Parents assume that pushing academic learning earlier is better for children - stimulating their minds - and certainly does no harm.  But what if it does? There's extensive research showing that young children learn best through play and there are no studies showing that ACADEMIC preschool results in more successful students.  Preschool itself certainly does - because children learn independence, conflict resolution, group participation and more.

What's the harm?

Early "instruction" in writing could lead to more children having trouble learning to write neatly (print or cursive).  Counter-intuitive, but a group of elementary school teachers shared their frustration with me.  See - when preschool children play with crayons, they hold the crayons however they like and they scribble.  But when they make a letter, they're forcing their hands into a repetitive motion. Some preschool teachers know how to teach the appropriate grip and some preschool hands have the fine motor skill to do it.

But the other children often develop an awkward way of holding their crayons/pencils/markers.  And that grip becomes a habit that needs to be broken.  Breaking a habit is a lot harder than learning from scratch.

In kindergarten - at age 5 or so - the fine motor skills are there and the teachers are skilled in developing proper grip.  Without a proper grip, it's hard, but not impossible, to write neatly.  And there's really no rush - learning to write well in kindergarten and into first grade will serve our children well.

Scribbling and playing with writing is great fun.  Learning to write letters is more exacting. What do you think - should they be writing letters in pre-school?  Or should we wait for kindergarten to teach kids to write?

I believe the purpose of school and education is to establish brain circuitry that enables our children to absorb and evaluate information, make choices and act upon those choices. So – does cursive have a role in wiring the brain?  If yes, then it likely needs to be taught.  If no, then it’s an antiquated tradition.  Today, I explored the science, rather than the opinions. 

Our local newspaper, SF Gate – the online version of the San Francisco Chronicle, published an opinion blog today on the question of cursive instruction.  The problem is the debate is between personal opinions and preferences. Most of the debate is belief-based – ranging from cursive is a traditional part of elementary education to "I hated cursive/ never use it/my child hates it/isn’t typing a better use of time".  Full disclosure – I take copious notes in all my meetings and they are all in cursive – it’s simply faster for me.

Andrea Gordon of ParentCentral from the Toronto Star sources some excellent research on the impact of cursive on neurological development.  Read her full article.

According to Toronto psychiatrist and neuroplasticity expert Dr. Norman Doidge - When a child types or prints, he produces a letter the same way each time. In cursive, however, each letter connects slightly differently to the next, which is more demanding on the part of the brain that converts symbol sequences into motor movements in the hand.

That sounds like brain development.

In the September 2007 issue of Brain and Language USC Neuroscientist Dr. Joseph Hellige and Stanford/VA Aging Clinical Research Center post-doctoral fellow Dr. Maheen Adamson published a study of "hemispheric asymmetry for native English speakers identifying consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) non-words presented in standard printed form, in standard handwritten cursive form or in handwritten cursive with the letters separated by small gaps".

These results suggest a greater contribution of the right hemisphere to the identification of handwritten cursive, which is likely related visual complexity and to qualitative differences in the processing of cursive versus print.

Also sounds like brain development.

Andrea Gordon sourced another neurologist who ties cursive writing to emotional circuitry as well. 

Dr. Jason Barton, a neurologist and Canada Research Chair at the University of British Columbia, whose research focuses on the role of the human brain in vision. Barton's findings, using brain imaging, suggest we recognize handwriting the same way we distinguish faces, triggering similar emotional responses.

His studies, among the first of their kind, show that while the left visual word form area perceives and decodes words for their meaning in written language, the right side is where we interpret the style of writing, allowing us to identify the writer rather than the word, just as neighbouring areas in the right brain play a key role in allowing us to recognize faces.

As soon as that recognition kicks in, it activates what's known as a memory trace – a biochemical alteration in the brain created by something learned – and fans out, setting off other sensory memories.

"Once triggered by perception – whether of a face, a voice or handwriting – memory reverberates through all the senses and in all the corridors of your brain, bringing back emotions, knowledge, all the different facets of information and experiences with that person stored from the past," Barton says.

Our children will learn to type.  And email, IM, txt are all very impersonal – wrought with opportunities to be misunderstood.  Cursive may be tedious and as adults we may choose not to use it, but it helps our children’s brains develop and it can be fun.  It can be taught when they are in pre-school and kindergarten and apparently, it’s better for lefties and children struggling with dyslexia. So I vote for teaching cursive.

My children are excited to  learn cursive and our school uses Handwriting without Tears - which seems to be true.  They're also learning to type.  I don't really care what they use as adults - but I care that they think through what they plan to say and ensure that the reader can understand it (because it's relatively neat and coherent).  What do you think – should school make us learn things we might not use as adults because it develops our brain pathways?



No one wants their kids to be fat, diabetic or forever on a diet.  And somehow, according to the CDC, between 12 - 17% of children are obese. Without obsessing, I definitely try to make good choices and teach the children to do so as well.

Obesity is a serious health concern for children and adolescents. Data from NHANES surveys (1976–1980 and 2003–2006) show that the prevalence of obesity has increased: for children aged 2–5 years, prevalence increased from 5.0% to 12.4%; for those aged 6–11 years, prevalence increased from 6.5% to 17.0%; and for those aged 12–19 years, prevalence increased from 5.0% to 17.6%.^{1, 46}

While it would be great to eat all locally grown, farm fresh, homemade, well balanced meals three times a day (or six if you are eating smaller meals), life gets in the way of all that effort. According to CSPI, a renowned (or notorious) public health advocate, there are ten foods that really should be avoided.  Take the poll - how many do you regularly offer your children?

CSPI offers a top ten best foods too.

10 of the Best Children's Foods 

• Fresh fruits and vegetables (especially carrot sticks, cantaloupe, oranges, watermelon, strawberries)
• Chicken breast and drumstick without skin or breading
• Cheerios, Wheaties, or other whole-grain, low-sugar cereals
• Skim or 1 percent milk
• Extra-lean ground beef or vegetarian burgers (Gardenburgers or Green Giant Harvest Burgers)
• Low-fat hot dogs (Yves Veggie Cuisine Fat-Free weiners or Lightlife Fat-Free Smart Dogs)
• Non-fat ice cream or frozen yogurt
• Fat-free corn chips or potato chips
• Seasoned air-popped popcorn
• Whole wheat crackers or Small World Animal Crackers

So I feel a little relieved since we basically avoid most of the bad foods and tend to eat the good ones. We do eat hot dogs - but only kosher and those are apparently better.  We don't eat soda and very little juice. The children like chocolate and we avoid sticky candy except in rare situations. How do you keep your head straight about what's good and bad and teach your children to make good choices?

My sons have become very strong skiers with more than a little daredevil in them.  It comes naturally - both my husband and I love to ski aggressively and we invest in lessons for the kids.  The boys have reached the point where we can spend a day skiing with them and do some challenging runs that are fun for everyone.  And the boys are doing them faster and faster.  In fact, they didn't really realize the ramifications of going fast. Until this past weekend...

We had the opportunity to let the boys experience some natural consequences to succumbing to adrenaline.  Benjamin saw a dip and rise that he wanted to try instead of a catwalk.  I said okay - and when he didn't make the rise, he had to side step his way up. 

That wasn't a good idea. He says as he side steps.  

Nope.

And on the last run of the day, skiing an expert run, Benjamin took off like a speed demon.  As I watched, I anticipated that he was going too fast and was going to lose control of his skis coming into an uphill area.  It was a safe area of the mountain in that other people weren't clustered around. And the contour of the hill was going to slow his fall.  And as he skied down and up, his skis slipped forward and he toppled backwards.  Splat. Laying on his back on the side of the slope, I asked if he was okay.  Yup.

I was going too fast.

Yup.  Only one way to learn that.

And then Taylor takes off and he gets going too fast as well.  He splats forward and howls over hurting his arm.  Attracted a bit of a crowd until he got up, shook it off, and skied.  

I was going too fast.

Yup.

And now, without injury to themselves or anyone else, they've learned that when you go too fast and get out of control, you're likely to fall and get hurt (if not physically, then your ego takes a licking). Doesn't really matter how many times we slow them down or warn them - only experience teaches this lesson. Hopefully it sticks.  Going splat at my age really hurts!

Luckily, very few of my friends have gone through a divorce, but right now, a good friend is embroiled in a messy one.  It’s been going on for over two years and I’m wondering how the legal system works since it seems to be failing spectacularly in this case. Recently, he had to be bailed out from jail, twice, from false accusations. And it’s their children getting hurt. My friend is a deeply involved and highly effective father - his children adore him and behave well under his supervision.

On the surface, it should have been a clean divorce.  No one slept with someone else. No one was abused. There was ample money to split between them. Two people married young and grew up into two people who didn’t have much in common and weren’t happy together.  Their divorce process mirrors the fighting they’d been having for the last three years, at least, of their marriage.  Could not have been a healthy house for those kids. After two years of battling each other, all the money he made has been either spent by his ex-wife ($5000 watches, for example) or redistributed to the lawyers. They live in the only state without no-fault divorce and his estranged wife refuses to settle for less than $24,000 per month in spousal support, tax free and half the marital assets without any of the debt. A nice life if you can live it.

Now, when he calls at the scheduled time to speak to his children, they aren’t available.  When he goes to pick them up for scheduled visits, he is arrested for stalking. He doesn’t want anything to do with her, but he loves his children and is committed to them.  What’s a Dad to do when the courts are silent? 

• The court ordered the father, mother and children to meet with a forensic psychologist. The father complied.  The mother did not. The court ordered the father to sign a parenting plan he didn’t agree with – and absolved the mother of meeting with the forensic.  Absolved the forensic of creating a report too.
• The mother calls Child Protective Services to investigate the father, claiming abuse.  Three different calls to CPS and three investigations show no indication of abuse.
• The children are late or absent from school over 30 days per school year. Principal doesn’t report this.
• The children, who are healthy kids although one has a manageable chronic condition, have seen a doctor over 100 times in the last 12 months. Pediatrician doesn’t report it.
• She cannot control her youngest so she locks him in his room. She wants him medicated.  Multiple physicians and the school psychologist report that his normal.  Instead of being happy that her son is alright, she seeks more psychiatric consults until she commits her five year old and gets a diagnosis for him.

And now, she’s having him arrested – using the stalking protections for abused women to  hurt him by trying to take away  his children. The police realize what she’s doing, but there’s no law to protect the rights of fathers.  And it’s not clear to me what part of the legal system is protecting the children. I’m sure there are women whose divorcing husbands are terrible to them – hiding money, leaving them impoverished.  But there are women who lie and who believe they are entitled to a life of luxury and that they must get attention even at the cost of their children’s mental and physical well being. It will take the sisters and mothers and female friends of the good guys who want to father their children to balance the legal scales. And judges, child protective services, educators need to advocate for the ones who cannot.

So, readers what would you do if it was you?  Would you abandon your children in order to stay out of jail and cease contact with your ex-wife? Would you wait until the teachers, principals, doctors, psychologists or someone who is involved with the situation decides they have a moral imperative to involve the authorities to investigate the mother? Would you wait until your child is actually hurt or does something that registers on the legal radar sparking investigation? Would you keep trying to ensure your children are in school on time, only are treated for illnesses when they are sick – even if it risks your own incarceration?  What would you do?