Playful Learning

It takes one full hand of coconut, 2 tablespoons of concentrated orange juice, 3 pieces of orange, 4 slices of apple, 5 cubes of cheese, 6 slices of banana, 7 pieces of melon, and 8 grapes, stirred 9 times, to make a Number Salad. (video here)

And it takes a lot of loving sensitivity to children and the way children learn, to parents and playfulness, to make a site you can call, with pride and integrity, Playful Learning.

If you're looking for a great way to start the new year, consider starting with this.

from Bernie DeKoven, funsmith

All we are saying is "give kids a chance"

In her article, The Growing Backlash Against Overparenting, in the Nov 20 issue of Time magazine, Nancy Gibbs gives "helicopter parents" a lot to think about, and, hopefully, even more to question.

"The insanity crept up on us slowly," she begins; "we just wanted what was best for our kids. We bought macrobiotic cupcakes and hypoallergenic socks, hired tutors to correct a 5-year-old's 'pencil-holding deficiency,' hooked up broadband connections in the treehouse but took down the swing set after the second skinned knee. We hovered over every school, playground and practice field - 'helicopter parents,' teachers christened us, a phenomenon that spread to parents of all ages, races and regions."

The thing is, according to Gibbs, change, at last, is a-brewin':

"Since the onset of the Great Recession, according to a CBS News poll, a third of parents have cut their kids' extracurricular activities. They downsized, downshifted and simplified because they had to — and often found, much to their surprise, that they liked it. When a TIME poll last spring asked how the recession had affected people's relationships with their kids, nearly four times as many people said relationships had gotten better as said they'd gotten worse."

So we're learning. All over again. The hard way.

Gibbs' article is as compassionate as it is wise.

"Fear is a kind of parenting fungus: invisible, insidious, perfectly designed to decompose your peace of mind. Fear of physical danger is at least subject to rational argument; fear of failure is harder to hose down. What could be more natural than worrying that your child might be trampled by the great, scary, globally competitive world into which she will one day be launched? It is this fear that inspires parents to demand homework in preschool, produce the snazzy bilingual campaign video for the third-grader's race for class rep, continue to provide the morning wake-up call long after he's headed off to college."

One of my favorite insights in the article is a "pro-boredom" statement from Carl Honoré, author of Under Pressure: Rescuing Our Children from the Culture of Hyper-Parenting. "Children," he says, "need that space not to be entertained or distracted. What boredom does is take away the noise ... and leave them with space to think deeply, invent their own game, create their own distraction."

via Jed Hartman


from Bernie DeKoven, funsmith

Unconditional Parenting

In an article published in the New York Times, Alfie Kohn, who, by sheer serendipity, happens to be author of a book called Unconditional Parenting, writes:

"...positive and negative conditional parenting were harmful, but in slightly different ways. The positive kind sometimes succeeded in getting children to work harder on academic tasks, but at the cost of unhealthy feelings of "internal compulsion." Negative conditional parenting didn’t even work in the short run; it just increased the teenagers' negative feelings about their parents....praising children for doing something right isn’t a meaningful alternative to pulling back or punishing when they do something wrong. Both are examples of conditional parenting, and both are counterproductive."

One more small step for unconditional parenting, unconditional love, unconditional fun.

from Bernie DeKoven, funsmith

"Our sense of self becomes defined by the contingent ways in which we connect with others"

On brain research:

"Our sense of self becomes defined by the contingent ways in which we connect with others. Our brains are structured to be connected to other brains. Collaborative communication involves the spontaneous connection of each side of the brain to that of the other person as we share signals in both the verbal (left) and nonverbal (right) domains. This dance of communication not only enables us to feel close and connected to others but also allows our minds to feel coherent and in balance. Our sense of "I" is profoundly influenced by how we belong to a 'we.'"

( I am using the italics here for my own emphasis and we could use the word "me" as well as the word "I". )

Parenting from the Inside Out by Daniel J. Siegel and Mary Hartzell, M.ED. Pages 88-89

sent to us courtesy of Magdalena Cabrera, funscout

see also Fred Branfman's interview with Dr. Siegel in Salon


from Bernie DeKoven, funsmith