One of my key parenting philosophies is to establish clear boundaries with my children so that they know what is expected of them. I've developed friendships with other parents - and some share my boundaries and some have different expectations of their children. My dilemma is whether or not to share observations of a friend's child with the friend.

Nothing angers a parent more than someone else offering "advice" on how to parent their child. Most of us are not experts in parenting - we're learning as we go. So, my general instinct is not to offer "observations" unless specifically asked.  I wonder if I am respecting boundaries or just staying safe.

Three situations - a mix of real and hypothetical - and I'd love to know if you would tell the parents and risk their anger and potential cutting off the friendship.  Or would you speak directly to the child? Or do nothing?

• You observe their child acting like a bully - verbally or physically - in a repeated way.  Not sadistic, but deliberately nasty with the intent of making another child feel bad. Should you let the children work it out?  Speak to the bully? Speak to the parents?
• You observe their child acting too mature for their age - flirting with adults of the opposite gender to the point of the other adult's discomfort.  Should the adult involved say something?  Should an observer?
• You observe their child cheating - in a game.  Again - should the players work it out?  Should you address the child or address the parents?

And when should you act - in the moment or after reflection?  Or not at all? What is the trigger between letting children work it out and helicopter parenting?

We say it takes a village, but whenever I think of recanting a negative story about a friend's child to the friend, I think deeply about the helpfulness.  Correcting behavior works best (some would say only) immediately folllowing the offense.  The parent may become angry with their child and not be able to effect meaningful change. I wonder if I am really helping the child and parent or just "tattling". What do you do?

For the record, I give any of you the right to call my kids out on an error immediately when it happens and help them choose more appropriate behavior.  Please let me know afterwards.

When I was a kid, Skittles were just a sweet and sour candy that you either ate or smooshed in front of the high school in the colors of the opposing team.  Yesterday, I learned about the latest drug experimentation craze among tweens and teens and it's called a Skittles Party.

A growing problem in drug abuse is prescription drug abuse. Apparently there is a misconception that something prescribed by a doctor is "safe".  And this misconception isn't limited to children and teenagers. A "skittles party" is when kids each bring a variety of prescriptions - think Ritalin, Oxycodone, Tylenol with Codeine - to a "party".  They toss the pills into a bag/container/box.  Then they reach in, pull out a random medication and take it.

In a 2005 survey by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America, 19% of U.S. teenagers — roughly 4.5 million youths — reported having taken prescription painkillers such as Vicodin or OxyContin or stimulants such as Ritalin or Adderall to get high.

This isn't a new trend - it's been growing steadily throughout this decade (and probably earlier). What's new to me is that according to my friend at the Partnership for a Drug-Free America, kids in 5th grade are having Skittles Parties because they have NO FEAR.

My eldest is halfway through third grade. I didn't see anyone try drugs stronger than cigarettes until high school and only pot and alcohol in high school (or ever, for that matter, but I'm not all that interesting).  It bothers me a little that his prescription for Amoxicillin tastes so good that he ASKs for it.  But he knows he's only supposed to have it twice a day.

So now I am puzzled. I'm pretty sure that if I asked him if he ever considered taking someone else's medications he'd look at me like I was purple-skinned.  In an effort to address my puzzlement, I discovered that the Partnership for a Drug-Free America has some guidelines by age and that my husband and I are already doing the prevention work appropriate for my children's ages.

Check out the Parent Toolkit for preventing drug abuse - Grades K-3

But he's almost in 4th grade and the tactics change in Grades 4-6. So what are we going to do?  We'll be:

• Emphasizing our household rules and values
• Talking about what to do in a situation you don't like.
• Continuing to restrict what television they watch and talk about what they see
• Teaching them to make good choices about how they treat their bodies
• Praying that they stay safe

What do you do to educate your children about drugs and alcohol?  When did you start?

And if you think it's harmless - check out these two links...sad.

• Dangers of prescription drug abuse
• Overdoses from cold medication

Young children are bluntly honest because they haven't learned the filters that keep most of us from sayine exactly what we feel.  It's amazing when you calculate the amount of time we spend as adults managing what we say to protect ourselves and others. Young children don't bother - they just ask "what about me."

Recently, I had to take a business trip for a couple of days. Rather than just disappear, I told my children that I would be out of town.  My sons nodded and went about their evening.  My daughter was quite concerned:

I don't want you to go.

I have to go.

But who's going to take care of me?

Daddy. Plus our au pair (and our new au pair who was learning the ropes). And your brothers.

Oh.  Okay.

Off she ran to go play and continue with her evening, nonplussed by my departure.

In almost every interaction, consciously or not, I think people strive to know how it will impact "me". And that's not bad - some of the impacts can be to make me feel like I've made an impact on the world or improved someone else's life. I think that teaching my children that it's okay to feel good about doing good will encourage them to give back.

This weekend, we celebrated Purim and the good deed is to have a celebration and to ensure that everyone can have a celebration by giving gifts of food.  My daughter understood that she got pleasure making noise with her grogger (noisemaker).  My sons learned that there is deep satisfaction from donating food to a Food Bank and ensuring hungry families can eat. I really enjoyed everything about this holiday while teaching my children that to celebrate helping others.

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?



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!