Andrea Gordon
Star family issues reporter Andrea Gordon blogs about the latest news of interest to parents. Got a parenting tip to share? A child-rearing question to debate? Post a comment - kids, grandparents and friends are welcome, too. Click here to learn more about this blog.
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May 04, 2007
Rose loves make-your-own pizzas and pink nail polish and inventing silly games at recess. She's beside herself with excitement over planning her sleepover birthday party. Until the two most popular girls in school announce they're not coming. At least not unless Rose uninvites her best friend Stacey.
If you have a little girl or have ever been one, prepare for pangs of recognition. This is the dicey realm of girl bullying - subtle, manipulative and hard for the grownups to detect. And it's brought to life in My
Best Sleepover Party , a new chapter book aimed at kids grade 2 and up and written by Toronto sisters Anna Morgan and Rachael Turkienicz.
It's a world where exclusion, ultimatums, bribery and jokes at someone else's expense are the weapons of choice. For the protagonist Rose, who's caught in the crossfire, the agony and guilt and confusion are all-consuming. Torn over what to do, she hides under her blankets, crying "I DON'T GET THIS!"
While bullying has become an increasingly frontline topic in the media and among parents, educators and others who work with kids, most of the literature and resources focus on either the victims or the perpetrators. Turkienicz and Morgan, drawing on their personal memories and experiences as mothers, wanted to address the gap.
"There didn't seem to be much for the kids who are caught in the middle who are the vast majority. And yet those are the ones with the most complex decisions to make," says Turkienicz, a professor in York University's Faculty of Education who has five kids.
As a discussion point for children, parents and teachers, My
Best Sleepover Party touches on all the key issues in a way that will keep kids (including boys) and grownups interested. There's the allure of the popular girls, who are so funny and crazy when they're not being mean. Rose's tortured attempts to guess what might be provoking them and fix it. The astonishing way that well-intentioned adults can make everything worse. And the cold, hard fact that while Rose is neither aggressor nor victim, her role as innocent bystander is in many ways the most difficult and important.
The 120-page paperback doesn't sugar-coat the issue. When Rose decides to do what she knows is right, things get worse before they get better. And there's no happily-ever-after ending where life goes back to exactly the way it was.
But what the authors manage to do is illuminate a pathway out of the situation that Rose can navigate - as long as she has the support of her mom and some of the friends and adults around her. Rose will probably be the hero to most readers. Her mom is mine.
And the sleepover? In Rose's words, it was the birthday party "where I only turned one year older but I felt like I really grew up." Even though it came with a tinge of sadness.
Best Sleepover Party ($7.95) will be available in major bookstores this month.
April 23, 2007
A children's advocate I know gets apoplectic every time the subject of a national childcare program is raised. Not just because there isn't one. But because the debate is conducted as if it's only an issue for parents with kids under 6. As if once they hit grade 1, the whole dilemma disappears - poof! - like the trail of soapy bubbles from a toddler's wand.
Any parent knows this couldn't be further from the truth. While some moms and dads figure out a way to take time off, telecommute or work reduced hours during their children's early years, 80 per cent of Canadian moms work full-time once their kids are in school. And most do not have the luxury of arriving home in time to meet their children after the bell rings.
After-school care - whether through recreation programs or school-based childcare programs - can be expensive, hard to find and, for the older kids who figure they've outgrown it, a tough sell. No wonder the window between 3 and 6 p.m. is one of the most stressful for families. But as today's Star story notes, it's also the perfect time to engage school-age kids in healthy activities and relationships.
As that advocate notes, it would take considerably less money to address this enormous need than a program for the under-6 crowd. And it would probably help a lot more families too. With an early years strategy in stall mode, why not start here?
Discussion on the middle years and after-school care is still fairly new in Canada, but here are some useful websites to find out more and to exchange strategies and information:
Doorsteps Neighbourhood Services provides a range of services including after-school care and has been pioneering the development of resiliency-based programming in Toronto. Research funded by the United Way of Greater Toronto and in partnership with Resiliency Canada, Toronto Public Health and Flemingdon Neighbourhood Services is summarized in a report on their website.
Resiliency Canada and the International Resilence Project are leading the way with research on strategies and programs built on relationships children's strengths and aimed at developing skills that will help them cope with adversity and risk in their teen years.
Research highlights from UBC professor Kimberly Schonert-Reichl's survey of 9 to 12-year-olds - what they do in out-of-school hours, and how they feel about themselves, their family and community - is available on the   United Way of the Lower Mainland site .
There are many smaller organizations providing care and engaging youth in their communities such as Bridging the Gap , which is based in Belleville, Ont. As someone from that region pointed out in an email, "useful sharing" among organizations working with kids in the middle years would benefit everyone.
Please suggest additional links to help facilitate sharing by posting them in the Comments below.
April 12, 2007
Here's a sign of the times. A parenting book titled No . With a subtitle: "Why Kids of All Ages Need to Hear It and Ways Parents Can Say It."
And proof that we must surely be the most wimpy generation ever to procreate.
Who would have thought that one little mono-syllabic two-letter word could cause adults so much angst that they require a book of instruction to spit it out. But it does, according to the author, U.S. psychologist and parenting expert David Walsh. So he has come up with this generation's version of tough love, a 293-page manual aimed at helping parents wade right in, screw up their resolve, pry open their lips and come right out with it. Not "uh-uh." Not "nope." But No. NO! Or "EN-OH!" as some of us have been known to holler, after the 24th straight plea.
Walsh says our children, raised in a yes culture and provoking too many headlines about bad manners, entitlement and lack of discipline, could use "a heaping helping" of this itty-bitty word. Whether it's the toddler freaking out at the cashier because he wants an Oh Henry, or the adolescent who insists she's entitled to your car keys and the contents of your wallet on a Friday night.
Which reminds me of one of my favourite bits of wisdom passed through the mothering pipeline. It came from a more experienced one, who had grown weary of hearing about my hapless attempts at rationalizing a decision to an infuriated teen.
"No is a complete sentence," she told me. "Sometimes you can just say No. Period."
March 19, 2007
The following also appears in the Life Section of today's Toronto Star, as part of a regular monthly column .
I only played with matches once in my life.
My mom was watching. She peered from around the corner as her little girl sat at the kitchen table and opened the matchbox. She watched while I took out a match. Watched as I lit it, then held it in my hand to study the flame. She watched it burn down to my fingertips, as I gasped and blew it out. Then she rushed in, kissed it better, and asked me to recite the lesson I had just learned.
I never played with matches again - because I learned you can get burned.
Modern parents, no doubt, would be shocked. We're more than a little conflicted when it comes to letting our kids face consequences. We may know deep down that they should, but we can't stand the thought. We prevent. We protect. We interfere.
We get rid of play structures that any child could possibly fall off. Drive the kids to school in case of random maniacs. God forbid they should ever throw snowballs in the schoolyard, ride scooters without a helmet or go to the park by themselves. We manage their relationships - with teachers, coaches, and through playmates.
When they are teens, we give them cellphones so they're never far from our help or advice. We can even track them via GPS when they take the car.
Funny thing is, we are overprotecting the kids at a time when, by most measures, children and youth have never been safer. The paradox is that all our rules and coddling may actually be setting them up for danger.
His analysis makes sense. Kids, and particularly adolescents, learn by taking chances, making judgments and experiencing mistakes. It's called growing up. If we don't allow them to do that by loosening the apron strings, they may bust out of them, and resort to more extreme measures: drugs and alcohol, running away, sexual promiscuity, gangs or crime.
Alternatively, they may flounder quietly, becoming depressed and compliant. Or turn into adults who just can't cope.
"In our mania to provide emotional life jackets for our kids, helmets and seat belts, approved playground equipment, after-school supervision, an endless stream of evening programming, and no place to hang out but the local mall, we parents are accidentally creating a generation of youth who are not ready for life," Ungar writes.
It's hard to blame parents for all this. Over the past two decades, we have been inundated with parenting literature, experts, talk shows and coaches, all reinforcing the message that every single decision from the time of conception calls for huge angst and analysis; that anything we do will make or break our children; and instilling a false notion of what we can and should control.
Yet in the face of this booming child-rearing industry, 24-hour news stations blast us with a steady stream of bad news about how the kids are actually turning out. Young girls dressing like "prostitots." Epidemics of online bullying. Gangs and guns. Binge drinking. Teen depression. The air of entitlement. Plagiarists. The narcissists of "Generation Me."
Ungar's book is refreshing for several reasons: He is practical rather than alarmist. He provides context for how we arrived at this parenting dilemma. He has a lot of faith in teens and what motivates them. And he has advice on how parents can start letting go.
He's also an international expert on resilience , an approach that emphasizes promoting the positives instead of preventing the negatives. In other words, promoting conditions to help kids thrive, and building on their strengths and relationships, rather than focusing on zero tolerance.
In a recent phone interview, Ungar explained how Too Safe for Their Own Good emerged as a result of his observations over two decades working with youth. He noticed that many teens from disadvantaged families and living in dangerous neighbourhoods were faring well. At the same time, a growing number from stable, middle-class homes who had everything they needed and minimal exposure to danger were depressed, anxious and acting out in perilous ways. He wanted to explore the reasons.
He concluded that the key is found in four powerful messages that all kids, regardless of their background, need to hear from adults and peers. They need to feel that they belong, they are trustworthy, they are responsible and they are capable. And these all go hand-in-hand with taking on risk and responsibility.
For parents, it's a balancing act that takes practice. Too much risk puts kids in danger; too little curbs their growth and psychological development.
But Ungar has suggestions, among them that parents need to take a hard look at where they can ease up on rules and when they need to clamp down. Allow kids space to express themselves - in their rooms, through music, or their hair colour. Instead of just saying no when your 15-year-old begs to go on an unsupervised weekend, suggest an alternative that will fulfill her craving for space or independence
See yourself as scaffolding rather than a life jacket. Be a supervisor, not a dictator. "It's not just about something inside a kid," says Ungar.
"It's about us providing opportunities for them to realize something powerful about themselves."
March 14, 2007
Unless you've been living in a tent in the woods somewhere, you know that fat kids are a major health worry these days. The topic of rising childhood obesity rates makes headlines almost as often as Britney.
Here's an idea. How about household chores as the new fitness regime?
A recent study in the the journal of the American College of Sports Medicine found that rural Old Order Amish kids in southern Ontario - who grow up without cars, videogames and computers and who walk to school, haul firewood and milk the cows - are way more physically fit than their counterparts living in modern households. Obesity is rare in that community.
"The high levels of physical activity and low prevalence of overweight and obesity in these Amish youth are striking," says David Bassett, the study's lead author.
"From that perspective, modern conveniences in contemporary society may contribute to health problems down the road."
Modern parenting hasn't helped either. Once upon a time, doing chores was part of childhood. But something happened when baby boomer parents came along and decided catering to the offspring was the way to go. And before we knew it, The Entitled Generation was coming of age.
Now parents trying to do it all are time-pressed, tired and fed up, kids are unhealthy and it's time to start changing our ways.
You don't need dairy cattle or a woodpile that needs replenishing to begin turning things around. There are plenty of contemporary tasks to get the kids' heart rates up. Running to Mac's to fetch milk, for starters. Carrying the recycling bins to the curb. Hauling laundry up and down stairs. Vacuuming the living room. Shovelling snow, weeding the garden. Walking the dog. Painting the bedroom.
You won't even have to cross your fingers when you tell them "it's for your own good."
March 05, 2007
If you've ever been to a Grade 6 graduation and seen those curvaceous 11-year-old girls in clingy cocktail dresses and heels teetering over their self-conscious male counterparts, you know the phenomenon. Girls, on the whole, are hitting puberty at earlier ages than we did.
A new U.S. study published in the journal Pediatrics suggests rising childhood obesity rates may be to blame. The study of 354 girls, who were followed from ages three to 12, found that almost half - or 168 of them - were considered "in puberty" by grade 4. That included 40 per cent of the normal weight girls in the study, 58 per cent of overweight girls and 80 per cent of those who were obese. The normal range of puberty is considered between 8 and 13 for girls, and slightly older for boys.
Why should we care that girls are developing earlier than ever before? Because, according to the news stories, it puts them at higher risk for everything from depression and anxiety to bullying, earlier alcohol use, sexual activity at younger ages, and breast cancer.
I'm not sure how helpful some of these alarmist headlines really are. For one thing, this is not the first time the link between weight and puberty has been suggested. For another, it's still far from conclusive. Even the author, Dr. Joyce Lee of the University of Michigan, acknowledged in this story that "by no means have we proven weight gain causes early onset of puberty." And other researchers have pointed to contributing factors that aren't so easy for anxious parents to control, such as exposure to chemicals in the environment and hormones in the dairy products and meat we consume.
It seems to me one of the biggest threats to kids' self-esteem and behaviour is when their physical and emotional development aren't in sync. And that includes both boys and girls. I've known children who feel betrayed by their early developing bodies because they aren't ready to trade in childhood for adolescence. Others who face unrealistic expectations from adults because they look older and more mature than they really are. And, as someone who was the last girl in high school to wear a bra, I know first-hand that being on the other end of the spectrum is pretty painful and demoralizing too.
This is where parents can make a difference - by listening, validating the confusion, fear and frustration that go hand-in-hand with adolescent development, and reminding kids that we went through it too, and that some things are simply beyond our control.
Has your child hit puberty early? Do you have memories of developing earlier or later than your peers? Share your thoughts about how early or late onset can affect kids.
February 12, 2007
In case you're short on dinner table fodder for tonight, here's the perfect opportunity to raise the topic of cyber behaviour with your brood. And yet another reminder that just because kids are smart as hell about navigating web technology and instant communications doesn't mean they're terribly savvy about how it can come back to bite them.
Last week, up to 19 teens were suspended from a high school in Caledon East, just northwest of Toronto, after they used a Facebook site for some vulgar venting about their principal, which included sexually explicit, demeaning and derogatory comments.
This is the latest example of a phenomenon that's not terribly new, i.e. kids who haven't figured out that posting their thoughts online is not the same as writing them in their diaries or spouting them aloud at their lockers.
You may remember the 14-year-old Montreal girl who was arrested a couple of years ago after posting a list of "people I want to kill." Or the mistrial declared in the so-called Johnathan murder trial in Toronto because one of the key teenaged witnesses talked about the case online and contradicted her testimony. Or the many reported incidents of cyberbullying, when the recipients of threatening MSN messages have printed them out, shown them to their parents, and suddenly the cops were involved.
In the latest online episode, much of the banter resembles the same kind of casual chatter you'd hear in a stairwell or read on MSN. So much so that it apparently didn't occur to the teens not to publish their full names with each comment. (In case you go looking, you won't find the site any more, but I've seen some of the postings.)
Somehow, lots of kids still don't get the idea that there's a difference between gossiping at the water cooler and calling your principal a "dumbass" - or worse - in text that all the world can read. A psychologist once explained the disconnect to me in a way that made sense. The blank screen can have the feel of an enticing personal canvas just waiting to be splashed with words and pictures. But in the split second it takes to press "send" or "publish," it morphs into an act of communication and goes from the realm of the personal to the public. Which is hard for a lot of folks to fully grasp. Even adults.
So ignore the eyerolling, endure the yawns and sighs and tell your kids again: Their friends can read, their family can read, their future employers can read, and yes, their teachers and principals can, too. So think twice or 10 times before clicking "Publish."
January 29, 2007
There's an unusual kind of experiment going on in one grade 6 classroom in Toronto, where Bart Simpson, American Idol, instant messaging and the latest Xbox game were once fodder for daily chatter.
The kids are unplugging.
That's right, as this story today explains , the 11 and 12-year-olds recently signed a media manifesto that means no email, web surfing, TV, DVDs, videogames or GameBoy on school nights. Parents are on board, hoping the move will make way for more free play, reading and exercise. The teacher behind the move says he's already seeing more space in the kids' heads to pause, exercise their creativity and reflect on schoolwork.
Imagine that. Five days a week free of joysticks, blaring sitcoms and sibling spats over computer time. Respite from the 24/7 media blitz that leaves so many parents feeling powerless and frustrated.
But is a ban, or partial ban, the way to go? Or do you prefer a more moderate approach? Tell us your views about household media management for kids and teens.
January 22, 2007
The following also appears in the Life Section of today's Toronto Star, as part of a regular monthly column .
Prime Minister Stephen Harper grabbed headlines not long ago with a $2.6 million pledge to study wait times for pediatric surgery. While the move was dismissed as a photo-op and a "drop in the bucket" by a few provinces, it's hard to criticize.
Who would argue that children needing heart operations, cancer treatment, neurology and dental procedures shouldn't get prompt treatment?
What's frustrating is that while Harper and other political leaders are eager to fight for the spotlight over health care issues, especially when kids are involved, they continue to overlook many of the most needy - children with mental health problems. Kids who are depressed, anxious, explosive or suicidal and whose parents are desperate for some help, some strategies and some hope.
There are several reasons these growing numbers of troubled kids are so often left out of the health care conversation.
Mental illness is an uncomfortable topic, especially where kids are concerned. It's fraught with shame and confusion for parents anguished over why they can't fix it and feeling blamed. It's not easy to talk about a school-age kid who has scary meltdowns, or gets into fights at school or is afraid to go out of the house. It's hard to speak up about a teen who keeps running away or smokes too much pot.
The causes are complex. There are no quick-fix solutions.
As Greg Lubimiv, executive director of the Phoenix Centre for Children and Families in the Ottawa Valley, said recently, "Children's mental health is the most neglected piece of the health care system."
But it's something we need to talk about. Because just like cancer and heart problems, mental illness and addiction can be fatal. They can lead to suicide - which happens to be the second leading cause of death among people under 25, behind car accidents.
There is always huge public and media outcry over youth homicide these days, but eerie silence on the many more youth suicides that occur each year.
In 2003, the latest year for which Statistics Canada figures are available, 26 young people under age 25 were killed by guns in Ontario. More than five times that number - 131 - died as a result of suicide.
In 2005, Toronto's infamous "summer of the gun," prompted loud calls for action and community debate. In that entire year, 25 young people in the city were killed by firearms, according to Toronto Star statistics.
If there's one thing mental health researchers agree on, it's that most mental illnesses are treatable, but that early intervention is critical. And that's where the important issue of wait times comes in.
There are many risks when help is delayed: a distressed child self-medicates and becomes dependent on drugs or alcohol; a child with a behaviour disorder becomes a teenage criminal; kids who can't focus drop out of school; friends disappear. Parents burn out, stressed and frightened siblings are in turn put at risk.
I can't say it any better than children's mental health advocate Susan Hess did in a crie de coeur that appeared in this paper more than three years ago.
"Tell a 7-year-old who gets expelled for 'significant aggression and defiance' that he has to hold on for six months," she wrote.
"Tell a 10-year-old who cries constantly and says he wants to die that he has to sit tight for a year.
"Tell a 15-year-old who slits her wrists to shape up because there is no service available, period, until she comes closer to death."
Sadly, not much has changed since Hess wrote those words, despite efforts by her and many others to put the issue on the public agenda.
Hess remembers when her own daughter, during tormented years awaiting professional help, would trash her room, scream obscenities and threaten her family, only to collapse in a heap of bewildered remorse.
When she finally got help, life turned around for everyone. As head of the support group Parents for Children's Mental Health , Hess continues to share those memories because she knows many families are enduring similar trauma.
Ontario is starting to respond. In November, the province released a policy framework for children's mental health that focuses on the need for early intervention and co-ordinated care among families, teachers, community agencies and physicians.
But how quickly that will translate into more timely and accessible services for kids and youth remains to be seen. Funding has hardly budged in the past 15 years, despite the backlog of kids needing help.
Even then, money can only do so much.
Just as there are no quick fixes for most kids, there are none for the world they're being raised in. Modern childhood can be a pressure cooker of hectic schedules, technology and media overload, time-crunched parents, environmental worries and a shortage of community supports. Like second-hand smoke, this stress affects children. And addressing it at a personal, community and policy level is a big part of prevention.
At the very least, we must start by including children's mental health in the political dialogue and making it a priority. It's about time.
January 19, 2007
It was the media that finally lured me back to this blogging space after a prolonged hiatus. Or, I should say, media violence. That was a big topic this week in the press. And one I'm sure you'll want to weigh in on.
It wasn't the initial story that got me annoyed. A coalition of teachers, parents, academics and police want more legislation to limit kids' exposure to TV guns and corpses and all those nasty pimp and ho utterances by rap stars.
But my hackles rose with the predictable tsk-tsking that followed, including suggestions that really, if parents just did their jobs and took responsibility, there wouldn't be a problem. Unplug the TV, they scolded. Pay attention to what your kids are doing!
Never mind that an entire industry selling sex and violence as entertainment has infiltrated every corner of our kids' lives from dawn until dusk, on billboards, radio waves and websites. Talk all you want about building a fence and barring the doors and unplugging, but it will still seep into your house like poison gas.
Here's my take published in today's Star - as a concerned mother who didn't know when I gave birth that technology cop would one day be part of my job description. And who is oh-so-tired of feeling like society at large just doesn't support the values so many of us want to instill in our kids.
I don't care about all the arguments over whether violent media leads to violent behaviour. We may never know for sure. And it's a moot point anyway. Because why should that be the only incentive to curb the peddling of violence as entertainment? Even if there's no proven causal relationship, are we supposed to just shrug off the fact that many kids spend hours watching murder and mayhem and auto theft or committing it in the virtual world, and say it's okay?
I'll never forget the afternoon I went into a nearby Internet cafe to interview an employee for a story. It was one of those first sunny days of spring, when the streets are full of strollers and cyclists. I descended the stairs to the basement to see several dozen pre-teens and adolescents glued to computer screens, firing virtual guns at virtual enemies. Some had been there for hours. Chances are they'll all grow up fine. But I can't help thinking something was wrong with that picture.
Are you concerned about media violence and its impact on kids? How do you monitor the media in your house?