Kids at Thought

What Are You Doing With Your Raw Ingredients?

by Mendel

I passed the famous Peter Luger steakhouse today. They were receiving a shipment of potatoes. A couple of cases of plain old potatoes.

I was thinking to myself, here a steakhouse which was rated the number 1 steakhouse by Zagat for the past 26 years is receiving a shipment of potatoes. The same truck is probably making another stop down the block at the fast food joint and delivering some there as well.

They are both receiving the same ingredient.

Yet, one costumer is going to produce a dish that’ll get them to the top of Zagat. The other costumer will concoct something that’ll get their costumers to the pharmacy for antacid.

Potatoes are potatoes and kids are kids. When a parent raises kids, a teacher walks into a classroom, or a therapist treats a caseload, a shipment of raw ingredients was delivered to their doors. What you put out into the world is up to you.

You can choose to take the easy way out and mistreat the ingredients you’re given, fast food style. Or you can toil, become the best (not the perfect, the best) parent, teacher, therapist, care giver possible and treat the ingredients with the respect they deserve.

It’s up to you.

Tagged as: Childhood Achievements, Childhood Development, Childhood Education, Parent-Child Relationships, Parenting

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It’s Time to Let Go of Outdated Methods and Designs

by Mendel

in Childhood Education,Therapy Approaches

Look down at your current keyboard. It’s know as the QWERTY keyboard. Isn’t it kind of awkward the way the letters are all sitting there looking like they have just been spilled randomly?

In fact, this layout was invented by a guy named Christopher Latham Sholes in 1873 for use on typewriters. He was looking for a solution to making the typewriter keys less likely to jam up. Arranging the keys in this order, he found, made it possible to type faster with less jamming.

Of course, with manual typewriters obsolete, it might be time to rethink the keyboard layout.

Along came a doctor by the name of August Dvorak and redesigned the keyboard to what is now known to some as the Dvorak keyboard. This layout allows for faster typing speeds, less repetitive stress injury, better ergonomics, and takes 50% faster to learn to use.

Alas, we stick to the QWERTY. Old designs die hard.

We tend to stick to old methods simply because the status quo looms over us. Likewise, we often find it hard to accept and implement new designs to education and child rearing. So we stick to the old ones, regardless of their ineffectiveness.

We are even more frightened by the ideas we sometimes have. Teachers and therapists often have great ideas and solutions, but we quickly censor ourselves fearing the old design’s retribution.

Our technology and their design evolve along with us. Likewise, children are about the present and the future. If your current approach is QWERTY, know that it’s outdated. Try something new with your kids. Try something different. Allow them to break new ground.

Tagged as: Childhood Achievements, Childhood Development, Childhood Education, Classroom Function, Creativity in Children

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Your Child Can be the Next Great Inventor, if You Allow Him to Have Some Accidents

by Mendel

in Childhood Education

If not for people making mistakes and accidents we wouldn’t have had the following:

1) Play Doh

2) Fireworks

3) Potato chips

4) Slinky

5) Post-It Notes

6) Silly Putty

7) Microwave Ovens

8) Corn Flakes

The list of accidental discoveries is longer than eight items, but these are staples. This is a list of things that surround us daily.

Someone, somewhere made a mistake and we can now enjoy displays of fireworks with only imagination as its limit.

Somebody did something incorrect and we can enjoy endless bags of potato chips in all flavors and shapes.

Others had some accidents, and as a result our children are enjoying endless hours of play with Slinkys, Play Doh, and Silly Putty.

Another failure gave use the ability to warm up a plate of food in a minute or two.

When we think of scientists, rigorous training and discipline comes to mind. Science represents little room for error. It’s all about the numbers, the graphs, and the statistics. Yet, many of the greatest inventions were discovered by accident.

Imagine what your child can come up with if you would step back. What can they create if you allowed them to color outside the lines? How would your child impact the world if his experimentations were not influenced by your ideas of correct and incorrect?

You might find out. It’s up to you to allow them.

Tagged as: Child Inventors, Childhood Development, Creativity, Creativity in Children, Expectations of Children, Independence, Potential of Children

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The One Thing Your Child Wishes You Knew

by Mendel

in Childhood Education,Therapy Approaches,Uncategorized

Your child wishes you knew and fully appreciated that he is not lazy.

For the most part, laziness is a myth. Children don’t choose to be bad just because they feel like it. They don’t just choose to not participate in activities their peers engage in simply because they’re lazy.

All human behavior is motivated behavior. There’s a method to the madness. Our job is to ask why is the child doing what he is doing. Why is the child not doing what she should be doing?

“Try harder,” we often demand.

The children we treat and educate wish we knew they are already trying harder.

Almost always, when a child is “lazy” there’s a reason for it. When that underlying factor is discovered and addressed, the laziness disappears. Magic.

Ask yourself, does your child have a visual deficit? An auditory processing deficit? A sensory processing deficit? An attention span deficit? A social skills deficit? A gross or fine motor deficit?

Our kids wish we’d appreciate that their behavior is more complex than simple laziness.

Tagged as: Childhood Development, Childhood Education, Childhood Mental Health, Classroom Function, Laziness, Sensory Processing Disorder

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Is Your Message Getting Lost Between the Words?

by Mendel

in Parenting

We sometimes use too many words. When we write, talk, and in any other way communicate, we often forget to be brief.

Here, take a look at how we, as parents, often come across:

I’m often guilty of the same in life and here at Kids at Thought, as well. Brevity is an art, and I sometimes forget that. I’m working on it, though. I promise.

In a popular post titled How to Stop Yelling and Get Your Child to Listen, I outlined seven reasons why your child might not be getting the message you’re sending him.

This week, I once again started thinking about what makes for effective communication when I read this article by Andy Selsberg in the NY Times. He argues that colleges should start teaching students how to write less, not more. He’d like to do away with long research papers and essays. He wants to take away the piles of words students hide behind and the obstructive paragraphs they bury their messages in.

If it were up to him he would teach students to write the perfect email. The perfect text message. The perfect tweet. If 140 letters is all you got, can you get your message across? Clearly?

An identical argument can be made when it comes to communicating with children. Instead of lecturing them, wouldn’t it be far more effective to use just one sentence? One, well thought out, crisp sentence.

Perhaps even just one word?

Using less words is more work than using many words. Brevity is an art. But when done right your child will hear you.

Tagged as: Auditory Processing, Communication, Discipline, Language Skills, Parent Child Communication

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A Lesson from Kids at Play

by Mendel

in Parenting

I was at the Apple Store in NYC yesterday. The first thought that went through my mind was, “Wow, a toy store for big people.”

There were hundreds of people crowded around tables of the newest most-wanted gadgets. Yet, everyone was in their own zone. The shoppers appeared super focused. This one on an iPad, the next one on an iMac, the other on a MacBook.

Needless to say, children were part of the crowd, and they were active participants. The store even has an entire kids section. Well, adult computers on low tables outfitted with small chairs showcasing kids games and interactive books.

Quite obviously, children love big people toys. Some commentators have even been raising concerns about iPad addiction in children, but I digress.

Next door to the Apple Store is FAO Schwartz, which, if you’re reading this, you may know is the oldest toy store in North America. Kids’ toys that is.

Once again, the children were engaged and super focused on what’s around them. They were interacting with the toys and the games. They were dancing on the giant piano and making sounds.

The adults, meanwhile, were on their Blackberries and iPhones.

The lesson? We should try being engaged in the children’s play and toys as they are in our play and toys.

If your smartphone doesn’t deliver oxygen and isn’t a pacemaker, it’s ok to put it aside for a few moments. Get on the floor. Roll on the grass. Push the toy train around. Scream, Choo Choo.

You know you want to be a child again. Go ahead.

Tagged as: Benefits of Play, Parent-Child Relationships, Parenting, Play, Positive Parenting

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Raising and Educating Children is not a Job; It’s an Investment

by Mendel

in Motivational

It can be argued that New York City is amongst the best cities in the US to raise a child who has delays and/or disabilities. From when a child with a disability is born and throughout their childhood and adolescence, there are many available programs and venues to support the child’s special needs.

Yet, over the last few years all of us working with children in NYC are watching with trepidation as the ax is falling in slow motion chipping away at the funding for these programs.

Approximately one year ago, the Early Intervention program, which serves children 0 – 3 years old, has slashed its rates for therapists by ten percent.

This is making it difficult for many therapists to continue serving this population, and it is worrying parents and educators.

Many petitions have been going around to stop further cuts, and if one comes to you please take a moment to sign it.

Reading one of the petitions, I saw the following argument:

The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) recognizes that Early Intervention is an investment, not a cost. For every dollar invested in EI services, over $7 is returned to society in the form of decreased expenditures in the avoidance of more costly special education services in the future.

This paragraph got me thinking. If we as teachers, parents, and therapists approach our children with this paradigm in mind, we would perform our duties very differently.

We are not just doing a job; we are investing in the future. Our future. Their futures.

If you have any investments and you are in the habit of keeping an eye on them, do you do so haphazardly or with care? How about if you notice one of your stocks slipping, do you grow concerned? Do you call your financial advisor?

Remember, for everything you do today, less will need to be done tomorrow.

Tagged as: Childhood Development, Childhood Education, Early Intervention, Potential of Children, Teaching

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Go Ahead, Pop the Unpopped Kernels

by Mendel

in Childhood Education

Did you ever microwave a bag of popcorn?

There’s a message on the bag that tells you not to try and pop the unpopped kernels after the first go round. The problem is that when you take the bag out of the microwave there’s a whole lot of unpopped kernels just sitting around in the bag looking at you in amusement.

Curious me, I decided to put them back and see what would happen. Now, I could write a disclaimer of “Don’t try this at home.” Why bother though. Go ahead, try it at home.

On the second turn, most of the kernels popped, and there was more popcorn to be enjoyed.

We as teachers, therapists and parents are microwaves trying to help our children “pop.” Sometimes part of our batch doesn’t pop easily. It’s convenient to be happy with the kernels that pop easily and throw out those that don’t. Why bother with them?

Don’t follow the message on the bag. If some of your kernels remain closed, try again. Some kids need an extra push. A second go around. Some more warmth.

You’ll enjoy the results. I did.

Tagged as: Childhood Achievements, Childhood Development, Childhood Education, Learning Disabilities, Teaching

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Finding a Balance Between Expectations and Child’s Ability

by Mendel

in Motivational,Uncategorized

I was talking to a mentor the other day, and he said something very insightful: Anger is always the result of unmet expectations.

There may be other reasons and causes for anger. Think about it, though. We always say things like, “Children are the future,” and other similar sayings. We have high hopes and expectations of the children we raise and teach, as of course we should.

We have to find a healthy balance, however. Otherwise we might be setting ourselves up for anger and frustration. Unmet expectations result in anger, and when we have unreasonable expectations of our children that naturally go unmet (unreasonable, anybody?) that anger gets directed toward our precious children.

How do we find that balance? By being realistic. It’s that simple.

Realism starts by acknowledging that all children are not created equal. It’s the unequivocal acceptance of your child’s strengths AND weaknesses. It is the healthy celebration of a child’s areas of greatness and the supportive assistance in areas of struggle.

I sincerely believe that if Einstein’s mother would’ve given him the Baby Einstein DVDs to watch with the expectation that it would lead him to develop the theory of relativity he would have still been working at the Swiss Patent Office.

Tagged as: Childhood Achievements, Childhood Education, Parent-Child Relationships

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The 3 Conditions that Reduce the Risk of Playing Video Games

by Mendel

in Parenting

Are video games as evil as some make it out to be?

It turns out that in moderation playing video games might actually be beneficial. This is not an endorsement; it’s just a consideration of some recent research.

Some believe, in fact many believe, that video games is a cause for disorders such as ADD and ADHD. Russell Barkley, one of the world’s premiere researchers and experts on these disorders strongly disagrees. He emphatically claims that there’s no evidence to prove a causal effect between video games and attention related disorders.

I don’t believe his statements are meant as an endorsement of video games. Children, of course, are better off with less screen time and more time out and about. Dr. Barkley is just dispelling a myth that is quite rampant.

Now comes fresh research that takes this a bit further.

This study out of Brigham Young University is the first of its kind to show a positive outcome related to playing video games. These outcomes include higher levels of social connectedness, lower levels of depression and anxiety, lower levels of aggressive, and higher levels of pro-social behaviors.

However, these positive outcomes have very specific conditions. And herein lies the importance of the study.

1) The games played were age appropriate. This means non-violent and family friendly games.

2) The study looked at children who co-played with a parent. Time spent with your child doesn’t go to waste, even if it’s spent playing a game together.

3) The kids in the study didn’t spend endless hours in front of the screens. They played for less than three hours a day. Some, including myself, may consider this amount of time to be excessive idle time, but in comparison to the national average of seven hours a day of screen time, this number isn’t all bad.

To summarize, just like chocolate and alcohol, playing video games might not be all evil. Play age-appropriate and family friendly games. Join your child. Oh, and don’t overdo it.

Tagged as: ADD, ADHD, Parent-Child Relationships, Parenting, Russel Barkley, Video Games

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