Nanny Negativity and Mom-Shaming...Or Why P!nk's Tweet Brought Me Back to My Blog

And...I'm back.
I had a pretty crazy summer, by the end of which, I had a new job.  I am no longer working for the large Head Start supervising teachers.  It was too stressful and unpleasant to be responsible for so many adults' behavior and it was seriously detracting from my ability to work effectively to improve the quality of the education at the school.  Also detracting:  the fact that 99% of the people I worked with didn't agree with a word that I said about how to achieve high quality in a preschool classroom.   

Now I am working for an organization that focuses solely on improving quality in early childhood for all children across our region, through public policy work, advocacy, professional development, and direct work with schools and daycares.  So far, I love it.  It has helped me get a firmer grip on my passion for the field, and as a result, it has made me want to write on my blog.  Success!

Unfortunately, the first thing that inspired me to post is not a positive thing.  It's a little bit of a rant.

 In the mornings, while I drink my coffee, I like to read things on the internet.  These things range in quality and respectability.  The other day, I was reading Jezebel's report of celebrity tweets.  And I was really irritated to see that P!nk, who I generally enjoy, tweeted this comment:  "Swim class was SUPER fun today. My daughter screamed bloody murder while some other kids NANNY gave me parenting advice. #sweet"

This irked me.  I read the comments and was further irked.  I am including the link here, should you decide to review the comments for yourself ("You don't have to take my word for it...") http://jezebel.com/didja-ever-think-pink-that-the-other-kids-nanny-might-1358952596

Here is why I was irked.
I don't know P!nk's intention in writing the word "nanny" in all caps, but my assumption is that it was to emphasize that she was receiving parenting advice from someone who was not a parent.  Although,  let's stop and remember that when nannies aren't with the children they are paid to care for, they are real human beings with real lives of their own, so that nanny may have also been a parent.  Let's also stop and remember that nannies CHOOSE to spend their days with young children and some of them have been doing it for many years, so they may actually have advice worth listening to.

In fact, let me pause here because I'm beginning my rant a bit too soon.  I actually have really conflicting feelings about P!nk's tweet and the comments.  There are three things that this brings up in me,  the nanny issue happens to rise up stronger because I have heard and been witness to way too many instances of nanny disrespect, which I'll get into a little later.  The other two things are super related and deeply intertwined:  the act of giving parenting advice and the phenomenon I am going to call mom-shaming.  I'll number my thoughts for clarity's sake, and because I like lists.

1)  The nanny issue.  I'll pick up where I left off.  Nannies deserve just as much respect in the world of children's issues as parents do.  End of story.  All of you out there who are finding yourselves feeling indignant right now, please, stop and think about it.  Nannies are people who make people's lives better by providing love and care to children.  Do we disrespect them because we assume they are uneducated?  Is it because we are angry that their employers aren't caring for their children themselves?  Why?  Give me a small handful of good reasons and I'll shut up forever about the topic.

As you may have guessed, I used to be a nanny.  I loved it and I was amazing at it.  I am in this field because I discovered that I had a knack for understanding the needs of young children and babies.  I discovered this working as a nanny.  It is my one talent.  And I assure you, understanding young children is a talent, but it is also a skill.  It is a skill that can and should be crafted.  Some parents have a harder time crafting the skill than others.  Nannies craft that skill as a part of their profession.  Respect that.

Story:  Once upon a time, I was sitting in a class in graduate school (in a whole school devoted to early childhood development) and a classmate was telling me that we should meet up in our neighborhood some time to hang out while her children played because the only other people around at the park were nannies and "what would I have to talk about with nannies?"  I was too horrified to speak.  Too embarrassed to tell her that I was a nanny.  Too young, really, to feel brave enough to ask her what the hell she meant by that.  Either way, it was the first spoken example I'd experienced of how a parent felt an extreme distance from nannies.  I later saw it repeatedly when I worked in a drop-in play space where the nannies only chatted with the nannies and the parents only chatted with the parents.

I could go on, but I'll just leave you with this one suggestion:  Next time you see a nanny, hold your judgment.  Hold your judgment of the parents of the children and hold your judgment of the person who has devoted their life to giving love to other people's children.

2) Speaking of judgment, let's jump straight into mom-shaming.  I am going to specifically address this as a mom issue.  Typically, I try to refer to parents in general, trying not to assume that either gender is or should be primary caregiver, and certainly not assuming that all families are made of parents of two different genders.  But, in this instance, I am talking about moms because moms are the main victims and culprits.  (Because we're still getting used to dads acting as routine caregivers in our society, we tend to glorify any act of involvement that we see from dads.  This is also sad, because a dad is not a good dad simply because we saw him changing a diaper.  It is insulting to the many ways that dads are good dads when we assume their goodness based on their presence...but that's for another day).

If you read the internets, as I often do, you'll know about slut-shaming.  Slut-shaming is when women are made to feel ashamed of themselves because of the way they are expressing their sexuality.  Usually it implies a liberal expression of sexuality, but not always!

Another way that women try to make each other feel like crap, is MOM-SHAMING.  (I also just did a google search for the phrase mom-shaming and found out that it is already a thing and refers to moms confessing to things that they have done that makes them feel ashamed...I don't like it.)

Parenting is a really hard job.  Small children are really challenging.  Any parent will tell you this.  And yet, there is this expectation that, in order to be considered a good parent, you have to be perfect and your kid has to be perfect.  And because this is an unachievable goal, parents often feel incredibly vulnerable and fear that they are failing.  Some moms--maybe even many moms--cope with these feelings of insecurity by making other moms feel worse.  The basic idea is "if you're doing something different than me, then that suggests that I'm doing something wrong, and that really scares me, so I should say something negative about what you're doing to remind myself that I'm doing things right."  I would be willing to bet that many women who do this to each other aren't even aware that they are doing it.  But it can be extremely threatening to the mom who is being criticized.  Every mom has a story about someone--sometimes a stranger,sometimes a close friend--approaching them and offering them unsolicited advice or comment about their parenting.

Some of the hot-buttons are feeding choices, sleeping choices, and discipline choices.  And guess what?  There are no "right" ways to parent.  There is no standard of quality.  Good parenting can vary tremendously, and what really matters is that parents are making their choices intentionally and considering their individual child's best interest.  Someone making a different choice does not make your choice any better or worse.  So lay off of each other, already.

3)  Parenting advice.  I know it sounds stupid for me to suggest that there is something wrong with offering parenting advice, considering that I'm building a business doing exactly that.  However, here is the difference:  people choose to hire me to offer them parenting advice.  Unsolicited advice is NEVER an ok thing to "offer."  When you approach someone and give them advice, you are telling them, "I think that what you are doing is wrong and I know what's best for you."

Sometimes it may seem like someone is soliciting advice, but beware!  They might just be venting or looking for someone to commiserate.  Offering advice when another parent is upset still comes off as judgy and holier-than-thou.

If you must give advice, ask for consent.  Whether it is a woman in the grocery store whose toddler is laid out in the aisle tantruming over fruit snacks or your best friend from your local chapter of La Leche League, if you have something you want to share with her, you should ASK her first if she wants to hear your opinion.  "Oh, my son used to do the same thing, would you like to hear how I handled it?  It worked, sometimes."  A friendly smile and an understanding head tilt and nod can go a long way.

Unsolicited parenting advice often leads very directly to mom-shaming.  Maybe that is how P!nk was feeling when she was in the pool with her wailing toddler.  Maybe her reaction wasn't based on an intentional disrespect for nannies, but the fact that she felt insecure about her success as a parent in that stressful moment and that nanny's advice, perhaps unsolicited, made her feel judged and scared. We don't really know exactly what happened.  But I don't feel good about any of it.

 So my take-home advice for you (assuming you are giving consent by choosing to read my blog) is this:  Moms, dads, nannies, you're all in the boat together.  Why throw each other overboard so you can feel superior about your rowing?

Bad Cop

Although I've been at my current job for six months (feels like a lifetime...), a couple of weeks ago I received a piece of mail related to my former job (feels like a lifetime ago).

The letter was from the association of preschool directors in the town where I used to work.  They hold an annual appreciation dinner for the preschool teachers and parents have the opportunity to buy a tribute for teachers that they want to honor.  The names of those teachers are shown in an ongoing slide show throughout the evening and each honoree receives a letter stating who paid tribute to them and what they had to say about the teacher.

Considering that I had already been gone for a few months before the tributes were available, I was surprised to see my letter in the mail, complete with my out of state address.  Excitedly, I ripped open the envelope, wondering who had thought of me.  

I was delighted by what I saw.  I was being honored, and remembered in high regard, by a mom whose son didn't particularly care for me.  He was in my class in the fall and Mom had reached out to me for extra help at home.  She wanted some support to help her little boy become more independent and she became my first official client.  Needless to say, the Boy did not always enjoy my presence.

In her tribute, Mom made mention that Boy missed me, but what made my heart glow was this statement:  You make a great Bad Cop.

Considering the fact that I use a non-punitive, gentle style of redirection, I know that a lot of parents and other professionals think that I am too "easy" on children's negative or inappropriate behaviors. And I wasn't sure that it is clear to more passive parents that firm boundaries and expectations can be set without squashing a child's spirit or curiosity.  But being hailed as a "great Bad Cop" reaffirmed my belief that young children CAN be redirected and encouraged to have appropriate behavior without being yelled at, embarrassed,  ridiculed, or punished, and that I can help parents reach that goal.

I couldn't be more proud to be considered Bad.

A Note about Teachers

I can't stop thinking about teachers.

Today, I am mad at the teachers on my staff.  In the past two days I have seen and heard about the most absurd and unprofessional behavior that I can imagine (stealing other teacher's things, chatting openly about how terrible our summer program will be in front of parents, etc) coming from adults.  And it makes me angry.  It makes me feel like they are in my school, wasting their time, wasting my time, wasting the parents' time, and wasting the children's time.

However...

There was a national disaster yesterday and it directly affected two elementary schools.  The tornado in Moore, Oklahoma flattened two schools full of students and at least one daycare center (but probably more) full of babies and toddlers.  And it was the teachers who saved the children's lives.  The teachers put their own bodies between the tornado and the children.

The same thing happened in Newtown, Connecticut.  When children were in danger in school, the teachers put their lives at risk to try to save their students.  Some were successful, and some were not.

Those teachers are considered heroes.  They are heroes.  But I can guarantee you that not once, not for one single second, during those life-threatening crises did any of those teachers think that they were acting heroically.  They were simply acting based on the reflex of being a committed and caring teacher.

If we call them heroes during a disaster, we have to call them heroes every day. They are ready to protect their students from harm, at all costs, every day.

Even when that one kid won't sit still.  Even when that other one won't be quiet.  Even when that one rolls her eyes.

My teachers are no different.

Seeing images and hearing stories of teachers' acts of heroism in Oklahoma moves me because it reminds me that I have the immense privilege to work with everyday heroes.

Even when that one teacher complains.  Even when that other one won't put away her cell phone.  Even when that one rolls her eyes.

So when I go to work tomorrow morning, I won't walk in thinking of the rules they might break or the trouble they might cause. Instead, I'll think of the fact that I am with heroes and that I know that (God forbid) if something dangerous were to ever happen in my school that they would act based on that powerfully simple and awe-inspiring reflex of being committed and caring teachers.

Promoting a Healthy Level of Self-Esteem... Or Why I Don't Let Kids Win at Candyland

A lot of parents are concerned about their child's self-esteem.  At some point down the road our society became preoccupied with people feeling good about themselves, and I do believe that awareness of your own power and confidence in your abilities is a very important part of healthy social-emotional (and probably cognitive and physical) development.  However, as usual, some people take this idea way too far.

Yes, you want your child to grow up believing that they are special, a la Mr. Rogers.  (Great message at the end of this video, btw.)  But you don't want your child to grow up believing that they are any more special than the kid who sits next to him in social studies class, even if that kid never gets the answer right, or if that kid smells a little bit different, or doesn't have the "right" kind of shoes.  Believing that you are more special than anyone else leads to believing that you are ENTITLED to things that others are not.  And if you ask me, (which, by choosing to read my blog, you kind of are) the overly entitled people are the ones who cause a tremendous amount of destruction in our society.

But I'm not here to talk about the ills of our culture.  I'm here to talk about children.  And I am going to give you one little tip to help you avoid making your children feel entitled.

You have to let them lose.

It is unavoidable.  In life, sometimes, they will lose.  They might lose more often than they win, and, kind of like Mr. Rogers said, it isn't the winning or losing that matters, but how you handle it.  Teaching your child to lose gracefully, and without allowing it take a huge hit to their self-worth, will help them build healthy self-esteem based on their own skills, talent, and values, and not how they compare to someone else.

Let me break it down like this:  Remember that kid you used to know who cried or wanted to quit the game every time he wasn't going to win?  Did you like to play with that kid?  No, you did not, because it wasn't fun.  That kid needed external feedback, in the form of praise or coming out on top in a competition, to feel valuable.  That kid is only fun to play with when they're happy, which often meant that you were giving in or losing. And when that kid grows up, they are in danger of being an adult who requires some kind of dominance over other people to feel valuable.  I know it sounds dramatic, but it doesn't have to be.  We can provide our children with an internal source of pride and a positive attitude toward losing from a very young age, without damaging their growing sense of self-worth.

Before I begin with the detailed instructions on how to beat the pants off of your kid in Candyland, let me remind you that children are born completely self-focused.  They started life with the basic understanding that they are the only person in existence and everything and everyone around them literally revolves around them in order to serve them.  Provided that they are growing up in a healthy and loving environment, they don't stop believing that until they are well into preschool age.  So don't worry about building the self-worth, just worry about shaping it in the right way.

Also, before I really begin, I also want to remind you that there are different types of games that children play.  Some games help children develop their emerging skills, like Memory, but Candyland is a game of pure chance.  I will describe to you how you can play both Candyland and Memory with young children to help them develop a strong sense of self-worth, pride, humility, and community.

First, Candyland:
(As I said, this is a game of chance.  For those of you unfamiliar, or who don't remember, you move along a track on the board based on cards that are randomly selected from a pile.  If you draw a red card, you move to the next red space.  There are pitfalls and rewards along the way.  You might draw the Queen Frostine card and get to move all the way to the top of the board near the finish line.  Or you might draw the dreaded Plumpy card and have to move all the way back to the bottom of the board, near the starting line.  There is absolutely no skill, other than color recognition, required for this game.  This is the optimal game to play to teach your kids how to lose. )

Step 1: Play the game, as usual.   Make no attempt to trick your child or hide your good card or their bad card.

Step 2:  When you receive a good card, emphasize, "Oh wow!  I feel so lucky, I get to cross the Gumdrop Pass!"

Step 3:  When you receive a bad card, don't pretend to be sad or angry.  Even if you are pretending (because let's face it, you don't really care about or like this game), you are still showing your child that this is an appropriate way to react to a game... which it's not.  Simply say, "Aw man, I guess I'll have to move back."  Mild disappointment is an appropriate reaction.

Step 4:  When your child receives a good card, again emphasize, "Oh wow!  You're so lucky, you get to move all the way to Gramma Nut's house."  Enjoy and share in your child's excitement, and do not pretend to be disappointed.  You do not want them to think that it is ok to be irritated that someone else is achieving.

Step 5: When your child receives a bad card, simply say, "Oh no!  All the way back to the Peppermint Forest!  That's ok!  You'll have another chance to move forward soon!"  Then take your own turn.

Step 6:  If YOU win, say something like, "It makes me feel happy to win, but I sure did have a fun time playing with you!  I love it when you play games with me.  Thank you so much for playing with me."  Because, as always, the emphasis should not be on winning or losing the game, but the time that you spent engaging in an activity together.  Your love, respect, and quality time spent together will make your child feel more valuable than winning a stupid game like Candyland ever will.
ALTERNATIVELY, if your child wins, say something like, "You won!  You must feel so happy.  I'm happy for you.  I sure did have a fun time playing with you!  Thanks for playing with me, I love to play games with you."  Same message.

Now, playing a game with required skill, like Memory, is a little bit trickier. 
(Again, for those of you non-game players, Memory is the one where you have a set of cards with pictures on them, two of each picture, and you place them face down in a rectangle and take turns flipping over two cards, trying to make a match.  Player with the most matches at the end is the winner.)

Depending on your ability and the child's ability, you might want to throw the game, just a little.  It is not a  crime, as long as you didn't place bets on the outcome.  Chances are, you could easily win this game every time.  However, it's probably a good idea if you don't.  You will only win some of the times.

Step 1: Allow your mind to wander, so you're only half-engaged in remembering where that second cat was.  Engage in an on-going conversation when it's your turn, so that you're also using this game-playing time as genuine quality time.  If you're using this strategy, remember that you are also distracting your child from the game, so before you flip your cards back over, give it an extra few seconds so that your child's growing brain has a chance to see and process what you easily saw and processed.

Step 2: Because of this inequality in brain development, support your child's process by saying the name of the pictures out loud as they are turned over, or encourage your child to say them out loud.  This will activate the verbal parts of their brain, as well as their visual parts, giving them a leg up in remembering what they've seen and where it was.

Step 3:  Sometimes, just plain old pick the wrong card on purpose.  You'll know when it's the right time or not.

Step 4:  Alternate who wins.  This game isn't as tedious as Candyland (can you tell I don't care for Candyland much?), so go all in and play two or three rounds.  Make sure that your child wins some and you win some.  Sometimes losing by just a little bit is as valuable as winning, because it gives you the opportunity to provide the tension of anticipation and hope that makes games fun.

Step 5: No matter who wins, just like with Candyland, emphasize how much fun it was to play together, and throw in some praise for the process of playing the game.  Tell your child, "Wow. I was really impressed with how focused you were when you were choosing your matches."  Throw in another chance for them to feel successful by having them count how many matches each of you has.  If they aren't great counters, count together and then say, "You are really working so hard on learning how to count!"

Additionally, I would encourage you to make sure that your child has sufficient opportunities to play games with other children (and I don't mean video games, don't even get me started).  It is all well and good to have that quality time with your children, but peer interaction and feedback is equally important to developing self-worth, confidence, and appropriate social skills.  If you feel that one or more of the children playing the game are being unkind or having a hard time having fun, then you'll want to supervise some of the rounds and use the ever-important power of your words and facial expressions to demonstrate how to react to the natural excitement and disappointment of playing games.

Providing these opportunities to win and lose games and still feel good about themselves at a young age sets the stage for children to rely on their own hard work, earned accomplishments, and natural ability to feel powerful and important.  Ultimately, they won't be the kid that no one really likes to play with, making them much more likely to have a healthy sense of self-worth and value.

My "Typical" Day...Or Why You Don't Wear a White Shirt to Preschool

People often ask me exactly what I do at my job, and I find it difficult to explain.  To sum it up, I supervise the teachers of 15 preschool classrooms.  In reality, it includes so much more than that.  There is a lot of paperwork, a lot of quality control, and even more surprises and minute-to-minute management.

Friday was one of my long days, meaning that I start work at 8am, which is when the teachers arrive, and I close the building at 6:30pm when the last teacher and child from the extended hours program leaves.  And boy, did I plan to get a lot of paperwork done during those many hours.  I planned to do so much paperwork that I decided to wear a white shirt.  I decided to wear a white shirt that I had been so excited to buy and had avoided wearing for weeks because I was afraid to mess it up.  I wore that beautiful, soft-wash, button-down, bright white shirt on Friday.

White Shirt Hazard #1: I joined two coworkers for chocolate chocolate chip pancakes and coffee before work.

White Shirt Hazard #2: In the reception area, I worked with the receptionist to contact each classroom to find out how many students they had in each room (an every day task).  While tapping my pen on my chin as I thought about how to provide enough teacher coverage in those rooms, I wrote on my shirt a little bit.

White Shirt Hazard #3:  An unusually busy morning.  A staff member at another of our preschool sites passed away last week and yesterday was her memorial.  Many of our staff members attended the service, and I had a team of teachers from another of our preschool sites available to substitute during those hours.  I had to place them all in rooms that needed them, and take them directly there to introduce them to the other teachers.  Additionally, I had two visitors from the Keystone STARS program, which is a Pennsylvania organization that reviews and rates early childhood programs.  I had invited these two visitors to observe some of the classrooms to help me figure out how to improve the quality of our school.  I also had to place them in classrooms and deliver them there.  All of the running around caused me to sweat.  In my white shirt.

White Shirt Hazard #4: Carrying my coffee cup down the stairs to my director's office to have her sign papers.  Sloshed coffee out of cup.  Landed on pants, not shirt.  Crisis averted.  However, the paperwork was also averted, as we were distracted by the receptionist looking for upcoming dates to add to May's calendar.  It was at that point that I learned about a fairly large week-long fundraising/awareness raising activity that I have to help plan and carry out in two weeks.  Then I was called from the office to help that team of substitutes figure how where to go and what to do next.  More sweat.

White Shirt Hazard #5:  My director found me again (my coffee and unsigned paperwork were still locked in her office) to tell me that one of our more rambunctious and large students had just pushed his teacher down and she was injured.  We both went to the room where the children were eating lunch and the teacher was crying.  She filled out an accident report and I stayed to help keep the rambunctious child under control.  First, he tried to flip over the lunch cart.  I had to use my entire body to make sure that the cart full of pizza and corn (a classic school combo) stayed upright.  He then lifted his cot and tried to place it on top of another child who was already on his own cot.   I had to put my body in between them.  Eventually I was able to calm down the rambunctious child by giving him some tight squeezes on the shoulders and rubbing my hand smoothly but forcefully up and down his spine while he sat on my leg as I balanced on my other knee (we are approximately the same size), and we were able to move to his cot together.  I sat on it and he laid his head down on my lap.  However, he was still very restless and rubbed his face, covered in pizza sauce and boogers, all over my lap.

White Shirt Hazard #6:  I finally snuck out of that classroom when the rambunctious child stopped "being a good listener," to ensure that I wasn't rewarding his bad choices with my presence (which was also a distraction for the other children who were supposed to be napping).  I ate two bites of my lunch (also pizza) and I was called to another classroom.  It was still naptime and the teacher needed to go on her break.  The other teacher (a substitute from another room) was still going to be in the room, but there were four children awake, so they still needed two adults in the room.  I was in the room for approximately ten seconds when a child emerged from the bathroom and said, "The water is coming out."  He was followed by a steady flow of fast moving toilet water.  Within minutes I was using a mop with rusty screws sticking through the handle to push around toilet water, and then using the press handle to squeeze the grey water from the mop into the large industrial bucket.  Over and over and over.  When I'd finished mopping, I had to spray bleach and crawl around the floor on my knees to wipe it with paper towels.    As I was working, the adorable child who clogged the toilet kept getting up from his cot to tell me things and show me the skateboard on his shirt.
 "Ms. Jill, Ms. Jill.  I have a question to ask you."  I squatted in front of him and asked him what he needed to ask me.  He said, "Um.  My mom wears make-up here (points to eyelids) and here (points to eyebrows) and here (points to lips)."  I replied, "Ok.  Great.  Can you go back to your cot until it's time to get up.  Maybe you can sing the ABCs."  He answered, "Ok!  I'm going to sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star."  And that is what he did.

White Shirt Hazard #7: I finished my lunch in ten minutes and went back to check on the rambunctious child.  He was being a good listener, so I told him he was making me feel so happy.  Then I went to another classroom to help fill in for a teacher who had to leave early.  I entered the room as the children were finishing their snack.  Six kids immediately ran up to hug me with their melon and whole grain cracker encrusted mouths.

White Shirt Hazard #8:  Next week the Special Needs Department is having a Sensory Day for Autism Awareness month and I have been enlisted to help with the tactile activity.  After all of the children left, I practiced making oobleck and flubber with turquoise watercolor paint.

I left work at 7:00pm, only minimally stained, but maximally aware that the only way to be completely and totally engaged with young children and all of their needs is to be completely and totally unafraid of getting messy, looking stupid, having your ego stomped, or being up close and personal with pizza and boogers.

How Do We View and Value our Children? Or...Why we shouldn't listen to mainstream media for information about parenting.

Thank you to my sister, a new parent herself, for suggesting this topic for my blog!

Although I had been planning to keep you updated on my exhausting week celebrating the Week of the Young Child with the 250 students at my preschool, I think it's more important to delve into this subject at this point.  Considering that my career has moved from an advantaged community to an under-served one, I regularly think about the differences in expectations we have for our children in diverse groups.

The article that my sister recommended describes a study done by two researchers in the field of Family Studies that explains differences between the ways that American parents view their children and the way that parents from other Western cultures view theirs.  The article in The Atlantic suggests that the "differences are stark," and focused on the fact that Americans rank intelligence as a more important quality in their children than the parents from other nations.

While looking at the graphs in the article, I noticed that the percentage of American parents who ranked their children as intelligent was only 6%.  Compare this with the percentage of Spanish parents who described their children as easy: 20%.  With a second look, you notice that 10% of Spanish parents described their children as intelligent!  I became very curious about the details of this study and why the story was so focused on the 6% of American parents who think their children are smart.

Truth be told, I was more than curious; I was a little offended.  I knew that there was some sort of media slant because I am familiar with the work of the two researchers.  In fact, they are one of my favorite developmental research teams because their names are Charles Super and Sara Harkness, which sounds like a comic book duo, whether they are publishing as Super and Harkness or Harkness and Super (and they do do both).  This collaboration is responsible for the concept of the developmental niche, which describes that children are raised within and under the influence of their caregiver, their caregiver's culture, and the society and environment at large.  You can picture these levels of influence like a nest with the little baby in the middle.  First the parents' arms are wrapped around the child, and all of the experiences and beliefs those parents have are put into the child's upbringing, both consciously and subconciously.  Then, around that, you see the circle of the physical space that the parent and child inhabit.  Each of these levels, along with the child's own innate temperament, influence how they will develop.

Upon further investigation of the new Super and Harkness study, I came to realize that The Atlantic DID blow the story of out of proportion.  First of all, yes, there were differences found in the study between values that are important to parents in different countries, but that wasn't the emphasis of their conclusion, which looks like this:

 In summary, the patterns of both cross-cultural similarity and difference in parents’ 
descriptions of their own children suggest that these descriptions are culturally constructed in the 
sense that there are locally shared ideas about what child qualities are most important, most 
worthy of note.  Comparing across the six cultural samples, there is evidence of commonality in 
the group of descriptors that were among the most frequent in all of the samples.  At the same 
time, the particular ways that these are combined with other, more culture-specific profiles of 
descriptors suggests that each community has its own unique perspective on the nature of the 
child.

The study re-affirms the influence of the developmental niche, showing that the parents' view of their own children has strong similarities with other parents within their culture.  Most importantly, it states that, "across the six cultural samples" the most frequently reported qualities were similar.  The differences, which The Atlantic uses as their titillating thesis, is really sort of an interesting after-thought in this conclusion.  It's almost as if Harkness and Super are saying, "All of these parents have been influenced by their culture, but the cultures support similar views of children. Isn't that cool?"

HOWEVER, I think that the most important take-away from the study is the simple fact of their sample:

In each cultural site, we recruited a sample of 60 families with target children 
divided evenly into five age-groups balanced for birth order and sex: 6 months, 18 months, 3 
years, 4.5 years, and 7 to 8 years. The sample families, recruited mostly through community 
networks, were broadly middle-class, with one or both parents employed and no major health 
problems; most of them were nuclear families with both parents present in the home; and parents 
in each sample were all native-born to that culture.

The Atlantic is using this research to create a news story about how Americans are obsessed with their children's intelligence.  We already discussed the numbers and the real theory behind the research, but let's also take a look at how even that information is really only based on SIXTY American families.  Sixty, middle-class, two-parent, native born families.  I don't even know the number of American families that fit that description, but my intuition tells me that it is not a soaring percentage. As much as I love Super and Harkness, this study tells us how the very stereotypical American family views their children, not necessarily how the real-life, widely diverse families in our country view theirs.

To conclude, it has been my experience that parents, all within our borders, have a wide range of the positive qualities that they believe their children possess. And to leave you with one cliff-hanger/conversation starter, I'll tell you that intelligence is not the one that seems to be most observable:  It is obedience.  It seems to me that the more privileges you have the less concerned you are with how obedient your children are, or...your idea of what obedience looks like is different from that of parents who struggle to meet their children's basic needs.  Now, GO...DISCUSS.

Welcome!

Happy Week of the Young Child!  And welcome to my blog about the fun, fascinating, and often fearsome, field of early childhood!

As a professional goal for myself, I will be maintaining and sharing this blog by posting information, stories, and opinions regularly.  And by "regularly," I intend to mean two to three times a week, but some weeks are bound to be more packed with information, stories, and opinions than others.  Or, at the very least, some weeks are bound to have more time for blogging than others.

And what information, stories, and opinions will I be sharing, you may be wondering?  

The answer is simple and straight forward: everything early childhood.

Although I am not a parent, I am a full-fledged member of the early childhood community.  In fact, because I am not a parent, I am a far more permanent member of the community because no matter how much time goes by, I will always work with young children, whereas parents of young children eventually become parents of old children, and then teenagers, and then adults.  (The social-emotional issues in these phases of childhood may be very similar, but the logistics are quite different.)

Why do I have so much information, stories, and opinions about early childhood?  And why do they matter to you?

Another simple answer: I love young children and you should too!

The more thorough answer is this:  I have a Masters degree from the Erikson Institute in Chicago in Early Childhood Development.  This basically means that I went deeply into debt in order to know almost everything there is to know about the way we develop as humans very early in life.  I have spent the last several years working with families with young children in a variety of capacities.  I have been a nanny, both live-in and live-out.  I worked at a wonderful non-profit organization that offered support and an indoor play space for parents and their children who were three years and under.  I taught at a fabulous progressive preschool in the Chicago suburbs, and currently, I supervise a team of teachers at a Head Start preschool in a relatively underserved neighborhood in Philadelphia.  I have also worked as a parent coach, helping those who feel overwhelmed or concerned about their children's challenging behaviors.  Ultimately, I love working with infants, toddlers, preschoolers and their families, and I am darn good at it.  It might be the only thing I'm good at (apart from making a really straight French braid and delightful chocolate chip cookies), so I like to put a lot of effort into making my practice extremely intentional and using my knowledge and skills to help families feel confident and content.

Check back soon for my next official post about early childhood!  

Teaser:  This week, to celebrate the Week of the Young Child, I have designed and will be running a variety of interactive programs for the 250 students at my school, including an opportunity to build with giant blocks (made from cardboard boxes that once carried our extraordinarily large shipment of paper towels).  I'm sure I'll have stories and pictures to share!

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And a little food for thought:  If a child wants to be called by a name that is not their own, should their parent or teacher go along with it?