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Some Thoughts on Tikki Tikki Tembo

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So, when Chang falls in the well, there’s a bucket in there, why doesn’t Tikki tikki tempo-no sa rembo-chari bari ruchi-pip peri pembo just pull him up? Or have the parents taught them nothing except to avoid the well? If that’s the case, I’m not confident of their ability to discuss the importance of contraception when it’s time to have the birds and the bees conversation.

And shouldn’t they have done a little family style lessons learned session after Chang was fished out? “Listen, kids, if this ever happens again, just run right to the old guy with the ladder cuz that’s all I’m gonna be able to tell you to do.”

My favorite part is when Chang is trying to tell his mother that Tikki tikki tempo has fallen in the well for the third time, and he’s so distraught and out of breath that he says it like this: “Honorable Mother! Chari bari rembo tikki tikki — pip pip has fallen into the well!” When I read it aloud, I practically spit the “pip pip” out.

What gives with this moral?  The ONLY lesson all of China took from these near tragic mishaps is to give the first son — the one they actually care about — a short name, just like the second son? That seems of limited value, given their current one child policy, I must say. Sheesh.

Book Review: Simplicity Parenting

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The day we got back from the beach, Nora went to visit the neighbor and Ben and I entered her bedroom with a few large trash bags.  In the bags went markers without caps, plastic fake food, various bits of string, broken toys, annoying toys, perfectly good toys, dried up play-dough and even some books.

We threw the bag of decent toys in the trunk of the car, which Ben drove straight to the nearest Salvation Army donation station.  Meanwhile, I made Nora’s bed, dragged another half dozen large toys downstairs into storage, and set up a kid sized table and chair in her bedroom.  All play clothes went in a bin on the shelf, musical instruments in another bin.  A large wicker basket holds some open-ended, mostly wooden toys and some stuffed animals.  The top of her dresser displays rocks, pinecones, chestnuts and seashells she’s collected: her “nature table.”

When she came home, I showed her to her room.

“We cleaned your room for you!”

She stood in the middle of the room and spun a slow circle in wonder.  I held my breath.

“I love it!  I always want it like this!”  she said.  She then commenced to play alone in her room with legos she hadn’t touched in months — because there was room on the floor to do it.

A bit later, I gave her some rocks she’d collected at the beach and a glass milk bottle.  She sat at her table and carefully, tidily, sorted her rocks.  Those that fit in the bottle went to her nature table, the rest went outside.

She soon fell fast asleep in her bed.

It’s been several days and not once has she asked for any of the toys we discarded.  Each night, we pick up all her toys and put them in their place.

I’ve read a book, you see.  It’s called Simplicity Parenting:Using the Extraordinary Power of Less to Raise Calmer, Happier, and More Secure Kids by Kim John Payne.  This books asserts that tsunami of modern culture that assaults our children is stealing their childhood.  Children have too much, too soon.  They are assaulted with every kind of screen, and every kind of commercial and nearly buried in a deluge of toys. 

It’s no coincidence that as the pace of modern life has sped up, our children are diagnosed with more and more attention and compulsion disorders.  Payne, a therapist, says that he in all his years of practice, has never met a “disobedient” child, only “disoriented” children.  He has found that by simplfying a child’s home life, behavior problems — hyper-activity, explosive responses, blurting at inappropriate times and controlling behaviors such as picky-eating — melt away.  Restoring balance also helps their specific potential blossom.  He’s seen kids go from diagnosable, to quirky, to their own special genius.

Payne advocates “four pathways” to simplifying: declutter, create a rhythm in your home, stop the over-scheduling of our kids and filter out the adult world (this includes screen time).

Regular readers of this blog know that we don’t have a television in our house.  We follow the same routine nearly every day and always eat dinner together. We are already on the “simple” end of the spectrum compared with most American families.  But, there is always room for improvement. 

Lately, I’ve been noticing that my penchant for listening to NPR is causing disturbance in our household.  The awful news from places like Afghanistan and Tucson are repeated every half hour.  During the news coverage of the Arizona shootings, I became depressed and upset over the news — and worse — the coverage was beginning to be absorbed by Nora.  At one point, she looked up from her play and said, “They said ‘Arizona!'”  She was pleased she recognized the name of a place where her dear Nana Sandi happened to be, but I was disturbed.  How long until she deciphered what the story was really saying?

And, of course, clutter has been an issue at our house for sometime. Now that Nora’s room is done, it’s on the the closets.

You know how once you become counscious of something, you suddenly see and hear about it everywhere?  Well, I heard of the book after my mother-in-law mentioned it, then, while researching an article I was writing on bullying, I found the work of Kim John Payne.  Then, at a parent council meeting, I found out that Payne would be in Portland to deliver a lecture and a workshop on Simplicity Parenting.  I’d be a fool not to notice what was suddenly all around me.  I registered Ben and I for the lecture and workshop, with Ben’s enthusiatic blessing.  He couldn’t wait to prove how right he’s been about clutter all these years.  And right he was. 

Payne is a gifted and engaging presenter.  He had a rapt audience for his lecture at a local Unitarian Church.  

And he finally gave me the counter argument to people who tell me that I’m depriving Nora by not having a television.  The fact is that screens are everywhere, and they overwhelm the human brain —  they de-volve us. 

Payne described a lecture he attended where a dozen or so images of brains were shown.  On one end of the spectrum, the brain was lit up in all areas, a beautiful rainbow of activity.  At the other end, only the emotional center of the brain was lit active.  The middle images were in between.  These were primate brains, from the most intelligent ape to the least, reacting to the sound of a thump!.  The lit-up brains were thinking, “what’s that, where is it, can I eat it? Is everbody okay? Can I play with it?”  The lesser apes thought only of “fight or flight.” 

Another set of brain images was shown. The images were nearly identical to the first set.  But these brains were of children reacting to the same stimulus.  The most active brain belonged to a child who had zero hours of screen time per week.  The brain on the other end — showing only a stress response to stimulus — was a child with 48 hours of screen time per week.

The average American child gets over 7 hours of screen time a day.  Does that seem rational?  Does that seem healthy?  Absolutely not.  It’s up to parents to put an end to this madness and give our kids their childhood back.  By keeping TV out of our home, we are creating a sanctuary, a place for Nora’s brain to get the respite it so dearly needs. 

There are plenty of places and so much time to come for screens.  She doesn’t need them at home.

If you’re feeling the chaos of the pace of modern life, I urge you to check out the Simplicity Parenting website and check out this book. 

The beauty of this movement is you are able to create more harmony in your home without having to do anything special.  In fact, it’s about not doing stuff.  Fewer screens, fewer lessons. More time for children to create their own worlds, instead of having ready made ones thrust upon them. 

You will indeed be surprised at the power of less.

Book Review: Nurture Shock

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 Chapter Four: Why Kids Lie  
This post is part of a book review series of NutureShock, by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman.  

 

    
Lately, I’ve been suspecting that Nora has figured out how to lie.  She’s right at the age where kids begin to experiment with lying.     

Lately, I’ll ask her if she’s wiped herself after going potty and she’ll hesitate and then say she did in an unflinching manner.  The authors of NutureShock tell me, my chances of truly knowing when Nora lies are almost nil.  And listen to this:    

Parents often fail to address early childhood lying, since the lying is almost innocent — their child’s too young to know what lies are, or that lying’s wrong.  When their child gets older and learns those distinctions, the parents believe, the lying will stop.  This is dead wrong, according to Dr. Talwar.  The better a young child can distinguish a lie from the truth, the more likely she is to lie given the chance.    

It gets even hairier.  All kids lie.  Most parents expect kids to lie to cover for something they should not have done.  So, the cover-up lie is almost never addressed.  “The parent censures the original transgression, but not the failed cover-up.  From the kid’s point of view, his attempted lie didn’t cost him extra.”    

Also, a kid’s definition of a lie is more stringent than an adult’s. Kids think just getting something wrong is a lie.  If incorrect information comes out of your mouth, you lied.  So parents make a mistake, a kid feels lied to and therefore thinks his parent thinks it’s okay to lie.    

And lying takes sophisticated thinking, it’s a develomental milestone.  A child’s lying improves as they get older.    

So what are we to do?    

Well, let’s think about this.  A child is lying to avoid punishment.  Punishment is a symbol of a parent’s displeasure.  Lying is really a way of maintaining a relationship.  You want the candy, so you steal it, but you don’t want to upset your mom, so you lie.    

The book outlines a fascinating study where children are read two fables about lying just before being asked a question where a lie is a likely response:    

One of the stories read aloud is The Boy Who Cried Wolf — the version in which both the boy and the sheep get eaten because of his repeated lies.  Alternatively, they read the story of George Washington and the Cherry Tree, in which young George confesses to his father that he chopped down the prized tree with his new hatchet.  The story end with his father’s reply: “George, I’m glad that you cut down that cherry tree after all.  Hearing you tell the truth is better than if I had a thousand cherry trees.    

It’s the second story that reduces lying, by a wide margin.  To prevent lying, your child needs a reminder that the truth will please you.  The threat of punishment only serves to make better liars.    

Bottom line, don’t set your child up to lie to you, and if you suspect them of lying, make sure they know the truth will set them free.

Book Review: NutureShock

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Chapter Three: Why White Parents Don’t Talk About Race

This post is part of a book review series of NutureShock, by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman.

 

Nora started school yesterday and I am crossing my fingers that she didn’t repeat some version of what she said the other night.

We were talking about our doctors.  Nora sees Dr. Brown, who’s white.  Ben sees Dr. Subra, who’s east Indian.  Nora said, “I just like Dr. Brown, I don’t like Dr. Subra.”

“Why don’t you like Dr. Subra?” I asked.

“Because he’s brown and I just like light people.”

I got a hot feeling in my solar plexus, but did not let on. 

“Oh, well, I like Dr. Subra as much as Dr. Brown.  I like seeing both doctors.  People can have brown skin but still be your friend or your doctor or your teacher.”

We talked a bit more about the brown people we know.  My best friend at work, a boy at her kindergarten, her cousin and uncle.

I don’t know how I would have handled this if I hadn’t read the “Why White Parents Don’t Talk About Race” chapter of NutureShock recently.  I would have thought my child had somehow picked up this horrible prejudice from somewhere and not known what to say about it.

Most white parents don’t talk about race because they believe that not talking about it will magically mean their child won’t notice race, and therefore won’t develop racial prejudices.  The problem is, racial differences are as plain to children as gender.  Everyone has a gender, everyone has a skin color.  Ignoring this means you are leaving your child to draw their own conclusions, which may horrify you when verbalized.

I believe Nora formed this opinion in relation to Dr. Subra because she once saw him when ill, was startled by his large physical presence, thick accent and brown skin.  She was afraid of the unfamiliar and focused her fear on his most obvious physical attribute.  This is what kids do, they learn something specific and apply it broadly.  An excerpt:

…kids are developmentally prone to in-group favoritism; they’re going to form these preferences on their own.  Children categorize everything from food to toys to people at a young age.  However, it takes years  before their cognitive abilities allow them to successfully use more than one attribute to categorize anything.  In the meantime, the attribute they rely on is that which is the most clearly visible.

The only way to combat this tendency is by honest discussion about skin color.  But that’s easier said than done.

The authors of NutureShock describe a research study where the racial attitudes of white children were measured and parents were then asked to address race with their children.  The first group was asked to let their child watch program that presented racially diverse characters, such as Sesame Street.  The second group was asked to have their children watch those programs and talk to their child about race.  The third group was asked to simply talk to their child about race.

A significant number of parents in the third group dropped out of the study.  They were simply unwilling to talk about race with their child, for fear that they would say the wrong thing.

All of the children in the study displayed negative attitudes about different races at the start of the study.  At the end, the children who had watched multi-cultural television shows showed no improvement in racial attitudes.  The children who had conversations with their parents showed improvement in acceptance of other races in correlation with how meaningful the discussion had been.  If the parent simply glossed over the topic (“everybody’s equal” blah, blah) there was little improvement.  If parents really took time to explain that people with different skin color could hold the same jobs, be friends, be respected, etc, then kids started to get it. 

As a parent, I need to strive to be as comfortable discussing race and combating racial stereotypes as I am discussing gender sterotypes.  And I need to start now.

I am not at all worried about Nora’s racial attitudes in the long run.  But it was a wake up call that we need to more actively discuss race in our house.  Before someone who doesn’t know her (or us) has occasion to worry.

Book Review: NurtureShock (The Lost Hour)

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This post is part of a book review series of NutureShock, by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman. Chapter two is “The Lost Hour.”

When I don’t get enough sleep, I tend to do things like put shaving cream in my hair while I’m showering.  When Nora doesn’t get enough sleep, she gets cranky, defiant and wild eyed.

On dark winter evenings, it’s easy to put Nora to bed by 7:30.  This time of year, it takes diligence.  I make dinner and take Nora outside to do some gardening.  Suddenly, it’s seven.  Wind down time should have started a six-thirty.  If we’re not reading stories by seven, she won’t be calm enough to sleep until almost nine.  I can’t let her sleep much later than 5:45 in the morning, or we’ll be late for work.  If bedtime is late, she gets eight and a half hours of sleep instead of nine and a half.

Since I read chapter two of NutureShock, we’ve been ratcheting bedtime back to seven-thirty where it belongs.  I’ll even skip a much needed bathtime in order to get her tucked in on time.  Kids today are getting an hour less sleep on average than we did as kids.  It’s causing attention problems, behavior issues and even obesity (when your body is sleep deprived, it produces cortisol, which causes your body to store fat).  Studies have shown that even fifteen minutes less sleep has measurable effect on academic performance.  An hour less sleep will cause a six grader have the test scores of a fourth grader.

The authors explain that kids sleep differently than adults:

Using newly developed technological and statistical tools, sleep scientists have recently been able to isolate and measure the impact of this single lost hour.  Because children’s brains are a work in progress until the age of 21, and because much of that work is done while a child is asleep, this lost hour appears to have an exponential impact on children that it simply doesn’t have on adults…sleep problems during formative years can cause permanent changes in a child’s brain structure — damage that one that one can’t sleep off like a hangover.

 Studies on sleep in teenagers have pointed out that the surly, depressed young people so common today may actually be sleep deprived, not just hormonal.  High schools who have changed to later start times have seen improvements in test scores and a reduction in the number of car crashes teens are involved in.  Parents report happier teens.

The evidence is absolutely overwhelming.  Anything you can do to ensure your child is well rested improves your child’s quality of life — and yours, too.

On Monday, I’ll review chapter three “Why White Parents Don’t Talk About Race.”

Book Review: NutureShock (The Inverse Power of Praise)

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This post is part of a book review series of NutureShock, by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman.  Chapter I is “The Inverse Power of Praise.”

Nora is smart.  And we’ve gotten in the habit of telling her so.  We need to knock it off, right now.

Turns out, kids who are praised for innate intelligence will go to great lengths to protect their status as a wunderkind, including not even trying if they think they will fail.  What’s more, when they encounter academic difficulty, they experience a crisis of confidence and often conclude that they have been lied to and were never smart to begin with.  They think, if I have to work at this, I must be dumb.

On the other hand, kids who are praised sincerely and specifically for effort, will try harder to master new concepts.

The book offers the work of Carol Dweck as evidence of the “inverse power of praise.”  One of her experiments is centered around offering two types of praise.  A group of children are given a fairly simple IQ test.  Half the children are praised for their intelligence, the other half are praised for their effort.  Then, they are offered their choice one of two tests, one that is fairly easy, and one that is more difficult, but they will learn by trying.  The kids who were told they were smart picked the easier road.  The kids who were praised for effort chose the harder test. 

A third, and quite difficult test was given.  The “smart” kids were miserable, the other kids were spurred on to try harder.  A fourth and final test was given, it was as easy as the first.  The smart kids did worse than they had the first time.  The other kids did markedly better.

The chapter goes on to explain other experiments that confirm Dweck’s conclusions, as well as explain the faulty science that led us to all the praise in the first place.  The author also details his own struggle when he stopped using praise with his son.  Praise of the detrimental type has become ingrained in many parents, and many find it difficult to give up.  The research shows, it’s worth the effort.

On Thursday, I’ll review Chapter II “The Lost Hour.”