead, Dr. Gold argues that by medicating the symptoms (i.e. the “difficult behavior”) we ignore the underlying problems that are causing them which ultimately doesn’t help the child – or the family.   Whether your child has been diagnosed with ADHD, whether you suspect it, or whether you’re struggling with run-of-the-mill behavior problems, Dr. Gold has practical advice to help you.   Taming Your Triggers If you need help with your own big feelings about your child’s behavior, register for the Taming Your Triggers workshop. We’ll help you to: Understand the real causes of your triggered feelings, and begin to heal the hurts that cause themUse new tools like the ones Katie describes to find ways to meet both her and her children’s needsEffectively repair with your children on the fewer instances when you are still triggered Click the banner to learn more!     Dr. Claudia Gold's Book The Silenced child: From labels, medications, and quick-fix solutions to listening, growth, and lifelong resilience - Affiliate link   Reference Gold, C.M. (2016). The silenced child: From labels, medications, and quick-fix solutions to listening, growth, and lifelong resilience. Boston, MA: Da Capo Press.

Do you think your child may be introverted? Or are you not sure how to tell? Around one in three people are introverted so if you have two or three children, chances are one of them is introverted. While Western – and particularly American – society tends to favor extroverts, being an introvert isn’t something we can – or should – cure. It’s a personality trait, not a flaw. Join me as we walk through a topic near and dear to my heart, and learn the difference between introversion and shyness, and how to support your introverted child – no matter whether you yourself are introverted or extroverted.   References Aron, E.N. (1996). Are you highly sensitive? Retrieved from: http://hsperson.com/test/highly-sensitive-test/ Belsky, J., Jonassaint, C., Pluess, M., Stanton, M., Brummett, B., & Williams, R. (2009). Vulnerability genes or plasticity genes? Molecular Psychiatry 14, 746-754. DOI: 10.1038/mp.2009.44 Cain, S. (2013). Quiet: The power of introverts in a world that can’t stop talking. New York: Broadway. Dobbs, D. (2009). The science of success. The Atlantic. Retrieved from: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/12/the-science-of-success/307761/ Kagan, J., & Snidman, N. (2004). The long shadow of temperament. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press Keogh, B.K. (1986). Temperament and schooling: Meaning of “Goodness of Fit”? In J.V. Lerner and R.M. Lerner (Eds). Temperament and social interaction in infancy and children. San Francisco, Jossey-Bass. Laney, M.O. (2002). The introvert advantage: How to thrive in an extrovert world. New York: Workman. Markway, B.G., & Markway, G.P. (2005). Nurturing the shy child: Practical help for raising confident ans socially skilled kids and teens. New York: St. Martin’s. McCrae, R.R., & Terracciano, A. (2006). National character and personality. Current Directions in Psychological Science 15(4), 156-161. Pluess, M., & Belsky, J. (2009). Differential susceptibility to rearing experience: The case of childcare. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 50(4), 396-404. DOI: 10.1111/j.1469-7610.2008.01992.x Pluess, M., & Belsky, J. (2010). Differential susceptibility to parenting and quality child care. Developmental Psychology 46(2), 379-390. DOI: 10.1037/a0015203 Similarminds.com (a version of Eysenck’s Personality Inventory). Retrieved from: http://similarminds.com/eysenck.html Swallow, W.K. (2000). The shy child: Helping children triumph over shyness. New York: Warner. Swann, W.B. & Rentfrow, P.J. (2001). Blirtatiousness: Cognitive, behavioral, and physiological consequences of rapid responding. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 81(6), 1160-1175. DOI: 10.1037//0022-35I4.81.6.1160 Thomas, A., & Chess, S. (1977). Temperament and development. New York: Brunner/Mazel.   Read Full Transcript Transcript Hello and welcome to the Your Parenting Mojo podcast. Before we get started today I’d like to take a few minutes to chat with you about the podcast. Firstly, I’d like to thank you so much for listening to the show. I’ve been really honored over the last few weeks since I started the show to hear from so many of you about how much the show is helping you in your parenting. Because at the end of the day, I’m getting a masters degree in Psychology focusing on child development to be a better parent myself, and to help you be better parents as well. There’s just too much good information out there about how this whole parenting thing works for us to kind of bumble along and not know any better. And I put myself in the same boat as you here; I’m literally learning this stuff with you as I go. I don’t always handle things in the best way but when I learn better I do better, and I forgive myself for having done things “the old way.” I’m growing and becoming a better parent because of what I’m learning with you, and I’m honored that those of you who have left me reviews on iTunes and have written to me and told me how much the show is helping you are finding it useful too. So I have a four (yes, four!) specific favors to ask of you. Firstly, if you enjoy this episode, and especially if you’ve enjoyed several episodes, please subscribe to the show so you don’t miss an episode. Because I’m learning in the same way that you are we often build one episode on top of another. I regularly refer back to the episode on scaffolding, for example, and if you’ve already listened to that one then you’ll be able to follow right along as I describe how to scaffold behavior in a certain situation in the episode related to tantrums. You can subscribe on iTunes or if you go to YourParentingMojo.com you get a little freebie for signing up – a list of seven relationship-based strategies that I use to support my daughter’s development – and also make parenting just a little bit easier on me. Secondly, while you’re over on iTunes, I’d love it if you would leave a rating and write a review of the show. It doesn’t have to be super long; just decide

The American Academy of Pediatrics just updated its screen time recommendations – and, for the first time, we can actually see and understand the research on which the recommendations are based. They’re a bit more nuanced than the previous versions, so join me as we walk through what the recommendations mean for parents of babies and toddlers – whether or not your children have been using screens until now. We’ll look at the impact particularly of TV on cognitive development, obesity, and prosocial vs. antisocial behavior. News flash: if you’re not watching and discussing shows WITH your child, he may be learning antisocial behavior from even the most innocuous of PBS programming. This is the first in a two-part series on screen time. Here we focus on what science says about the impacts on development. In the second part we’ll examine what we can do about mitigating these impacts and on harnessing some of the good that digital media can do for our kids, since they are growing up in a world where the use of digital media is a fact of life.   References Alade, F., Rasmussen, E., & Christy, K. (2014). The relation between television exposure and executive function among preschoolers. Developmental Psychology 50(5), 1497-1506. Full article available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259845495_The_Relation_Between_Television_Exposure_and_Executive_Function_Among_Preschoolers American Academy of Pediatrics (n.d.) Media and Children. Retrieved from: https://www.aap.org/en-us/advocacy-and-policy/aap-health-initiatives/Pages/Media-and-Children.aspx?rf=32524&nfstatus=401&nftoken=00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000&nfstatusdescription=ERROR%3a+No+local+token Barr, R. (2013). Memory constraints on infant learning from picture books, television, and touchscreens. Child Development Perspectives 7(4), 205-210. Full article available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259074650_Memory_Constraints_on_Infant_Learning_From_Picture_Books_Television_and_Touchscreens Beales III, J.H., & Kulick, R. (2013). Does advertising on television cause childhood obesity? Journal of Public Policy & Marketing 32(2), 185-194. Blankson, A.N., O’Brien, M., Leerkes, E.M., Calkins, S.D., & Marcovitch, S. (2015). Do hours spent viewing television at ages 3 and 4 predict vocabulary and executive functioning at age 5? Merrill-Palmer Quarterly 61(2), 264-289. Bronson, P. & Merryman, A. (2009). Nurtureshock. New York: Twelve. Christakis, D.A., Gilkerson, J., Richards, J.A., Zimmerman, F.J., Garrison, M.M., Xu, D., Gray, S., & Yapanel, U. (2009). Audible television and decreased adult words, infant vocalizations, and conversational turns. Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine Journal 163(6), 554-559. Full article available at: https://sites.oxy.edu/clint/physio/article/AudibleTelevisionandDecreasedAdultWordsInfantVocalizationsandConversationalTurns.pdf Gentile, D.A., Coyne, S., & Walsh, D.A. (2010). Media violence, physical aggression, and relational aggression in school age children: A short-term longitudinal study. Aggressive Behavior 37, 193-206. DOI: 10.1002/ab.20380 Halford, J.C.G., Gillespie, J., Brown, V., Pontin, E.E., & Dovey, T.M. (2003). Effect of television advertisements for foods on food consumption in children. Appetite 42, 221-225. DOI: 10.1016/j.appet.2003.11.006 Halford, J.C.G., Boyland, E.J., Hughes, G., Oliveira, L.P., & Dovey, T.M. (2007). Beyond-brand effect of television (TV) food advertisements/commercials on caloric intake and food choice of 5-7-year-old children. Appetite 49, 263-267. DOI: 10.1016/j.appet.2006.12.003 Healthychildren.org (n.d.). Family media plan. Retrieved from: https://www.healthychildren.org/English/media/Pages/default.aspx#home Janz, K.F., Levy, S.M., Burns, T.L., Torner, J.C., Willing, M.C., & Warren, J.J. (2002). Fatness, physical activity, and television viewing in children during the adiposity rebound period: The Iowa bone development study. Preventive Medicine 35, 563-571. DOI: 10.1006/pmed.2002.1113 Kim, M. (2016, October 25). American Academy of Pediatrics says some screen time is OK for kids under two. Replay available at: https://ww2.kqed.org/forum/2016/10/24/american-academy-of-pediatrics-says-some-screen-time-is-ok-for-kids-under-2/ Mares, M. -L., & Acosta, E. E. (2008). Be kind to the three-legged dogs: Children’s literal interpretations of TV’s moral lessons. Media Psychology 11, 377–399, DOI: 10.1080/15213260802204355 McClure, E.R., Chentsova-Dutton, Y.E., Barr, R.F., Holochwost, S.J., & Parrott, W.G. (2015). “Facetime doesn’t count”: Video chat as an exception to media restrictions for infants and toddlers. International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction 6, 1-6. DOI: 10.1016/j.ijcci.2016.02.002 McKean, C., Mensah, F.K., Eadie, P., Bavin, E.L., Bretherton, L., Cini, E., & Reilly, S. (2015). Levers for language growth: Characteristics and predictors of language trajectories between 4 and 7 ye