Put the calendar away, let the kids chart the day

As the mom of a 12-year-old and the owner of a home daycare business, I am constantly faced with other parents and their unending need to plan a “play date” or enroll their child in some sort of class or lesson. A vast majority of “today’s parents” have an insatiable appetite for activities and play dates. But, why? I don’t hear their children begging to go to so and so’s house or to join the local kids gym or to do any of the five to ten things kids seem to do in a week. Don’t get me wrong, I believe in music lessons, learning to swim, playing a sport and playing with the kids in the neighborhood, but within reason. Children are designed to work and what is their work? PLAY! When we as parents have our children so involved with planned activities that there is no time for unstructured play, we short change them and they fail to learn one of life’s most necessary skills, independence. Over-scheduled children are not learning to imagine what they could do with their own time. It is my belief that as we shuffle the children from one activity to the next and plan each moment of the day for them, all in the hopes of being a good parent and giving our kids “everything”, children fall short in learning to care for themselves and to chart their own course. By planning so much for them, we often fail to help them discover their OWN passions. Boys may not want to play sports and girls may not want to do ballet. I was recently at a Highland dance competition. There amidst a sea of giggling girls was one lone young man, determined to win first place and win he did! What if his parents hadn’t asked him what he wanted – do you think they would have enrolled him in dance? Probably not. But look at the confidence, security and life skills he is learning by charting his own way and succeeding! My advice to all parents is to take a moment and put the calendar away. Encourage your children to plan their own fun for a day – you’ll be amazed with the wonder they can create and the things they will discover about their world and their own lives.
-Mary

Doll Hospital

Something interesting happened in my classroom yesterday. The lead teacher led a discussion with the students, all four years old, about what to set up in the dramatic play area. She suggested setting up an ice cream stand as the weather is getting warm. One of the little boys said he would like to set it up as a place to take care of babies. Others agreed, boys and girls alike. When they arrived this morning the area was set up as a baby hospital with cribs, bottles, clothes, scrubs, and medical tools. The space was filled to capacity for the entire morning with children feeding, rocking and dressing the dolls. They took turns being the doctor and giving them check-ups and sometimes medicine. Even more interesting was that the girls spent very little time in this area. The boys thoroughly enjoyed it. I can’t help but think that this is likely because the girls have dolls to care for at home while the boys do not. If only these boys had their own dolls to play with at home, they could have the experience of caring for something on a daily basis. My hope is that gender-neutral dolls such as Baby GoGo will help to make it the norm for boys and girls to have dolls to help them develop the ability to nurture.
- Megan

Kids humor and gender-bias

At every age and stage of development children have their own emotional and intellectual relationship with humor. Humor brings families together. Consider how children may view humor, and how they may assign roles based on gender difference to what should and should not be found funny. In the article What's So Funny? Kids, teens and humor Part 1 by Erin Miller (Apr 1, 2010) she highlights girls and boys perception of what each gender "should" find funny.

"In our study, girls often mentioned that boys find 'stupid' things funnier than girls. While 'gross' and 'stupid' humor are perceived to skew towards boys, girls don't reject them entirely. In fact, there wasn't one type of humor categorically rejected by boys or girls. So as long as the content is gender-relevant, understandable and age-appropriate, all types of humor can appeal to everyone."

Erin Miller has clearly identified the gender-bias here. The study reveals that girls nor boys reject any single type of humor, girls readily proclaim that boys find "stupid" things funnier than girls. It's also addressed in the article that girls are "supposed" to find more humor in sarcasm and jokes that require higher intellect.

The benefits of humor are limitless. Stress reduction may be the most obvious, however humor has also been found to increase optimism and self-confidence. Humor is key to building relationships and crafting lasting memories. Keep in mind that humor brings along with it a fair share of gender-bias. Adults as well as children organize what is or is not supposed to be funny based on ages and gender. For example, a joke that is categorized as appropriate for a son to tell a father, but not deemed appropriate for the son to share with his mother. Pay special attention to moments when girls imply that boys humor in and of itself is "stupid", as any use of the word is hurtful.

Laugh, laugh often and with every member of your family. While doing so, notice when gender-bias may be limiting what your children, or your family is "supposed" to find funny. Boys can enjoy dry sarcasm and girls can giggle at physical humor, if your goal is to eliminate gender-bias in their development, then take the time to recognize that humor is not exempt.

Counteracting Media Stereotypes for our Sons

Thank you to Mary Tamer for taking a close look at a crucial conversation.

"In pursuit of the truth, and armed with the book's key points, I posed the first of many questions to my nine-year-old regarding whether he thought it was OK for boys to be considered "smart" in school.

'It's OK for now,' he said, "'but once boys get to high school, it's not OK anymore.'"

Mary Tamer relays the above conversation with her 9-year-old son after being asked to write the blog Boy, Oh Boy! for ED.magazine about the book Packaging Boyhood written by Lyn Mikel Brown, Ed.D., Sharon Lamb, Ed.D., and Mark Tappan, Ed.D. In her thorough analysis of the book, Tamer goes on to quote Brown.

"Packaging Boyhood addresses all of the ages and stages influenced by the stereotypes and media messages our sons receive, (ranging from the slacker to the careless risk-taker) it is particularly interesting to look at the youngest ages being influence and how a planted seed can that develops through time."

'Studies show that boys and girls, as infants, are handled and treated differently by gender, and that speaks to the way we all . . . interact with kids... I think the media impacts children almost immediately because of the way we interact with them, but when children start to really identify around gender and class and race is around three years old. Little girls who have a lot of media influences begin to naturally assume they should like pink and princesses, and the same is true for boys, who believe that they should like dark colors and trucks. Boys are also told that real boys don't cry and big boys don't act this way.'"

If we are going to make a significant difference in how we raise our children, both boys and girls, then we need to take the cues from Tamer and Brown to recognize the influences we are all subject to, and how it consequently shapes our children's perception of their own roles. It is crucial that we are willing to allow our sons to perceive themselves as caregivers and stay-at-home fathers. At the earliest ages of development and influence, breaking down the pink versus blue color boundaries and allowing boys to have a doll they can relate to teaches them the family principles that counteract what they will see in the media over the following decades.

"'In terms of play, there's a little more gender bending for girls allowed; girls can do sports, play with trucks, and be tomboys,' continues Brown. 'While this is outside of my experience, my inclination is that fantasy is a really important part of kids coming to know who they are, and being able to cross gender boundaries is a healthy exploration. A boy is not going to become a girl because he dresses in girl's clothing, for example, but in this culture, because there is so much anxiety around masculinity, there is pressure for fathers not only to be masculine themselves but to raise 'real' boys.'"

The book is a must read for anyone raising boys, (the counterpart Packaging Girlhood a must read for those raising girls) but we must go beyond reading about parenting, and begin to stand up for what we believe is best for our children. Allowing your sons to nurture a doll, and receive the educational benefits of this developmental play is the first step towards allowing him to think of himself as caring and nurturing, masculine adult.

To read Boy, Oh Boy! by Mary Tamer visit www.gse.harvard.edu/blog/news_features_releases/2010/05/boy-oh-boy.html

For more info on Packaging Boyhood visit www.packagingboyhood.com

-Sara

Playing outside is what childhood is all about

As the weather is finally starting to dry out and warm up, I started thinking about the joy of playing outside. As a kid, I remember spending most of my summer outside making mudpies, creating new games and playing with the neighborhood kids. As the weather is turning warmer, my kids (ages 4,6,and 8) are craving time outside. It is such a wonderful way for them to spend their days. They learn to cooperate with each other creating new games to play. They develop their gross motor skills by climbing trees, swinging, running, jumping, biking and riding their scooters. They work on hand eye coordination playing baseball and beanbag toss. They learn about nature by digging in the dirt, catching bugs, collecting acorns and pinecones, planting flowers and vegetables. In the past few days, the kids haven’t even asked to watch tv or play on the computer. They are having too much fun creating their own activities using their imaginations! Isn’t that what childhood is all about? I love this time of year and will savor every moment of it before the winter sets in again and it becomes too cold to spend too much time outside.
-Megan

How early does the gender divide begin?

So goes the age old question….Can men and women be friends? I’ve noticed certainly that preschool boys and girls can be friends. Both of my children had close friends of both genders at the ages of 3 and 4. They can easily find common ground in play. For example, my daughter and her good friend, a boy, often play princess and fire-breathing dragon or Star Wars with Princess Lea and a Storm Trooper. Their imaginary play is varied and everyone can find a role they enjoy. My son had similar friends in preschool, asked for play dates with girls, and did not discriminate according to gender. He is in Kindergarten now and I am beginning to see changes with the children in his class. I have lunch with them once a week. At the beginning of the year, there was no rhyme or reason to who sat with whom. It changed week to week, with boys and girls mixed together. As the year progresses, I notice more division. A few girls here, a group of boys there, another group of girls down the table. When I observe the older grades, all the boys are at one end and all of the girls are at the other end.

So what happens when they hit elementary school? Are their interests in play that different? If so, because of nature or the way they are marketed to? Do parents (maybe unknowingly) discourage play with children of a different gender, or just overly encourage play with children of the same gender? If boys and girls have a hard time being good friends before hormones come into play, what chance do they have afterwards?

-Katie

Children's Advertising and Gender Roles

Have you ever noticed that t.v.commercials will show boys out and about, while they often show girls in the home setting? According to the following study presented in this mediafamily.org article," Children's Advertising And Gender Roles" the differences favor boys and limits the scenarios girls are portrayed in.

Children's Advertising And Gender Roles

Did you know?

• Gender bias favors boys over girls in ads. Girls are more likely to show an interest in boys' products than boys in girls' products.
  

• Advertisers favor using boys, even in commercials where gender neutral products are featured. Either boys and girls are used together or only boys are shown.

Especially where neutral products are concerned, mixing the gender of children in casting could only widen the opportunities for child actors as well as the social perspective of children watching from home. The data on boys promoting "girls" toys was not even discussed. Could it be seen as so far out of the question that it would not even enter the study guidelines?

With a subtly notable casting change, an advertising department could do their part to reduce and eliminate the skewed message that children receive regarding their social roles and cultural expectations.

-Sara

(source: National Institue on Media and the Family, mediafamily.org, article: http://www.mediafamily.org/facts/facts_childgen.shtml)