You may have already heard about the benefits of children having a hand in the growing, purchasing, or the preparation of their own food. Kids who are actively involved in the process, from field to plate, stand a greater chance of making healthier food choices now and in the future.
And the task of teaching kids to cook doesn't have to default to mom, the school cooking class teacher, or your favorite food show host. As a dad and a registered dietitian, I have found this to be great way to spend time with my kids while getting them to be passionate about preparing delicious yet healthy meals we all love.
Let me share some tips on how dads out there can cook up a storm with their kids in a fun and healthy way.
Research recipes or find cookbooks geared for children.Once you familiarize your children with the basics of cooking and how to cook safely, the next question is "What shall we make?" As much as you think your kids might want to learn how to make your famous baked anchovy-encrusted liver casserole, you may be surprised to learn that they want to start off with something more "simple". Go to your favorite bookstore or search on line for kids cookbooks or download some interesting kid-friendly recipes. But if you are stuck for ideas and want to start off simple, here are some great ideas my kids love.
Pizza!You can either start off by buying ready-made crusts or you can make it yourself with simple ingredients. Also, look for ready-made whole grain crusts or adapt an existing recipe for pizza crust by swapping out half of the flour for whole wheat flour. You can also use flour or corn tortillas as an excellent base to hold their favorite toppings. The key is "anything goes"!
Grillin' & Thrillin'It's especially hard for dads to hand over the reins to the kids when it comes to grilling. And part of that anxiety is an understandable concern about safety. I had my daughters start helping me cook on the grill when they were around 10. I always make sure to lay down a few simple rules to help make grilling fun and safe.
Now that they are ready, here are some great kid-friendly foods for grilling out or indoors.
Let's face it; sometimes you or the kids simply don't have the time to cook, but you still want them to have something delicious and healthy. Smoothies are the perfect choice that your kids will love to create and can share the "fruits" of their labor with you!
Lastly, just have fun. The finished product may not look "perfect" in your eyes, but congratulate the kids anyway on a job well done and enjoy every bite. They'll really be thrilled for just the chance to help you. And you know how the old saying goes, "Practice makes perfect," or hopefully, better than the time before.
So, what kinds of foods do you cook with your kids?
]]>I sat back for a moment then answered, "If all you think your daughter is going to learn is how to ride a horse, then don't send her!"
"What do you mean?" he asked.
I explained that many parents, especially ones who have never been to camp as children themselves, make the mistake of thinking that camp is about the activities or the facilities. While those are important aspects of camp, that's not what camp is. Camp is about making some of the best friends of your life. It's an exercise in self-reliance and social learning. Kids not only make some of their best friends at camp, they learn what real friendship is.
Since campers live in groups, it is also about learning the give-and-take of making decisions and getting along with all those "brothers" or "sisters" you suddenly inherit when you arrive. In a time when resilience--the ability to stick with something and recover from a setback--is a great quality to cultivate in our children, camp is an increasingly attractive option. I can't tell you how many parents have told me how much more confident, calm, purposeful or focused their children seem after a couple of weeks of camp.
But Are We Ready?
Many parents wonder when the best time is to send their kids to camp. The answer depends on your individual child. There are some six and seven year-olds who march eagerly off to camp without a problem, while some eleven year-olds cower with a fear of becoming homesick. If your child has friends at home and has been able to sleep over at grandma's or a friend's house, they are probably ready for camp. If your child consistently has trouble making or keeping friends, then speak with the Director. While camp is a great place for making friends, don't expect camp to magically do what your child hasn't been able to do at home.
The biggest question to ask is, are you ready as a parent to let your child go? Children are like little membranes--they pick up all of the subtle emotions of their parents. It helps to be clear with yourself about what your child signed up for in the first place, whether it is to make new friends, learn new skills or try out some new exciting activity or program. Think of camp as "life experience with training wheels." Camp professionals have been helping kids separate and become more independent for years. This is their true business. They tell you they teach swimming or arts and crafts or canoeing, but what they really teach is self-reliance and resilience--in other words, coping skills for kids!
Reassure yourself, as a parent, that you've done your job. All the advice, coaching, caring and goodwill you've given your child over the years is in there. Trust the job you have done. Let him try out his wings, even if it means he takes a little nosedive once in a while! You can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs!
How Do We Get Them Ready?
I created a few tips for parents to help them and their children get ready for the adventure of camp. They are as follows:
It also helps to have a few conversations with your child, before he heads off to meet his new friends. Here are a few things you can say--not all at once, but a little over time in the week before he goes:
So, good luck and congratulations on giving your child the "gift" of growing up! It will serve him for years to come.
]]>The average family can spend up $7,000 per child during the summer months. That's half of their annual child care budget! I asked our Care.com members if they planned on cutting back for the summer. In this economy, it wasn't surprising to see that 75 percent planned to find money-saving alternatives this year.
In the past, Ron (my husband) and I always put our boys into summer camps. But, this year, with the economic downturn, we've chatted about some other creative ways to cut costs while still making sure our 9-year-old son, Adam, enjoys his summer. For example, Adam would love to go to a baseball camp, but that quickly gets pricey. Our local town camp is a great alternative since it's more economical and many of his school friends would be there, too. Of course, with the local camp, we'd have to figure out after-camp babysitting... planning just never ends, does it?
If you're thinking about your child care plans for the summer, I've put together some ideas to keep the season fun for your little ones, while staying friendly to your family's budget.
Enlist Backup Babysitters
We ran another poll within the last few weeks asking Care.com members what kind of child care they'll need for the summer. The biggest response? A babysitter.
Before you hire a sitter, make sure you check the market rate. With college students looking for work, babysitting rates may be lower than other times of year. This handy salary calculator can keep you up-to-date on the local babysitting rates.
In the summertime, schedules can get crazy between work and the kids' activities, so prepare a backup list of caregivers. Sitters get sick (or take vacation), so you'll need extra help.
If you can, try using friends or relatives. Maybe they won't be your primary babysitters, but just using them as alternates can save money. You'll just have to help them out in return.
Share Sitters
Share the cost and split a summer sitter with a neighbor or two! This works great, especially if you're like my family and only have one child who needs a sitter. With the economy the way it is, most regular babysitters are used to these cost-saving arrangements, but you still want to be sure not to overload them with too many children. Try not to have them watch more than three kids under age 6, four kids under age 12, or more than five of any age.
Co-operation is key!
Care exchanges or swaps are great for setting up playdates and saving some money. They help parents connect with other families looking to share sitter services (for kids and pets). They're also an easy way to meet a family like yours and trade off babysitting shifts. However you set up an exchange, remember this--one day a week of free child care equals a 20 percent savings over the whole summer.
Summer Camp Savings
Many families are concerned about summer camp's cost. There are low-cost alternatives, though. Day camps can be great money-saving alternatives to overnight camps. And church or community camps often attract a wide range of local children, are usually pretty affordable and have a ton of activities for kids of all ages.
School's Out, Education Isn't
It's summer break for teachers too, you know. Many of them spend their summers as a tutor to pay the bills. Instead of camp, why not hire one for a day each week to teach hobbies and skills? Make it fun for your kids so they don't think it's a chore--pick a subject they're already interested in and create playdates by inviting friends. They'll enjoy themselves and their brains won't go to mush (which makes moms like me happy).
I hope these tips have been helpful! Let me know what you're planning to do this summer. If you have any questions, I'd be happy to help find answers that'll fit your family.
]]>I read the offending sentence out loud to our in-house expert on adoption: my wife, Theresa. As a malnourished baby weighing only eleven pounds at seven months, Theresa had been adopted from an orphanage outside Dublin, Ireland by an American family. She also has three adopted younger siblings. She was the expert, and I fully expected her to refute the author's sorrow argument. "This is a little much, isn't it?" I prompted. She looked me in the eye and said, "That sounds about right to me." Was there anything I could do to transform our daughter's sorrow? "No," she declared with the voice of authority. I realized how naïve I was. It was time for me to start thinking more deeply about the psychology of adopted children and adoptive parents.
Let's jump ahead to my daughter's eighteenth birthday. I found her upstairs sobbing on her bed. "I want to meet my birth mother," she cried. "You promised I could when I turned eighteen." Fast forward now to Joanna's twenty-third birthday, which we celebrated as a family that included not only our adopted seventeen-year-old son, Will, but also Joanna's birthmother and her family--including two daughters she later adopted from China.
Every adoption comes with a fascinating back story and, of course, that amazing first meeting between parent and child. But all adoptions come with questions and doubts, too, both for the adoptive parents and later on for the adopted child. These questions may continue throughout the child's entire childhood and adolescence. Each year I speak to audiences of parents more than a hundred times and whenever I mention that I am an adoptive father, an adoptive parent approaches me later with questions and concerns. Below are the top four worries that come up when adoptive parents talk about their children, and the one, big worry that adopted children have expressed to me in psychotherapy.
How can I be sure that the loving bond I have with my adoptive child is as strong and close as the attachment (I imagine) between a biological child and birth parents? The idea of "my flesh and blood" has a strong psychological hold on all of us. You can't raise someone else's biological child without wondering whether you are getting it "right." How can adoptive parents tell whether they have formed a strong bond of love, especially if they adopted a child later in infancy or childhood? Adoptive parents must contend with an extra measure of normal parenting doubt.
How do I raise a child whose temperament and learning style are so different from mine? Because traits run in families, the chances of having a child with a very different temperament from your own obviously increase when you adopt a child. In addition, research has proven that adopted children have above-average rates of learning disabilities, ADHD and other school problems. Things that came easily to you may not to your adopted child and vice versa. Raising an adopted child forces us all to stretch a bit to understand a different temperament and brain.
When my child has behavioral or emotional difficulties in childhood, how can I tell whether they are "normal" problems or adoption-related problems? When an adopted child hits developmental snags, as all children do, it is impossible not to wonder, "Is this happening because he or she is adopted?" Most of the time, most problems are simply developmental, true, but some problems like hoarding and stealing, or unusually ferocious identity struggles in adolescence may, in fact, be related to a child's early infantile experiences or to the sorrow and anger related to adoption itself. It's important to be able to talk about these challenges.
How do I talk to my child about his or her being adopted when it's hard to bring the subject up, or I'm not ready for it myself? Talking about adoption is always important and rarely easy. It used to be common to keep adoption a family secret; not so much anymore. Yet, I still run into parents who are waiting until their children are five or six before telling them. Yikes! Even if you are open and positive about adoption from the beginning, direct conversations about it can be emotionally difficult for parents and children alike. Waiting years to drop this bomb can mean intense feelings of hurt and betrayal for the child, because it changes his or her feelings of identity so radically.
And that brings me to the concern so many adopted children share with me in conversation--the question of fit between adoptive parent and adopted child: "Was I the child my parents hoped I would be when they adopted me? Have I been a good son or daughter to them?" All children hope to please their parents. It is one of the fundamental motivators in a child's life. They want to be loved, certainly, but they also want to honor their parents' love and sacrifice on their behalf. How does this worry about expectations affect an adopted child?
Let's talk about these and other questions or concerns you may have about your adopted child. I look forward to your questions.
]]>I reflect upon this story time and again when developing and producing television for the preschool audience. There are truths to be found in this roly-poly encounter; truths that we mixed into our show paint when we set out to create Sid the Science Kid. They are:
Lisa Henson once told me that her father, Jim, said, "As long as there is television, there will be preschool programming, and it is our obligation to make it as excellent as we can." All the preschool series we have developed and produced at the Jim Henson Company have been inspired by observing children and examining their needs in schools and homes. We try to forge into new territory, rather than mimicking what is already on the air, in the hope of catching the eye of the young preschooler.
When we dove into the development of Sid the Science Kid with KCET for PBS KIDS, we discovered that there were no books or published curriculum on teaching science to preschoolers. But we knew that there was a need. After all, weren't preschoolers natural scientists? We worked with a fabulous team, Moises Roman and Kimberly Brennan, who were already testing a preschool science readiness curriculum through UCLA and Rutgers University, to build an intricate curriculum that would inspire the entire series. But would such a challenging curriculum engage and inspire preschoolers? We needed to be open to the possibilities. After the first round of testing, we discovered that preschoolers and parents wanted even more science in the show! This was something we hadn't expected, but were thrilled to implement.
Max on his hands and knees, observing the roly-polys and what they were doing, always reminds me that preschoolers naturally love to learn. They are on a constant quest to discover and make sense of the world around them. Their plate is fuller than an undergraduate's schedule at Harvard, with everything from language development to science experiments (i.e., force and motion: when I throw the ball fast it knocks over Mommy's Starbucks). And they delight at every new discovery and skill mastered.
With Sid and his friends, we wanted to create characters that reflect the authentic preschooler on a quest for specific knowledge. Sid is our "real preschooler." He shares the same daytime routine as his fellow viewers and is surrounded by a world of working parents, ethnic and economic diversity, loving teachers, multi-generational caregivers, and positive and creative friends. Sid takes up the call of every preschooler, "Why?" We hope Sid captures the hearts of the preschoolers he mirrors, as he beckons them to join him on his journey of discovery: "C'mon scientists!"
Preschoolers live in the moment. It is our responsibility to provide them with programming that enhances their experience and delights them. At the Jim Henson Company we want to create shows like Sid the Science Kid that fill our preschool audience's world with roly-poly experiences. Or as Sid would say to our viewers, "Keep asking lots and lots of questions! See ya next time, scientists!"
]]>If you are new to being outdoors:
One of the hardest things to overcome if you are not used to being outdoors is a fear of what may be lurking there. Fear may lead you to try and over control the situation, to try and prevent any harm from happening to your child. This may ultimately have the opposite effect on your child that is intended by the excursion to begin with. It may confirm unreal conceptions about nature that may make them fear it rather than love it. To be sure there are things that bite (mostly mosquitoes) and stuff that may sting, or burn (like poison ivy), but these are easily mitigated, and in many ways are part of the beauty of the experience. The natural world is not Disneyland, encountering and mastering its challenges while enjoying its beauty, its wildness, is the part that makes it something much more profound.
Don't be scared:
If you are a novice to the outdoors, start by finding a place that you and your child can feel safe exploring, or that you could feel safe letting your child explore alone--or some combination of the two. You might start by planting a garden. You could talk to your kids about how plants grow and then go to the farmers market and buy seedlings that you plant and harvest together. If you can't garden, then try taking a walk in the city park, or town common, or the local nature reserve.
Letting your kids play:
In a world where childhood time is highly structured, full of pre-determined rules, regulations and outcomes, children often do not get the chance to explore on their own, in their own way and in their own time. Being able to make sense of their world for themselves is crucial for the development of critical thinking skills. The goal is not to show nature to children, but for them to show it to themselves. Let your kids set the pace, maybe even choose the place. Try not to be over-protective, try not to be directive. I recall when my son was two years old I would take him to the middle of a local forest and just let him wander, at his own pace and in his own direction. It was an incredible bonding experience as I wandered with him, watching him pick things up and try to figure out what they were, splash in a stream or dig in the mud. For hours we wandered, rarely talking, just experiencing.
Camping is also a wonderful way for you both to explore the natural world. From setting a tent up in your yard to hiking miles into the forest and roasting marshmallows over a fire, spending significant time outdoors will change your child's life.
Be a role model:
While children can and will develop a love of nature when allowed to explore it on their own, role modeling and the experience with nature can also be powerful. For younger children you can demonstrate curiosity by stopping to look at things you see. You could bring a magnifying glass, for example, and stop to look at how varied the colors of leaves are on trees. You could ponder out loud, "Wow! I never knew there was such a difference between leaves, did you?" The "did you?" question is an important part of experiencing nature for me when I am out with kids. Asking for their opinions or ideas in this inclusive way allows them to feel an important part of the discovery. In this same vein, after demonstrating how to look at leaves you might ask, "Hmmm, I wonder what we should look at next." Again, allow your child to engage in the wonder with his or her ideas. Then try to let free play take over.
What if my child has no interest:
Until they get their feet wet, perhaps literally, kids who have spent most of their lives inside may show little interest in a nature walk, much less camping. In these cases it will take some parental intervention to bring them into the wild. One way I like to get kids engaged is by introducing the idea of a challenge related to their imagination.
For kids into video games, I might inspire them to tell me what kind of fort we would need to defend ourselves from some character in the video world. Once I get the description, I would then say, "yeah, but, looking at the forest," where would we put such a fort if we had to build it here." Then I would set the challenge of making the fort together. I can remember hundred of hours spent playing harry potter in the woods outside Charlottesville, Virginia with my daughter and her friends.
Nature treasure hunts are also a lot of fun (and this is the beauty of exploring nature, it is instructional and fun at the same time). For example, I might tie different colored ribbons around trees or hide them beside rocks, and direct the kids to find the ribbons in a certain order. Or, for older kids I might say I really need help counting the number of maple saplings in a certain space (say a 100 yard square). I then show kids what maple saplings look like. I then say I am also interested, when they find the sapling, to know if there are any interesting bugs or animals on or near them. If you want some structure, you might visit the library and find out about the local birds or plants, and then go on a treasure hunt for these. Once they are engaged, they will begin to notice much more around them.
So, to sum it all up:
Here are two great books by David Sobel for parents to read about nature play: Beyond Ecophobia: Reclaiming the Heart in Nature Education and Mapmaking with Children. And this is a great resource for the importance of play and how to unlock your own playful exploring capacity.
I know many parents reading this excel at engaging their kids in the outdoors. Would you be willing to share your ideas, experiences, strategies and stories so we can learn from you?
]]>There is no easy or right answer to this question, but at that moment I was not concerned with answers. Rather, I just thought, Wow! Wow, because it was refreshing to hear about a parent and child engaged in a serious way with such issues. Even more encouraging was the kind of comparative critical thinking that was clearly going on between mother and daughter. The discussion filled me with confidence for the future. And yet, even as I basked in the knowledge that here was one very aware child with a mom who was an active part of her education, I knew such engagement is rare. Many parents are actively engaged in their child's education, but studies show few Americans are confident in knowing how to foster an environmental consciousness. A recent book entitled Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv highlights this phenomenon. Conducting interviews with kids across America, Louv documented how today's children are distanced from nature and issues of sustainability in a ways that ultimately lead to a devaluing of the environment.
If you read or listen the news at all, you encounter daily accounts about the widespread environmental challenges that we all must deal with. This trend is both disheartening and bewildering. Disheartening because we know our children will not share the same world we grew up in, bewildering because we feel powerless to do anything about it. So what do we as parents do? How can we raise environmentally conscious children and how do we best engage them with the issues of sustainability?
Fortunately there is a simple answer to these questions. Recent research has shown that more than any other factor, one thing does more to foster environmental consciousness than anything else; this is simply the act of getting children outdoors. As prominent environmental educator David Sobel eloquently stated, "one transcendent experience in nature is worth a thousand nature facts." It turns out that children who have an immersive experience in nature between the ages of 5 and 10, foster a deep love of the environment that they carry with them their entire lives. Aside from significantly increasing the likelihood that they will actively work to preserve the important life-giving aspects of the environment as adults, an engagement with nature has other positive cognitive impacts, from an improved performance in school to a greater involvement and concern for community well-being. A recent study of 300 of the world's most innovative thinkers and leaders showed clear links between childhood immersion in nature and an out-of-the-box creativity and tireless commitment to society.
So rather than teaching them about sustainability, I strongly encourage you to give your kids a primary nature experience that will instill them with an environmental ethic which will, in turn, inspire them to develop their own lifelong understanding of sustainability. As David Peri once remarked when talking about the pedagogy of native Americans, "when you teach someone something, you've robbed the person of the experience of learning it." There turns out to be nothing more important in the creation of a generation of environmental citizens than helping children learn about the environment by allowing them to experience it.
So, should you just let your kids loose in the wild? Stay tuned! Next week, I'll share the answer, along with tips on how to engage kids in the great outdoors. In the meantime, how do you go about connecting your kids with nature?
]]>With the election of Barack Hussein Obama as its 44th president, and with his young family calling The White House home, our nation took a huge, accelerated surge forward. This historic action understandably brings a feeling of pride and accomplishment to most Americans. And, perhaps most importantly, it shows all children that anything is possible.
A two-time graduate of Ivy League universities, best-selling author, extraordinary speaker, member of the United States Senate - often called the nation's most exclusive club - President Obama has repeatedly demonstrated skills and successes that are realized by only a minute fraction of the population. The First Lady, Michelle Obama, is a very talented and accomplished professional in her own right. Together, they are simply known as "mom" and "dad" to two school-aged kids who like pizza and mac and cheese just as many other kids do.
With the elevation of the first family to what some would call "rock star" status, children will continually be exposed to images of them on television, in newspapers, on the internet as well as in other forms of media. So, how do we use this phenomenon as an ongoing learning experience for our children?
First, the new first family provides other families of color with real-life role models as examples for their children, far outside the fields of sports and entertainment which many young people have regarded as the paths to success. The Obamas are the realization of the fictional Cosby family of TV fame, which showed successful African American parents raising energetic, spunky children. Now, millions of boys and girls will recognize that they have the capacity to become politicians, lawyers, doctors, engineers, teachers, architects or anything else that they choose. This new sense of optimism will undoubtedly be combined with a healthy dose of self-esteem; a necessary component of living one's dream.
Parents who live in predominantly white neighborhoods, can use the election to open their children's eyes to our richly diverse world. It's a prime opportunity to discuss the many different races, ethnicities, cultures and religions that exist. We may look different. We might not share the same beliefs. But at the end of the day, we are all people. And every one of us, big and small, has a right to achieve our dreams.
We should also acknowledge America's shortcomings as well as its strengths; that barriers and obstacles still exist which prevent some children from realizing their full potential. We must inspire the younger generation to be more vigilant and decisive than their elders have been in making the American dream a reality for all. We all stand to benefit from this endeavor.
The trek that Barack Obama took to his place in history was likely filled with some bumps along the way. The trek that African American pioneers took well before Obama was indeed treacherous and with great sacrifice. Because of them all, in this moment, we are picking up speed on our journey toward a country that offers opportunity for children everywhere. And it feels like we might just get there after all.
]]>The challenge for parents is ensuring that children learn to accept and respect differences, thus making them more productive adults. But, where do we start? Children don't come with instructions, but they do come with open minds. Much of what they learn about respecting differences comes from their parents. That being said, consider the following suggestions:
Start with us. Children listen to what we say as well as watch what we do. So as parents, we must deal with our own diversity deficits, so that we can lead by not just saying but also by doing. For example, one parent tells her children not to judge people by their color. The family lives in a majority white community and the children have had very limited interactions with blacks.
However, her children hear her telling friends that the blacks with whom she works are so lazy that she has to do their job and her job. If we are to teach our children to make decisions that are not based on stereotypes, then we must do the same. In this example, the people may in fact have been lazy. However, it is not their blackness that makes them lazy - they are just lazy. "Do as I say but not as I do" does not help children become more accepting of differences.
Get out of our comfort zone. For all the talk about diversity, Americans still segregate ourselves into fairly homogenous communities. Teaching our children to accept differences may require that we use the power of the internet to learn about differences, that we seek out cultural activities that are out of our community and explore the strength and value in diversity. It is not enough to simply visit cultural events, eat ethnic foods and thus learn about differences from a voyeuristic point of view. Instead, we must make a deliberate effort to get out of the familiar and show our children we mean it. Accepting differences should be how we live our lives.
Listen and respond. When children ask about differences, start by listening to the question they are asking and the language they are using. If in asking questions about differences they are using hurtful or stereotypical language, explore with them why such language is hurtful. Explain in an age-appropriate manner why stereotypes don't tell the whole story and are divisive.
Don't be blind to differences. Parents often tell me that they want their children to be "difference blind." This is both unrealistic and misses the point. Children will notice that Jouain has a different sounding name or that Yasmeen always wears a head scarf to school, or that Rajiv eats foods that look and smell different from what they eat. They will have a natural curiosity about this. As parents, we must help them appreciate and learn about those differences, not pretend that they do not exist. The question is not whether differences exist; it is what message we are sending by teaching children to be "blind" to differences. Unless we as parents are willing to help explain to children what seems strange or different to them, we will never be successful in teaching children to understand and appreciate differences.
Avoid political correctness. Parents who teach children to be politically correct when interacting with differences are making the situation worse. Rather than teach children the correct labels or names for people, let's teach them that differences are only a part of who we are. It is not the total of who we are.
Parents teach children how to brush their teeth, to comb their hair, to be responsible and to be successful. We do so by introducing and reinforcing behavior that helps achieve these goals. We should do the same when it comes to appreciating diversity. It is only then that we can move from tolerance to acceptance.
So, how have you been teaching your child about diversity? Do you think it's working?
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