Four heroes in the news:

• Trans activist Jenn Burleton, founder and executive director of TransActive Education & Advocacy, a Portland, Oregon based organization that works with parents and schools to support transgender and gender-variant children.
• 18-year-old student Clyde Calloway, for helping to organize a Gay-Straight Alliance at his high school in rural Kentucky, despite threats of violence.
• Mother and writer Sarah Hoffman, whose article in Cookie magazine shows a straight parent’s thoughtful support of her gender-variant son.
• Judy Shepard, who needs little introduction, but who has been fighting to replace hate with acceptance for ten years now, as USA Today documents.

. . . and one villain:

• Oklahoma State Rep. Sally Kern, who thought she was giving her anti-gay tirade only to fellow Republicans. Unfortunately for her, someone recorded the speech in which she says “Not everybody’s lifestyle is equal, just like not all religions are equal” and “I honestly think [homosexuality is] the biggest threat our nation has, even more so than terrorism or Islam.” The Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund has written an open letter to Kern, condemning her speech. You can add your name to the signatories. Pam has some other ideas for actions to take against Kern.

Children need to play. Oh, that’s obvious, you say—but according to NPR’s Alix Spiegel, children today need more “freewheeling imaginative play,” as opposed to structured enrichment classes or play centered around single-purpose toys. I’ve long felt this; one of the many reasons my son has my 25-year-old Legos rather than today’s versions. (OK, there’s some sentimentalism in there, too.) With the older Legos, for example, you had to build a horse out of cubes and angle-bricks, and could make it yellow or blue if you liked; today, the horse is premolded and precolored. I’d rather give my son a paper towel tube to use as a telescope/flashlight/light saber/car tunnel than buy four separate items. I’m not a purist, but give me a good old fashioned wooden block set over the Bob the Builder “Load and Play” Factory any day.

Television advertising, which began promoting specific toys at the expense of improvised activities, is partly to blame, relates Spiegel, citing Brown University cultural historian Howard Chudacoff. President Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” initiative gets negative marks, too. Yale psychological researcher Dorothy Singer explains, “Because of the testing, and the emphasis now that you have to really pass these tests, teachers are starting earlier and earlier to drill the kids in their basic fundamentals. Play is viewed as unnecessary, a waste of time.”

Worth a full read. I’ll also add that I think the best way to get kids to play with imagination is to get out there and play with them. Pirates on the horizon!

Continuing the theme of education from earlier this week:

In the U.K., the Commons education committee has warned that creativity is a “second-order priority” in the country’s schools, but should be a fundamental part of learning, with adequate funding. “We believe that the best education has creativity at its very heart,” they say.

I couldn’t agree more. I’m concerned, however, about their suggestion that “there should be an assessment of creative skills alongside academic tests.” How does one measure creativity? “Here, kid, show us what you can make with these Legos”? I’ll concede there has to be some evaluation to determine if the teaching is effective; I just hope it does take the form of a broad “assessment” rather than a grade, and considers the many ways people can be creative. My mom, for example, is a fine watercolor artist, but not so good with the Legos. My dad is a great photographer, but couldn’t paint anything more complicated than the kitchen ceiling (and I’m talking Sherwin Williams Bright White, not a reproduction of the Sistine Chapel).

On a related note, the New York Times discusses the movement for universal prekindergarten (UPK), and tackles the question of what the goals of such a hypothetical program should be. Writer Ann Hulbert notes a socioeconomic split, with well-educated (and thus likely to be more affluent) families preferring the “‘whole child’ end of the pedagogical spectrum.” Their children are already learning the ABCs, so the parents favor classrooms with “individualized exploration and creative classroom collaboration to promote social and emotional growth. That entails having well-trained teachers at hand to comment and facilitate, like attentive parents, rather than overtly direct. Not cheap, it’s what many child experts consider developmentally correct.”

In contrast, she says, lower-income families and families from other cultures may “expect more work than play in school. Bolstering kids’ deference to adults, not just boosting kids’ confidence, is also valued in many families. Early reading and math readiness often counts most of all, and teachers hold the key. It’s an invitation to ‘direct instruction,’ which appeals to school administrators eager for a cost-effective jump-start on “skilling” for the No Child Left Behind testing that starts in third grade.”

Hulbert takes the middle ground and feels that “at each end of the spectrum there are pedagogical lessons the other end wouldn’t get otherwise and that everyone could benefit from.” She notes, however, that although many (including Hillary Clinton and John Edwards) are touting the benefits of affordable and available (though not necessarily mandatory) pre-K, “There is little mention of, say, pretend play in the pitch for government-subsidized pre-K.”

Elsewhere in the Times, Sara Rimer looks at stress levels throughout elementary and secondary education. She points out that in Needham, Massachusetts, “school officials had responded to youth surveys indicating troubling rates of alcohol and drug use and depression—rates like those at other affluent high schools—by establishing an initiative, starting in elementary school, to help students develop better emotional and social skills.”

Again, what say you? Are programs for creative, emotional, and social development a perk for the rich, or a fundamental part of any education? To what extent should schools, rather than parents, teach these skills? Thoughts from both homeschoolers and those with kids in traditional education are welcome.

This Sunday’s Boston Globe Magazine had an exposé on the Better Baby Institute, which claims to have created a method for accelerating babies’ development. Physical therapist Glenn Doman founded the Institute to help brain-damaged children recover function, and he (along with daughter Janet) is now applying his findings to well infants and toddlers. “We are persuaded that every child born has, at the instant of birth, a greater potential intelligence than Leonardo da Vinci ever used.”

It’s a statement full of promise, but when it leads to three-year-olds being drilled with flashcards of the Mona Lisa, Maria de Medici, and other famous works of art (or animals like the two-spotted ladybird beetle and the periodical cicada), or a one-year-old wearing a pedometer so her parents can see how her daily distances match up to the Institute’s benchmark of half a mile in 18 minutes, one wonders if the supposed boost is worth the cost.

In contrast, Globe author Neil Swidey cites a number of studies showing that children with the earliest letter, number, and word skills are not necessarily those who do best in the long run. Pushing too hard can in fact hinder development. If we ask children to do something for which their brains are not ready, says Maryanne Wolf, professor of child development at Tufts University, “You run the risk of making a child feel like a failure before they’ve even begun.”

I’m a skeptic when it comes to special “methods” for improving a young child’s intelligence. Titles like the Domans’ How To Multiply Your Baby’s Intelligence, How To Give Your Baby Encyclopedic Knowledge, and How To Teach Your Baby To Be Physically Superb make me cringe. Read to a child. Expose them to a variety of objects and experiences. Incorporate letters, numbers, and music into your daily activities, but don’t obsess about it. Make sure they play and socialize. Beyond that, I don’t think there is much we can do to stack the deck.

One of the many other things that bothers me about programs like the Domans’ is the focus on rote identification and a selectivity about what constitutes intelligence. Is a child who can identify Claude Debussy really any smarter than one who can identify Cinderella or Thomas the Tank Engine? Does it matter that the child can’t put the former into any kind of context, but can relate to Cinderella or Thomas as characters in stories they’ve heard? In a toddler, knowing Debussy or the Mona Lisa is not intelligence, but mere parroting. Yes, they’ll learn some language skills through that process of parroting, but unless they also have a Mona Lisa doll and friends with similar toys, they’ll get a lot more practical use from knowing Thomas or Cinderella. (I hate the whole mass-marketing approach to children’s toys, I really do—but I also realize there’s social value in being able to talk about these characters with the kid next door.) In some ways, Doman’s method is the memorize-for-the-test approach engendered by No Child Left Behind, taken to its early extreme. If your children memorize enough, they will pass. If they start early, maybe they will even become geniuses.

What say you? Are intelligence-improvement programs like the Domans’ (or the Baby Einstein DVDs) worth it? How can we make reasonable efforts to ensure our children are learning, and challenge them to fulfill their potential, but not push them beyond where they are mentally and physically ready to go?

Lesbian mom April has just launched Rainbow Spectrum, a site for GLBTQ families to share information about autism spectrum disorders. It’s still in the early stages, but she’s hoping it will grow as word spreads. Here’s what she tells us:

I started Rainbow Spectrum to address a need that our family has, namely to share information and advice concerning autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) in a safe environment for GLBTQ parents. I found a few message boards for autism, but we’ve had some less than supportive experiences on other parenting boards before. Frankly, I just don’t have the energy or patience to have to explain/ defend my family while also trying to get constructive information about ASDs and the, at times daily, issues we deal with because of it.

The site has a resource directory for GLBTQ-friendly practitioners (Pediatricians, Dev. Pediatricians, Speech Therapists, Occupational Therapists, etc.) that I will be adding to as people provide information. It will be more robust as people find the site and provide me with info about their practitioners.

Our OT group has graciously offered to provide us with informational content, so the site will have some info from professionals soon. I have added a forum so that people can chat about common problems they are facing in a safe environment (I moderate the list). Any doctors, therapists, etc. who would like to help provide guidance or content can contact me through the site. Don’t be surprised if the site has a few makeovers and changes in the next few months. It may take me awhile to get the site sorted out since I’m new to this whole web site management thing—please bear with me!

You can e-mail April about the site at april@rainbowspectrum.net.

There’s always a first time. I was with my son at his school playground last week, taking advantage of the unseasonably warm weather to hang with the other parents and kids at the end of the day. My son wandered over to the sandbox, where another boy his age was playing. They introduced themselves in the soft, hesitant tones of children still practicing social niceties.

The other boy then asked “What’s your cousin’s name?”

My son looked puzzled, as did I. “I don’t have a cousin,” he said. (He does, of course, but not in the vicinity.)

“What’s your cousin’s name?” the boy asked again, with the persistence of the preschooler. The best I can figure is that he meant the other redhead on the playground, who is no relation except insofar as we carrot-tops all have some common genetic link back down the evolutionary tree. My son again responded in the negative.

The boy went in a different direction. “What’s your dad’s name?”

No one else heard the gong going off in my head. I kept silent, wanting to see how my son handled it. He paused for just a second to think.

“Well, that’s Mommy,” he explained, gesturing to me. “And the other one’s Momma, but she’s at work now.”

“This truck can go faster than the boat,” said the boy, picking up two of the somewhat battered toys sitting in the sand, and doing a demonstration.

Bravo, young man, I thought to my son, proud that he’d found his own answer. I was heartened, too, by the other boy’s simple acceptance of the response. Maybe they will indeed grow up into a better world.

It struck me, then, that the two of them, going to the same school and playing together with nary a raised eyebrow from parents or teachers, represented another sort of progress. My son is white, and his new friend is black. No, the world isn’t perfect yet, for either of them, but it’s a whole lot better than it was. With effort and luck, it will continue in that direction. I watched them drive trucks around, rapt in the present, unaware of either the past or future they embodied. Two boys, covered in sand and hope.

Another guest post today by Sara Whitman of Suburban Lesbian Housewife. I talk a lot about toddlers and preschool-age children, because that’s where my personal experience is. Sara reminds us, however, that the challenges of parenting change, but don’t ease, as our children grow older.

My son Ben came home today and told me he has been given half credit for both his social studies and science homework.

I forgot to finish it, he said.

But I asked you last night if your homework was done…

I know, I know, don’t have a fit!

I was not having a fit. I was incredulous that he lied to me the night before, but I was being very calm.

I need you to go do your homework now.

OKAY OKAY, IT’S NOT A BIG DEAL, Ben shouted. It is clearly a big deal to him.

Ben is a kid who wants to do well but doesn’t want to work at it. He wants to be famous but won’t try out for a theater club. He wants to be rich but doesn’t save his allowance- ever. He wants to get great grades but he doesn’t put any time in the work. He is, without question, a kid who could get straight A’s. It would not be easy, but he could do it.

Newton is a very competitive public school district. The level of intensity has been written about in the New York Times. Most parents in this high-pressure suburban school want their kid to get A’s. to be first chair in the band, to get the solo part and to be class president. Problem is, not everyone can be the best.

But I feel it creeping up for me now my son is in Middle School. Before when he did a school project and it came out looking less than stellar, I was proud of myself for not helping, except to buy the supplies. I wasn’t going to be one of those pushy parents who created a perfect to scale version of the pentagon for the monuments of Washington, DC project. Instead, when Ben said, I want to build the Jefferson Memorial out of marshmallows, I went and bought marshmallows. Tooth picks and glue.

Walking around the classroom, you could see who helped their 4th grader and who did not. I loved Ben’s project even though it was leaning to one side and the play dough covered action figure turned Jefferson was not even close to the right scale, it was his work.

As I reviewed his social studies project, I heard come out of my mouth- this isn’t very good. I think you could try a little harder in your drawings. It doesn’t look like an island, and what’s with the squiggly pen lines? Read more »

I admit it. I’m a skeptic when it comes to parenting books. I think I was put off after reading the touted What to Expect When You’re Expecting and finding it saccharine and patronizing. Or maybe it is just the sheer volume of parenting tomes on display at any given bookstore, each touting its own approach as if it were the only one.

It was with this doubtful eye that I opened a review copy of Elizabeth Pantley’s The No-Cry Discipline Solution: Gentle Ways to Encourage Good Behavior Without Whining, Tantrums, and Tears (Pantley). I was pleasantly surprised. Pantley, a mother of four, is the author of “No-Cry Solution” books for sleeping and potty training as well as several other parenting volumes. It is to her credit, however, that the books draw on more than just her own experience. For this work, she surveyed and spoke with 242 test parents around the world including gay parents, adoptive parents, and those in interracial or multicultural relationships. (She doesn’t, however, delve into how these different types of families might approach parenting differently or face different issues.)

Pantley starts on a good note and admits “there are no distinct black-and-white answers when it comes to raising children, and contradictory advice abounds. So parents must sort through everything they know, everything they hear, and everything they learn to come up with the right parenting approach for each of their children.” She assures parents that effective parenting skills are learned, even the best parents have children who will misbehave, and all parents lose their cool sometimes. Her book is geared towards parents of toddlers and preschoolers, but it’s easy to see how many of her ideas could be applied to older children as well. Read more »

DVDs and videos such as “Baby Einstein” and “Brainy Baby” may hinder, rather than help babies acquire language skills, according to a new study published in the Journal of Pediatrics.

The scientists found that for every hour per day spent watching baby DVDs and videos, infants understood an average of six to eight fewer words than infants who did not watch them. Baby DVDs and videos had no positive or negative effect on the vocabularies on toddlers 17 to 24 months of age.

This adds to a growing pile of skepticism about such videos and their educational benefits, despite what President Bush might say. You’ll recall he praised Baby Einstein founder—and Republican National Committee donor—Julie Aigner-Clark during his State of the Union address this past January. He’s hardly one to be the judge of what makes for good verbal skills, methinks.

Two articles today gave me cause for reflection about children of LGBT families and the development of identity: “I’m Not Gay, but My Four Mums Are,” in the Sydney Morning Herald profiles 21-year-old Eamon Waterford, who was born into a two-mom family, but acquired two more when they split up and repartnered. (Thanks, Abigail.) The article is full of plaudits for same-sex couples and our ability to raise well-adjusted children, though Eamon wryly notes LGBT parents’ ability “to mess their kids up in exactly the same way hetero parents will do.” It does not, however, shy away from exploring some of the distinctive issues in our families, such as Eamon’s search to find a comfortable relationship with his biological father and his wife. Also, unlike most coverage of same-sex families, this one does not cite any ultra-right “authorities” spouting prejudice disguised as scientific “evidence,” though it does note that conservative opposition exists.

One old chestnut the article does cover, though, is the question of whether children of same-sex parents will be gay or lesbian themselves. Read more »